hat beat about his face, and the
lieutenant and his soldiers mock at
him as he runs off. They laughed no so
hearty the next time they had
occasion to visit the cell and found nobody but a tall, pretty, grey-
eyed lass in the
female habit! As for the
cobbler, he was 'over the
hills ayout Dumblane,' and it's thought that poor Scotland will have to
console herself without him. I drank Catriona's health this night in
public.
Indeed, the whole town admires her; and I think the beaux would wear
bits of her garters in their button-holes if they could only get them.
I would have gone to visit her in prison too, only I remembered in time
I was papa's daughter; so I wrote her a billet instead, which I
entrusted to the
faithful Doig, and I hope you will admit I can be
political when I please. The same
faithful gomeral is to
despatch this
letter by the express along with those of the wiseacres, so that you
may hear Tom Fool in company with Solomon. Talking of GOMERALS, do
tell DAUVIT BALFOUR. I would I could see the face of him at the
thought of a long-legged lass in such a predicament; to say nothing of
the levities of your
affectionate" target="_blank" title="a.亲爱的">
affectionate daughter, and his
respectful friend.'
So my
rascal signs herself!" continued Prestongrange. "And you see,
Mr. David, it is quite true what I tell you, that my daughters regard
you with the most
affectionate" target="_blank" title="a.亲爱的">
affectionate playfulness."
"The gomeral is much obliged," said I.
"And was not this prettily done!" he went on. "Is not this Highland
maid a piece of a heroine?"
"I was always sure she had a great heart," said I. "And I wager she
guessed nothing . . . But I beg your
pardon, this is to tread upon
forbidden subjects."
"I will go bail she did not," he returned, quite
openly. "I will go
bail she thought she was flying straight into King George's face."
Remembrance of Catriona and the thought of her lying in
captivity,
moved me
strangely. I could see that even Prestongrange admired, and
could not
withhold his lips from smiling when he considered her
behaviour. As for Miss Grant, for all her ill habit of
mockery, her
admiration shone out plain. A kind of a heat came on me.
"I am not your
lordship's daughter. . . " I began.
"That I know of!" he put in, smiling.
"I speak like a fool," said I; "or rather I began wrong. It would
doubtless be
unwise in Mistress Grant to go to her in prison; but for
me, I think I would look like a half-hearted friend if I did not fly
there instantly."
"So-ho, Mr. David," says he; "I thought that you and I were in a
bargain?"
"My lord," I said, "when I made that
bargain I was a good deal
affected
by your
goodness, but I'll never can deny that I was moved besides by
my own interest. There was self-seeking in my heart, and I think shame
of it now. It may be for your
lordship's safety to say this fashious
Davie Balfour is your friend and housemate. Say it then; I'll never
contradict you. But as for your
patronage, I give it all back. I ask
but the one thing - let me go, and give me a pass to see her in her
prison."
He looked at me with a hard eye. "You put the cart before the horse, I
think," says he. "That which I had given was a
portion of my liking,
which your thankless nature does not seem to have remarked. But for my
patronage, it is not given, nor (to be exact) is it yet offered." He
paused a bit. "And I warn you, you do not know yourself," he added.
"Youth is a hasty season; you will think better of all this before a
year."
"Well, and I would like to be that kind of youth!" I cried. "I have
seen too much of the other party in these young advocates that fawn
upon your
lordship and are even at the pains to fawn on me. And I have
seen it in the old ones also. They are all for by-ends, the whole clan
of them! It's this that makes me seem to misdoubt your
lordship's
liking. Why would I think that you would like me? But ye told me
yourself ye had an interest!"
I stopped at this, confounded that I had run so far; he was observing
me with an unfathomable face.
"My lord, I ask your
pardon," I resumed. "I have nothing in my chafts
but a rough country tongue. I think it would be only decent-like if I
would go to see my friend in her
captivity; but I'm owing you my life -
I'll never forget that; and if it's for your
lordship's good, here I'll
stay. That's
barely gratitude."
"This might have been reached in fewer words," says Prestongrange
grimly. "It is easy, and it is at times
gracious, to say a plain Scots
'ay'."
"Ah, but, my lord, I think ye take me not yet entirely!" cried I. "For
YOUR sake, for my life-safe, and the kindness that ye say ye bear to me
- for these, I'll consent; but not for any good that might be coming to
myself. If I stand aside when this young maid is in her trial, it's a
thing I will be noways advantaged by; I will lose by it, I will never
gain. I would rather make a
shipwreckwholly than to build on that
foundation."
He was a minute serious, then smiled. "You mind me of the man with the
long nose," said he; "was you to see the moon by a
telescope you would
see David Balfour there! But you shall have your way of it. I will
ask at you one service, and then set you free: My clerks are
overdriven; be so good as copy me these few pages, and when that is
done, I shall bid you God speed! I would never
charge myself with Mr.
David's
conscience; and if you could cast some part of it (as you went
by) in a moss hag, you would find yourself to ride much easier without
it."
"Perhaps not just entirely in the same direction though, my lord!" says
I.
"And you shall have the last word, too!" cries he gaily.
