be said I spoke at random.
"Catriona," said I, "I am in a very painful situation; or rather, so we

are both; and I would be a good deal obliged to you if you would
promise to let me speak through first of all, and not to interrupt me

till I have done."
She promised me that simply.

"Well," said I, "this that I have got to say is very difficult, and I
know very well I have no right to be saying it. After what passed

between the two of us last Friday, I have no manner of right. We have
got so ravelled up (and all by my fault) that I know very well the

least I could do is just to hold my tongue, which was what I intended
fully, and there was nothing further from my thoughts than to have

troubled you again. But, my dear, it has become merely necessary, and
no way by it. You see, this estate of mine has fallen in, which makes

of me rather a better match; and the - the business would not have
quite the same ridiculous-like appearance that it would before.

Besides which, it's supposed that our affairs have got so much ravelled
up (as I was saying) that it would be better to let them be the way

they are. In my view, this part of the thing is vastly exagerate, and
if I were you I would not wear two thoughts on it. Only it's right I

should mention the same, because there's no doubt it has some influence
on James More. Then I think we were none so unhappy when we dwelt

together in this town before. I think we did pretty well together. If
you would look back, my dear - "

"I will look neither back nor forward," she interrupted. "Tell me the
one thing: this is my father's doing?"

"He approves of it," said I. "He approved I that I should ask your
hand in marriage," and was going on again with somewhat more of an

appeal upon her feelings; but she marked me not, and struck into the
midst.

"He told you to!" she cried. "It is no sense denying it, you said
yourself that there was nothing farther from your thoughts. He told

you to."
"He spoke of it the first, if that is what you mean," I began.

She was walking ever the faster, and looking fain in front of her; but
at this she made a little noise in her head, and I thought she would

have run.
"Without which," I went on, "after what you said last Friday, I would

never have been so troublesome as make the offer. But when he as good
as asked me, what was I to do?"

She stopped and turned round upon me.
"Well, it is refused at all events," she cried, "and there will be an

end of that."
And she began again to walk forward.

"I suppose I could expect no better," said I, "but I think you might
try to be a little kind to me for the last end of it. I see not why

you should be harsh. I have loved you very well, Catriona - no harm
that I should call you so for the last time. I have done the best that

I could manage, I am trying the same still, and only vexed that I can
do no better. It is a strange thing to me that you can take any

pleasure to be hard to me."
"I am not thinking of you," she said, "I am thinking of that man, my

father."
"Well, and that way, too!" said I. "I can be of use to you that way,

too; I will have to be. It is very needful, my dear, that we should
consult about your father; for the way this talk has gone, an angry man

will be James More."
She stopped again. "It is because I am disgraced?" she asked.

"That is what he is thinking," I replied, "but I have told you already
to make nought of it."

"It will be all one to me," she cried. "I prefer to be disgraced!"
I did not know very well what to answer, and stood silent.

There seemed to be something working in her bosom after that last cry;
presently she broke out, "And what is the meaning of all this? Why is

all this shame loundered on my head? How could you dare it, David
Balfour?"

"My dear," said I, "what else was I to do?"
"I am not your dear," she said, "and I defy you to be calling me these

words."
"I am not thinking of my words," said I. "My heart bleeds for you,

Miss Drummond. Whatever I may say, be sure you have my pity in your
difficult position. But there is just the one thing that I wish you

would bear in view, if it was only long enough to discuss it quietly;
for there is going to be a collieshangie when we two get home. Take my

word for it, it will need the two of us to make this matter end in
peace."

"Ay," said she. There sprang a patch of red in either of her cheeks.
"Was he for fighting you?" said she.

"Well, he was that," said I.
She gave a dreadful kind of laugh. "At all events, it is complete!"

she cried. And then turning on me. "My father and I are a fine pair,"
said she, "but I am thanking the good God there will be somebody worse

than what we are. I am thanking the good God that he has let me see
you so. There will never be the girl made that will not scorn you."

I had borne a good deal pretty patiently, but this was over the mark.
"You have no right to speak to me like that," said I. "What have I

done but to be good to you, or try to be? And here is my repayment!
O, it is too much."

She kept looking at me with a hateful smile. "Coward!" said she.
"The word in your throat and in your father's!" I cried. "I have dared

him this day already in your interest. I will dare him again, the
nasty pole-cat; little I care which of us should fall! Come," said I,

"back to the house with us; let us be done with it, let me be done with
the whole Hieland crew of you! You will see what you think when I am

dead."
She shook her head at me with that same smile I could have struck her

for.
"O, smile away!" I cried. "I have seen your bonny father smile on the

wrong side this day. Not that I mean he was afraid, of course," I
added hastily, "but he preferred the other way of it."

