Kidnapped
I began to think my uncle was perhaps insane and might be dangerous;
on the other, there came up into my mind (quite unbidden by me and even
discouraged) a story like some ballad I had heard folk singing, of a
poor lad that was a rightful heir and a wicked kinsman that tried
to keep him from his own. For why should my uncle play a part with a
relative that came, almost a beggar, to his door, unless in his heart he
had some cause to fear him?
With this notion, all unacknowledged, but nevertheless getting firmly
settled in my head, I now began to imitate his covert looks; so that
we sat at table like a cat and a mouse, each stealthily observing the
other. Not another word had he to say to me, black or white, but was
busy turning something secretly over in his mind; and the longer we
sat and the more I looked at him, the more certain I became that the
something was unfriendly to myself.
When he had cleared the platter, he got out a single pipeful of tobacco,
just as in the morning, turned round a stool into the chimney corner,
and sat awhile smoking, with his back to me.
“Davie,” he said, at length, “I’ve been thinking;” then he paused, and
said it again. “There’s a wee bit siller that I half promised ye before
ye were born,” he continued; “promised it to your father. O, naething
legal, ye understand; just gentlemen daffing at their wine. Well, I
keepit that bit money separate--it was a great expense, but a promise
is a promise--and it has grown by now to be a matter of just
precisely--just exactly”--and here he paused and stumbled--“of just
exactly forty pounds!” This last he rapped out with a sidelong glance
over his shoulder; and the next moment added, almost with a scream,
“Scots!”
The pound Scots being the same thing as an English shilling, the
difference made by this second thought was considerable; I could see,
besides, that the whole story was a lie, invented with some end which
it puzzled me to guess; and I made no attempt to conceal the tone of
raillery in which I answered--
“O, think again, sir! Pounds sterling, I believe!”
“That’s what I said,” returned my uncle: “pounds sterling! And if you’ll
step out-by to the door a minute, just to see what kind of a night it
is, I’ll get it out to ye and call ye in again.”
I did his will, smiling to myself in my contempt that he should think I
was so easily to be deceived. It was a dark night, with a few stars low
down; and as I stood just outside the door, I heard a hollow moaning
of wind far off among the hills. I said to myself there was something
thundery and changeful in the weather, and little knew of what a vast
importance that should prove to me before the evening passed.
When I was called in again, my uncle counted out into my hand seven and
thirty golden guinea pieces; the rest was in his hand, in small gold and
silver; but his heart failed him there, and he crammed the change into
his pocket.
“There,” said he, “that’ll show you! I’m a queer man, and strange wi’
strangers; but my word is my bond, and there’s the proof of it.”
Now, my uncle seemed so miserly that I was struck dumb by this sudden
generosity, and could find no words in which to thank him.
“No a word!” said he. “Nae thanks; I want nae thanks. I do my duty. I’m
no saying that everybody would have done it; but for my part (though
I’m a careful body, too) it’s a pleasure to me to do the right by my
brother’s son; and it’s a pleasure to me to think that now we’ll agree
as such near friends should.”
I spoke him in return as handsomely as I was able; but all the while
I was wondering what would come next, and why he had parted with his
precious guineas; for as to the reason he had given, a baby would have
refused it.
Presently he looked towards me sideways.
“And see here,” says he, “tit for tat.”
I told him I was ready to prove my gratitude in any reasonable degree,
and then waited, looking for some monstrous demand. And yet, when
at last he plucked up courage to speak, it was only to tell me (very
properly, as I thought) that he was growing old and a little broken, and
that he would expect me to help him with the house and the bit garden.
I answered, and expressed my readiness to serve.
“Well,” he said, “let’s begin.” He pulled out of his pocket a rusty key.
“There,” says he, “there’s the key of the stair-tower at the far end of
the house. Ye can only win into it from the outside, for that part of
the house is no finished. Gang ye in there, and up the stairs, and bring
me down the chest that’s at the top. There’s papers in’t,” he added.
“Can I have a light, sir?” said I.
“Na,” said he, very cunningly. “Nae lights in my house.”
“Very well, sir,” said I. “Are the stairs good?”
“They’re grand,” said he; and then, as I was going, “Keep to the wall,”
he added; “there’s nae bannisters. But the stairs are grand underfoot.”
Out I went into the night. The wind was still moaning in the distance,
though never a breath of it came near the house of Shaws. It had fallen
blacker than ever; and I was glad to feel along the wall, till I came
the length of the stairtower door at the far end of the unfinished wing.
I had got the key into the keyhole and had just turned it, when all upon
a sudden, without sound of wind or thunder, the whole sky lighted up
with wild fire and went black again. I had to put my hand over my eyes
to get back to the colour of the darkness; and indeed I was already half
blinded when I stepped into the tower.
It was so dark inside, it seemed a body could scarce breathe; but I
pushed out with foot and hand, and presently struck the wall with the
one, and the lowermost round of the stair with the other. The wall, by
the touch, was of fine hewn stone; the steps too, though somewhat steep
and narrow, were of polished masonwork, and regular and solid underfoot.
