"He has come to your call," said I; "judge how near he was to
Edinburgh, or what was the nature of your father's
errands. Ask
himself. If I am to lose my life, or the lives of those that hang by
me, through the means of your clan, let me go where I have to go with
my eyes open."
She addressed him tremulously in the Gaelic. Remembering Alan's
anxious
civility in that particular, I could have laughed out loud for
bitterness; here, sure, in the midst of these suspicions, was the hour
she should have stuck by English.
Twice or
thrice they spoke together, and I could make out that Neil
(for all his obsequiousness) was an angry man.
Then she turned to me. "He swears it is not," she said.
"Catriona," said I, "do you believe the man yourself?"
She made a
gesture like wringing the hands.
"How will I can know?" she cried.
But I must find some means to know," said I. "I cannot continue to go
dovering round in the black night with two men's lives at my girdle!
Catriona, try to put yourself in my place, as I vow to God I try hard
to put myself in yours. This is no kind of talk that should ever have
fallen between me and you; no kind of talk; my heart is sick with it.
See, keep him here till two of the morning, and I care not. Try him
with that."
They spoke together once more in the Gaelic.
"He says he has James More my father's
errand," said she. She was
whiter than ever, and her voice faltered as she said it.
"It is pretty plain now," said I, "and may God
forgive the wicked!"
She said never anything to that, but continued gazing at me with the
same white face.
"This is a fine business," said I again. "Am I to fall, then, and
those two along with me?"
"O, what am I to do?" she cried. "Could I go against my father's
orders, him in prison, in the danger of his life!"
"But perhaps we go too fast," said I. "This may be a lie too. He may
have no right orders; all may be contrived by Simon, and your father
knowing nothing."
She burst out
weeping between the pair of us; and my heart smote me
hard, for I thought this girl was in a
dreadful situation.
"Here," said I, "keep him but the one hour; and I'll chance it, and may
God bless you."
She put out her hand to me, "I will he needing one good word," she
sobbed.
"The full hour, then?" said I, keeping her hand in mine. "Three lives
of it, my lass!"
"The full hour!" she said, and cried aloud on her Redeemer to
forgiveher.
I thought it no fit place for me, and fled.
CHAPTER XI - THE WOOD BY SILVERMILLS
I LOST no time, but down through the
valley and by Stockbridge and
Silvermills as hard as I could stave. It was Alan's tryst to be every
night between twelve and two "in a bit scrog of wood by east of
Silvermills and by south the south mill-lade." This I found easy
enough, where it grew on a steep brae, with the mill-lade flowing swift
and deep along the foot of it; and here I began to walk slower and to
reflect more
reasonably on my
employment. I saw I had made but a
fool's
bargain with Catriona. It was not to be
supposed that Neil was
sent alone upon his
errand, but perhaps he was the only man belonging
to James More; in which case I should have done all I could to hang
Catriona's father, and nothing the least material to help myself. To
tell the truth, I fancied neither one of these ideas. Suppose by
holding back Neil, the girl should have helped to hang her father, I
thought she would never
forgive herself this side of time. And suppose
there were others pursuing me that moment, what kind of a gift was I
come bringing to Alan? and how would I like that?
I was up with the west end of that wood when these two considerations
struck me like a
cudgel. My feet stopped of themselves and my heart
along with them. "What wild game is this that I have been playing?"
thought I; and turned
instantly upon my heels to go elsewhere.
This brought my face to Silvermills; the path came past the village
with a crook, but all
plainlyvisible; and, Highland or Lowland, there
was nobody
stirring. Here was my
advantage, here was just such a
conjuncture as Stewart had counselled me to profit by, and I ran by the
side of the mill-lade, fetched about beyond the east corner of the
wood, threaded through the midst of it, and returned to the west
selvage,
whence I could again command the path, and yet be myself
unseen. Again it was all empty, and my heart began to rise.
For more than an hour I sat close in the border of the trees, and no
hare or eagle could have kept a more particular watch. When that hour
began the sun was already set, but the sky still all golden and the
daylight clear; before the hour was done it had fallen to be half mirk,
the images and distances of things were mingled, and
observation began
to be difficult. All that time not a foot of man had come east from
Silvermills, and the few that had gone west were honest countryfolk and
their wives upon the road to bed. If I were tracked by the most
cunning spies in Europe, I judged it was beyond the course of nature
they could have any
jealousy of where I was: and going a little
further home into the wood I lay down to wait for Alan.
The
strain of my attention had been great, for I had watched not the
path only, but every bush and field within my
vision. That was now at
an end. The moon, which was in her first quarter, glinted a little in
the wood; all round there was a
stillness of the country; and as I lay
there on my back, the next three or four hours, I had a fine occasion
to
review my conduct.
Two things became plain to me first: that I had no right to go that
day to Dean, and (having gone there) had now no right to be lying where
I was. This (where Alan was to come) was just the one wood in all
broad Scotland that was, by every proper feeling, closed against me; I
admitted that, and yet stayed on, wondering at myself. I thought of
the
measure with which I had meted to Catriona that same night; how I
had prated of the two lives I carried, and had thus forced her to
enjeopardy her father's; and how I was here exposing them again, it
seemed in wantonness. A good
conscience is eight parts of courage. No
sooner had I lost
conceit of my behaviour, than I seemed to stand
disarmed
amidst a
throng of terrors. Of a sudden I sat up. How if I
went now to Prestongrange, caught him (as I still easily might) before
he slept, and made a full
submission? Who could blame me? Not Stewart
the Writer; I had but to say that I was followed, despaired of getting
clear, and so gave in. Not Catriona: here, too, I had my answer
ready; that I could not bear she should
expose her father. So, in a
moment, I could lay all these troubles by, which were after all and
truly none of mine; swim clear of the Appin Murder; get forth out of
hand-stroke of all the Stewarts and Campbells, all the Whigs and
Tories, in the land; and live
henceforth to my own mind, and be able to
enjoy and to improve my fortunes, and devote some hours of my youth to
courting Catriona, which would be surely a more
suitable occupation
than to hide and run and be followed like a hunted thief, and begin
over again the
dreadful miseries of my escape with Alan.
At first I thought no shame of this capitulation; I was only amazed I
had not thought upon the thing and done it earlier; and began to
inquire into the causes of the change. These I traced to my lowness of
spirits, that back to my late recklessness, and that again to the
common, old, public, disconsidered sin of self-indulgence. Instantly
the text came in my head, "HOW CAN SATAN CAST OUT SATAN?" What? (I
thought) I had, by self-indulgence; and the following of pleasant
paths, and the lure of a young maid, cast myself
wholly out of
conceitwith my own
character, and jeopardised the lives of James and Alan?
And I was to seek the way out by the same road as I had entered in?
No; the hurt that had been caused by self-indulgence must be cured by
self-denial; the flesh I had pampered must be crucified. I looked
about me for that course which I least liked to follow: this was to
leave the wood without
waiting to see Alan, and go forth again alone,
in the dark and in the midst of my perplexed and dangerous fortunes.
I have been the more careful to narrate this passage of my reflections,
because I think it is of some
utility, and may serve as an example to
young men. But there is reason (they say) in planting kale, and even
in ethic and religion, room for common sense. It was already close on
Alan's hour, and the moon was down. If I left (as I could not very
decently
whistle to my spies to follow me) they might miss me in the
dark and tack themselves to Alan by mistake. If I stayed, I could at
the least of it set my friend upon his guard which might prove his mere
salvation. I had adventured other peoples' safety in a course of self-
indulgence; to have endangered them again, and now on a mere design of
penance, would have been
scarcerational. Accordingly, I had
scarcerisen from my place ere I sat down again, but already in a different
frame of spirits, and
equally marvelling at my past
weakness and
rejoicing in my present composure.
Presently after came a crackling in the
thicket. Putting my mouth near
down to the ground, I
whistled a note or two, of Alan's air; an answer
came in the like guarded tone, and soon we had knocked together in the
dark.
"Is this you at last, Davie?" he whispered.
"Just myself," said I.
"God, man, but I've been wearying to see ye!" says he. "I've had the
longest kind of a time. A' day, I've had my
dwelling into the inside
of a stack of hay, where I couldnae see the nebs of my ten fingers; and
then two hours of it
waiting here for you, and you never coming! Dod,
and ye're none too soon the way it is, with me to sail the morn! The
morn? what am I
saying? - the day, I mean."
"Ay, Alan, man, the day, sure enough," said I. "It's past twelve now,
surely, and ye sail the day. This'll be a long road you have before
you."
"We'll have a long crack of it first," said he.
"Well, indeed, and I have a good deal it will be telling you to hear,"
said I.
And I told him what behooved, making rather a
jumble of it, but clear
enough when done. He heard me out with very few questions, laughing
here and there like a man
delighted: and the sound of his laughing
(above all there, in the dark, where neither one of us could see the
other) was
extraordinary friendly to my heart.
"Ay, Davie, ye're a queer
character," says he, when I had done: "a
queer bitch after a', and I have no mind of meeting with the like of
ye. As for your story, Prestongrange is a Whig like yoursel', so I'll
say the less of him; and, dod! I believe he was the best friend ye had,
if ye could only trust him. But Simon Fraser and James More are my ain
kind of cattle, and I'll give them the name that they
deserve. The
muckle black deil was father to the Frasers, a'body kens that; and as
for the Gregara, I never could abye the reek of them since I could
stotter on two feet. I bloodied the nose of one, I mind, when I was
still so wambly on my legs that I cowped upon the top of him. A proud
man was my father that day, God rest him! and I think he had the cause.
I'll never can deny but what Robin was something of a piper," he added;
"but as for James More, the deil guide him for me!"
"One thing we have to consider," said I. "Was Charles Stewart right or
wrong? Is it only me they're after, or the pair of us?"
"And what's your ain opinion, you that's a man of so much experience?"
said he.
"It passes me," said I.
"And me too," says Alan. "Do ye think this lass would keep her word to
ye?" he asked.
"I do that," said I.
"Well, there's nae telling," said he. "And anyway, that's over and
done: he'll be joined to the rest of them lang syne."
"How many would ye think there would be of them?" I asked.
"That depends," said Alan. "If it was only you, they would likely send
two-three
lively, brisk young birkies, and if they thought that I was
to appear in the employ, I daresay ten or twelve," said he.
It was no use, I gave a little crack of laughter.
"And I think your own two eyes will have seen me drive that number, or
the double of it, nearer hand!" cries he.
"It matters the less," said I, "because I am well rid of them for this
time."
"Nae doubt that's your opinion," said he; "but I wouldnae be the least