Kidnapped
the parish should start and stare to be asked the way to it? or what
sort of a gentleman, that his ill-fame should be thus current on the
wayside? If an hour’s walking would have brought me back to Essendean, I
had left my adventure then and there, and returned to Mr. Campbell’s.
But when I had come so far a way already, mere shame would not suffer me
to desist till I had put the matter to the touch of proof; I was bound,
out of mere self-respect, to carry it through; and little as I liked
the sound of what I heard, and slow as I began to travel, I still kept
asking my way and still kept advancing.
It was drawing on to sundown when I met a stout, dark, sour-looking
woman coming trudging down a hill; and she, when I had put my usual
question, turned sharp about, accompanied me back to the summit she had
just left, and pointed to a great bulk of building standing very bare
upon a green in the bottom of the next valley. The country was pleasant
round about, running in low hills, pleasantly watered and wooded, and
the crops, to my eyes, wonderfully good; but the house itself appeared
to be a kind of ruin; no road led up to it; no smoke arose from any of
the chimneys; nor was there any semblance of a garden. My heart sank.
“That!” I cried.
The woman’s face lit up with a malignant anger. “That is the house of
Shaws!” she cried. “Blood built it; blood stopped the building of it;
blood shall bring it down. See here!” she cried again--“I spit upon
the ground, and crack my thumb at it! Black be its fall! If ye see the
laird, tell him what ye hear; tell him this makes the twelve hunner and
nineteen time that Jennet Clouston has called down the curse on him
and his house, byre and stable, man, guest, and master, wife, miss, or
bairn--black, black be their fall!”
And the woman, whose voice had risen to a kind of eldritch sing-song,
turned with a skip, and was gone. I stood where she left me, with my
hair on end. In those days folk still believed in witches and trembled
at a curse; and this one, falling so pat, like a wayside omen, to arrest
me ere I carried out my purpose, took the pith out of my legs.
I sat me down and stared at the house of Shaws. The more I looked,
the pleasanter that country-side appeared; being all set with hawthorn
bushes full of flowers; the fields dotted with sheep; a fine flight of
rooks in the sky; and every sign of a kind soil and climate; and yet the
barrack in the midst of it went sore against my fancy.
Country folk went by from the fields as I sat there on the side of the
ditch, but I lacked the spirit to give them a good-e’en. At last the sun
went down, and then, right up against the yellow sky, I saw a scroll of
smoke go mounting, not much thicker, as it seemed to me, than the smoke
of a candle; but still there it was, and meant a fire, and warmth, and
cookery, and some living inhabitant that must have lit it; and this
comforted my heart.
So I set forward by a little faint track in the grass that led in my
direction. It was very faint indeed to be the only way to a place
of habitation; yet I saw no other. Presently it brought me to stone
uprights, with an unroofed lodge beside them, and coats of arms upon
the top. A main entrance it was plainly meant to be, but never finished;
instead of gates of wrought iron, a pair of hurdles were tied across
with a straw rope; and as there were no park walls, nor any sign of
avenue, the track that I was following passed on the right hand of the
pillars, and went wandering on toward the house.
The nearer I got to that, the drearier it appeared. It seemed like the
one wing of a house that had never been finished. What should have been
the inner end stood open on the upper floors, and showed against the sky
with steps and stairs of uncompleted masonry. Many of the windows were
unglazed, and bats flew in and out like doves out of a dove-cote.
The night had begun to fall as I got close; and in three of the lower
windows, which were very high up and narrow, and well barred, the
changing light of a little fire began to glimmer. Was this the palace
I had been coming to? Was it within these walls that I was to seek
new friends and begin great fortunes? Why, in my father’s house on
Essen-Waterside, the fire and the bright lights would show a mile away,
and the door open to a beggar’s knock!
I came forward cautiously, and giving ear as I came, heard some one
rattling with dishes, and a little dry, eager cough that came in fits;
but there was no sound of speech, and not a dog barked.
The door, as well as I could see it in the dim light, was a great piece
of wood all studded with nails; and I lifted my hand with a faint heart
under my jacket, and knocked once. Then I stood and waited. The house
had fallen into a dead silence; a whole minute passed away, and nothing
stirred but the bats overhead. I knocked again, and hearkened again.
By this time my ears had grown so accustomed to the quiet, that I
could hear the ticking of the clock inside as it slowly counted out the
seconds; but whoever was in that house kept deadly still, and must have
held his breath.
I was in two minds whether to run away; but anger got the upper hand,
and I began instead to rain kicks and buffets on the door, and to shout
out aloud for Mr. Balfour. I was in full career, when I heard the cough
right overhead, and jumping back and looking up, beheld a man’s head
in a tall nightcap, and the bell mouth of a blunderbuss, at one of the
first-storey windows.
“It’s loaded,” said a voice.
“I have come here with a letter,” I said, “to Mr. Ebenezer Balfour of
Shaws. Is he here?”
“From whom is it?” asked the man with the blunderbuss.
“That is neither here nor there,” said I, for I was growing very wroth.
“Well,” was the reply, “ye can put it down upon the doorstep, and be off
with ye.”
“I will do no such thing,” I cried. “I will deliver it into Mr.
Balfour’s hands, as it was meant I should. It is a letter of
introduction.”
“A what?” cried the voice, sharply.
