Catriona

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"I must not ask?" says she, eagerly, the same moment we were left
alone.

"Ah, but to-day I can talk with a free conscience," I replied. "I am
lightened of my pledge, and indeed (after what has come and gone since
morning) I would not have renewed it were it asked."

"Tell me," she said. "My cousin will not be so long."

So I told her the tale of the lieutenant from the first step to the
last of it, making it as mirthful as I could, and, indeed, there was
matter of mirth in that absurdity.

"And I think you will be as little fitted for the rudas men as for the
pretty ladies, after all!" says she, when I had done. "But what was
your father that he could not learn you to draw the sword! It is most
ungentle; I have not heard the match of that in anyone."

"It is most misconvenient at least," said I; "and I think my father
(honest man!) must have been wool-gathering to learn me Latin in the
place of it. But you see I do the best I can, and just stand up like
Lot's wife and let them hammer at me."

"Do you know what makes me smile?" said she. "Well, it is this. I am
made this way, that I should have been a man child. In my own thoughts
it is so I am always; and I go on telling myself about this thing that
is to befall and that. Then it comes to the place of the fighting, and
it comes over me that I am only a girl at all events, and cannot hold a
sword or give one good blow; and then I have to twist my story round
about, so that the fighting is to stop, and yet me have the best of it,
just like you and the lieutenant; and I am the boy that makes the fine
speeches all through, like Mr. David Balfour."

"You are a bloodthirsty maid," said I.

"Well, I know it is good to sew and spin, and to make samplers," she
said, "but if you were to do nothing else in the great world, I think
you will say yourself it is a driech business; and it is not that I
want to kill, I think. Did ever you kill anyone?"

"That I have, as it chances. Two, no less, and me still a lad that
should be at the college," said I. "But yet, in the look-back, I take
no shame for it."

"But how did you feel, then - after it?" she asked.

'"Deed, I sat down and grat like a bairn," said I.

"I know that, too," she cried. "I feel where these tears should come
from. And at any rate, I would not wish to kill, only to be Catherine
Douglas that put her arm through the staples of the bolt, where it was
broken. That is my chief hero. Would you not love to die so - for
your king?" she asked.

"Troth," said I, "my affection for my king, God bless the puggy face of
him, is under more control; and I thought I saw death so near to me
this day already, that I am rather taken up with the notion of living."

"Right," she said, "the right mind of a man! Only you must learn arms;
I would not like to have a friend that cannot strike. But it will not
have been with the sword that you killed these two?"

"Indeed, no," said I, "but with a pair of pistols. And a fortunate
thing it was the men were so near-hand to me, for I am about as clever
with the pistols as I am with the sword."

So then she drew from me the story of our battle in the brig, which I
had omitted in my first account of my affairs.

"Yes," said she, "you are brave. And your friend, I admire and love
him."

"Well, and I think anyone would!" said I. "He has his faults like
other folk; but he is brave and staunch and kind, God bless him! That
will be a strange day when I forget Alan." And the thought of him, and
that it was within my choice to speak with him that night, had almost
overcome me.

"And where will my head be gone that I have not told my news!" she
cried, and spoke of a letter from her father, bearing that she might
visit him to-morrow in the castle whither he was now transferred, and
that his affairs were mending. "You do not like to hear it," said she.
"Will you judge my father and not know him?"

"I am a thousand miles from judging," I replied. "And I give you my
word I do rejoice to know your heart is lightened. If my face fell at
all, as I suppose it must, you will allow this is rather an ill day for
compositions, and the people in power extremely ill persons to be
compounding with. I have Simon Fraser extremely heavy on my stomach
still."

"Ah!" she cried, "you will not be evening these two; and you should
bear in mind that Prestongrange and James More, my father, are of the
one blood."

"I never heard tell of that," said I.

"It is rather singular how little you are acquainted with," said she.
"One part may call themselves Grant, and one Macgregor, but they are
still of the same clan. They are all the sons of Alpin, from whom, I
think, our country has its name."

"What country is that?" I asked.

"My country and yours," said she

"This is my day for discovering I think," said I, "for I always thought
the name of it was Scotland."

"Scotland is the name of what you call Ireland," she replied. "But the
old ancient true name of this place that we have our foot-soles on, and
that our bones are made of, will be Alban. It was Alban they called it
when our forefathers will be fighting for it against Rome and
Alexander; and it is called so still in your own tongue that you
forget."

