should sit close and talk low. But I can scarce picture what a pair we

made; he in his great coat which the coldness of my chamber made
extremely suitable; I shivering in my shirt and breeks; he with very

much the air of a judge; and I (whatever I looked) with very much the
feelings of a man who has heard the last trumpet.

"Well?" says he.
And "Well," I began, but found myself unable to go further.

"You tell me she is here?" said he again, but now with a spice of
impatience that seemed to brace me up.

"She is in this house," said I, "and I knew the circumstance would be
called unusual. But you are to consider how very unusual the whole

business was from the beginning. Here is a young lady landed on the
coast of Europe with two shillings and a penny halfpenny. She is

directed to yon man Sprott in Helvoet. I hear you call him your agent.
All I can say is he could do nothing but damn and swear at the mere

mention of your name, and I must fee him out of my own pocket even to
receive the custody of her effects. You speak of unusual

circumstances, Mr. Drummond, if that be the name you prefer. Here was
a circumstance, if you like, to which it was barbarity to have exposed

her."
"But this is what I cannot understand the least," said James. "My

daughter was placed into the charge of some responsible persons, whose
names I have forgot." "Gebbie was the name," said I; "and there is no

doubt that Mr. Gebbie should have gone ashore with her at Helvoet. But
he did not, Mr. Drummond; and I think you might praise God that I was

there to offer in his place."
"I shall have a word to say to Mr. Gebbie before long," said he. "As

for yourself, I think it might have occurred that you were somewhat
young for such a post."

"But the choice was not between me and somebody else, it was between me
and nobody," cried I. "Nobody offered in my place, and I must say I

think you show a very small degree of gratitude to me that did."
"I shall wait until I understand my obligation a little more in the

particular," says he.
"Indeed, and I think it stares you in the face, then," said I. "Your

child was deserted, she was clean flung away in the midst of Europe,
with scarce two shillings, and not two words of any language spoken

there: I must say, a bonny business! I brought her to this place. I
gave her the name and the tenderness due to a sister. All this has not

gone without expense, but that I scarce need to hint at. They were
services due to the young lady's character which I respect; and I think

it would be a bonny business too, if I was to be singing her praises to
her father."

"You are a young man," he began.
"So I hear you tell me," said I, with a good deal of heat.

"You are a very young man," he repeated, "or you would have understood
the significancy of the step."

"I think you speak very much at your ease," cried I. "What else was I
to do? It is a fact I might have hired some decent, poor woman to be a

third to us, and I declare I never thought of it until this moment!
But where was I to find her, that am a foreigner myself? And let me

point out to your observation, Mr. Drummond, that it would have cost me
money out of my pocket. For here is just what it comes to, that I had

to pay through the nose for your neglect; and there is only the one
story to it, just that you were so unloving and so careless as to have

lost your daughter."
"He that lives in a glass house should not be casting stones," says he;

"and we will finish inquiring into the behaviour of Miss Drummond
before we go on to sit in judgment on her father."

"But I will be entrapped into no such attitude," said I. "The
character of Miss Drummond is far above inquiry, as her father ought to

know. So is mine, and I am telling you that. There are but the two
ways of it open. The one is to express your thanks to me as one

gentleman to another, and to say no more. The other (if you are so
difficult as to be still dissatisfied) is to pay me, that which I have

expended and be done."
He seemed to soothe me with a hand in the air. "There, there," said

he. "You go too fast, you go too fast, Mr. Balfour. It is a good
thing that I have learned to be more patient. And I believe you forget

that I have yet to see my daughter."
I began to be a little relieved upon this speech and a change in the

man's manner that I spied in him as soon as the name of money fell
between us.

"I was thinking it would be more fit - if you will excuse the plainness
of my dressing in your presence - that I should go forth and leave you

to encounter her alone?" said I.
"What I would have looked for at your hands!" says he; and there was no

mistake but what he said it civilly.
I thought this better and better still, and as I began to pull on my

hose, recalling the man's impudent mendicancy at Prestongrange's, I
determined to pursue what seemed to be my victory.

"If you have any mind to stay some while in Leyden," said I, "this room
is very much at your disposal, and I can easy find another for myself:

in which way we shall have the least amount of flitting possible, there
being only one to change."

"Why, sir," said he, making his bosom big, "I think no shame of a
poverty I have come by in the service of my king; I make no secret that

my affairs are quite involved; and for the moment, it would be even
impossible for me to undertake a journey."

"Until you have occasion to communicate with your friends," said I,
"perhaps it might be convenient for you (as of course it would be

honourable to myself) if you were to regard yourself in the light of my
guest?"

"Sir," said he, "when an offer is frankly made, I think I honour myself
most to imitate that frankness. Your hand, Mr. David; you have the

character that I respect the most; you are one of those from whom a
gentleman can take a favour and no more words about it. I am an old

soldier," he went on, looking rather disgusted-like around my chamber,
"and you need not fear I shall prove burthensome. I have ate too often

at a dyke-side, drank of the ditch, and had no roof but the rain."
"I should be telling you," said I, "that our breakfasts are sent

customarily in about this time of morning. I propose I should go now
to the tavern, and bid them add a cover for yourself and delay the meal

the matter of an hour, which will give you an interval to meet your
daughter in."

Methought his nostrils wagged at this. "O, an hour" says he. "That is
perhaps superfluous. Half an hour, Mr. David, or say twenty minutes; I

shall do very well in that. And by the way," he adds, detaining me by
the coat, "what is it you drink in the morning, whether ale or wine?"

"To be frank with you, sir," says I, "I drink nothing else but spare,
cold water."

"Tut-tut," says he, "that is fair destruction to the stomach, take an
old campaigner's word for it. Our country spirit at home is perhaps

the most entirely wholesome; but as that is not come-at-able, Rhenish
or a white wine of Burgundy will be next best."

"I shall make it my business to see you are supplied," said I.
"Why, very good," said he, "and we shall make a man of you yet, Mr.

David."
By this time, I can hardly say that I was minding him at all, beyond an

odd thought of the kind of father-in-law that he was like to prove; and
all my cares centred about the lass his daughter, to whom I determined

to convey some warning of her visitor. I stepped to the door
accordingly, and cried through the panels, knocking thereon at the same

time: "Miss Drummond, here is your father come at last."
With that I went forth upon my errand, having (by two words)

extraordinarily damaged my affairs.
CHAPTER XXVI - THE THREESOME

WHETHER or not I was to be so much blamed, or rather perhaps pitied, I
must leave others to judge. My shrewdness (of which I have a good