words or the tone of my voice she came to a stop. "What is this you
say?" she asked. "What are you talking of?"
"It is my
testimony which may save an
innocent life," said I, "and they
will not suffer me to bear it. What would you do yourself? You know
what this is, whose father lies in danger. Would you desert the poor
soul? They have tried all ways with me. They have sought to bribe me;
they offered me hills and valleys. And to-day that sleuth-hound told
me how I stood, and to what a length he would go to
butcher and
disgrace me. I am to be brought in a party to the murder; I am to have
held Glenure in talk for money and old clothes; I am to be killed and
shamed. If this is the way I am to fall, and me
scarce a man - if this
is the story to be told of me in all Scotland - if you are to believe
it too, and my name is to be nothing but a by-word - Catriona, how can
I go through with it? The thing's not possible; it's more than a man
has in his heart."
I poured my words out in a whirl, one upon the other; and when I
stopped I found her gazing on me with a startled face.
"Glenure! It is the Appin murder," she said
softly, but with a very
deep surprise.
I had turned back to bear her company, and we were now come near the
head of the brae above Dean village. At this word I stepped in front
of her like one suddenly distracted.
"For God's sake!" I cried, "for God's sake, what is this that I have
done?" and carried my fists to my temples. "What made me do it? Sure,
I am bewitched to say these things!"
"In the name of heaven, what ails you now!" she cried.
"I gave my honour," I groaned, "I gave my honour and now I have broke
it. O, Catriona!"
"I am asking you what it is," she said; "was it these things you should
not have
spoken? And do you think I have no honour, then? or that I am
one that would
betray a friend? I hold up my right hand to you and
swear."
"O, I knew you would be true!" said I. "It's me - it's here. I that
stood but this morning and out-faced them, that risked rather to die
disgraced upon the
gallows than do wrong - and a few hours after I
throw my honour away by the
roadside in common talk! 'There is one
thing clear upon our interview,' says he, 'that I can rely on your
pledged word.' Where is my word now? Who could believe me now? You
could not believe me. I am clean fallen down; I had best die!" All
this I said with a
weeping voice, but I had no tears in my body.
"My heart is sore for you," said she, "but be sure you are too nice. I
would not believe you, do you say? I would trust you with anything.
And these men? I would not be thinking of them! Men who go about to
entrap and to destroy you! Fy! this is no time to
crouch. Look up!
Do you not think I will be admiring you like a great hero of the good -
and you a boy not much older than myself? And because you said a word
too much in a friend's ear, that would die ere she
betrayed you - to
make such a matter! It is one thing that we must both forget."
"Catriona," said I, looking at her, hang-dog, "is this true of it?
Would ye trust me yet?"
"Will you not believe the tears upon my face?" she cried. "It is the
world I am thinking of you, Mr. David Balfour. Let them hang you; I
will never forget, I will grow old and still remember you. I think it
is great to die so: I will envy you that
gallows."
"And maybe all this while I am but a child frighted with bogles," said
I. "Maybe they but make a mock of me."
"It is what I must know," she said. "I must hear the whole. The harm
is done at all events, and I must hear the whole."
I had sat down on the
wayside, where she took a place beside me, and I
told her all that matter much as I have written it, my thoughts about
her father's
dealings being alone omitted.
"Well," she said, when I had finished, "you are a hero, surely, and I
never would have thought that same! And I think you are in peril, too.
O, Simon Fraser! to think upon that man! For his life and the dirty
money, to be
dealing in such traffic!" And just then she called out
aloud with a queer word that was common with her, and belongs, I
believe, to her own language. "My torture!" says she, "look at the
sun!"
Indeed, it was already dipping towards the mountains.
She bid me come again soon, gave me her hand, and left me in a turmoil
of glad spirits. I delayed to go home to my
lodging, for I had a
terror of immediate
arrest; but got some supper at a change house, and
the better part of that night walked by myself in the barley-fields,
and had such a sense of Catriona's presence that I seemed to bear her
in my arms.
CHAPTER VIII - THE BRAVO
THE next day, August 29th, I kept my appointment at the Advocate's in a
coat that I had made to my own
measure, and was but newly ready,
"Aha," says Prestongrange, "you are very fine to-day; my misses are to
have a fine
cavalier. Come, I take that kind of you. I take that kind
of you, Mr. David. O, we shall do very well yet, and I believe your
troubles are nearly at an end."
"You have news for me?" cried I.
"Beyond anticipation," he replied. "Your
testimony is after all to be
received; and you may go, if you will, in my company to the trial,
which in to be held at Inverary, Thursday, 21st PROXIMO."
I was too much amazed to find words.
"In the meanwhile," he continued, "though I will not ask you to renew
your
pledge, I must
caution you
strictly to be reticent. To-morrow
your precognition must be taken; and outside of that, do you know, I
think least said will be soonest mended."
"I shall try to go discreetly,' said I. "I believe it is yourself that
I must thank for this crowning mercy, and I do thank you gratefully.
After
yesterday, my lord, this is like the doors of Heaven. I cannot
find it in my heart to get the thing believed."
"Ah, but you must try and manage, you must try and manage to believe
it," says he, soothing-like, "and I am very glad to hear your
acknowledgment of
obligation, for I think you may be able to repay me
very shortly" - he coughed - "or even now. The matter is much changed.