I repeated what I had said.
“Who are ye, yourself?” was the next question, after a considerable
pause.
“I am not ashamed of my name,” said I. “They call me David Balfour.”
At that, I made sure the man started, for I heard the blunderbuss rattle
on the window-sill; and it was after quite a long pause, and with a
curious change of voice, that the next question followed:
“Is your father dead?”
I was so much surprised at this, that I could find no voice to answer,
but stood staring.
“Ay,” the man resumed, “he’ll be dead, no doubt; and that’ll be what
brings ye chapping to my door.” Another pause, and then defiantly,
“Well, man,” he said, “I’ll let ye in;” and he disappeared from the
window.
CHAPTER III
I MAKE ACQUAINTANCE OF MY UNCLE
Presently there came a great rattling of chains and bolts, and the
door was cautiously opened and shut to again behind me as soon as I had
passed.
“Go into the kitchen and touch naething,” said the voice; and while the
person of the house set himself to replacing the defences of the door, I
groped my way forward and entered the kitchen.
The fire had burned up fairly bright, and showed me the barest room I
think I ever put my eyes on. Half-a-dozen dishes stood upon the shelves;
the table was laid for supper with a bowl of porridge, a horn spoon, and
a cup of small beer. Besides what I have named, there was not another
thing in that great, stone-vaulted, empty chamber but lockfast chests
arranged along the wall and a corner cupboard with a padlock.
As soon as the last chain was up, the man rejoined me. He was a mean,
stooping, narrow-shouldered, clay-faced creature; and his age might have
been anything between fifty and seventy. His nightcap was of flannel,
and so was the nightgown that he wore, instead of coat and waistcoat,
over his ragged shirt. He was long unshaved; but what most distressed
and even daunted me, he would neither take his eyes away from me nor
look me fairly in the face. What he was, whether by trade or birth, was
more than I could fathom; but he seemed most like an old, unprofitable
serving-man, who should have been left in charge of that big house upon
board wages.
“Are ye sharp-set?” he asked, glancing at about the level of my knee.
“Ye can eat that drop parritch?”
I said I feared it was his own supper.
“O,” said he, “I can do fine wanting it. I’ll take the ale, though, for
it slockens[1] my cough.” He drank the cup about half out, still
keeping an eye upon me as he drank; and then suddenly held out his
hand. “Let’s see the letter,” said he.
[1] moistens
I told him the letter was for Mr. Balfour; not for him.
“And who do ye think I am?” says he. “Give me Alexander’s letter.”
“You know my father’s name?”
“It would be strange if I didnae,” he returned, “for he was my born
brother; and little as ye seem to like either me or my house, or my good
parritch, I’m your born uncle, Davie, my man, and you my born nephew. So
give us the letter, and sit down and fill your kyte.”
If I had been some years younger, what with shame, weariness, and
disappointment, I believe I had burst into tears. As it was, I could
find no words, neither black nor white, but handed him the letter, and
sat down to the porridge with as little appetite for meat as ever a
young man had.
Meanwhile, my uncle, stooping over the fire, turned the letter over and
over in his hands.
“Do ye ken what’s in it?” he asked, suddenly.
“You see for yourself, sir,” said I, “that the seal has not been
broken.”
“Ay,” said he, “but what brought you here?”
“To give the letter,” said I.
“No,” says he, cunningly, “but ye’ll have had some hopes, nae doubt?”
“I confess, sir,” said I, “when I was told that I had kinsfolk
well-to-do, I did indeed indulge the hope that they might help me in
my life. But I am no beggar; I look for no favours at your hands, and
I want none that are not freely given. For as poor as I appear, I have
friends of my own that will be blithe to help me.”
“Hoot-toot!” said Uncle Ebenezer, “dinnae fly up in the snuff at me.
We’ll agree fine yet. And, Davie, my man, if you’re done with that bit
parritch, I could just take a sup of it myself. Ay,” he continued,
as soon as he had ousted me from the stool and spoon, “they’re fine,
halesome food--they’re grand food, parritch.” He murmured a little grace
to himself and fell to. “Your father was very fond of his meat, I mind;
he was a hearty, if not a great eater; but as for me, I could never
do mair than pyke at food.” He took a pull at the small beer, which
probably reminded him of hospitable duties, for his next speech ran
thus: “If ye’re dry ye’ll find water behind the door.”
To this I returned no answer, standing stiffly on my two feet, and
looking down upon my uncle with a mighty angry heart. He, on his part,
continued to eat like a man under some pressure of time, and to throw
out little darting glances now at my shoes and now at my home-spun
stockings. Once only, when he had ventured to look a little higher, our
eyes met; and no thief taken with a hand in a man’s pocket could have
shown more lively signals of distress. This set me in a muse, whether
his timidity arose from too long a disuse of any human company; and
whether perhaps, upon a little trial, it might pass off, and my uncle
change into an altogether different man. From this I was awakened by his
sharp voice.
“Your father’s been long dead?” he asked.
“Three weeks, sir,” said I.
“He was a secret man, Alexander--a secret, silent man,” he continued.
“He never said muckle when he was young. He’ll never have spoken muckle
of me?”
“I never knew, sir, till you told it me yourself, that he had any
brother.”
“Dear me, dear me!” said Ebenezer. “Nor yet of Shaws, I dare say?”