29A second sermon.
29A second sermon.
Atthe door of the first house we came to Alan knocked, which was no very safe enterprise in such a part of the Highlands as the Braes of Balquhidder. No great clan held rule there; it was filled and disputed by small septs, and broken remnants, and what they call “chiefless folk,” driven into the wild country about the springs of Forth and Teith by the advance of the Campbells. Here were Stewarts and Maclarens, which came to the same thing, for the Maclarens followed Alan’s chief in war, and made but one clan with Appin. Here, too, were many of that old, proscribed, nameless, red-handed clan of the Macgregors. They had always been ill-considered, and now worse than ever, having credit with no side or party in the whole country of Scotland. Their chief, Macgregor of Macgregor, was in exile; the more immediate leader of that part of them about Balquhidder, James More, Rob Roy’s eldest son, lay waiting his trial in Edinburgh Castle; they were in ill-blood with Highlander and Lowlander, with the Grahames, the Maclarens, and the Stewarts; and Alan, who took up the quarrel of any friend, however distant, was extremely wishful to avoid them.
Chance served us very well; for it was a household of Maclarens that we found, where Alan was not only welcome for his name’s sake, but known by reputation. Here then I was got to bed without delay, and a doctor fetched, who found me in a sorry plight. But whether because he was a very good doctor, or I a very young, strong man, I lay bedridden for no more than a week, and before a month I was able to take the road again with a good heart.
All this time Alan would not leave me, though I often pressed him, and indeed his foolhardiness in staying was a common subject of outcry with the two or three friends that were let into the secret. He hid by day in a hole of the braes under a little wood; and at night, when the coast was clear, would come into the house to visit me. I need not say if I was pleased to see him; Mrs. Maclaren, our hostess, thought nothing good enough for such a guest; and as Duncan Dhu (which was the name of our host) had a pair of pipes in his house, and was much of a lover of music, the time of my recovery was quite a festival, and we commonly turned night into day.
The soldiers let us be; although once a party of two companies and some dragoons went by in the bottom of the valley, where I could see them through the window as I lay in bed. What was much more astonishing, no magistrate came near me, and there was no question put of whence I came or whither I was going; and in that time of excitement I was as free of all inquiry as though I had lain in a desert. Yet my presence was known before I left to all the people in Balquhidder and the adjacent parts; many coming about the house on visits, and these (after the custom of the country) spreading the news among their neighbours. The bills, too, had now been printed. There was one pinned near the foot of my bed, where I could read my own not very flattering portrait, and, in larger characters, the amount of the blood-money that had been set upon my life. Duncan Dhu and the rest that knew that I had come there in Alan’s company could have entertained no doubt of who I was; and many others must have had their guess. For though I had changed my clothes, I could not change my age or person; and Lowland boys of eighteen were not so rife in these parts of the world, and above all about that time, that they could fail to put one thing with another, and connect me with the bill. So it was, at least. Other folk keep a secret among two or three near friends, and somehow it leaks out; but among these clansmen, it is told to a whole countryside, and they will keep it for a century.
There was but one thing happened worth narrating; and that is the visit I had of Robin Oig, one of the sons of the notorious Rob Roy. He was sought upon all sides on the charge of carrying a young woman from Balfron and marrying her (as was alleged) by force; yet he stepped about Balquhidder like a gentleman in his own walled policy. It was he who had shot James Maclaren at the plough-stilts, a quarrel never satisfied; yet he walked into the house of his blood enemies as a rider30might into a public inn.
Duncan had time to pass me word of who it was; and we looked at one another in concern. You should understand, it was then close upon the time of Alan’s coming; the two were little likely to agree; and yet if we sent word or sought to make a signal, it was sure to arouse suspicion in a man under so dark a cloud as the Macgregor.
He came in with a great show of civility, but like a man among inferiors; took off his bonnet to Mrs. Maclaren, but clapped it on his head again to speak to Duncan; and having thus set himself (as he would have thought) in a proper light, came to my bedside and bowed.
“I am given to know, sir,” says he, “that your name is Balfour.”
“They call me David Balfour,” said I, “at your service.”
