Catriona

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He began, at least, calling me Mr. Balfour, and plainly speaking from a
lesson; but he got not very far, for at the first pompous swell of his
voice, Catriona cut in.

"I will tell you what James More is meaning," said she. "He means we
have come to you, beggar-folk, and have not behaved to you very well,
and we are ashamed of our ingratitude and ill-behaviour. Now we are
wanting to go away and be forgotten; and my father will have guided his
gear so ill, that we cannot even do that unless you will give us some
more alms. For that is what we are, at an events, beggar-folk and
sorners."

"By your leave, Miss Drummond," said I, "I must speak to your father by
myself."

She went into her own room and shut the door, without a word or a look.

"You must excuse her, Mr. Balfour," says James More. "She has no
delicacy."

"I am not here to discuss that with you," said I, "but to be quit of
you. And to that end I must talk of your position. Now, Mr. Drummond,
I have kept the run of your affairs more closely than you bargained
for. I know you had money of your own when you were borrowing mine. I
know you have had more since you were here in Leyden, though you
concealed it even from your daughter."

"I bid you beware. I will stand no more baiting," he broke out. "I am
sick of her and you. What kind of a damned trade is this to be a
parent! I have had expressions used to me - " There he broke off.
"Sir, this is the heart of a soldier and a parent," he went on again,
laying his hand on his bosom, "outraged in both characters - and I bid
you beware."

"If you would have let me finish," says I, "you would have found I
spoke for your advantage."

"My dear friend," he cried, "I know I might have relied upon the
generosity of your character."

"Man! will you let me speak?" said I. "The fact is that I cannot win
to find out if you are rich or poor. But it is my idea that your
means, as they are mysterious in their source, so they are something
insufficient in amount; and I do not choose your daughter to be
lacking. If I durst speak to herself, you may be certain I would never
dream of trusting it to you; because I know you like the back of my
hand, and all your blustering talk is that much wind to me. However, I
believe in your way you do still care something for your daughter after
all; and I must just be doing with that ground of confidence, such as
it is."

Whereupon, I arranged with him that he was to communicate with me, as
to his whereabouts and Catriona's welfare, in consideration of which I
was to serve him a small stipend.

He heard the business out with a great deal of eagerness; and when it
was done, "My dear fellow, my dear son," he cried out, "this is more
like yourself than any of it yet! I will serve you with a soldier's
faithfulness - "

"Let me hear no more of it!" says I. "You have got me to that pitch
that the bare name of soldier rises on my stomach. Our traffic is
settled; I am now going forth and will return in one half-hour, when I
expect to find my chambers purged of you."

I gave them good measure of time; it was my one fear that I might see
Catriona again, because tears and weakness were ready in my heart, and
I cherished my anger like a piece of dignity. Perhaps an hour went by;
the sun had gone down, a little wisp of a new moon was following it
across a scarlet sunset; already there were stars in the east, and in
my chambers, when at last I entered them, the night lay blue. I lit a
taper and reviewed the rooms; in the first there remained nothing so
much as to awake a memory of those who were gone; but in the second, in
a corner of the floor, I spied a little heap that brought my heart into
my mouth. She had left behind at her departure all that she had ever
had of me. It was the blow that I felt sorest, perhaps because it was
the last; and I fell upon that pile of clothing and behaved myself more
foolish than I care to tell of.

Late in the night, in a strict frost, and my teeth chattering, I came
again by some portion of my manhood and considered with myself. The
sight of these poor frocks and ribbons, and her shifts, and the clocked
stockings, was not to be endured; and if I were to recover any
constancy of mind, I saw I must be rid of them ere the morning. It was
my first thought to have made a fire and burned them; but my
disposition has always been opposed to wastery, for one thing; and for
another, to have burned these things that she had worn so close upon
her body seemed in the nature of a cruelty. There was a corner
cupboard in that chamber; there I determined to bestow them. The which
I did and made it a long business, folding them with very little skill
indeed but the more care; and sometimes dropping them with my tears.
All the heart was gone out of me, I was weary as though I had run
miles, and sore like one beaten; when, as I was folding a kerchief that
she wore often at her neck, I observed there was a corner neatly cut
from it. It was a kerchief of a very pretty hue, on which I had
frequently remarked; and once that she had it on, I remembered telling
her (by way of a banter) that she wore my colours. There came a glow
of hope and like a tide of sweetness in my bosom; and the next moment I
was plunged back in a fresh despair. For there was the corner crumpled
in a knot and cast down by itself in another part of the floor.