"What is this?" she asked.
"When I offered to draw with him," said I.

"You offered to draw upon James More!" she cried.
"And I did so," said I, "and found him backward enough, or how would we

be here?"
"There is a meaning upon this," said she. "What is it you are

meaning?"
"He was to make you take me," I replied, "and I would not have it. I

said you should be free, and I must speak with you alone; little I
supposed it would be such a speaking! 'AND WHAT IF I REFUSE?' said he.

- 'THEN IT MUST COME TO THE THROAT-CUTTING,' says I, 'FOR I WILL NO
MORE HAVE A HUSBAND FORCED ON THAT YOUNG LADY, THAN WHAT I WOULD HAVE A

WIFE FORCED UPON MYSELF.' These were my words, they were a friend's
words; bonnily have I paid for them! Now you have refused me of your

own clear free will, and there lives no father in the Highlands, or out
of them, that can force on this marriage. I will see that your wishes

are respected; I will make the same my business, as I have all through.
But I think you might have that decency as to affect some gratitude.

'Deed, and I thought you knew me better! I have not behaved quite well
to you, but that was weakness. And to think me a coward, and such a

coward as that - O, my lass, there was a stab for the last of it!"
"Davie, how would I guess?" she cried. "O, this is a dreadful

business! Me and mine," - she gave a kind of a wretched cry at the
word - "me and mine are not fit to speak to you. O, I could be

kneeling down to you in the street, I could be kissing your hands for
forgiveness!"

"I will keep the kisses I have got from you already," cried I. "I will
keep the ones I wanted and that were something worth; I will not be

kissed in penitence."
"What can you be thinking of this miserable girl?" says she.

"What I am trying to tell you all this while!" said I, "that you had
best leave me alone, whom you can make no more unhappy if you tried,

and turn your attention to James More, your father, with whom you are
like to have a queer pirn to wind."

"O, that I must be going out into the world alone with such a man!" she
cried, and seemed to catch herself in with a great effort. "But

trouble yourself no more for that," said she. "He does not know what
kind of nature is in my heart. He will pay me dear for this day of it;

dear, dear, will he pay."
She turned, and began to go home and I to accompany her. At which she

stopped.
"I will be going alone," she said. "It is alone I must be seeing him."

Some little time I raged about the streets, and told myself I was the
worst used lad in Christendom. Anger choked me; it was all very well

for me to breathe deep; it seemed there was not air enough about Leyden
to supply me, and I thought I would have burst like a man at the bottom

of the sea. I stopped and laughed at myself at a street corner a
minute together, laughing out loud, so that a passenger looked at me,

which brought me to myself.
"Well," I thought, "I have been a gull and a ninny and a soft Tommy

long enough. Time it was done. Here is a good lesson to have nothing
to do with that accursed sex, that was the ruin of the man in the

beginning and will be so to the end. God knows I was happy enough
before ever I saw her; God knows I can be happy enough again when I

have seen the last of her."
That seemed to me the chief affair: to see them go. I dwelled upon

the idea fiercely; and presently slipped on, in a kind of malevolence,
to consider how very poorly they were likely to fare when Davie Balfour

was no longer by to be their milk-cow; at which, to my very own great
surprise, the disposition of my mind turned bottom up. I was still

angry; I still hated her; and yet I thought I owed it to myself that
she should suffer nothing.

This carried me home again at once, where I found the mails drawn out
and ready fastened by the door, and the father and daughter with every

mark upon them of a recent disagreement. Catriona was like a wooden
doll; James More breathed hard, his face was dotted with white spots,

and his nose upon one side. As soon as I came in, the girl looked at
him with a steady, clear, dark look that might have been followed by a

blow. It was a hint that was more contemptuous than a command, and I
was surprised to see James More accept it. It was plain he had had a

master talking-to; and I could see there must be more of the devil in
the girl than I had guessed, and more good humour about the man than I

had given him the credit of.
He began, at least, calling me Mr. Balfour, and plainlyspeaking from a

lesson; but he got not very far, for at the first pompous swell of his
voice, Catriona cut in.

