Catriona

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22

He led me into another long room above, where a dry old lady sat at a
frame of embroidery, and the three handsomest young women (I suppose)
in Scotland stood together by a window.

"This is my new friend, Mr Balfour," said he, presenting me by the arm,
"David, here is my sister, Miss Grant, who is so good as keep my house
for me, and will be very pleased if she can help you. And here," says
he, turning to the three younger ladies, "here are my THREE BRAW
DAUCHTERS. A fair question to ye, Mr. Davie: which of the three is
the best favoured? And I wager he will never have the impudence to
propound honest Alan Ramsay's answer!"

Hereupon all three, and the old Miss Grant as well, cried out against
this sally, which (as I was acquainted with the verses he referred to)
brought shame into my own check. It seemed to me a citation
unpardonable in a father, and I was amazed that these ladies could
laugh even while they reproved, or made believe to.

Under cover of this mirth, Prestongrange got forth of the chamber, and
I was left, like a fish upon dry land, in that very unsuitable society.
I could never deny, in looking back upon what followed, that I was
eminently stockish; and I must say the ladies were well drilled to have
so long a patience with me. The aunt indeed sat close at her
embroidery, only looking now and again and smiling; but the misses, and
especially the eldest, who was besides the most handsome, paid me a
score of attentions which I was very ill able to repay. It was all in
vain to tell myself I was a young follow of some worth as well as a
good estate, and had no call to feel abashed before these lasses, the
eldest not so much older than myself, and no one of them by any
probability half as learned. Reasoning would not change the fact; and
there were times when the colour came into my face to think I was
shaved that day for the first time.

The talk going, with all their endeavours, very heavily, the eldest
took pity on my awkwardness, sat down to her instrument, of which she
was a passed mistress, and entertained me for a while with playing and
singing, both in the Scots and in the Italian manners; this put me more
at my ease, and being reminded of Alan's air that he had taught me in
the hole near Carriden, I made so bold as to whistle a bar or two, and
ask if she knew that.

She shook her head. "I never heard a note of it," said she. "Whistle
it all through. And now once again," she added, after I had done so.

Then she picked it out upon the keyboard, and (to my surprise)
instantly enriched the same with well-sounding chords, and sang, as she
played, with a very droll expression and broad accent -

"Haenae I got just the lilt of it?
Isnae this the tune that ye whustled?"

"You see," she says, "I can do the poetry too, only it won't rhyme.
And then again:

"I am Miss Grant, sib to the Advocate:
You, I believe, are Dauvit Balfour."

I told her how much astonished I was by her genius.

"And what do you call the name of it?" she asked.

"I do not know the real name," said I. "I just call it ALAN'S AIR."

She looked at me directly in the face. "I shall call it DAVID'S AIR,"
said she; "though if it's the least like what your namesake of Israel
played to Saul I would never wonder that the king got little good by
it, for it's but melancholy music. Your other name I do not like; so
if you was ever wishing to hear your tune again you are to ask for it
by mine."

This was said with a significance that gave my heart a jog. "Why that,
Miss Grant?" I asked.

"Why," says she, "if ever you should come to get hanged, I will set
your last dying speech and confession to that tune and sing it."

This put it beyond a doubt that she was partly informed of my story and
peril. How, or just how much, it was more difficult to guess. It was
plain she knew there was something of danger in the name of Alan, and
thus warned me to leave it out of reference; and plain she knew that I
stood under some criminal suspicion. I judged besides that the
harshness of her last speech (which besides she had followed up
immediately with a very noisy piece of music) was to put an end to the
present conversation. I stood beside her, affecting to listen and
admire, but truly whirled away by my own thoughts. I have always found
this young lady to be a lover of the mysterious; and certainly this
first interview made a mystery that was beyond my plummet. One thing I
learned long after, the hours of the Sunday had been well employed, the
bank porter had been found and examined, my visit to Charles Stewart
was discovered, and the deduction made that I was pretty deep with
James and Alan, and most likely in a continued correspondence with the
last. Hence this broad hint that was given me across the harpsichord.

In the midst of the piece of music, one of the younger misses, who was
at a window over the close, cried on her sisters to come quick, for
there was "GREY EYES again." The whole family trooped there at once,
and crowded one another for a look. The window whither they ran was in
an odd corner of that room, gave above the entrance door, and flanked
up the close.

