Catriona
consider as my own. To rob a child of so little more than nothing was
certainly a paltry enterprise for two grown men; but my own tale, as it
was to be represented in a court by Simon Fraser, appeared a fair
second in every possible point of view of sordidness and cowardice.
The voices of two of Prestongrange’s liveried men upon his doorstep
recalled me to myself.
“Ha’e,” said the one, “this billet as fast as ye can link to the
captain.”
“Is that for the cateran back again?” asked the other.
“It would seem sae,” returned the first. “Him and Simon are seeking
him.”
“I think Prestongrange is gane gyte,” says the second. “He’ll have
James More in bed with him next.”
“Weel, it’s neither your affair nor mine’s,” said the first.
And they parted, the one upon his errand, and the other back into the
house.
This looked as ill as possible. I was scarce gone and they were sending
already for James More, to whom I thought Mr. Simon must have pointed
when he spoke of men in prison and ready to redeem their lives by all
extremities. My scalp curdled among my hair, and the next moment the
blood leaped in me to remember Catriona. Poor lass! her father stood to
be hanged for pretty indefensible misconduct. What was yet more
unpalatable, it now seemed he was prepared to save his four quarters by
the worst of shame and the most foul of cowardly murders—murder by the
false oath; and to complete our misfortunes, it seemed myself was
picked out to be the victim.
I began to walk swiftly and at random, conscious only of a desire for
movement, air, and the open country.
CHAPTER VII.
I MAKE A FAULT IN HONOUR
I came forth, I vow I know not how, on the _Lang Dykes_ [12]. This is a
rural road which runs on the north side over against the city. Thence I
could see the whole black length of it tail down, from where the castle
stands upon its crags above the loch in a long line of spires and gable
ends, and smoking chimneys, and at the sight my heart swelled in my
bosom. My youth, as I have told, was already inured to dangers; but
such danger as I had seen the face of but that morning, in the midst of
what they call the safety of a town, shook me beyond experience. Peril
of slavery, peril of shipwreck, peril of sword and shot, I had stood
all of these without discredit; but the peril there was in the sharp
voice and the fat face of Simon, properly Lord Lovat, daunted me
wholly.
I sat by the lake side in a place where the rushes went down into the
water, and there steeped my wrists and laved my temples. If I could
have done so with any remains of self-esteem, I would now have fled
from my foolhardy enterprise. But (call it courage or cowardice, and I
believe it was both the one and the other) I decided I was ventured out
beyond the possibility of a retreat. I had out-faced these men, I would
continue to out-face them; come what might, I would stand by the word
spoken.
The sense of my own constancy somewhat uplifted my spirits, but not
much. At the best of it there was an icy place about my heart, and life
seemed a black business to be at all engaged in. For two souls in
particular my pity flowed. The one was myself, to be so friendless and
lost among dangers. The other was the girl, the daughter of James More.
I had seen but little of her; yet my view was taken and my judgment
made. I thought her a lass of a clean honour, like a man’s; I thought
her one to die of a disgrace; and now I believed her father to be at
that moment bargaining his vile life for mine. It made a bond in my
thoughts betwixt the girl and me. I had seen her before only as a
wayside appearance, though one that pleased me strangely; I saw her now
in a sudden nearness of relation, as the daughter of my blood foe, and
I might say, my murderer. I reflected it was hard I should be so
plagued and persecuted all my days for other folks’ affairs, and have
no manner of pleasure myself. I got meals and a bed to sleep in when my
concerns would suffer it; beyond that my wealth was of no help to me.
If I was to hang, my days were like to be short; if I was not to hang
but to escape out of this trouble, they might yet seem long to me ere I
was done with them. Of a sudden her face appeared in my memory, the way
I had first seen it, with the parted lips; at that, weakness came in my
bosom and strength into my legs; and I set resolutely forward on the
way to Dean. If I was to hang to-morrow, and it was sure enough I might
very likely sleep that night in a dungeon, I determined I should hear
and speak once more with Catriona.
The exercise of walking and the thought of my destination braced me yet
more, so that I began to pluck up a kind of spirit. In the village of
Dean, where it sits in the bottom of a glen beside the river, I
inquired my way of a miller’s man, who sent me up the hill upon the
farther side by a plain path, and so to a decent-like small house in a
garden of lawns and apple-trees. My heart beat high as I stepped inside
the garden hedge, but it fell low indeed when I came face to face with
a grim and fierce old lady, walking there in a white mutch with a man’s
hat strapped upon the top of it.
“What do ye come seeking here?” she asked.
I told her I was after Miss Drummond.
“And what may be your business with Miss Drummond?” says she.
I told her I had met her on Saturday last, had been so fortunate as to
render her a trifling service, and was come now on the young lady’s
invitation.
“O, so you’re Saxpence!” she cried, with a very sneering manner. “A
braw gift, a bonny gentleman. And hae ye ony ither name and
designation, or were ye bapteesed Saxpence?” she asked.
I told my name.
“Preserve me!” she cried. “Has Ebenezer gotten a son?”
“No, ma’am,” said I. “I am a son of Alexander’s. It’s I that am the
Laird of Shaws.”
“Ye’ll find your work cut out for ye to establish that,” quoth she.
“I perceive you know my uncle,” said I; “and I daresay you may be the
better pleased to hear that business is arranged.”
“And what brings ye here after Miss Drummond?” she pursued.
