Catriona

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"You know where she is, then?" I exclaimed.

"That I do, Mr. David, and will never tell," said she.

"Why that?" I asked.

"Well," she said, "I am a good friend, as you will soon discover; and
the chief of those that I am friend to is my papa. I assure you, you
will never heat nor melt me out of that, so you may spare me your
sheep's eyes; and adieu to your David-Balfourship for the now."

"But there is yet one thing more," I cried. "There is one thing that
must be stopped, being mere ruin to herself, and to me too."

"Well," she said, "be brief; I have spent half the day on you already."

"My Lady Allardyce believes," I began - "she supposes - she thinks that
I abducted her."

The colour came into Miss Grant's face, so that at first I was quite
abashed to find her ear so delicate, till I bethought me she was
struggling rather with mirth, a notion in which I was altogether
confirmed by the shaking of her voice as she replied -

"I will take up the defence of your reputation," she said. "You may
leave it in my hands."

And with that she withdrew out of the library.

CHAPTER XX - I CONTINUE TO MOVE IN GOOD SOCIETY

FOR about exactly two months I remained a guest in Prestongrange's
family, where I bettered my acquaintance with the bench, the bar, and
the flower of Edinburgh company. You are not to suppose my education
was neglected; on the contrary, I was kept extremely busy. I studied
the French, so as to be more prepared to go to Leyden; I set myself to
the fencing, and wrought hard, sometimes three hours in the day, with
notable advancement; at the suggestion of my cousin, Pilrig, who was an
apt musician, I was put to a singing class; and by the orders of my
Miss Grant, to one for the dancing, at which I must say I proved far
from ornamental. However, all were good enough to say it gave me an
address a little more genteel; and there is no question but I learned
to manage my coat skirts and sword with more dexterity, and to stand in
a room as though the same belonged to me. My clothes themselves were
all earnestly re-ordered; and the most trifling circumstance, such as
where I should tie my hair, or the colour of my ribbon, debated among
the three misses like a thing of weight. One way with another, no
doubt I was a good deal improved to look at, and acquired a bit of
modest air that would have surprised the good folks at Essendean.

The two younger misses were very willing to discuss a point of my
habiliment, because that was in the line of their chief thoughts. I
cannot say that they appeared any other way conscious of my presence;
and though always more than civil, with a kind of heartless cordiality,
could not hide how much I wearied them. As for the aunt, she was a
wonderful still woman; and I think she gave me much the same attention
as she gave the rest of the family, which was little enough. The
eldest daughter and the Advocate himself were thus my principal
friends, and our familiarity was much increased by a pleasure that we
took in common. Before the court met we spent a day or two at the
house of Grange, living very nobly with an open table, and here it was
that we three began to ride out together in the fields, a practice
afterwards maintained in Edinburgh, so far as the Advocate's continual
affairs permitted. When we were put in a good frame by the briskness
of the exercise, the difficulties of the way, or the accidents of bad
weather, my shyness wore entirely off; we forgot that we were
strangers, and speech not being required, it flowed the more naturally
on. Then it was that they had my story from me, bit by bit, from the
time that I left Essendean, with my voyage and battle in the COVENANT,
wanderings in the heather, etc.; and from the interest they found in my
adventures sprung the circumstance of a jaunt we made a little later
on, on a day when the courts were not sitting, and of which I will tell
a trifle more at length.

We took horse early, and passed first by the house of Shaws, where it
stood smokeless in a great field of white frost, for it was yet early
in the day. Here Prestongrange alighted down, gave me his horse, an
proceeded alone to visit my uncle. My heart, I remember, swelled up
bitter within me at the sight of that bare house and the thought of the
old miser sitting chittering within in the cold kitchen!

"There is my home," said I; "and my family."

"Poor David Balfour!" said Miss Grant.

What passed during the visit I have never heard; but it would doubtless
not be very agreeable to Ebenezer, for when the Advocate came forth
again his face was dark.

"I think you will soon be the laird indeed, Mr. Davie," says he,
turning half about with the one foot in the stirrup.

"I will never pretend sorrow," said I; and, to say the truth, during
his absence Miss Grant and I had been embellishing the place in fancy
with plantations, parterres, and a terrace - much as I have since
carried out in fact.

