Catriona
a look. ‘_Grey Eyes_!’ says I to myself, but was more wise than to let
on. _You will be Miss Grant at last_? she says, rising and looking at
me hard and pitiful. _Ay_, _it was true he said_, _you are bonny at all
events_.—_The way God made me_, _my dear_, I said, _but I would be gey
and obliged if you could tell me what brought you here at such a time
of the night_.—_Lady_, she said, _we are kinsfolk_, _we are both come
of the blood of the sons of Alpin_.—_My dear_, I replied, _I think no
more of Alpin or his sons than what I do of a kalestock_. _You have a
better argument in these tears upon your bonny face_. And at that I was
so weak-minded as to kiss her, which is what you would like to do
dearly, and I wager will never find the courage of. I say it was
weak-minded of me, for I knew no more of her than the outside; but it
was the wisest stroke I could have hit upon. She is a very staunch,
brave nature, but I think she has been little used with tenderness; and
at that caress (though to say the truth, it was but lightly given) her
heart went out to me. I will never betray the secrets of my sex, Mr.
Davie; I will never tell you the way she turned me round her thumb,
because it is the same she will use to twist yourself. Ay, it is a fine
lass! She is as clean as hill well water.”
“She is e’en’t!” I cried.
“Well, then, she told me her concerns,” pursued Miss Grant, “and in
what a swither she was in about her papa, and what a taking about
yourself, with very little cause, and in what a perplexity she had
found herself after you was gone away. _And then I minded at long
last_, says she, _that we were kinswomen_, _and that Mr. David should
have given you the name of the bonniest of the bonny_, _and I was
thinking to myself_ ‘_If she is so bonny she will be good at all
events_’; _and I took up my foot soles out of that_. That was when I
forgave yourself, Mr. Davie. When you was in my society, you seemed
upon hot iron: by all marks, if ever I saw a young man that wanted to
be gone, it was yourself, and I and my two sisters were the ladies you
were so desirous to be gone from; and now it appeared you had given me
some notice in the by-going, and was so kind as to comment on my
attractions! From that hour you may date our friendship, and I began to
think with tenderness upon the Latin grammar.”
“You will have many hours to rally me in,” said I; “and I think besides
you do yourself injustice. I think it was Catriona turned your heart in
my direction. She is too simple to perceive as you do the stiffness of
her friend.”
“I would not like to wager upon that, Mr. David,” said she. “The lasses
have clear eyes. But at least she is your friend entirely, as I was to
see. I carried her in to his lordship my papa; and his Advocacy being
in a favourable stage of claret, was so good as to receive the pair of
us. _Here is Grey Eyes that you have been deaved with these days past_,
said I, _she is come to prove that we spoke true_, _and I lay the
prettiest lass in the three Lothians at your feet_—making a papistical
reservation of myself. She suited her action to my words: down she went
upon her knees to him—I would not like to swear but he saw two of her,
which doubtless made her appeal the more irresistible, for you are all
a pack of Mahomedans—told him what had passed that night, and how she
had withheld her father’s man from following of you, and what a case
she was in about her father, and what a flutter for yourself; and
begged with weeping for the lives of both of you (neither of which was
in the slightest danger), till I vow I was proud of my sex because it
was done so pretty, and ashamed for it because of the smallness of the
occasion. She had not gone far, I assure you, before the Advocate was
wholly sober, to see his inmost politics ravelled out by a young lass
and discovered to the most unruly of his daughters. But we took him in
hand, the pair of us, and brought that matter straight. Properly
managed—and that means managed by me—there is no one to compare with my
papa.”
“He has been a good man to me,” said I.
“Well, he was a good man to Katrine, and I was there to see to it,”
said she.
“And she pled for me?” say I.
“She did that, and very movingly,” said Miss Grant. “I would not like
to tell you what she said—I find you vain enough already.”
“God reward her for it!” cried I.
“With Mr. David Balfour, I suppose?” says she.
“You do me too much injustice at the last!” I cried. “I would tremble
to think of her in such hard hands. Do you think I would presume,
because she begged my life? She would do that for a new whelped puppy!
I have had more than that to set me up, if you but ken’d. She kissed
that hand of mine. Ay, but she did. And why? because she thought I was
playing a brave part and might be going to my death. It was not for my
sake—but I need not be telling that to you, that cannot look at me
without laughter. It was for the love of what she thought was bravery.
I believe there is none but me and poor Prince Charlie had that honour
done them. Was this not to make a god of me? and do you not think my
heart would quake when I remember it?”
“I do laugh at you a good deal, and a good deal more than is quite
civil,” said she; “but I will tell you one thing: if you speak to her
like that, you have some glimmerings of a chance.”
“Me?” I cried, “I would never dare. I can speak to you, Miss Grant,
because it’s a matter of indifference what ye think of me. But her? no
fear!” said I.
“I think you have the largest feet in all broad Scotland,” says she.
“Troth they are no very small,” said I, looking down.
“Ah, poor Catriona!” cries Miss Grant.
And I could but stare upon her; for though I now see very well what she
was driving at (and perhaps some justification for the same), I was
never swift at the uptake in such flimsy talk.