Minding my uncle’s word about the bannisters, I kept close to the tower
side, and felt my way in the pitch darkness with a beating heart.
The house of Shaws stood some five full storeys high, not counting
lofts. Well, as I advanced, it seemed to me the stair grew airier and a
thought more lightsome; and I was wondering what might be the cause of
this change, when a second blink of the summer lightning came and went.
If I did not cry out, it was because fear had me by the throat; and if I
did not fall, it was more by Heaven’s mercy than my own strength. It was
not only that the flash shone in on every side through breaches in the
wall, so that I seemed to be clambering aloft upon an open scaffold, but
the same passing brightness showed me the steps were of unequal length,
and that one of my feet rested that moment within two inches of the
well.
This was the grand stair! I thought; and with the thought, a gust of
a kind of angry courage came into my heart. My uncle had sent me here,
certainly to run great risks, perhaps to die. I swore I would settle
that “perhaps,” if I should break my neck for it; got me down upon my
hands and knees; and as slowly as a snail, feeling before me every
inch, and testing the solidity of every stone, I continued to ascend
the stair. The darkness, by contrast with the flash, appeared to have
redoubled; nor was that all, for my ears were now troubled and my mind
confounded by a great stir of bats in the top part of the tower, and the
foul beasts, flying downwards, sometimes beat about my face and body.
The tower, I should have said, was square; and in every corner the step
was made of a great stone of a different shape to join the flights.
Well, I had come close to one of these turns, when, feeling forward
as usual, my hand slipped upon an edge and found nothing but emptiness
beyond it. The stair had been carried no higher; to set a stranger
mounting it in the darkness was to send him straight to his death; and
(although, thanks to the lightning and my own precautions, I was safe
enough) the mere thought of the peril in which I might have stood, and
the dreadful height I might have fallen from, brought out the sweat upon
my body and relaxed my joints.
But I knew what I wanted now, and turned and groped my way down again,
with a wonderful anger in my heart. About half-way down, the wind sprang
up in a clap and shook the tower, and died again; the rain followed; and
before I had reached the ground level it fell in buckets. I put out my
head into the storm, and looked along towards the kitchen. The door,
which I had shut behind me when I left, now stood open, and shed a
little glimmer of light; and I thought I could see a figure standing
in the rain, quite still, like a man hearkening. And then there came
a blinding flash, which showed me my uncle plainly, just where I had
fancied him to stand; and hard upon the heels of it, a great tow-row of
thunder.
Now, whether my uncle thought the crash to be the sound of my fall, or
whether he heard in it God’s voice denouncing murder, I will leave you
to guess. Certain it is, at least, that he was seized on by a kind of
panic fear, and that he ran into the house and left the door open behind
him. I followed as softly as I could, and, coming unheard into the
kitchen, stood and watched him.
He had found time to open the corner cupboard and bring out a great case
bottle of aqua vitae, and now sat with his back towards me at the table.
Ever and again he would be seized with a fit of deadly shuddering and
groan aloud, and carrying the bottle to his lips, drink down the raw
spirits by the mouthful.
I stepped forward, came close behind him where he sat, and suddenly
clapping my two hands down upon his shoulders--“Ah!” cried I.
My uncle gave a kind of broken cry like a sheep’s bleat, flung up his
arms, and tumbled to the floor like a dead man. I was somewhat shocked
at this; but I had myself to look to first of all, and did not hesitate
to let him lie as he had fallen. The keys were hanging in the cupboard;
and it was my design to furnish myself with arms before my uncle should
come again to his senses and the power of devising evil. In the cupboard
were a few bottles, some apparently of medicine; a great many bills and
other papers, which I should willingly enough have rummaged, had I had
the time; and a few necessaries that were nothing to my purpose. Thence
I turned to the chests. The first was full of meal; the second of
moneybags and papers tied into sheaves; in the third, with many
other things (and these for the most part clothes) I found a rusty,
ugly-looking Highland dirk without the scabbard. This, then, I concealed
inside my waistcoat, and turned to my uncle.
He lay as he had fallen, all huddled, with one knee up and one arm
sprawling abroad; his face had a strange colour of blue, and he seemed
to have ceased breathing. Fear came on me that he was dead; then I
got water and dashed it in his face; and with that he seemed to come a
little to himself, working his mouth and fluttering his eyelids. At last
he looked up and saw me, and there came into his eyes a terror that was
not of this world.
“Come, come,” said I; “sit up.”
“Are ye alive?” he sobbed. “O man, are ye alive?”
“That am I,” said I. “Small thanks to you!”
He had begun to seek for his breath with deep sighs. “The blue phial,”
said he--“in the aumry--the blue phial.” His breath came slower still.
I ran to the cupboard, and, sure enough, found there a blue phial
of medicine, with the dose written on it on a paper, and this I
administered to him with what speed I might.
“It’s the trouble,” said he, reviving a little; “I have a trouble,
Davie. It’s the heart.”
I set him on a chair and looked at him. It is true I felt some pity for
a man that looked so sick, but I was full besides of righteous anger;
and I numbered over before him the points on which I wanted explanation: