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Catriona-Part8_ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON(1850-1894)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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sending already for James More, to whom I thought Mr. Simon must have

pointed when he spoke of men in prison and ready to redeem their lives



by all extremities. My scalp curdled among my hair, and the next

moment the blood leaped in me to remember Catriona. Poor lass! her



father stood to be hanged for pretty indefensible misconduct. What was

yet more unpalatable, it now seemed he was prepared to save his four



quarters by the worst of shame and the most foul of cowardly murders -

murder by the false oath; and to complete our misfortunes, it seemed



myself was picked out to be the victim.

I began to walk swiftly and at random, conscious only of a desire for



movement, air, and the open country.

CHAPTER VII - I MAKE A FAULT IN HONOUR



I CAME forth, I vow I know not how, on the LANG DYKES. This is a rural

road which runs on the north side over against the city. Thence I



could see the whole black length of it tail down, from where the castle

stands upon its crags above the loch in a long line of spires and gable



ends, and smoking chimneys, and at the sight my heart swelled in my

bosom. My youth, as I have told, was already inured to dangers; but



such danger as I had seen the face of but that morning, in the midst of

what they call the safety of a town, shook me beyond experience. Peril



of slavery, peril of shipwreck, peril of sword and shot, I had stood

all of these without discredit; but the peril there was in the sharp



voice and the fat face of Simon, property Lord Lovat, daunted me

wholly.



I sat by the lake side in a place where the rushes went down into the

water, and there steeped my wrists and laved my temples. If I could



have done so with any remains of self-esteem, I would now have fled

from my foolhardy enterprise. But (call it courage or cowardice, and I



believe it was both the one and the other) I decided I was ventured out

beyond the possibility of a retreat. I had out-faced these men, I



would continue to out-face them; come what might, I would stand by the

word spoken.



The sense of my own constancy somewhat uplifted my spirits, but not

much. At the best of it there was an icy place about my heart, and



life seemed a black business to be at all engaged in. For two souls in

particular my pity flowed. The one was myself, to be so friendless and



lost among dangers. The other was the girl, the daughter of James

More. I had seen but little of her; yet my view was taken and my



judgment made. I thought her a lass of a clean honour, like a man's; I

thought her one to die of a disgrace; and now I believed her father to



be at that moment bargaining his vile life for mine. It made a bond in

my thoughts betwixt the girl and me. I had seen her before only as a



wayside appearance, though one that pleased me strangely; I saw her now

in a sudden nearness of relation, as the daughter of my blood foe, and



I might say, my murderer. I reflected it was hard I should be so

plagued and persecuted all my days for other folks' affairs, and have



no manner of pleasure myself. I got meals and a bed to sleep in when

my concerns would suffer it; beyond that my wealth was of no help to



me. If I was to hang, my days were like to be short; if I was not to

hang but to escape out of this trouble, they might yet seem long to me



ere I was done with them. Of a sudden her face appeared in my memory,

the way I had first seen it, with the parted lips; at that, weakness



came in my bosom and strength into my legs; and I set resolutely

forward on the way to Dean. If I was to hang to-morrow, and it was



sure enough I might very likely sleep that night in a dungeon, I

determined I should hear and speak once more with Catriona.



The exercise of walking and the thought of my destination braced me yet

more, so that I began to pluck up a kind of spirit. In the village of



Dean, where it sits in the bottom of a glen beside the river, I

inquired my way of a miller's man, who sent me up the hill upon the



farther side by a plain path, and so to a decent-like small house in a

garden of lawns and apple-trees. My heart beat high as I stepped



inside the garden hedge, but it fell low indeed when I came face to

face with a grim and fierce old lady, walking there in a white mutch



with a man's hat strapped upon the top of it.

"What do ye come seeking here?" she asked.



I told her I was after Miss Drummond.

"And what may be your business with Miss Drummond?" says she.



I told her I had met her on Saturday last, had been so fortunate as to

render her a trifling service, and was come now on the young lady's



invitation.

"O, so you're Saxpence!" she cried, with a very sneering manner. "A



braw gift, a bonny gentleman. And hae ye ony ither name and

designation, or were ye bapteesed Saxpence?" she asked.



I told my name.




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