"Troth," said I, "and that I never learned!" For I lacked heart to
take her up about the Macedonian.

"But your fathers and mothers talked it, one generation with another,"
said she. "And it was sung about the cradles before you or me were
ever dreamed of; and your name remembers it still. Ah, if you could
talk that language you would find me another girl. The heart speaks in
that tongue."

I had a meal with the two ladies, all very good, served in fine old
plate, and the wine excellent, for it seems that Mrs. Ogilvy was rich.
Our talk, too, was pleasant enough; but as soon as I saw the sun
decline sharply and the shadows to run out long, I rose to take my
leave. For my mind was now made up to say farewell to Alan; and it was
needful I should see the trysting wood, and reconnoitre it, by
daylight. Catriona came with me as far as to the garden gate.

"It is long till I see you now?" she asked.

"It is beyond my judging," I replied. "It will be long, it may be
never."

"It may be so," said she. "And you are sorry?"

I bowed my head, looking upon her.

"So am I, at all events," said she. "I have seen you but a small time,
but I put you very high. You are true, you are brave; in time I think
you will be more of a man yet. I will be proud to hear of that. If
you should speed worse, if it will come to fall as we are afraid - O
well! think you have the one friend. Long after you are dead and me an
old wife, I will be telling the bairns about David Balfour, and my
tears running. I will be telling how we parted, and what I said to
you, and did to you. GOD GO WITH YOU AND GUIDE YOU, PRAYS YOUR LITTLE
FRIEND: so I said - I will be telling them - and here is what I did."

She took up my hand and kissed it. This so surprised my spirits that I
cried out like one hurt. The colour came strong in her face, and she
looked at me and nodded.

"O yes, Mr. David," said she, "that is what I think of you. The head
goes with the lips."

I could read in her face high spirit, and a chivalry like a brave
child's; not anything besides. She kissed my hand, as she had kissed
Prince Charlie's, with a higher passion than the common kind of clay
has any sense of. Nothing before had taught me how deep I was her
lover, nor how far I had yet to climb to make her think of me in such a
character. Yet I could tell myself I had advanced some way, and that
her heart had beat and her blood flowed at thoughts of me.

After that honour she had done me I could offer no more trivial
civility. It was even hard for me to speak; a certain lifting in her
voice had knocked directly at the door of my own tears.

"I praise God for your kindness, dear," said I. "Farewell, my little
friend!" giving her that name which she had given to herself; with
which I bowed and left her.

My way was down the glen of the Leith River, towards Stockbridge and
Silvermills. A path led in the foot of it, the water bickered and sang
in the midst; the sunbeams overhead struck out of the west among long
shadows and (as the valley turned) made like a new scene and a new
world of it at every corner. With Catriona behind and Alan before me,
I was like one lifted up. The place besides, and the hour, and the
talking of the water, infinitely pleased me; and I lingered in my steps
and looked before and behind me as I went. This was the cause, under
Providence, that I spied a little in my rear a red head among some
bushes.

Anger sprang in my heart, and I turned straight about and walked at a
stiff pace to where I came from. The path lay close by the bushes
where I had remarked the head. The cover came to the wayside, and as I
passed I was all strung up to meet and to resist an onfall. No such
thing befell, I went by unmeddled with; and at that fear increased upon
me. It was still day indeed, but the place exceeding solitary. If my
haunters had let slip that fair occasion I could but judge they aimed
at something more than David Balfour. The lives of Alan and James
weighed upon my spirit with the weight of two grown bullocks.

Catriona was yet in the garden walking by herself.

"Catriona," said I, "you see me back again."

"With a changed face," said she.

"I carry two men's lives besides my own," said I. "It would be a sin
and shame not to walk carefully. I was doubtful whether I did right to
come here. I would like it ill, if it was by that means we were
brought to harm."

"I could tell you one that would be liking it less, and will like
little enough to hear you talking at this very same time," she cried.
"What have I done, at all events?"

"O, you I you are not alone," I replied. "But since I went off I have
been dogged again, and I can give you the name of him that follows me.
It is Neil, son of Duncan, your man or your father's."

"To be sure you are mistaken there," she said, with a white face.
"Neil is in Edinburgh on errands from my father."