“I would give ye my name in return, sir,” he replied, “but it’s one somewhat blown upon of late days; and it’ll perhaps suffice if I tell ye that I am own brother to James More Drummond or Macgregor, of whom ye will scarce have failed to hear.”
“No, sir,” said I, a little alarmed; “nor yet of your father, Macgregor-Campbell.” And I sat up and bowed in bed; for I thought best to compliment him, in case he was proud of having had an outlaw to his father.
He bowed in return. “But what I am come to say, sir,” he went on, “is this. In the year ’Forty-five my brother raised a part of the ‘Gregara,’ and marched sixcompanies to strike a stroke for the good side; and the surgeon that marched with our clan and cured my brother’s leg when it was broken in the brush at Prestonpans, was a gentleman of the same name precisely as yourself. He was brother to Balfour of Baith; and if you are in any reasonable degree of nearness one of that gentleman’s kin, I have come to put myself and my people at your command.”
You are to remember that I knew no more of my descent than any cadger’s dog; my uncle, to be sure, had prated of some of our high connections, but nothing to the present purpose; and there was nothing left me but that bitter disgrace of owning that I could not tell.
Robin told me shortly he was sorry he had put himself about, turned his back upon me without a sign of salutation, and as he went towards the door I could hear him telling Duncan that I was “only some kinless loon that didn’t know his own father.” Angry as I was at these words, and ashamed of my own ignorance, I could scarce keep from smiling that a man who was under the lash of the law (and was indeed hanged some three years later) should be so nice as to the descent of his acquaintances.
Just in the door he met Alan coming in; and the two drew back and looked at each other like strange dogs. They were neither of them big men, but they seemed fairly to swell out with pride. Each wore a sword, and by a movement of his haunch, thrust clear the hilt of it, so that it might be the more readily grasped and the blade drawn.
“Mr. Stewart, I am thinking,” says Robin.
“Troth, Mr. Macgregor, it’s not a name to be ashamed of,” answered Alan.
“I did not know ye were in my country, sir,” says Robin.
“It sticks in my mind that I am in the country of my friends the Maclarens,” says Alan.
“That’s a kittle point,” returned the other. “There may be two words to say to that. But I think I will have heard that you are a man of your sword?”
“Unless ye were born deaf, Mr. Macgregor, ye will have heard a good deal more than that,” says Alan. “I am not the only man that can draw steel in Appin; and when my kinsman and captain, Ardshiel, had a talk with a gentleman of your name, not so many years back, I could never hear that the Macgregor had the best of it.”
“Do ye mean my father, sir?” says Robin.
“Well, I wouldna wonder,” said Alan. “The gentleman I have in my mind had the ill-taste to clap Campbell to his name.”
“My father was an old man,” returned Robin. “The match was unequal. You and me would make a better pair, sir.”
“I was thinking that,” said Alan.
I was half out of bed, and Duncan had been hanging at the elbow of these fighting-cocks, ready to intervene upon the least occasion. But when that word was uttered, it was a case of now or never; and Duncan, with something of a white face to be sure, thrust himself between.
“Gentlemen,” said he, “I will have been thinking of a very different matter, whateffer. Here are my pipes, and here are you two gentlemen who are baith acclaimed pipers. It’s an auld dispute which one of ye’s the best. Here will be a braw chance to settle it.”
“Why, sir,” said Alan, still addressing Robin, from whom, indeed, he had not so much as shifted his eyes, nor yet Robin from him, “why, sir,” says Alan, “I think I will have heard some sough31of the sort. Have ye music, as folk say? Are ye a bit of a piper?”
“I can pipe like a Macrimmon!” cries Robin.
“And that is a very bold word,” quoth Alan.
“I have made bolder words good before now,” returned Robin, “and that against better adversaries.”
“It is easy to try that,” says Alan.
Duncan Dhu made haste to bring out the pair of pipes that was his principal possession, and to set before hisguests a mutton-ham and a bottle of that drink which they call Athole brose, and which is made of old whisky, strained honey and sweet cream, slowly beaten together in the right order and proportion. The two enemies were still on the very breach of a quarrel; but down they sat, one upon each side of the peat fire, with a mighty show of politeness. Maclaren pressed them to taste his mutton-ham and “the wife’s brose,” reminding them the wife was out of Athole and had a name far and wide for her skill in that confection. But Robin put aside these hospitalities as bad for the breath.