"Come, Mr. Balfour," they cried, "come and see. She is the most
beautiful creature! She hangs round the close-head these last days,
always with some wretched-like gillies, and yet seems quite a lady."

I had no need to look; neither did I look twice, or long. I was afraid
she might have seen me there, looking down upon her from that chamber
of music, and she without, and her father in the same house, perhaps
begging for his life with tears, and myself come but newly from
rejecting his petitions. But even that glance set me in a better
conceit of myself and much less awe of the young ladies. They were
beautiful, that was beyond question, but Catriona was beautiful too,
and had a kind of brightness in her like a coal of fire. As much as
the others cast me down, she lifted me up. I remembered I had talked
easily with her. If I could make no hand of it with these fine maids,
it was perhaps something their own fault. My embarrassment began to be
a little mingled and lightened with a sense of fun; and when the aunt
smiled at me from her embroidery, and the three daughters unbent to me
like a baby, all with "papa's orders" written on their faces, there
were times when I could have found it in my heart to smile myself.

Presently papa returned, the same kind, happy-like, pleasant-spoken
man.

"Now, girls," said he, "I must take Mr. Balfour away again; but I hope
you have been able to persuade him to return where I shall be always
gratified to find him."

So they each made me a little farthing compliment, and I was led away.

If this visit to the family had been meant to soften my resistance, it
was the worst of failures. I was no such ass but what I understood how
poor a figure I had made, and that the girls would be yawning their
jaws off as soon as my stiff back was turned. I felt I had shown how
little I had in me of what was soft and graceful; and I longed for a
chance to prove that I had something of the other stuff, the stern and
dangerous.

Well, I was to be served to my desire, for the scene to which he was
conducting me was of a different character.

CHAPTER VI - UMQUILE THE MASTER OF LOVAT

THERE was a man waiting us in Prestongrange's study, whom I distasted
at the first look, as we distaste a ferret or an earwig. He was bitter
ugly, but seemed very much of a gentleman; had still manners, but
capable of sudden leaps and violences; and a small voice, which could
ring out shrill and dangerous when he so desired.

The Advocate presented us in a familiar, friendly way.

"Here, Fraser," said he, "here is Mr. Balfour whom we talked about.
Mr. David, this is Mr. Simon Fraser, whom we used to call by another
title, but that is an old song. Mr. Fraser has an errand to you."

With that he stepped aside to his book-shelves, and made believe to
consult a quarto volume in the far end.

I was thus left (in a sense) alone with perhaps the last person in the
world I had expected. There was no doubt upon the terms of
introduction; this could be no other than the forfeited Master of Lovat
and chief of the great clan Fraser. I knew he had led his men in the
Rebellion; I knew his father's head - my old lord's, that grey fox of
the mountains - to have fallen on the block for that offence, the lands
of the family to have been seized, and their nobility attainted. I
could not conceive what he should be doing in Grant's house; I could
not conceive that he had been called to the bar, had eaten all his
principles, and was now currying favour with the Government even to the
extent of acting Advocate-Depute in the Appin murder.

"Well, Mr. Balfour," said he, "what is all this I hear of ye?"

"It would not become me to prejudge," said I, "but if the Advocate was
your authority he is fully possessed of my opinions."

"I may tell you I am engaged in the Appin case," he went on; "I am to
appear under Prestongrange; and from my study of the precognitions I
can assure you your opinions are erroneous. The guilt of Breck is
manifest; and your testimony, in which you admit you saw him on the
hill at the very moment, will certify his hanging."

"It will be rather ill to hang him till you catch him," I observed.
"And for other matters I very willingly leave you to your own
impressions."

"The Duke has been informed," he went on. "I have just come from his
Grace, and he expressed himself before me with an honest freedom like
the great nobleman he is. He spoke of you by name, Mr. Balfour, and
declared his gratitude beforehand in case you would be led by those who
understand your own interests and those of the country so much better
than yourself. Gratitude is no empty expression in that mouth:
EXPERTO-CREDE. I daresay you know something of my name and clan, and
the damnable example and lamented end of my late father, to say nothing
of my own errata. Well, I have made my peace with that good Duke; he
has intervened for me with our friend Prestongrange; and here I am with
my foot in the stirrup again and some of the responsibility shared into
my hand of prosecuting King George's enemies and avenging the late
daring and barefaced insult to his Majesty."

