Catriona

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"Ah! I was expecting that!"

"You have at times a great deal of discretion, too!" says
Prestongrange.

"And what is my lord pleased to mean by that?" I asked.

"I was just marvelling", he replied, "that being so clever as to draw
these inferences, you should not be clever enough to keep them to
yourself. But I think you would like to hear the details of the
affair. I have received two versions: and the least official is the
more full and far the more entertaining, being from the lively pen of
my eldest daughter. 'Here is all the town bizzing with a fine piece of
work,' she writes, 'and what would make the thing more noted (if it
were only known) the malefactor is a PROTEGEE of his lordship my papa.
I am sure your heart is too much in your duty (if it were nothing else)
to have forgotten Grey Eyes. What does she do, but get a broad hat
with the flaps open, a long hairy-like man's greatcoat, and a big
gravatt; kilt her coats up to GUDE KENS WHAUR, clap two pair of boot-
hose upon her legs, take a pair of CLOUTED BROGUES in her hand, and off
to the Castle! Here she gives herself out to be a soutar in the employ
of James More, and gets admitted to his cell, the lieutenant (who seems
to have been full of pleasantry) making sport among his soldiers of the
soutar's greatcoat. Presently they hear disputation and the sound of
blows inside. Out flies the cobbler, his coat flying, the flaps of his
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 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 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 shipwreck wholly 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 employment
Catriona 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.
And of a' the beings ever I beheld in breeks, to think it should be to
you! Ye timmer scoun'rel, if I had a male left to my name I would have
your jaicket dustit till ye raired."

I thought it not good to delay longer in that place, because I remarked
her passion to be rising. As I turned to the horse-post she even
followed me; and I make no shame to confess that I rode away with the
one stirrup on and scrambling for the other.

As I knew no other quarter where I could push my inquiries, there was
nothing left me but to return to the Advocate's. I was well received
by the four ladies, who were now in company together, and must give the
news of Prestongrange and what word went in the west country, at the
most inordinate length and with great weariness to myself; while all
the time that young lady, with whom I so much desired to be alone
again, observed me quizzically and seemed to find pleasure in the sight
of my impatience. At last, after I had endured a meal with them, and
was come very near the point of appealing for an interview before her
aunt, she went and stood by the music-case, and picking out a tune,
sang to it on a high key - "He that will not when he may, When he will
he shall have nay." But this was the end of her rigours, and
presently, after making some excuse of which I have no mind, she
carried me away in private to her father's library. I should not fail
to say she was dressed to the nines, and appeared extraordinary
handsome.

"Now, Mr. David, sit ye down here and let us have a two-handed crack,"
said she. "For I have much to tell you, and it appears besides that I
have been grossly unjust to your good taste."

"In what manner, Mistress Grant?" I asked. "I trust I have never
seemed to fail in due respect."

"I will be your surety, Mr, David," said she. "Your respect, whether
to yourself or your poor neighbours, has been always and most
fortunately beyond imitation. But that is by the question. You got a
note from me?" she asked.

"I was so bold as to suppose so upon inference," said I, "and it was
kindly thought upon."

"It must have prodigiously surprised you," said she. "But let us begin
with the beginning. You have not perhaps forgot a day when you were so
kind as to escort three very tedious misses to Hope Park? I have the
less cause to forget it myself, because you was so particular obliging
as to introduce me to some of the principles of the Latin grammar, a
thing which wrote itself profoundly on my gratitude."

"I fear I was sadly pedantical," said I, overcome with confusion at the
memory. "You are only to consider I am quite unused with the society
of ladies."

"I will say the less about the grammar then," she replied. "But how
came you to desert your charge? 'He has thrown her out, overboard, his
ain dear Annie!'" she hummed; "and his ain dear Annie and her two
sisters had to taigle home by theirselves like a string of green geese!
It seems you returned to my papa's, where you showed yourself
excessively martial, and then on to realms unknown, with an eye (it
appears) to the Bass Rock; solan geese being perhaps more to your mind
than bonny lasses."