But when I argued with myself, I grew more hopeful. She had cut that
corner off in some childish freak that was manifestly tender; that she
had cast it away again was little to he wondered at; and I was inclined
to dwell more upon the first than upon the second, and to be more
pleased that she had ever conceived the idea of that keepsake, than
concerned because she had flung it from her in an hour of natural
resentment.

CHAPTER XXIX - WE MEET IN DUNKIRK.

ALTOGETHER, then, I was scare so miserable the next days but what I had
many hopeful and happy snatches; threw myself with a good deal of
constancy upon my studies; and made out to endure the time till Alan
should arrive, or I might hear word of Catriona by the means of James
More. I had altogether three letters in the time of our separation.
One was to announce their arrival in the town of Dunkirk in France,
from which place James shortly after started alone upon a private
mission. This was to England and to see Lord Holderness; and it has
always been a bitter thought that my good money helped to pay the
charges of the same. But he has need of a long spoon who soups with
the de'il, or James More either. During this absence, the time was to
fall due for another letter; and as the letter was the condition of his
stipend, he had been so careful as to prepare it beforehand and leave
it with Catriona to be despatched. The fact of our correspondence
aroused her suspicions, and he was no sooner gone than she had burst
the seal. What I received began accordingly in the writing of James
More:

"My dear Sir, - Your esteemed favour came to hand duly, and I have to
acknowledge the inclosure according to agreement. It shall be all
faithfully expended on my daughter, who is well, and desires to be
remembered to her dear friend. I find her in rather a melancholy
disposition, but trust in the mercy of God to see her re-established.
Our manner of life is very much alone, but we solace ourselves with the
melancholy tunes of our native mountains, and by walking up the margin
of the sea that lies next to Scotland. It was better days with me when
I lay with five wounds upon my body on the field of Gladsmuir. I have
found employment here in the HARAS of a French nobleman, where my
experience is valued. But, my dear Sir, the wages are so exceedingly
unsuitable that I would be ashamed to mention them, which makes your
remittances the more necessary to my daughter's comfort, though I
daresay the sight of old friends would be still better.

"My dear Sir,
"Your affectionate, obedient servant,
"JAMES MACGREGOR DRUMMOND."

Below it began again in the hand of Catriona:-

"Do not be believing him, it is all lies together, - C. M. D."

Not only did she add this postscript, but I think she must have come
near suppressing the letter; for it came long after date, and was
closely followed by the third. In the time betwixt them, Alan had
arrived, and made another life to me with his merry conversation; I had
been presented to his cousin of the Scots-Dutch, a man that drank more
than I could have thought possible and was not otherwise of interest; I
had been entertained to many jovial dinners and given some myself, all
with no great change upon my sorrow; and we two (by which I mean Alan
and myself, and not at all the cousin) had discussed a good deal the
nature of my relations with James More and his daughter. I was
naturally diffident to give particulars; and this disposition was not
anyway lessened by the nature of Alan's commentary upon those I gave.

"I cannae make heed nor tail of it," he would say, "but it sticks in my
mind ye've made a gowk of yourself. There's few people that has had
more experience than Alan Breck: and I can never call to mind to have
heard tell of a lassie like this one of yours. The way that you tell
it, the thing's fair impossible. Ye must have made a terrible hash of
the business, David."

"There are whiles that I am of the same mind," said I.

"The strange thing is that ye seem to have a kind of fancy for her
too!" said Alan.

"The biggest kind, Alan," said I, "and I think I'll take it to my grave
with me."

"Well, ye beat me, whatever!" he would conclude.

I showed him the letter with Catriona's postscript. "And here again!"
he cried. "Impossible to deny a kind of decency to this Catriona, and
sense forby! As for James More, the man's as boss as a drum; he's just
a wame and a wheen words; though I'll can never deny that he fought
reasonably well at Gladsmuir, and it's true what he says here about the
five wounds. But the loss of him is that the man's boss."

"Ye see, Alan," said I, "it goes against the grain with me to leave the
maid in such poor hands."