"Doubtless a proud position for your father's son," says I.

He wagged his bald eyebrows at me. "You are pleased to make
experiments in the ironical, I think," said he. "But I am here upon
duty, I am here to discharge my errand in good faith, it is in vain you
think to divert me. And let me tell you, for a young fellow of spirit
and ambition like yourself, a good shove in the beginning will do more
than ten years' drudgery. The shove is now at your command; choose
what you will to be advanced in, the Duke will watch upon you with the
affectionate disposition of a father."

"I am thinking that I lack the docility of the son," says I.

"And do you really suppose, sir, that the whole policy of this country
is to be suffered to trip up and tumble down for an ill-mannered colt
of a boy?" he cried. "This has been made a test case, all who would
prosper in the future must put a shoulder to the wheel. Look at me!
Do you suppose it is for my pleasure that I put myself in the highly
invidious position of persecuting a man that I have drawn the sword
alongside of? The choice is not left me."

"But I think, sir, that you forfeited your choice when you mixed in
with that unnatural rebellion," I remarked. "My case is happily
otherwise; I am a true man, and can look either the Duke or King George
in the face without concern."

"Is it so the wind sits?" says he. "I protest you are fallen in the
worst sort of error. Prestongrange has been hitherto so civil (he
tells me) as not to combat your allegations; but you must not think
they are not looked upon with strong suspicion. You say you are
innocent. My dear sir, the facts declare you guilty."

"I was waiting for you there," said I.

"The evidence of Mungo Campbell; your flight after the completion of
the murder; your long course of secresy - my good young man!" said Mr.
Simon, "here is enough evidence to hang a bullock, let be a David
Balfour! I shall be upon that trial; my voice shall be raised; I shall
then speak much otherwise from what I do to-day, and far less to your
gratification, little as you like it now! Ah, you look white!" cries
he. "I have found the key of your impudent heart. You look pale, your
eyes waver, Mr. David! You see the grave and the gallows nearer by
than you had fancied."

"I own to a natural weakness," said I. "I think no shame for that.
Shame. . ." I was going on.

"Shame waits for you on the gibbet," he broke in.

"Where I shall but be even'd with my lord your father," said I.

"Aha, but not so!" he cried, "and you do not yet see to the bottom of
this business. My father suffered in a great cause, and for dealing in
the affairs of kings. You are to hang for a dirty murder about boddle-
pieces. Your personal part in it, the treacherous one of holding the
poor wretch in talk, your accomplices a pack of ragged Highland
gillies. And it can be shown, my great Mr. Balfour - it can be shown,
and it WILL be shown, trust ME that has a finger in the pie - it can be
shown, and shall be shown, that you were paid to do it. I think I can
see the looks go round the court when I adduce my evidence, and it
shall appear that you, a young man of education, let yourself be
corrupted to this shocking act for a suit of cast clothes, a bottle of
Highland spirits, and three-and-fivepence-halfpenny in copper money."

There was a touch of the truth in these words that knocked me like a
blow: clothes, a bottle of USQUEBAUGH, and three-and-fivepence-
halfpenny in change made up, indeed, the most of what Alan and I had
carried from Auchurn; and I saw that some of James's people had been
blabbing in their dungeons.

"You see I know more than you fancied," he resumed in triumph. "And as
for giving it this turn, great Mr. David, you must not suppose the
Government of Great Britain and Ireland will ever be stuck for want of
evidence. We have men here in prison who will swear out their lives as
we direct them; as I direct, if you prefer the phrase. So now you are
to guess your part of glory if you choose to die. On the one hand,
life, wine, women, and a duke to be your handgun: on the other, a rope
to your craig, and a gibbet to clatter your bones on, and the lousiest,
lowest story to hand down to your namesakes in the future that was ever
told about a hired assassin. And see here!" he cried, with a
formidable shrill voice, "see this paper that I pull out of my pocket.
Look at the name there: it is the name of the great David, I believe,
the ink scarce dry yet. Can you guess its nature? It is the warrant
for your arrest, which I have but to touch this bell beside me to have
executed on the spot. Once in the Tolbooth upon this paper, may God
help you, for the die is cast!"