“I would have ye to remark, sir,” said Alan, “that I havena broken bread for near upon ten hours, which will be worse for the breath than any brose in Scotland.”
“I will take no advantages, Mr. Stewart,” replied Robin. “Eat and drink; I’ll follow you.”
Each ate a small portion of the ham and drank a glass of the brose to Mrs. Maclaren; and then, after a great number of civilities, Robin took the pipes and played a little spring in a very ranting manner.
“Ay, ye can blow,” said Alan; and taking the instrument from his rival, he first played the same spring in a manner identical with Robin’s; and then wandered into variations, which, as he went on, he decorated with a perfect flight of grace-notes, such as pipers love, and call the “warblers.”
I had been pleased with Robin’s playing; Alan’s ravished me.
“That’s no’ very bad, Mr. Stewart,” said the rival, “but ye show a poor device in your warblers.”
“Me!” cried Alan, the blood starting to his face. “I give ye the lie.”
“Do ye own yourself beaten at the pipes, then,” said Robin, “that ye seek to change them for the sword?”
“And that’s very well said, Mr. Macgregor,” returned Alan; “and in the meantime” (laying a strong accent on the word) “I take back the lie. I appeal to Duncan.”
“Indeed, ye need apply to naebody,” said Robin.“Ye’re a far better judge than any Maclaren in Balquhidder: for it’s a God’s truth that you’re a very creditable piper for a Stewart. Hand me the pipes.”
Alan did as he asked; and Robin proceeded to imitate and correct some part of Alan’s variations, which it seemed that he remembered perfectly.
“Ay, ye have music,” said Alan gloomily.
“And now be the judge yourself, Mr. Stewart,” said Robin; and taking up the variations from the beginning, he worked them throughout to so new a purpose, with such ingenuity and sentiment, and with so odd a fancy and so quick a knack in the grace-notes, that I was amazed to hear him.
As for Alan, his face grew dark and hot, and he sat and gnawed his fingers, like a man under some deep affront. “Enough!” he cried. “Ye can blow the pipes—make the most of that.” And he made as if to rise.
But Robin only held out his hand as if to ask for silence, and struck into the slow measure of a pibroch. It was a fine piece of music in itself, and nobly played; but it seems, besides, it was a piece peculiar to the Appin Stewarts and a chief favourite with Alan. The first notes were scarce out, before there came a change in his face; when the time quickened he seemed to grow restless in his seat; and long before that piece was at an end, the last signs of his anger died from him, and he had no thought but for the music.
“Robin Oig,” he said, when it was done, “ye are a great piper. I am not fit to blow in the same kingdom with ye. Body of me! ye have mair music in your sporran than I have in my head! And though it still sticks in my mind that I could maybe show ye another of it with the cold steel, I warn ye beforehand—it’ll no’ be fair! It would go against my heart to haggle a man that can blow the pipes as you can!”
Thereupon that quarrel was made up; all night long the brose was going and the pipes changing hands; and the day had come pretty bright, and the three men were none the better for what they had been taking, before Robin as much as thought upon the road.
30Commercial traveller.31Rumour.
30Commercial traveller.
31Rumour.
Themonth, as I have said, was not yet out, but it was already far through August, and beautiful warm weather, with every sign of an early and great harvest, when I was pronounced able for my journey. Our money was now run to so low an ebb that we must think first of all on speed; for if we came not soon to Mr. Rankeillor’s, or if when we came there he should fail to help me, we must surely starve. In Alan’s view, besides, the hunt must have now greatly slackened; and the line of the Forth and even Stirling Bridge, which is the main pass over that river, would be watched with little interest.
“It’s a chief principle in military affairs,” said he, “to go where ye are least expected. Forth is our trouble; ye ken the saying, ‘Forth bridles the wild Hielandman.’ Well, if we seek to creep round about the head of that river and come down by Kippen or Balfron, it’s just precisely there that they’ll be looking to lay hands on us. But if we stave on straight to the auld Brig of Stirling, I’ll lay my sword they let us pass unchallenged.”