Thence we pushed to the Queensferry, where Rankeillor gave us a good
welcome, being indeed out of the body to receive so great a visitor.
Here the Advocate was so unaffectedly good as to go quite fully over my
affairs, sitting perhaps two hours with the Writer in his study, and
expressing (I was told) a great esteem for myself and concern for my
fortunes. To while this time, Miss Grant and I and young Rankeillor
took boat and passed the Hope to Limekilns. Rankeillor made himself
very ridiculous (and, I thought, offensive) with his admiration for the
young lady, and to my wonder (only it is so common a weakness of her
sex) she seemed, if anything, to be a little gratified. One use it
had: for when we were come to the other side, she laid her commands on
him to mind the boat, while she and I passed a little further to the
alehouse. This was her own thought, for she had been taken with my
account of Alison Hastie, and desired to see the lass herself. We
found her once more alone - indeed, I believe her father wrought all
day in the fields - and she curtsied dutifully to the gentry-folk and
the beautiful young lady in the riding-coat.

"Is this all the welcome I am to get?" said I, holding out my hand.
"And have you no more memory of old friends?"

"Keep me! wha's this of it?" she cried, and then, "God's truth, it's
the tautit laddie!"

"The very same," says

"Mony's the time I've thocht upon you and your freen, and blythe am I
to see in your braws," she cried. "Though I kent ye were come to your
ain folk by the grand present that ye sent me and that I thank ye for
with a' my heart."

"There," said Miss Grant to me, "run out by with ye, like a guid bairn.
I didnae come here to stand and haud a candle; it's her and me that are
to crack."

I suppose she stayed ten minutes in the house, but when she came forth
I observed two things - that her eyes were reddened, and a silver
brooch was gone out of her bosom. This very much affected me.

"I never saw you so well adorned," said I.

"O Davie man, dinna be a pompous gowk!" said she, and was more than
usually sharp to me the remainder of the day.

About candlelight we came home from this excursion.

For a good while I heard nothing further of Catriona - my Miss Grant
remaining quite impenetrable, and stopping my mouth with pleasantries.
At last, one day that she returned from walking and found me alone in
the parlour over my French, I thought there was something unusual in
her looks; the colour heightened, the eyes sparkling high, and a bit of
a smile continually bitten in as she regarded me. She seemed indeed
like the very spirit of mischief, and, walking briskly in the room, had
soon involved me in a kind of quarrel over nothing and (at the least)
with nothing intended on my side. I was like Christian in the slough -
the more I tried to clamber out upon the side, the deeper I became
involved; until at last I heard her declare, with a great deal of
passion, that she would take that answer from the hands of none, and I
must down upon my knees for pardon.

The causelessness of all this fuff stirred my own bile. "I have said
nothing you can properly object to," said I, "and as for my knees, that
is an attitude I keep for God."

"And as a goddess I am to be served!" she cried, shaking her brown
locks at me and with a bright colour. "Every man that comes within
waft of my petticoats shall use me so!"

"I will go so far as ask your pardon for the fashion's sake, although I
vow I know not why," I replied. "But for these play-acting postures,
you can go to others."

"O Davie!" she said. "Not if I was to beg you?"

I bethought me I was fighting with a woman, which is the same as to say
a child, and that upon a point entirely formal.

"I think it a bairnly thing," I said, "not worthy in you to ask, or me
to render. Yet I will not refuse you, neither," said I; "and the
stain, if there be any, rests with yourself." And at that I kneeled
fairly down.

"There!" she cried. "There is the proper station, there is where I
have been manoeuvring to bring you." And then, suddenly, "Kep," said
she, flung me a folded billet, and ran from the apartment laughing.

The billet had neither place nor date. "Dear Mr. David," it began, "I
get your news continually by my cousin, Miss Grant, and it is a
pleisand hearing. I am very well, in a good place, among good folk,
but necessitated to be quite private, though I am hoping that at long
last we may meet again. All your friendships have been told me by my
loving cousin, who loves us both. She bids me to send you this
writing, and oversees the same. I will be asking you to do all her
commands, and rest your affectionate friend, Catriona Macgregor-
Drummond. P.S. - Will you not see my cousin, Allardyce?"

I think it not the least brave of my campaigns (as the soldiers say)
that I should have done as I was here bidden and gone forthright to the
house by Dean. But the old lady was now entirely changed and supple as
a glove. By what means Miss Grant had brought this round I could never
guess; I am sure, at least, she dared not to appear openly in the
affair, for her papa was compromised in it pretty deep. It was he,
indeed, who had persuaded Catriona to leave, or rather, not to return,
to her cousin's, placing her instead with a family of Gregorys - decent
people, quite at the Advocate's disposition, and in whom she might have
the more confidence because they were of his own clan and family.
These kept her private till all was ripe, heated and helped her to
attempt her father's rescue, and after she was discharged from prison
received her again into the same secrecy. Thus Prestongrange obtained
and used his instrument; nor did there leak out the smallest word of
his acquaintance with the daughter of James More. There was some
whispering, of course, upon the escape of that discredited person; but
the Government replied by a show of rigour, one of the cell porters was
flogged, the lieutenant of the guard (my poor friend, Duncansby) was
broken of his rank, and as for Catriona, all men were well enough
pleased that her fault should be passed by in silence.

I could never induce Miss Grant to carry back an answer. "No," she
would say, when I persisted, "I am going to keep the big feet out of
the platter." This was the more hard to bear, as I was aware she saw
my little friend many times in the week, and carried her my news
whenever (as she said) I "had behaved myself." At last she treated me
to what she called an indulgence, and I thought rather more of a
banter. She was certainly a strong, almost a violent, friend to all
she liked, chief among whom was a certain frail old gentlewoman, very
blind and very witty, who dwelt on the top of a tall land on a strait
close, with a nest of linnets in a cage, and thronged all day with
visitors. Miss Grant was very fond to carry me there and put me to
entertain her friend with the narrative of my misfortunes: and Miss
Tibbie Ramsay (that was her name) was particular kind, and told me a
great deal that was worth knowledge of old folks and past affairs in
Scotland. I should say that from her chamber window, and not three
feet away, such is the straitness of that close, it was possible to
look into a barred loophole lighting the stairway of the opposite
house.

Here, upon some pretext, Miss Grant left me one day alone with Miss
Ramsay. I mind I thought that lady inattentive and like one
preoccupied. I was besides very uncomfortable, for the window,
contrary to custom, was left open and the day was cold. All at once
the voice of Miss Grant sounded in my ears as from a distance.

"Here, Shaws!" she cried, "keek out of the window and see what I have
broughten you."

I think it was the prettiest sight that ever I beheld. The well of the
close was all in clear shadow where a man could see distinctly, the
walls very black and dingy; and there from the barred loophole I saw
two faces smiling across at me - Miss Grant's and Catriona's.

"There!" says Miss Grant, "I wanted her to see you in your braws like
the lass of Limekilns. I wanted her to see what I could make of you,
when I buckled to the job in earnest!"

It came in my mind that she had been more than common particular that
day upon my dress; and I think that some of the same care had been
bestowed upon Catriona. For so merry and sensible a lady, Miss Grant
was certainly wonderful taken up with duds.

"Catriona!" was all I could get out.

As for her, she said nothing in the world, but only waved her hand and
smiled to me, and was suddenly carried away again from before the
loophole.

That vision was no sooner lost than I ran to the house door, where I
found I was locked in; thence back to Miss Ramsay, crying for the key,
but might as well have cried upon the castle rock. She had passed her
word, she said, and I must be a good lad. It was impossible to burst
the door, even if it had been mannerly; it was impossible I should leap
from the window, being seven storeys above ground. All I could do was
to crane over the close and watch for their reappearance from the
stair. It was little to see, being no more than the tops of their two
heads each on a ridiculous bobbin of skirts, like to a pair of
pincushions. Nor did Catriona so much as look up for a farewell; being
prevented (as I heard afterwards) by Miss Grant, who told her folk were
never seen to less advantage than from above downward.

On the way home, as soon as I was set free, I upbraided Miss Grant with
her cruelty.

"I am sorry you was disappointed," says she demurely. "For my part I
was very pleased. You looked better than I dreaded; you looked - if it
will not make you vain - a mighty pretty young man when you appeared in
the window. You are to remember that she could not see your feet,"
says she, with the manner of one reassuring me.

"O!" cried I, "leave my feet be - they are no bigger than my
neighbours'."

"They are even smaller than some," said she, "but I speak in parables
like a Hebrew prophet."

"I marvel little they were sometimes stoned!" says I. "But, you
miserable girl, how could you do it? Why should you care to tantalise
me with a moment?"

"Love is like folk," says she; "it needs some kind of vivers."

"Oh, Barbara, let me see her properly!" I pleaded. "YOU can - you see
her when you please; let me have half an hour."

"Who is it that is managing this love affair! You! Or me?" she asked,
and as I continued to press her with my instances, fell back upon a
deadly expedient: that of imitating the tones of my voice when I
called on Catriona by name; with which, indeed, she held me in
subjection for some days to follow.

There was never the least word heard of the memorial, or none by me.
Prestongrange and his grace the Lord President may have heard of it
(for what I know) on the deafest sides of their heads; they kept it to
themselves, at least - the public was none the wiser; and in course of
time, on November 8th, and in the midst of a prodigious storm of wind
and rain, poor James of the Glens was duly hanged at Lettermore by
Ballachulish.

So there was the final upshot of my politics! Innocent men have
perished before James, and are like to keep on perishing (in spite of
all our wisdom) till the end of time. And till the end of time young
folk (who are not yet used with the duplicity of life and men) will
struggle as I did, and make heroical resolves, and take long risks; and
the course of events will push them upon the one side and go on like a
marching army. James was hanged; and here was I dwelling in the house
of Prestongrange, and grateful to him for his fatherly attention. He
was hanged; and behold! when I met Mr. Simon in the causeway, I was
fain to pull off my beaver to him like a good little boy before his
dominie. He had been hanged by fraud and violence, and the world
wagged along, and there was not a pennyweight of difference; and the
villains of that horrid plot were decent, kind, respectable fathers of
families, who went to kirk and took the sacrament!

But I had had my view of that detestable business they call politics -
I had seen it from behind, when it is all bones and blackness; and I
was cured for life of any temptations to take part in it again. A
plain, quiet, private path was that which I was ambitious to walk in,
when I might keep my head out of the way of dangers and my conscience
out of the road of temptation. For, upon a retrospect, it appeared I
had not done so grandly, after all; but with the greatest possible
amount of big speech and preparation, had accomplished nothing.

The 25th of the same month a ship was advertised to sail from Leith;
and I was suddenly recommended to make up my mails for Leyden. To
Prestongrange I could, of course, say nothing; for I had already been a
long while sorning on his house and table. But with his daughter I was
more open, bewailing my fate that I should be sent out of the country,
and assuring her, unless she should bring me to farewell with Catriona,
I would refuse at the last hour.

"Have I not given you my advice?" she asked.

"I know you have," said I, "and I know how much I am beholden to you
already, and that I am bidden to obey your orders. But you must
confess you are something too merry a lass at times to lippen to
entirely."

"I will tell you, then," said she. "Be you on board by nine o'clock
forenoon; the ship does not sail before one; keep your boat alongside;
and if you are not pleased with my farewells when I shall send them,
you can come ashore again and seek Katrine for yourself."

Since I could make no more of her, I was fain to be content with this.

The day came round at last when she and I were to separate. We had
been extremely intimate and familiar; I was much in her debt; and what
way we were to part was a thing that put me from my sleep, like the
vails I was to give to the domestic servants. I knew she considered me
too backward, and rather desired to rise in her opinion on that head.
Besides which, after so much affection shown and (I believe) felt upon
both sides, it would have looked cold-like to be anyways stiff.
Accordingly, I got my courage up and my words ready, and the last
chance we were like to be alone, asked pretty boldly to be allowed to
salute her in farewell.

"You forget yourself strangely, Mr. Balfour," said she. "I cannot call
to mind that I have given you any right to presume on our
acquaintancy."

I stood before her like a stopped clock, and knew not what to think,
far less to say, when of a sudden she cast her arms about my neck and
kissed me with the best will in the world.

"You inimitable bairn?" she cried. "Did you think that I would let us
part like strangers? Because I can never keep my gravity at you five
minutes on end, you must not dream I do not love you very well: I am
all love and laughter, every time I cast an eye on you! And now I will
give you an advice to conclude your education, which you will have need
of before it's very long.

