Catriona
quiet, private path was that which I was ambitious to walk in, when I
might keep my head out of the way of dangers and my conscience out of
the road of temptation. For, upon a retrospect, it appeared I had not
done so grandly, after all; but with the greatest possible amount of
big speech and preparation, had accomplished nothing.
The 25th of the same month a ship was advertised to sail from Leith;
and I was suddenly recommended to make up my mails for Leyden. To
Prestongrange I could, of course, say nothing; for I had already been a
long while sorning on his house and table. But with his daughter I was
more open, bewailing my fate that I should be sent out of the country,
and assuring her, unless she should bring me to farewell with Catriona,
I would refuse at the last hour.
“Have I not given you my advice?” she asked.
“I know you have,” said I, “and I know how much I am beholden to you
already, and that I am bidden to obey your orders. But you must confess
you are something too merry a lass at times to lippen [23] to
entirely.”
“I will tell you, then,” said she. “Be you on board by nine o’clock
forenoon; the ship does not sail before one; keep your boat alongside;
and if you are not pleased with my farewells when I shall send them,
you can come ashore again and seek Katrine for yourself.”
Since I could make no more of her, I was fain to be content with this.
The day came round at last when she and I were to separate. We had been
extremely intimate and familiar; I was much in her debt; and what way
we were to part was a thing that put me from my sleep, like the vails I
was to give to the domestic servants. I knew she considered me too
backward, and rather desired to rise in her opinion on that head.
Besides which, after so much affection shown and (I believe) felt upon
both sides, it would have looked cold-like to be anyways stiff.
Accordingly, I got my courage up and my words ready, and the last
chance we were like to be alone, asked pretty boldly to be allowed to
salute her in farewell.
“You forget yourself strangely, Mr. Balfour,” said she. “I cannot call
to mind that I have given you any right to presume on our
acquaintancy.”
I stood before her like a stopped clock, and knew not what to think,
far less to say, when of a sudden she cast her arms about my neck and
kissed me with the best will in the world.
“You inimitable bairn!” she cried. “Did you think that I would let us
part like strangers? Because I can never keep my gravity at you five
minutes on end, you must not dream I do not love you very well: I am
all love and laughter, every time I cast an eye on you! And now I will
give you an advice to conclude your education, which you will have need
of before it’s very long. Never _ask_ womenfolk. They’re bound to
answer ‘No’; God never made the lass that could resist the temptation.
It’s supposed by divines to be the curse of Eve: because she did not
say it when the devil offered her the apple, her daughters can say
nothing else.”
“Since I am so soon to lose my bonny professor,” I began.
“This is gallant, indeed,” says she curtseying.
“I would put the one question,” I went on. “May I ask a lass to marry
to me?”
“You think you could not marry her without!” she asked. “Or else get
her to offer?”
“You see you cannot be serious,” said I.
“I shall be very serious in one thing, David,” said she: “I shall
always be your friend.”
As I got to my horse the next morning, the four ladies were all at that
same window whence we had once looked down on Catriona, and all cried
farewell and waved their pocket napkins as I rode away. One out of the
four I knew was truly sorry; and at the thought of that, and how I had
come to the door three months ago for the first time, sorrow and
gratitude made a confusion in my mind.
PART II.
FATHER AND DAUGHTER
CHAPTER XXI.
THE VOYAGE INTO HOLLAND
The ship lay at a single anchor, well outside the pier of Leith, so
that all we passengers must come to it by the means of skiffs. This was
very little troublesome, for the reason that the day was a flat calm,
very frosty and cloudy, and with a low shifting fog upon the water. The
body of the vessel was thus quite hid as I drew near, but the tall
spars of her stood high and bright in a sunshine like the flickering of
a fire. She proved to be a very roomy, commodious merchant, but
somewhat blunt in the bows, and loaden extraordinary deep with salt,
salted salmon, and fine white linen stockings for the Dutch. Upon my
coming on board, the captain welcomed me—one Sang (out of Lesmahago, I
believe), a very hearty, friendly tarpaulin of a man, but at the moment
in rather of a bustle. There had no other of the passengers yet
appeared, so that I was left to walk about upon the deck, viewing the
prospect and wondering a good deal what these farewells should be which
I was promised.
All Edinburgh and the Pentland Hills glinted above me in a kind of
smuisty brightness, now and again overcome with blots of cloud; of
Leith there was no more than the tops of chimneys visible, and on the
face of the water, where the haar [24] lay, nothing at all. Out of this
I was presently aware of a sound of oars pulling, and a little after
(as if out of the smoke of a fire) a boat issued. There sat a grave man
in the stern sheets, well muffled from the cold, and by his side a
tall, pretty, tender figure of a maid that brought my heart to a stand.
I had scarce the time to catch my breath in, and be ready to meet her,
as she stepped upon the deck, smiling, and making my best bow, which
was now vastly finer than some months before, when first I made it to
her ladyship. No doubt we were both a good deal changed: she seemed to
have shot up like a young, comely tree. She had now a kind of pretty
backwardness that became her well as of one that regarded herself more
highly and was fairly woman; and for another thing, the hand of the
same magician had been at work upon the pair of us, and Miss Grant had
made us both _braw_, if she could make but the one _bonny_.