"Ye couldnae weel find poorer," he admitted. "But what are ye to do
with it? It's this way about a man and a woman, ye see, Davie: The
weemenfolk have got no kind of reason to them. Either they like the
man, and then a' goes fine; or else they just detest him, and ye may
spare your breath - ye can do naething. There's just the two sets of
them - them that would sell their coats for ye, and them that never
look the road ye're on. That's a' that there is to women; and you seem
to be such a gomeral that ye cannae tell the tane frae the tither."

"Well, and I'm afraid that's true for me," said I.

"And yet there's naething easier!" cried Alan. "I could easy learn ye
the science of the thing; but ye seem to me to be born blind, and
there's where the deefficulty comes in."

"And can YOU no help me?" I asked, "you that are so clever at the
trade?"

"Ye see, David, I wasnae here," said he. "I'm like a field officer
that has naebody but blind men for scouts and ECLAIREURS; and what
would he ken? But it sticks in my mind that ye'll have made some kind
of bauchle; and if I was you I would have a try at her again."

"Would ye so, man Alan?" said I.

"I would e'en't," says he.

The third letter came to my hand while we were deep in some such talk:
and it will be seen how pat it fell to the occasion. James professed
to be in some concern upon his daughter's health, which I believe was
never better; abounded in kind expressions to myself; and finally
proposed that I should visit them at Dunkirk.

"You will now be enjoying the society of my old comrade Mr. Stewart,"
he wrote. "Why not accompany him so far in his return to France? I
have something very particular for Mr. Stewart's ear; and, at any rate,
I would be pleased to meet in with an old fellow-soldier and one so
mettle as himself. As for you, my dear sir, my daughter and I would be
proud to receive our benefactor, whom we regard as a brother and a son.
The French nobleman has proved a person of the most filthy avarice of
character, and I have been necessitate to leave the HARAS. You will
find us in consequence a little poorly lodged in the AUBERGE of a man
Bazin on the dunes; but the situation is caller, and I make no doubt
but we might spend some very pleasant days, when Mr. Stewart and I
could recall our services, and you and my daughter divert yourselves in
a manner more befitting your age. I beg at least that Mr. Stewart
would come here; my business with him opens a very wide door."

"What does the man want with me?" cried Alan, when he had read. "What
he wants with you in clear enough - it's siller. But what can he want
with Alan Breck?"

"O, it'll be just an excuse," said I. "He is still after this
marriage, which I wish from my heart that we could bring about. And he
asks you because he thinks I would be less likely to come wanting you."

"Well, I wish that I kent," says Alan. "Him and me were never onyways
pack; we used to girn at ither like a pair of pipers. 'Something for
my ear,' quo' he! I'll maybe have something for his hinder-end, before
we're through with it. Dod, I'm thinking it would be a kind of
divertisement to gang and see what he'll be after! Forby that I could
see your lassie then. What say ye, Davie? Will ye ride with Alan?"

You may be sure I was not backward, and Alan's furlough running towards
an end, we set forth presently upon this joint adventure.

It was near dark of a January day when we rode at last into the town of
Dunkirk. We left our horses at the post, and found a guide to Bazin's
Inn, which lay beyond the walls. Night was quite fallen, so that we
were the last to leave that fortress, and heard the doors of it close
behind us as we passed the bridge. On the other side there lay a
lighted suburb, which we thridded for a while, then turned into a dark
lane, and presently found ourselves wading in the night among deep sand
where we could hear a bullering of the sea. We travelled in this
fashion for some while, following our conductor mostly by the sound of
his voice; and I had begun to think he was perhaps misleading us, when
we came to the top of a small brae, and there appeared out of the
darkness a dim light in a window.

"VOILA L'AUBERGE A BAZIN," says the guide.

Alan smacked his lips. "An unco lonely bit," said he, and I thought by
his tone he was not wholly pleased.

A little after, and we stood in the lower storey of that house, which
was all in the one apartment, with a stairs leading to the chambers at
the side, benches and tables by the wall, the cooking fire at the one
end of it, and shelves of bottles and the cellar-trap at the other.
Here Bazin, who was an ill-looking, big man, told us the Scottish
gentleman was gone abroad he knew not where, but the young lady was
above, and he would call her down to us.

I took from my breast that kerchief wanting the corner, and knotted it
about my throat. I could hear my heart go; and Alan patting me on the
shoulder with some of his laughable expressions, I could scarce refrain
from a sharp word. But the time was not long to wait. I heard her
step pass overhead, and saw her on the stair. This she descended very
quietly, and greeted me with a pale face and a certain seeming of
earnestness, or uneasiness, in her manner that extremely dashed me.