Through all this raillery there was something indulgent in the lady's
eye which made me suppose there might be better coming.

"You take a pleasure to torment me," said I, "and I make a very
feckless plaything; but let me ask you to be more merciful. At this
time there is but the one thing that I care to hear of, and that will
be news of Catriona."

"Do you call her by that name to her face, Mr. Balfour?" she asked.

"In troth, and I am not very sure," I stammered.

"I would not do so in any case to strangers," said Miss Grant. "And
why are you so much immersed in the affairs of this young lady?"

"I heard she was in prison," said I.

"Well, and now you hear that she is out of it," she replied, "and what
more would you have? She has no need of any further champion."

"I may have the greater need of her, ma'am," said I.

"Come, this is better!" says Miss Grant. "But look me fairly in the
face; am I not bonnier than she?"

"I would be the last to be denying it," said I. "There is not your
marrow in all Scotland."

"Well, here you have the pick of the two at your hand, and must needs
speak of the other," said she. "This is never the way to please the
ladies, Mr. Balfour."

"But, mistress," said I, "there are surely other things besides mere
beauty."

"By which I am to understand that I am no better than I should be,
perhaps?" she asked.

"By which you will please understand that I am like the cock in the
midden in the fable book," said I. "I see the braw jewel - and I like
fine to see it too - but I have more need of the pickle corn."

"Bravissimo!" she cried. "There is a word well said at last, and I
will reward you for it with my story. That same night of your
desertion I came late from a friend's house - where I was excessively
admired, whatever you may think of it - and what should I hear but that
a lass in a tartan screen desired to speak with me? She had been there
an hour or better, said the servant-lass, and she grat in to herself as
she sat waiting. I went to her direct; she rose as I came in, and I
knew her at a look. 'GREY EYES!' says I to myself, but was more wise
than to let on. YOU WILL BE MISS GRANT AT LAST? she says, rising and
looking at me hard and pitiful. AY, IT WAS TRUE HE SAID, YOU ARE BONNY
AT ALL EVENTS. - THE WAY GOD MADE ME, MY DEAR, I said, BUT I WOULD BE
GEY AND OBLIGED IF YOU COULD TELL ME WHAT BROUGHT YOU HERE AT SUCH A
TIME OF THE NIGHT. - LADY, she said, WE ARE KINSFOLK, WE ARE BOTH COME
OF THE BLOOD OF THE SONS OF ALPIN. - MY DEAR, I replied, I THINK NO
MORE OF ALPIN OR HIS SONS THAN WHAT I DO OF A KALESTOCK. YOU HAVE A
BETTER ARGUMENT IN THESE TEARS UPON YOUR BONNY FACE. And at that I was
so weak-minded as to kiss her, which is what you would like to do
dearly, and I wager will never find the courage of. I say it was weak-
minded of me, for I knew no more of her than the outside; but it was
the wisest stroke I could have hit upon. She is a very staunch, brave
nature, but I think she has been little used with tenderness; and at
that caress (though to say the truth, it was but lightly given) her
heart went out to me. I will never betray the secrets of my sex, Mr.
Davie; I will never tell you the way she turned me round her thumb,
because it is the same she will use to twist yourself. Ay, it is a
fine lass! She is as clean as hill well water."

"She is e'en't!" I cried.

"Well, then, she told me her concerns," pursued Miss Grant, "and in
what a swither she was in about her papa, and what a taking about
yourself, with very little cause, and in what a perplexity she had
found herself after you was gone away. AND THEN I MINDED AT LONG LAST,
says she, THAT WE WERE KINSWOMEN, AND THAT MR. DAVID SHOULD HAVE GIVEN
YOU THE NAME OF THE BONNIEST OF THE BONNY, AND I WAS THINKING TO MYSELF
'IF SHE IS SO BONNY SHE WILL BE GOOD AT ALL EVENTS'; AND I TOOK UP MY
FOOT SOLES OUT OF THAT. That was when I forgave yourself, Mr. Davie.
When you was in my society, you seemed upon hot iron: by all marks, if
ever I saw a young man that wanted to be gone, it was yourself, and I
and my two sisters were the ladies you were so desirous to be gone
from; and now it appeared you had given me some notice in the by-going,
and was so kind as to comment on my attractions! From that hour you
may date our friendship, and I began to think with tenderness upon the
Latin grammar."