Your
testimony, which I shall not trouble you for to-day, will
doubtless alter the
complexion of the case for all
concerned, and this
makes it less
delicate for me to enter with you on a side issue."
"My Lord," I interrupted, "excuse me for interrupting you, but how has
this been brought about? The obstacles you told me of on Saturday
appeared even to me to be quite insurmountable; how has it been
contrived?"
"My dear Mr. David," said he, "it would never do for me to divulge
(even to you, as you say) the councils of the Government; and you must
content yourself, if you please, with the gross fact."
He smiled upon me like a father as he spoke, playing the while with a
new pen;
methought it was impossible there could be any shadow of
deception in the man: yet when he drew to him a sheet of paper, dipped
his pen among the ink, and began again to address me, I was somehow not
so certain, and fell
instinctively into an attitude of guard.
"There is a point I wish to touch upon," he began. "I purposely left
it before upon one side, which need be now no longer necessary. This
is not, of course, a part of your
examination, which is to follow by
another hand; this is a private interest of my own. You say you
encountered Alan Breck upon the hill?"
"I did, my lord," said I
"This was immediately after the murder?"
"It was."
"Did you speak to him?"
"I did."
"You had known him before, I think?" says my lord, carelessly.
"I cannot guess your reason for so thinking, my lord," I replied, "but
such in the fact."
"And when did you part with him again?" said he.
"I reserve my answer," said I. "The question will be put to me at the
assize."
"Mr. Balfour," said he, "will you not understand that all this is
without
prejudice to yourself? I have promised you life and honour;
and, believe me, I can keep my word. You are
therefore clear of all
anxiety. Alan, it appears, you suppose you can protect; and you talk
to me of your
gratitude, which I think (if you push me) is not ill-
deserved. There are a great many different considerations all pointing
the same way; and I will never be persuaded that you could not help us
(if you chose) to put salt on Alan's tail."
"My lord," said I, "I give you my word I do not so much as guess where
Alan is."
He paused a
breath. "Nor how he might be found?" he asked.
I sat before him like a log of wood.
"And so much for your
gratitude, Mr. David!" he observed. Again there
was a piece of silence. "Well," said he, rising, "I am not fortunate,
and we are a couple at cross purposes. Let us speak of it no more; you
will receive notice when, where, and by whom, we are to take your
precognition. And in the
meantime, my misses must be
waiting you.
They will never
forgive me if I
detain their
cavalier."
Into the hands of these Graces I was
accordingly offered up, and found
them dressed beyond what I had thought possible, and looking fair as a
posy.
As we went forth from the doors a small circumstance occurred which
came afterwards to look
extremely big. I heard a
whistle sound loud
and brief like a signal, and looking all about, spied for one moment
the red head of Neil of the Tom, the son of Duncan. The next moment he
was gone again, nor could I see so much as the skirt-tail of Catriona,
upon whom I naturally
supposed him to be then attending.
My three keepers led me out by Bristo and the Bruntsfield Links; whence
a path carried us to Hope Park, a beautiful pleasance, laid with
gravel-walks, furnished with seats and summer-sheds, and warded by a
keeper. The way there was a little longsome; the two younger misses
affected an air of
genteelweariness that damped me
cruelly, the eldest
considered me with something that at times appeared like mirth; and
though I thought I did myself more justice than the day before, it was
not without some effort. Upon our reaching the park I was launched on
a bevy of eight or ten young gentlemen (some of them cockaded officers,
the rest
chiefly advocates) who
crowded to attend upon these beauties;
and though I was presented to all of them in very good words, it seemed
I was by all immediately forgotten. Young folk in a company are like
to
savage animals: they fall upon or scorn a stranger without
civility, or I may say,
humanity; and I am sure, if I had been among
baboons, they would have shown me quite as much of both. Some of the
advocates set up to be wits, and some of the soldiers to be rattles;
and I could not tell which of these extremes annoyed me most. All had
a manner of handling their swords and coat-skirts, for the which (in
mere black envy) I could have kicked them from the park. I daresay,
upon their side, they grudged me
extremely the fine company in which I
had arrived; and
altogether I had soon fallen behind, and stepped
stiffly in the rear of all that
merriment with my own thoughts.
From these I was recalled by one of the officers, Lieutenant Hector
Duncansby, a gawky, leering Highland boy, asking if my name was not
"Palfour."
I told him it was, not very kindly, for his manner was scant civil.
"Ha, Palfour," says he, and then, repeating it, "Palfour, Palfour!"
"I am afraid you do not like my name, sir," says I, annoyed with myself
to be annoyed with such a rustical fellow.
"No," says he, "but I wass thinking."
"I would not
advise you to make a practice of that, sir," says I. "I
feel sure you would not find it to agree with you."
"Tit you effer hear where Alan Grigor fand the tangs?" said he.
I asked him what he could possibly mean, and he answered, with a
heckling laugh, that he thought I must have found the poker in the same
place and swallowed it.
There could be no mistake about this, and my cheek burned.
"Before I went about to put affronts on gentlemen," said I, "I think I
would learn the English language first."
He took me by the
sleeve with a nod and a wink and led me quietly
outside Hope Park. But no sooner were we beyond the view of the
promenaders, than the fashion of his
countenance changed. "You tam
lowland scoon'rel!" cries he, and hit me a
buffet on the jaw with his
closed fist.