"It is what I fear," said I, "the last of it. But for his being in
Edinburgh I think I can show you another of that. For sure you have
some signal, a signal of need, such as would bring him to your help, if
he was anywhere within the reach of ears and legs?"

"Why, how will you know that?" says she.

"By means of a magical talisman God gave to me when I was born, and the
name they call it by is Common-sense," said I. "Oblige me so far as
make your signal, and I will show you the red head of Neil."

No doubt but I spoke bitter and sharp. My heart was bitter. I blamed
myself and the girl and hated both of us: her for the vile crew that
she was come of, myself for my wanton folly to have stuck my head in
such a byke of wasps.

Catriona set her fingers to her lips and whistled once, with an
exceeding clear, strong, mounting note, as full as a ploughman's. A
while we stood silent; and I was about to ask her to repeat the same,
when I heard the sound of some one bursting through the bushes below on
the braeside. I pointed in that direction with a smile, and presently
Neil leaped into the garden. His eyes burned, and he had a black knife
(as they call it on the Highland side) naked in his hand; but, seeing
me beside his mistress, stood like a man struck.

"He has come to your call," said I; "judge how near he was to
Edinburgh, or what was the nature of your father's errands. Ask
himself. If I am to lose my life, or the lives of those that hang by
me, through the means of your clan, let me go where I have to go with
my eyes open."

She addressed him tremulously in the Gaelic. Remembering Alan's
anxious civility in that particular, I could have laughed out loud for
bitterness; here, sure, in the midst of these suspicions, was the hour
she should have stuck by English.

Twice or thrice they spoke together, and I could make out that Neil
(for all his obsequiousness) was an angry man.

Then she turned to me. "He swears it is not," she said.

"Catriona," said I, "do you believe the man yourself?"

She made a gesture like wringing the hands.

"How will I can know?" she cried.

But I must find some means to know," said I. "I cannot continue to go
dovering round in the black night with two men's lives at my girdle!
Catriona, try to put yourself in my place, as I vow to God I try hard
to put myself in yours. This is no kind of talk that should ever have
fallen between me and you; no kind of talk; my heart is sick with it.
See, keep him here till two of the morning, and I care not. Try him
with that."

They spoke together once more in the Gaelic.

"He says he has James More my father's errand," said she. She was
whiter than ever, and her voice faltered as she said it.

"It is pretty plain now," said I, "and may God forgive the wicked!"

She said never anything to that, but continued gazing at me with the
same white face.

"This is a fine business," said I again. "Am I to fall, then, and
those two along with me?"

"O, what am I to do?" she cried. "Could I go against my father's
orders, him in prison, in the danger of his life!"

"But perhaps we go too fast," said I. "This may be a lie too. He may
have no right orders; all may be contrived by Simon, and your father
knowing nothing."

She burst out weeping between the pair of us; and my heart smote me
hard, for I thought this girl was in a dreadful situation.

"Here," said I, "keep him but the one hour; and I'll chance it, and may
God bless you."

She put out her hand to me, "I will he needing one good word," she
sobbed.

"The full hour, then?" said I, keeping her hand in mine. "Three lives
of it, my lass!"

"The full hour!" she said, and cried aloud on her Redeemer to forgive
her.

I thought it no fit place for me, and fled.

CHAPTER XI - THE WOOD BY SILVERMILLS

I LOST no time, but down through the valley and by Stockbridge and
Silvermills as hard as I could stave. It was Alan's tryst to be every
night between twelve and two "in a bit scrog of wood by east of
Silvermills and by south the south mill-lade." This I found easy
enough, where it grew on a steep brae, with the mill-lade flowing swift
and deep along the foot of it; and here I began to walk slower and to
reflect more reasonably on my employment. I saw I had made but a
fool's bargain with Catriona. It was not to be supposed that Neil was
sent alone upon his errand, but perhaps he was the only man belonging
to James More; in which case I should have done all I could to hang
Catriona's father, and nothing the least material to help myself. To
tell the truth, I fancied neither one of these ideas. Suppose by
holding back Neil, the girl should have helped to hang her father, I
thought she would never forgive herself this side of time. And suppose
there were others pursuing me that moment, what kind of a gift was I
come bringing to Alan? and how would I like that?