"My father, James More, will be here soon. He will be very pleased to
see you," she said. And then of a sudden her face flamed, her eyes
lightened, the speech stopped upon her lips; and I made sure she had
observed the kerchief. It was only for a breath that she was
discomposed; but methought it was with a new animation that she turned
to welcome Alan. "And you will be his friend, Alan Breck?" she cried.
"Many is the dozen times I will have heard him tell of you; and I love
you already for all your bravery and goodness."

"Well, well," says Alan, holding her hand in his and viewing her, "and
so this is the young lady at the last of it! David, ye're an awful
poor hand of a description."

I do not know that ever I heard him speak so straight to people's
hearts; the sound of his voice was like song.

"What? will he have been describing me?" she cried.

"Little else of it since I ever came out of France!" says he, "forby a
bit of a speciment one night in Scotland in a shaw of wood by
Silvermills. But cheer up, my dear! ye're bonnier than what he said.
And now there's one thing sure; you and me are to be a pair of friends.
I'm a kind of a henchman to Davie here; I'm like a tyke at his heels;
and whatever he cares for, I've got to care for too - and by the holy
airn! they've got to care for me! So now you can see what way you
stand with Alan Breck, and ye'll find ye'll hardly lose on the
transaction. He's no very bonnie, my dear, but he's leal to them he
loves."

"I thank you from my heart for your good words," said she. "I have
that honour for a brave, honest man that I cannot find any to be
answering with."

Using travellers' freedom, we spared to wait for James More, and sat
down to meat, we threesome. Alan had Catriona sit by him and wait upon
his wants: he made her drink first out of his glass, he surrounded her
with continual kind gallantries, and yet never gave me the most small
occasion to be jealous; and he kept the talk so much in his own hand,
and that in so merry a note, that neither she nor I remembered to be
embarrassed. If any had seen us there, it must have been supposed that
Alan was the old friend and I the stranger. Indeed, I had often cause
to love and to admire the man, but I never loved or admired him better
than that night; and I could not help remarking to myself (what I was
sometimes rather in danger of forgetting) that he had not only much
experience of life, but in his own way a great deal of natural ability
besides. As for Catriona, she seemed quite carried away; her laugh was
like a peal of bells, her face gay as a May morning; and I own,
although I was well pleased, yet I was a little sad also, and thought
myself a dull, stockish character in comparison of my friend, and very
unfit to come into a young maid's life, and perhaps ding down her
gaiety.

But if that was like to be my part, I found that at least I was not
alone in it; for, James More returning suddenly, the girl was changed
into a piece of stone. Through the rest of that evening, until she
made an excuse and slipped to bed, I kept an eye upon her without
cease; and I can bear testimony that she never smiled, scarce spoke,
and looked mostly on the board in front of her. So that I really
marvelled to see so much devotion (as it used to be) changed into the
very sickness of hate.

Of James More it is unnecessary to say much; you know the man already,
what there was to know of him; and I am weary of writing out his lies.
Enough that he drank a great deal, and told us very little that was to
any possible purpose. As for the business with Alan, that was to be
reserved for the morrow and his private hearing.

It was the more easy to be put off, because Alan and I were pretty
weary with four day's ride, and sat not very late after Catriona.

We were soon alone in a chamber where we were to make-shift with a
single bed. Alan looked on me with a queer smile.

"Ye muckle ass!" said he.

"What do ye mean by that?" I cried.

"Mean? What do I mean! It's extraordinar, David man," say he, "that
you should be so mortal stupit."

Again I begged him to speak out.

"Well, it's this of it," said he. "I told ye there were the two kinds
of women - them that would sell their shifts for ye, and the others.
Just you try for yoursel, my bonny man! But what's that neepkin at
your craig?"

I told him.

"I thocht it was something thereabout" said he.

Nor would he say another word though I besieged him long with
importunities.

CHAPTER XXX - THE LETTER FROM THE SHIP

DAYLIGHT showed us how solitary the inn stood. It was plainly hard
upon the sea, yet out of all view of it, and beset on every side with
scabbit hills of sand. There was, indeed, only one thing in the nature
of a prospect, where there stood out over a brae the two sails of a
windmill, like an ass's ears, but with the ass quite hidden. It was
strange (after the wind rose, for at first it was dead calm) to see the
turning and following of each other of these great sails behind the
hillock. Scarce any road came by there; but a number of footways
travelled among the bents in all directions up to Mr. Bazin's door.
The truth is, he was a man of many trades, not any one of them honest,
and the position of his inn was the best of his livelihood. Smugglers
frequented it; political agents and forfeited persons bound across the
water came there to await their passages; and I daresay there was worse
behind, for a whole family might have been butchered in that house and
nobody the wiser.