"I will tell you what James More is meaning," said she. "He means we
have come to you, beggar-folk, and have not behaved to you very well,

and we are ashamed of our ingratitude and ill-behaviour. Now we are
wanting to go away and be forgotten; and my father will have guided his

gear so ill, that we cannot even do that unless you will give us some
more alms. For that is what we are, at an events, beggar-folk and

sorners."
"By your leave, Miss Drummond," said I, "I must speak to your father by

myself."
She went into her own room and shut the door, without a word or a look.

"You must excuse her, Mr. Balfour," says James More. "She has no
delicacy."

"I am not here to discuss that with you," said I, "but to be quit of
you. And to that end I must talk of your position. Now, Mr. Drummond,

I have kept the run of your affairs more closely than you bargained
for. I know you had money of your own when you were borrowing mine. I

know you have had more since you were here in Leyden, though you
concealed it even from your daughter."

"I bid you beware. I will stand no more baiting," he broke out. "I am
sick of her and you. What kind of a damned trade is this to be a

parent! I have had expressions used to me - " There he broke off.
"Sir, this is the heart of a soldier and a parent," he went on again,

laying his hand on his bosom, "outraged in both characters - and I bid
you beware."

"If you would have let me finish," says I, "you would have found I

• interrupt [,intə´rʌpt] v.中断；打扰 (初中英语单词)
• estate [i´steit] n.财产；庄园；等级 (初中英语单词)
• supposed [sə´pəuzd] a.想象的；假定的 (初中英语单词)
• unhappy [ʌn´hæpi] a.不幸的；不快乐的 (初中英语单词)
• working [´wə:kiŋ] a.工人的；劳动的 (初中英语单词)
• whatever [wɔt´evə] pron.&a.无论什么 (初中英语单词)
• sprang [spræŋ] spring 的过去式 (初中英语单词)
• dreadful [´dredful] a.可怕的；讨厌的 (初中英语单词)
• throat [θrəut] n.咽喉；嗓子；出入口 (初中英语单词)
• hastily [´heistili] ad.急速地；草率地 (初中英语单词)
• backward [´bækwəd] ad.向后 a.向后的 (初中英语单词)
• affect [ə´fekt] vt.影响；感动；假装 (初中英语单词)
• weakness [´wi:knis] n.虚弱；弱点，缺点 (初中英语单词)
• coward [´kauəd] n.胆怯者 a.胆小的 (初中英语单词)
• wretched [´retʃid] a.可怜的；倒霉的 (初中英语单词)
• miserable [´mizərəbəl] a.悲惨的；可怜的 (初中英语单词)
• fiercely [´fiəsli] ad.凶猛地，残忍地 (初中英语单词)
• presently [´prezəntli] ad.不久；目前 (初中英语单词)
• disposition [,dispə´ziʃən] n.安排；性情；倾向 (初中英语单词)
• humour [´hju:mə] n.幽默，诙谐 (初中英语单词)
• plainly [´pleinli] ad.平坦地；简单地 (初中英语单词)
• ashamed [ə´ʃeimd] a.惭愧；不好意思 (初中英语单词)
• painful [´peinfəl] a.痛(苦)的；费力的 (高中英语单词)
• saying [´seiŋ, ´sei-iŋ] n.言语；言论；格言 (高中英语单词)
• patiently [´peiʃəntli] ad.有耐心地；坚韧地 (高中英语单词)
• seeing [si:iŋ] see的现在分词 n.视觉 (高中英语单词)
• beware [bi´weə] v.(用于祈使句)谨防 (高中英语单词)
• damned [dæmd] a.该死的 ad.非常，极 (高中英语单词)
• vastly [´vɑ:stli, ´væstli] ad.巨大地；广阔地 (英语四级单词)
• trying [´traiiŋ] a.难堪的；费劲的 (英语四级单词)
• nought [nɔ:t] n.=naught (英语四级单词)
• hateful [´heitfəl] a.可恨的，可憎的 (英语四级单词)
• accursed [ə´kə:sid] a.被诅咒的；可憎的 (英语四级单词)
• poorly [´puəli] a.不舒服的 ad.贫穷地 (英语四级单词)
• calling [´kɔ:liŋ] n.点名；职业；欲望 (英语六级单词)
• decency [´di:sənsi] n.正派；体面 (英语六级单词)
• christendom [´krisəndəm] n.基督教徒 (英语六级单词)
• disagreement [,disə´gri:mənt] n.不一致；争论 (英语六级单词)
• contemptuous [kən´temptjuəs] a.蔑视的；傲慢的 (英语六级单词)
• speaking [´spi:kiŋ] n.说话 a.发言的 (英语六级单词)
• ingratitude [in´grætitju:d] n.忘恩负义 (英语六级单词)