"You will have many hours to rally me in," said I; "and I think besides
you do yourself injustice. I think it was Catriona turned your heart
in my direction. She is too simple to perceive as you do the stiffness
of her friend."

"I would not like to wager upon that, Mr. David," said she. "The
lasses have clear eyes. But at least she is your friend entirely, as I
was to see. I carried her in to his lordship my papa; and his Advocacy
being in a favourable stage of claret, was so good as to receive the
pair of us. HERE IS GREY EYES THAT YOU HAVE BEEN DEAVED WITH THESE
DAYS PAST, said I, SHE IS COME TO PROVE THAT WE SPOKE TRUE, AND I LAY
THE PRETTIEST LASS IN THE THREE LOTHIANS AT YOUR FEET - making a
papistical reservation of myself. She suited her action to my words:
down she went upon her knees to him - I would not like to swear but he
saw two of her, which doubtless made her appeal the more irresistible,
for you are all a pack of Mahomedans - told him what had passed that
night, and how she had withheld her father's man from following of you,
and what a case she was in about her father, and what a flutter for
yourself; and begged with weeping for the lives of both of you (neither
of which was in the slightest danger), till I vow I was proud of my sex
because it was done so pretty, and ashamed for it because of the
smallness of the occasion. She had not gone far, I assure you, before
the Advocate was wholly sober, to see his inmost politics ravelled out
by a young lass and discovered to the most unruly of his daughters.
But we took him in hand, the pair of us, and brought that matter
straight. Properly managed - and that means managed by me - there is
no one to compare with my papa."

"He has been a good man to me," said I.

"Well, he was a good man to Katrine, and I was there to see to it,"
said she.

"And she pled for me?" say I.

"She did that, and very movingly," said Miss Grant. "I would not like
to tell you what she said - I find you vain enough already."

"God reward her for it!" cried I.

"With Mr. David Balfour, I suppose?" says she.

"You do me too much injustice at the last!" I cried. "I would tremble
to think of her in such hard hands. Do you think I would presume,
because she begged my life? She would do that for a new whelped puppy!
I have had more than that to set me up, if you but ken'd. She kissed
that hand of mine. Ay, but she did. And why? because she thought I
was playing a brave part and might be going to my death. It was not
for my sake - but I need not be telling that to you, that cannot look
at me without laughter. It was for the love of what she thought was
bravery. I believe there is none but me and poor Prince Charlie had
that honour done them. Was this not to make a god of me? and do you
not think my heart would quake when I remember it?"

"I do laugh at you a good deal, and a good deal more than is quite
civil," said she; "but I will tell you one thing: if you speak to her
like that, you have some glimmerings of a chance."

"Me?" I cried, "I would never dare. I can speak to you, Miss Grant,
because it's a matter of indifference what ye think of me. But her? no
fear!" said I.

"I think you have the largest feet in all broad Scotland," says she.

"Troth they are no very small," said I, looking down.

"Ah, poor Catriona!" cries Miss Grant.

And I could but stare upon her; for though I now see very well what she
was driving at (and perhaps some justification for the same), I was
never swift at the uptake in such flimsy talk.

"Ah well, Mr. David," she said, "it goes sore against my conscience,
but I see I shall have to be your speaking board. She shall know you
came to her straight upon the news of her imprisonment; she shall know
you would not pause to eat; and of our conversation she shall hear just
so much as I think convenient for a maid of her age and inexperience.
Believe me, you will be in that way much better served than you could
serve yourself, for I will keep the big feet out of the platter."

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