I slept little and ill. Long ere it was day, I had slipped from beside
my bedfellow, and was warming myself at the fire or walking to and fro
before the door. Dawn broke mighty sullen; but a little after, sprang
up a wind out of the west, which burst the clouds, let through the sun,
and set the mill to the turning. There was something of spring in the
sunshine, or else it was in my heart; and the appearing of the great
sails one after another from behind the hill, diverted me extremely.
At times I could hear a creak of the machinery; and by half-past eight
of the day, and I thought this dreary, desert place was like a
paradise.

For all which, as the day drew on and nobody came near, I began to be
aware of an uneasiness that I could scarce explain. It seemed there
was trouble afoot; the sails of the windmill, as they came up and went
down over the hill, were like persons spying; and outside of all fancy,
it was surely a strange neighbourhood and house for a young lady to be
brought to dwell in.

At breakfast, which we took late, it was manifest that James More was
in some danger or perplexity; manifest that Alan was alive to the same,
and watched him close; and this appearance of duplicity upon the one
side, and vigilance upon the other, held me on live coals. The meal
was no sooner over than James seemed to come began to make apologies.
He had an appointment of a private nature in the town (it was with the
French nobleman, he told me), and we would please excuse him till about
noon. Meanwhile he carried his daughter aside to the far end of the
room, where he seemed to speak rather earnestly and she to listen with
much inclination.

"I am caring less and less about this man James," said Alan. "There's
something no right with the man James, and I shouldnae wonder but what
Alan Breck would give an eye to him this day. I would like fine to see
yon French nobleman, Davie; and I daresay you could find an employ to
yoursel, and that would be to speir at the lassie for some news o' your
affair. Just tell it to her plainly - tell her ye're a muckle ass at
the off-set; and then, if I were you, and ye could do it naitural, I
would just mint to her I was in some kind of a danger; a' weemenfolk
likes that."

"I cannae lee, Alan, I cannae do it naitural," says I, mocking him.

"The more fool you!" says he. "Then ye'll can tell her that I
recommended it; that'll set her to the laughing; and I wouldnae wonder
but what that was the next best. But see to the pair of them! If I
didnae feel just sure of the lassie, and that she was awful pleased and
chief with Alan, I would think there was some kind of hocus-pocus about
you."

"And is she so pleased with ye, then, Alan?" I asked.

"She thinks a heap of me," says he. "And I'm no like you: I'm one
that can tell. That she does - she thinks a heap of Alan. And troth!
I'm thinking a good deal of him mysel; and with your permission, Shaws,
I'll be getting a wee yont amang the bents, so that I can see what way
James goes."

One after another went, till I was left alone beside the breakfast
table; James to Dunkirk, Alan dogging him, Catriona up the stairs to
her own chamber. I could very well understand how she should avoid to
be alone with me; yet was none the better pleased with it for that, and
bent my mind to entrap her to an interview before the men returned.
Upon the whole, the best appeared to me to do like Alan. If I was out
of view among the sandhills, the fine morning would decoy her forth;
and once I had her in the open, I could please myself.

No sooner said than done; nor was I long under the bield of a hillock
before she appeared at the inn door, looked here and there, and (seeing
nobody) set out by a path that led directly seaward, and by which I
followed her. I was in no haste to make my presence known; the further
she went I made sure of the longer hearing to my suit; and the ground
being all sandy it was easy to follow her unheard. The path rose and
came at last to the head of a knowe. Thence I had a picture for the
first time of what a desolate wilderness that inn stood hidden in;
where was no man to be seen, nor any house of man, except just Bazin's
and the windmill. Only a little further on, the sea appeared and two
or three ships upon it, pretty as a drawing. One of these was
extremely close in to be so great a vessel; and I was aware of a shock
of new suspicion, when I recognised the trim of the SEAHORSE. What
should an English ship be doing so near in to France? Why was Alan
brought into her neighbourhood, and that in a place so far from any
hope of rescue? and was it by accident, or by design, that the daughter
of James More should walk that day to the seaside?

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