The same cry, in words not very different, came from both of us, that
the other was come in compliment to say farewell, and then we perceived
in a flash we were to ship together.
“O, why will not Baby have been telling me!” she cried; and then
remembered a letter she had been given, on the condition of not opening
it till she was well on board. Within was an enclosure for myself, and
ran thus:
“Dear Davie,—What do you think of my farewell? and what do you say to
your fellow passenger? Did you kiss, or did you ask? I was about to
have signed here, but that would leave the purport of my question
doubtful, and in my own case _I ken the answer_. So fill up here with
good advice. Do not be too blate, [25] and for God’s sake do not try to
be too forward; nothing acts you worse. I am
“Your affectionate friend and governess,
“Barbara Grant.”
I wrote a word of answer and compliment on a leaf out of my pocketbook,
put it in with another scratch from Catriona, sealed the whole with my
new signet of the Balfour arms, and despatched it by the hand of
Prestongrange’s servant that still waited in my boat.
Then we had time to look upon each other more at leisure, which we had
not done for a piece of a minute before (upon a common impulse) we
shook hands again.
“Catriona?” said I. It seemed that was the first and last word of my
eloquence.
“You will be glad to see me again?” says she.
“And I think that is an idle word,” said I. “We are too deep friends to
make speech upon such trifles.”
“Is she not the girl of all the world?” she cried again. “I was never
knowing such a girl so honest and so beautiful.”
“And yet she cared no more for Alpin than what she did for a
kale-stock,” said I.
“Ah, she will say so indeed!” cries Catriona. “Yet it was for the name
and the gentle kind blood that she took me up and was so good to me.”
“Well, I will tell you why it was,” said I. “There are all sorts of
people’s faces in this world. There is Barbara’s face, that everyone
must look at and admire, and think her a fine, brave, merry girl. And
then there is your face, which is quite different—I never knew how
different till to-day. You cannot see yourself, and that is why you do
not understand; but it was for the love of your face that she took you
up and was so good to you. And everybody in the world would do the
same.”
“Everybody?” says she.
“Every living soul!” said I.
“Ah, then, that will be why the soldiers at the castle took me up!” she
cried.
“Barbara has been teaching you to catch me,” said I.
“She will have taught me more than that at all events. She will have
taught me a great deal about Mr. David—all the ill of him, and a little
that was not so ill either, now and then,” she said, smiling. “She will
have told me all there was of Mr. David, only just that he would sail
upon this very same ship. And why it is you go?”
I told her.
“Ah, well,” said she, “we will be some days in company and then (I
suppose) good-bye for altogether! I go to meet my father at a place of
the name of Helvoetsluys, and from there to France, to be exiles by the
side of our chieftain.”
I could say no more than just “O!” the name of James More always drying
up my very voice.
She was quick to perceive it, and to guess some portion of my thought.
“There is one thing I must be saying first of all, Mr. David,” said
she. “I think two of my kinsfolk have not behaved to you altogether
very well. And the one of them two is James More, my father, and the
other is the Laird of Prestongrange. Prestongrange will have spoken by
himself, or his daughter in the place of him. But for James More, my
father, I have this much to say: he lay shackled in a prison; he is a
plain honest soldier and a plain Highland gentleman; what they would be
after he would never be guessing; but if he had understood it was to be
some prejudice to a young gentleman like yourself, he would have died
first. And for the sake of all your friendships, I will be asking you
to pardon my father and family for that same mistake.”
“Catriona,” said I, “what that mistake was I do not care to know. I
know but the one thing—that you went to Prestongrange and begged my
life upon your knees. O, I ken well enough it was for your father that
you went, but when you were there you pleaded for me also. It is a
thing I cannot speak of. There are two things I cannot think of into
myself: and the one is your good words when you called yourself my
little friend, and the other that you pleaded for my life. Let us never
speak more, we two, of pardon or offence.”
We stood after that silent, Catriona looking on the deck and I on her;
and before there was more speech, a little wind having sprung up in the
nor’-west, they began to shake out the sails and heave in upon the
anchor.
There were six passengers besides our two selves, which made of it a
full cabin. Three were solid merchants out of Leith, Kirkcaldy, and
Dundee, all engaged in the same adventure into High Germany. One was a
Hollander returning; the rest worthy merchants’ wives, to the charge of
one of whom Catriona was recommended. Mrs. Gebbie (for that was her
name) was by great good fortune heavily incommoded by the sea, and lay
day and night on the broad of her back. We were besides the only
creatures at all young on board the _Rose_, except a white-faced boy
that did my old duty to attend upon the table; and it came about that
Catriona and I were left almost entirely to ourselves. We had the next
seats together at the table, where I waited on her with extraordinary
pleasure. On deck, I made her a soft place with my cloak; and the
weather being singularly fine for that season, with bright frosty days