Indeed, he had some cause for
gaiety, having now found the means to
gain his purpose. To
lessen the weight of the
memorial, or to have a
readier answer at his hand, he desired I should appear
publicly in the
character of his
intimate. But if I were to appear with the same
publicity as a
visitor to Catriona in her prison the world would scarce
stint to draw conclusions, and the true nature of James More's escape
must become
evident to all. This was the little problem I had to set
him of a sudden, and to which he had so
briskly found an answer. I was
to be tethered in Glasgow by that job of copying, which in mere outward
decency I could not well refuse; and during these hours of
employmentCatriona was
privately got rid of. I think shame to write of this man
that loaded me with so many
goodnesses. He was kind to me as any
father, yet I ever thought him as false as a
cracked bell.
CHAPTER XIX - I AM MUCH IN THE HANDS OF THE LADIES
THE copying was a weary business, the more so as I perceived very early
there was no sort of urgency in the matters treated, and began very
early to consider my
employment a pretext. I had no sooner finished
than I got to horse, used what remained of
daylight to the best
purpose, and being at last fairly benighted, slept in a house by
Almond-Water side. I was in the
saddle again before the day, and the
Edinburgh booths were just
opening when I clattered in by the West Bow
and drew up a smoking horse at my lord Advocate's door. I had a
written word for Doig, my lord's private hand that was thought to be in
all his secrets - a
worthy little plain man, all fat and snuff and
self-sufficiency. Him I found already at his desk and already
bedabbled with maccabaw, in the same anteroom where I rencountered with
James More. He read the note scrupulously through like a chapter in
his Bible.
"H'm," says he; "ye come a wee thing ahint-hand, Mr. Balfour. The
bird's flaen - we hae letten her out."
"Miss Drummond is set free?" I cried.
"Achy!" said he. "What would we keep her for, ye ken? To hae made a
steer about the bairn would has pleased naebody."
"And where'll she be now?" says I.
"Gude kens!" says Doig, with a shrug.
"She'll have gone home to Lady Allardyce, I'm thinking," said I.
"That'll be it," said he.
"Then I'll gang there straight," says I.
"But ye'll be for a bite or ye go?" said he.
"Neither bite nor sup," said I. "I had a good wauch of milk in by
Ratho."
"Aweel, aweel," says Doig. "But ye'll can leave your horse here and
your bags, for it seems we're to have your up-put."
"Na, na", said I. "Tamson's mear would never be the thing for me this
day of all days."
Doig
speaking somewhat broad, I had been led by
imitation into an
accent much more countrified than I was usually careful to
affect a
good deal broader, indeed, than I have written it down; and I was the
more
ashamed when another voice joined in behind me with a scrap of a
ballad:
"Gae
saddle me the bonny black,
Gae
saddle sune and mak' him ready
For I will down the Gatehope-slack,
And a' to see my bonny leddy."
The young lady, when I turned to her, stood in a morning gown, and her
hands muffled in the same, as if to hold me at a distance. Yet I could
not but think there was kindness in the eye with which she saw me.
"My best respects to you, Mistress Grant," said I, bowing.
"The like to yourself, Mr. David," she replied with a deep courtesy.
"And I beg to
remind you of an old musty saw, that meat and mass never
hindered man. The mass I cannot afford you, for we are all good
Protestants. But the meat I press on your attention. And I would not
wonder but I could find something for your private ear that would be
worth the stopping for."
"Mistress Grant," said I, "I believe I am already your
debtor for some
merry words - and I think they were kind too - on a piece of unsigned
paper."
"Unsigned paper?" says she, and made a droll face, which was likewise
wondrous beautiful, as of one
trying to remember.
"Or else I am the more deceived," I went on. "But to be sure, we shall
have the time to speak of these, since your father is so good as to
make me for a while your
inmate; and the GOMERAL begs you at this time
only for the favour of his liberty,"
"You give yourself hard names," said she.
"Mr. Doig and I would be blythe to take harder at your clever pen,"
says I.
"Once more I have to admire the
discretion of all men-folk," she
replied. "But if you will not eat, off with you at once; you will be
back the sooner, for you go on a fool's
errand. Off with you, Mr.
David," she continued,
opening the door.
"He has lowpen on his bonny grey,
He rade the richt gate and the ready
I trow he would neither stint nor stay,
For he was seeking his bonny leddy."
I did not wait to be twice bidden, and did justice to Miss Grant's
citation on the way to Dean.
Old Lady Allardyce walked there alone in the garden, in her hat and
mutch, and having a silver-mounted staff of some black wood to lean
upon. As I alighted from my horse, and drew near to her with CONGEES,
I could see the blood come in her face, and her head fling into the air
like what I had conceived of empresses.
"What brings you to my poor door?" she cried,
speaking high through her
nose. "I cannot bar it. The males of my house are dead and buried; I
have neither son nor husband to stand in the gate for me; any beggar
can pluck me by the baird - and a baird there is, and that's the worst
of it yet?" she added
partly to herself.
I was
extremely put out at this
reception, and the last remark, which
seemed like a daft wife's, left me near hand speechless.
"I see I have fallen under your
displeasure, ma'am," said I. "Yet I
will still be so bold as ask after Mistress Drummond."
She considered me with a burning eye, her lips pressed close together
into twenty creases, her hand shaking on her staff. "This cows all!"
she cried. "Ye come to me to speir for her? Would God I knew!"
"She is not here?" I cried.
She threw up her chin and made a step and a cry at me, so that I fell
back incontinent.
"Out upon your leeing throat!" she cried. "What! ye come and speir at
me! She's in jyle, whaur ye took her to - that's all there is to it.