Never ASK womenfolk. They're bound to answer 'No'; God never made the
lass that could resist the temptation. It's supposed by divines to be
the curse of Eve: because she did not say it when the devil offered
her the apple, her daughters can say nothing else."

"Since I am so soon to lose my bonny professor," I began.

"This is gallant, indeed," says she curtseying.

"I would put the one question," I went on. "May I ask a lass to marry
to me?"

"You think you could not marry her without!" she asked. "Or else get
her to offer?"

"You see you cannot be serious," said I.

"I shall be very serious in one thing, David," said she: "I shall
always be your friend."

As I got to my horse the next morning, the four ladies were all at that
same window whence we had once looked down on Catriona, and all cried
farewell and waved their pocket napkins as I rode away. One out of the
four I knew was truly sorry; and at the thought of that, and how I had
come to the door three months ago for the first time, sorrow and
gratitude made a confusion in my mind.

PART II - FATHER AND DAUGHTER

CHAPTER XXI - THE VOYAGE INTO HOLLAND

THE ship lay at a single anchor, well outside the pier of Leith, so
that all we passengers must come to it by the means of skiffs. This
was very little trouble-some, for the reason that the day was a flat
calm, very frosty and cloudy, and with a low shifting fog upon the
water. The body of the vessel was thus quite hid as I drew near, but
the tall spars of her stood high and bright in a sunshine like the
flickering of a fire. She proved to be a very roomy, commodious
merchant, but somewhat blunt in the bows, and loaden extraordinary deep
with salt, salted salmon, and fine white linen stockings for the Dutch.
Upon my coming on board, the captain welcomed me - one Sang (out of
Lesmahago, I believe), a very hearty, friendly tarpaulin of a man, but
at the moment in rather of a bustle. There had no other of the
passengers yet appeared, so that I was left to walk about upon the
deck, viewing the prospect and wondering a good deal what these
farewells should be which I was promised.

All Edinburgh and the Pentland Hills glinted above me in a kind of
smuisty brightness, now and again overcome with blots of cloud; of
Leith there was no more than the tops of chimneys visible, and on the
face of the water, where the haar lay, nothing at all. Out of this I
was presently aware of a sound of oars pulling, and a little after (as
if out of the smoke of a fire) a boat issued. There sat a grave man in
the stern sheets, well muffled from the cold, and by his side a tall,
pretty, tender figure of a maid that brought my heart to a stand. I
had scarce the time to catch my breath in, and be ready to meet her, as
she stepped upon the deck, smiling, and making my best bow, which was
now vastly finer than some months before, when first I made it to her
ladyship. No doubt we were both a good deal changed: she seemed to
have shot up like a young, comely tree. She had now a kind of pretty
backwardness that became her well as of one that regarded herself more
highly and was fairly woman; and for another thing, the hand of the
same magician had been at work upon the pair of us, and Miss Grant had
made us both BRAW, if she could make but the one BONNY.

The same cry, in words not very different, came from both of us, that
the other was come in compliment to say farewell, and then we perceived
in a flash we were to ship together.

"O, why will not Baby have been telling me!" she cried; and then
remembered a letter she had been given, on the condition of not opening
it till she was well on board. Within was an enclosure for myself, and
ran thus:

"DEAR DAVIE, - What do you think of my farewell? and what do you say to
your fellow passenger? Did you kiss, or did you ask? I was about to
have signed here, but that would leave the purport of my question
doubtful, and in my own case I KEN THE ANSWER. So fill up here with
good advice. Do not be too blate, and for God's sake do not try to be
too forward; nothing acts you worse. I am

"Your affectionate friend and governess,
"BARBARA GRANT."

I wrote a word of answer and compliment on a leaf out of my pocketbook,
put it in with another scratch from Catriona, sealed the whole with my
new signet of the Balfour arms, and despatched it by the hand of
Prestongrange's servant that still waited in my boat.

Then we had time to look upon each other more at leisure, which we had
not done for a piece of a minute before (upon a common impulse) we
shook hands again.

"Catriona?" said I. It seemed that was the first and last word of my
eloquence.

"You will be glad to see me again?" says she.

"And I think that is an idle word," said I. "We are too deep friends
to make speech upon such trifles."

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