I must never deny that I was greatly horrified by so much baseness, and
much unmanned by the immediacy and ugliness of my danger. Mr. Simon
had already gloried in the changes of my hue; I make no doubt I was now
no ruddier than my shirt; my speech besides trembled.

"There is a gentleman in this room," cried I. "I appeal to him. I put
my life and credit in his hands."

Prestongrange shut his book with a snap. "I told you so, Simon," said
he; "you have played your hand for all it was worth, and you have lost.
Mr. David," he went on, "I wish you to believe it was by no choice of
mine you were subjected to this proof. I wish you could understand how
glad I am you should come forth from it with so much credit. You may
not quite see how, but it is a little of a service to myself. For had
our friend here been more successful than I was last night, it might
have appeared that he was a better judge of men than I; it might have
appeared we were altogether in the wrong situations, Mr. Simon and
myself. And I know our friend Simon to be ambitious," says he,
striking lightly on Fraser's shoulder. "As for this stage play, it is
over; my sentiments are very much engaged in your behalf; and whatever
issue we can find to this unfortunate affair, I shall make it my
business to see it is adopted with tenderness to you."

These were very good words, and I could see besides that there was
little love, and perhaps a spice of genuine ill-will, between these two
who were opposed to me. For all that, it was unmistakable this
interview had been designed, perhaps rehearsed, with the consent of
both; it was plain my adversaries were in earnest to try me by all
methods; and now (persuasion, flattery, and menaces having been tried
in vain) I could not but wonder what would be their next expedient. My
eyes besides were still troubled, and my knees loose under me, with the
distress of the late ordeal; and I could do no more than stammer the
same form of words: "I put my life and credit in your hands."

"Well, well," said he, "we must try to save them. And in the meanwhile
let us return to gentler methods. You must not bear any grudge upon my
friend, Mr. Simon, who did but speak by his brief. And even if you did
conceive some malice against myself, who stood by and seemed rather to
hold a candle, I must not let that extend to innocent members of my
family. These are greatly engaged to see more of you, and I cannot
consent to have my young womenfolk disappointed. To-morrow they will
be going to Hope Park, where I think it very proper you should make
your bow. Call for me first, when I may possibly have something for
your private hearing; then you shall be turned abroad again under the
conduct of my misses; and until that time repeat to me your promise of
secrecy."

I had done better to have instantly refused, but in truth I was beside
the power of reasoning; did as I was bid; took my leave I know not how;
and when I was forth again in the close, and the door had shut behind
me, was glad to lean on a house wall and wipe my face. That horrid
apparition (as I may call it) of Mr. Simon rang in my memory, as a
sudden noise rings after it is over in the ear. Tales of the man's
father, of his falseness, of his manifold perpetual treacheries, rose
before me from all that I had heard and read, and joined on with what I
had just experienced of himself. Each time it occurred to me, the
ingenious foulness of that calumny he had proposed to nail upon my
character startled me afresh. The case of the man upon the gibbet by
Leith Walk appeared scarce distinguishable from that I was now to
consider as my own. To rob a child of so little more than nothing was
certainly a paltry enterprise for two grown men; but my own tale, as it
was to be represented in a court by Simon Fraser, appeared a fair
second in every possible point of view of sordidness and cowardice.

The voices of two of Prestongrange's liveried men upon his doorstep
recalled me to myself.

"Ha'e," said the one, "this billet as fast as ye can link to the
captain."

"Is that for the cateran back again?" asked the other.

"It would seem sae," returned the first. "Him and Simon are seeking
him."

"I think Prestongrange is gane gyte," says the second. "He'll have
James More in bed with him next."

"Weel, it's neither your affair nor mine's," said the first.

And they parted, the one upon his errand, and the other back into the
house.

This looked as ill as possible. I was scarce gone and they were
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.

"Preserve me!" she cried. "Has Ebenezer gotten a son?"

"No, ma'am," said I. "I am a son of Alexander's. It's I that am the
Laird of Shaws."

"Ye'll find your work cut out for ye to establish that," quoth she.

"I perceive you know my uncle," said I; "and I daresay you may be the
better pleased to hear that business is arranged."

"And what brings ye here after Miss Drummond?" she pursued.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22