“Ah well, Mr. David,” she said, “it goes sore against my conscience,
but I see I shall have to be your speaking board. She shall know you
came to her straight upon the news of her imprisonment; she shall know
you would not pause to eat; and of our conversation she shall hear just
so much as I think convenient for a maid of her age and inexperience.
Believe me, you will be in that way much better served than you could
serve yourself, for I will keep the big feet out of the platter.”
“You know where she is, then?” I exclaimed.
“That I do, Mr. David, and will never tell,” said she.
“Why that?” I asked.
“Well,” she said, “I am a good friend, as you will soon discover; and
the chief of those that I am friend to is my papa. I assure you, you
will never heat nor melt me out of that, so you may spare me your
sheep’s eyes; and adieu to your David-Balfourship for the now.”
“But there is yet one thing more,” I cried. “There is one thing that
must be stopped, being mere ruin to herself, and to me too.”
“Well,” she said, “be brief; I have spent half the day on you already.”
“My Lady Allardyce believes,” I began—“she supposes—she thinks that I
abducted her.”
The colour came into Miss Grant’s face, so that at first I was quite
abashed to find her ear so delicate, till I bethought me she was
struggling rather with mirth, a notion in which I was altogether
confirmed by the shaking of her voice as she replied—
“I will take up the defence of your reputation,” she said. “You may
leave it in my hands.”
And with that she withdrew out of the library.
CHAPTER XX.
I CONTINUE TO MOVE IN GOOD SOCIETY
For about exactly two months I remained a guest in Prestongrange’s
family, where I bettered my acquaintance with the bench, the bar, and
the flower of Edinburgh company. You are not to suppose my education
was neglected; on the contrary, I was kept extremely busy. I studied
the French, so as to be more prepared to go to Leyden; I set myself to
the fencing, and wrought hard, sometimes three hours in the day, with
notable advancement; at the suggestion of my cousin, Pilrig, who was an
apt musician, I was put to a singing class; and by the orders of my
Miss Grant, to one for the dancing, at which I must say I proved far
from ornamental. However, all were good enough to say it gave me an
address a little more genteel; and there is no question but I learned
to manage my coat skirts and sword with more dexterity, and to stand in
a room as though the same belonged to me. My clothes themselves were
all earnestly re-ordered; and the most trifling circumstance, such as
where I should tie my hair, or the colour of my ribbon, debated among
the three misses like a thing of weight. One way with another, no doubt
I was a good deal improved to look at, and acquired a bit of modest air
that would have surprised the good folks at Essendean.
The two younger misses were very willing to discuss a point of my
habiliment, because that was in the line of their chief thoughts. I
cannot say that they appeared any other way conscious of my presence;
and though always more than civil, with a kind of heartless cordiality,
could not hide how much I wearied them. As for the aunt, she was a
wonderful still woman; and I think she gave me much the same attention
as she gave the rest of the family, which was little enough. The eldest
daughter and the Advocate himself were thus my principal friends, and
our familiarity was much increased by a pleasure that we took in
common. Before the court met we spent a day or two at the house of
Grange, living very nobly with an open table, and here it was that we
three began to ride out together in the fields, a practice afterwards
maintained in Edinburgh, so far as the Advocate’s continual affairs
permitted. When we were put in a good frame by the briskness of the
exercise, the difficulties of the way, or the accidents of bad weather,
my shyness wore entirely off; we forgot that we were strangers, and
speech not being required, it flowed the more naturally on. Then it was
that they had my story from me, bit by bit, from the time that I left
Essendean, with my voyage and battle in the _Covenant_, wanderings in
the heather, etc.; and from the interest they found in my adventures
sprung the circumstance of a jaunt we made a little later on, on a day
when the courts were not sitting, and of which I will tell a trifle
more at length.
We took horse early, and passed first by the house of Shaws, where it
stood smokeless in a great field of white frost, for it was yet early
in the day. Here Prestongrange alighted down, gave me his horse, an
proceeded alone to visit my uncle. My heart, I remember, swelled up
bitter within me at the sight of that bare house and the thought of the
old miser sitting chittering within in the cold kitchen!
“There is my home,” said I; “and my family.”
“Poor David Balfour!” said Miss Grant.
What passed during the visit I have never heard; but it would doubtless
not be very agreeable to Ebenezer, for when the Advocate came forth
again his face was dark.
“I think you will soon be the laird indeed, Mr. Davie,” says he,
turning half about with the one foot in the stirrup.
“I will never pretend sorrow,” said I; and, to say the truth, during
his absence Miss Grant and I had been embellishing the place in fancy
with plantations, parterres, and a terrace—much as I have since carried
out in fact.
Thence we pushed to the Queensferry, where Rankeillor gave us a good
welcome, being indeed out of the body to receive so great a visitor.
Here the Advocate was so unaffectedly good as to go quite fully over my
affairs, sitting perhaps two hours with the Writer in his study, and
expressing (I was told) a great esteem for myself and concern for my
fortunes. To while this time, Miss Grant and I and young Rankeillor
took boat and passed the Hope to Limekilns. Rankeillor made himself