I was up with the west end of that wood when these two considerations
struck me like a cudgel. My feet stopped of themselves and my heart
along with them. "What wild game is this that I have been playing?"
thought I; and turned instantly upon my heels to go elsewhere.

This brought my face to Silvermills; the path came past the village
with a crook, but all plainly visible; and, Highland or Lowland, there
was nobody stirring. Here was my advantage, here was just such a
conjuncture as Stewart had counselled me to profit by, and I ran by the
side of the mill-lade, fetched about beyond the east corner of the
wood, threaded through the midst of it, and returned to the west
selvage, whence I could again command the path, and yet be myself
unseen. Again it was all empty, and my heart began to rise.

For more than an hour I sat close in the border of the trees, and no
hare or eagle could have kept a more particular watch. When that hour
began the sun was already set, but the sky still all golden and the
daylight clear; before the hour was done it had fallen to be half mirk,
the images and distances of things were mingled, and observation began
to be difficult. All that time not a foot of man had come east from
Silvermills, and the few that had gone west were honest countryfolk and
their wives upon the road to bed. If I were tracked by the most
cunning spies in Europe, I judged it was beyond the course of nature
they could have any jealousy of where I was: and going a little
further home into the wood I lay down to wait for Alan.

The strain of my attention had been great, for I had watched not the
path only, but every bush and field within my vision. That was now at
an end. The moon, which was in her first quarter, glinted a little in
the wood; all round there was a stillness of the country; and as I lay
there on my back, the next three or four hours, I had a fine occasion
to review my conduct.

Two things became plain to me first: that I had no right to go that
day to Dean, and (having gone there) had now no right to be lying where
I was. This (where Alan was to come) was just the one wood in all
broad Scotland that was, by every proper feeling, closed against me; I
admitted that, and yet stayed on, wondering at myself. I thought of
the measure with which I had meted to Catriona that same night; how I
had prated of the two lives I carried, and had thus forced her to
enjeopardy her father's; and how I was here exposing them again, it
seemed in wantonness. A good conscience is eight parts of courage. No
sooner had I lost conceit of my behaviour, than I seemed to stand
disarmed amidst a throng of terrors. Of a sudden I sat up. How if I
went now to Prestongrange, caught him (as I still easily might) before
he slept, and made a full submission? Who could blame me? Not Stewart
the Writer; I had but to say that I was followed, despaired of getting
clear, and so gave in. Not Catriona: here, too, I had my answer
ready; that I could not bear she should expose her father. So, in a
moment, I could lay all these troubles by, which were after all and
truly none of mine; swim clear of the Appin Murder; get forth out of
hand-stroke of all the Stewarts and Campbells, all the Whigs and
Tories, in the land; and live henceforth to my own mind, and be able to
enjoy and to improve my fortunes, and devote some hours of my youth to
courting Catriona, which would be surely a more suitable occupation
than to hide and run and be followed like a hunted thief, and begin
over again the dreadful miseries of my escape with Alan.

At first I thought no shame of this capitulation; I was only amazed I
had not thought upon the thing and done it earlier; and began to
inquire into the causes of the change. These I traced to my lowness of
spirits, that back to my late recklessness, and that again to the
common, old, public, disconsidered sin of self-indulgence. Instantly
the text came in my head, "HOW CAN SATAN CAST OUT SATAN?" What? (I
thought) I had, by self-indulgence; and the following of pleasant
paths, and the lure of a young maid, cast myself wholly out of conceit
with my own character, and jeopardised the lives of James and Alan?
And I was to seek the way out by the same road as I had entered in?
No; the hurt that had been caused by self-indulgence must be cured by
self-denial; the flesh I had pampered must be crucified. I looked
about me for that course which I least liked to follow: this was to
leave the wood without waiting to see Alan, and go forth again alone,
in the dark and in the midst of my perplexed and dangerous fortunes.

I have been the more careful to narrate this passage of my reflections,
because I think it is of some utility, and may serve as an example to
young men. But there is reason (they say) in planting kale, and even
in ethic and religion, room for common sense. It was already close on
Alan's hour, and the moon was down. If I left (as I could not very
decently whistle to my spies to follow me) they might miss me in the
dark and tack themselves to Alan by mistake. If I stayed, I could at
the least of it set my friend upon his guard which might prove his mere
salvation. I had adventured other peoples' safety in a course of self-
indulgence; to have endangered them again, and now on a mere design of
penance, would have been scarce rational. Accordingly, I had scarce
risen from my place ere I sat down again, but already in a different
frame of spirits, and equally marvelling at my past weakness and
rejoicing in my present composure.