“I’m come after my saxpence, mem,” said I. “It’s to be thought, being
my uncle’s nephew, I would be found a careful lad.”
“So ye have a spark of sleeness in ye?” observed the old lady, with
some approval. “I thought ye had just been a cuif—you and your
saxpence, and your _lucky day_ and your _sake of Balwhidder_”—from
which I was gratified to learn that Catriona had not forgotten some of
our talk. “But all this is by the purpose,” she resumed. “Am I to
understand that ye come here keeping company?”
“This is surely rather an early question,” said I. “The maid is young,
so am I, worse fortune. I have but seen her the once. I’ll not deny,” I
added, making up my mind to try her with some frankness, “I’ll not deny
but she has run in my head a good deal since I met in with her. That is
one thing; but it would be quite another, and I think I would look very
like a fool, to commit myself.”
“You can speak out of your mouth, I see,” said the old lady. “Praise
God, and so can I! I was fool enough to take charge of this rogue’s
daughter: a fine charge I have gotten; but it’s mine, and I’ll carry it
the way I want to. Do ye mean to tell me, Mr. Balfour of Shaws, that
you would marry James More’s daughter, and him hanged! Well, then,
where there’s no possible marriage there shall be no manner of
carryings on, and take that for said. Lasses are bruckle things,” she
added, with a nod; “and though ye would never think it by my wrunkled
chafts, I was a lassie mysel’, and a bonny one.”
“Lady Allardyce,” said I, “for that I suppose to be your name, you seem
to do the two sides of the talking, which is a very poor manner to come
to an agreement. You give me rather a home thrust when you ask if I
would marry, at the gallow’s foot, a young lady whom I have seen but
once. I have told you already I would never be so untenty as to commit
myself. And yet I’ll go some way with you. If I continue to like the
lass as well as I have reason to expect, it will be something more than
her father, or the gallows either, that keeps the two of us apart. As
for my family, I found it by the wayside like a lost bawbee! I owe less
than nothing to my uncle and if ever I marry, it will be to please one
person: that’s myself.”
“I have heard this kind of talk before ye were born,” said Mrs. Ogilvy,
“which is perhaps the reason that I think of it so little. There’s much
to be considered. This James More is a kinsman of mine, to my shame be
it spoken. But the better the family, the mair men hanged or headed,
that’s always been poor Scotland’s story. And if it was just the
hanging! For my part I think I would be best pleased with James upon
the gallows, which would be at least an end to him. Catrine’s a good
lass enough, and a good-hearted, and lets herself be deaved all day
with a runt of an auld wife like me. But, ye see, there’s the weak bit.
She’s daft about that long, false, fleeching beggar of a father of
hers, and red-mad about the Gregara, and proscribed names, and King
James, and a wheen blethers. And you might think ye could guide her, ye
would find yourself sore mista’en. Ye say ye’ve seen her but the once.
. .”
“Spoke with her but the once, I should have said,” I interrupted. “I
saw her again this morning from a window at Prestongrange’s.”
This I daresay I put in because it sounded well; but I was properly
paid for my ostentation on the return.
“What’s this of it?” cries the old lady, with a sudden pucker of her
face. “I think it was at the Advocate’s door-cheek that ye met her
first.”
I told her that was so.
“H’m,” she said; and then suddenly, upon rather a scolding tone, “I
have your bare word for it,” she cries, “as to who and what you are. By
your way of it, you’re Balfour of the Shaws; but for what I ken you may
be Balfour of the Deevil’s oxter. It’s possible ye may come here for
what ye say, and it’s equally possible ye may come here for deil care
what! I’m good enough Whig to sit quiet, and to have keepit all my
men-folk’s heads upon their shoulders. But I’m not just a good enough
Whig to be made a fool of neither. And I tell you fairly, there’s too
much Advocate’s door and Advocate’s window here for a man that comes
taigling after a Macgregor’s daughter. Ye can tell that to the Advocate
that sent ye, with my fond love. And I kiss my loof to ye, Mr.
Balfour,” says she, suiting the action to the word; “and a braw journey
to ye back to where ye cam frae.”
“If you think me a spy,” I broke out, and speech stuck in my throat. I
stood and looked murder at the old lady for a space, then bowed and
turned away.
“Here! Hoots! The callant’s in a creel!” she cried. “Think ye a spy?
what else would I think ye—me that kens naething by ye? But I see that
I was wrong; and as I cannot fight, I’ll have to apologise. A bonny
figure I would be with a broadsword. Ay! ay!” she went on, “you’re none
such a bad lad in your way; I think ye’ll have some redeeming vices.
But, O! Davit Balfour, ye’re damned countryfeed. Ye’ll have to win over
that, lad; ye’ll have to soople your back-bone, and think a wee pickle
less of your dainty self; and ye’ll have to try to find out that
women-folk are nae grenadiers. But that can never be. To your last day
you’ll ken no more of women-folk than what I do of sow-gelding.”
I had never been used with such expressions from a lady’s tongue, the
only two ladies I had known, Mrs. Campbell and my mother, being most
devout and most particular women; and I suppose my amazement must have
been depicted in my countenance, for Mrs. Ogilvy burst forth suddenly
in a fit of laughter.
“Keep me!” she cried, struggling with her mirth, “you have the finest
timber face—and you to marry the daughter of a Hieland cateran! Davie,