Presently after came a crackling in the thicket. Putting my mouth near
down to the ground, I whistled a note or two, of Alan's air; an answer
came in the like guarded tone, and soon we had knocked together in the
dark.

"Is this you at last, Davie?" he whispered.

"Just myself," said I.

"God, man, but I've been wearying to see ye!" says he. "I've had the
longest kind of a time. A' day, I've had my dwelling into the inside
of a stack of hay, where I couldnae see the nebs of my ten fingers; and
then two hours of it waiting here for you, and you never coming! Dod,
and ye're none too soon the way it is, with me to sail the morn! The
morn? what am I saying? - the day, I mean."

"Ay, Alan, man, the day, sure enough," said I. "It's past twelve now,
surely, and ye sail the day. This'll be a long road you have before
you."

"We'll have a long crack of it first," said he.

"Well, indeed, and I have a good deal it will be telling you to hear,"
said I.

And I told him what behooved, making rather a jumble of it, but clear
enough when done. He heard me out with very few questions, laughing
here and there like a man delighted: and the sound of his laughing
(above all there, in the dark, where neither one of us could see the
other) was extraordinary friendly to my heart.

"Ay, Davie, ye're a queer character," says he, when I had done: "a
queer bitch after a', and I have no mind of meeting with the like of
ye. As for your story, Prestongrange is a Whig like yoursel', so I'll
say the less of him; and, dod! I believe he was the best friend ye had,
if ye could only trust him. But Simon Fraser and James More are my ain
kind of cattle, and I'll give them the name that they deserve. The
muckle black deil was father to the Frasers, a'body kens that; and as
for the Gregara, I never could abye the reek of them since I could
stotter on two feet. I bloodied the nose of one, I mind, when I was
still so wambly on my legs that I cowped upon the top of him. A proud
man was my father that day, God rest him! and I think he had the cause.
I'll never can deny but what Robin was something of a piper," he added;
"but as for James More, the deil guide him for me!"

"One thing we have to consider," said I. "Was Charles Stewart right or
wrong? Is it only me they're after, or the pair of us?"

"And what's your ain opinion, you that's a man of so much experience?"
said he.

"It passes me," said I.

"And me too," says Alan. "Do ye think this lass would keep her word to
ye?" he asked.

"I do that," said I.

"Well, there's nae telling," said he. "And anyway, that's over and
done: he'll be joined to the rest of them lang syne."

"How many would ye think there would be of them?" I asked.

"That depends," said Alan. "If it was only you, they would likely send
two-three lively, brisk young birkies, and if they thought that I was
to appear in the employ, I daresay ten or twelve," said he.

It was no use, I gave a little crack of laughter.

"And I think your own two eyes will have seen me drive that number, or
the double of it, nearer hand!" cries he.

"It matters the less," said I, "because I am well rid of them for this
time."

"Nae doubt that's your opinion," said he; "but I wouldnae be the least
surprised if they were hunkering this wood. Ye see, David man; they'll
be Hieland folk. There'll be some Frasers, I'm thinking, and some of
the Gregara; and I would never deny but what the both of them, and the
Gregara in especial, were clever experienced persons. A man kens
little till he's driven a spreagh of neat cattle (say) ten miles
through a throng lowland country and the black soldiers maybe at his
tail. It's there that I learned a great part of my penetration. And
ye need nae tell me: it's better than war; which is the next best,
however, though generally rather a bauchle of a business. Now the
Gregara have had grand practice."

"No doubt that's a branch of education that was left out with me," said
I.

"And I can see the marks of it upon ye constantly," said Alan. "But
that's the strange thing about you folk of the college learning: ye're
ignorat, and ye cannae see 't. Wae's me for my Greek and Hebrew; but,
man, I ken that I dinnae ken them - there's the differ of it. Now,
here's you. Ye lie on your wame a bittie in the bield of this wood,
and ye tell me that ye've cuist off these Frasers and Macgregors. Why?
BECAUSE I COULDNAE SEE THEM, says you. Ye blockhead, that's their
livelihood."

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