The first night, accordingly, we pushed to the house of a Maclaren in Strathire, a friend of Duncan’s, where we slept the twenty-first of the month, and whence we set forth again about the fall of night to make another easy stage. The twenty-second we lay in a heather bush on the hill-side in Uam Var, within view of a herd of deer, the happiest ten hours of sleep in a fine, breathing sunshine and on bone-dry ground, that I have ever tasted. That night we struck Allan Water, and followed it down; andcoming to the edge of the hills saw the whole Carse of Stirling underfoot, as flat as a pancake, with the town and castle on a hill in the midst of it, and the moon shining on the Links of Forth.
“Now,” said Alan, “I kenna if ye care, but ye’re in your own land again. We passed the Hieland Line in the first hour; and now if we could but pass yon crooked water, we might cast our bonnets in the air.”
In Allan Water, near by where it falls into the Forth, we found a little sandy islet, overgrown with burdock, butterbur, and the like low plants, that would just cover us if we lay flat. Here it was we made our camp, within plain view of Stirling Castle, whence we could hear the drums beat as some part of the garrison paraded. Shearers worked all day in a field on one side of the river, and we could hear the stones going on the hooks, and the voices, and even the words, of the men talking. It behoved to lie close and keep silent. But the sand of the little isle was sun-warm, the green plants gave us shelter for our heads, we had food and drink in plenty; and, to crown all, we were within sight of safety.
As soon as the shearers quit their work and the dusk began to fall, we waded ashore and struck for the Bridge of Stirling, keeping to the fields and under the field fences.
The bridge is close under the castle hill, an old, high, narrow bridge with pinnacles along the parapet; and you may conceive with how much interest I looked upon it, not only as a place famous in history, but as the very doors of salvation to Alan and myself. The moon was not yet up when we came there; a few lights shone along the front of the fortress, and lower down a few lighted windows in the town; but it was all mighty still, and there seemed to be no guard upon the passage.
I was for pushing straight across; but Alan was more wary.
“It looks unco quiet,” said he; “but for all that we’ll lie down here cannily behind a dyke, and make sure.”
So we lay for about a quarter of an hour, whiles whispering, whiles lying still and hearing nothing earthly but the washing of the water on the piers. At last there came by an old, hobbling woman with a crutch stick; who first stopped a little, close to where we lay, and bemoaned herself and the long way she had travelled; and then set forth again up the steep spring of the bridge. The woman was so little, and the night still so dark, that we soon lost sight of her; only heard the sound of her steps, and her stick, and a cough that she had by fits, draw slowly farther away.
“She’s bound to be across now,” I whispered.
“Na,” said Alan, “her foot still sounds boss32upon the bridge.”
And just then—“Who goes?” cried a voice, and we heard the butt of a musket rattle on the stones. I must suppose the sentry had been sleeping, so that had we tried, we might have passed unseen; but he was awake now, and the chance forfeited.
“This’ll never do,” said Alan. “This’ll never, never do for us, David.”
And without another word he began to crawl away through the fields; and a little after, being well out of eye-shot, got to his feet again, and struck along a road that led to the eastward. I could not conceive what he was doing; and indeed I was so sharply cut by the disappointment that I was little likely to be pleased with anything. A moment back and I had seen myself knocking at Mr. Rankeillor’s door to claim my inheritance, like a hero in a ballad; and here was I back again, a wandering, hunted blackguard, on the wrong side of Forth.
“Well?” said I.
“Well,” said Alan, “what would ye have? They’re none such fools as I took them for. We have still the Forth to pass, Davie—weary fall the rains that fed and the hillsides that guided it!”
“And why go east?” said I.
“Ou, just upon the chance!” said he. “If we canna pass the river, we’ll have to see what we can do for the firth.”
“There are fords upon the river, and none upon the firth,” said I.
“To be sure there are fords, and a bridge forbye,” quoth Alan; “and of what service, when they are watched?”
“Well,” said I, “but a river can be swum.”
“By them that have the skill of it,” returned he; “but I have yet to hear that either you or me is much of a hand at that exercise; and for my own part, I swim like a stone.”
“I’m not up to you in talking back, Alan,” I said; “but I can see we’re making bad worse. If it’s hard to pass a river, it stands to reason it must be worse to pass a sea.”
“But there’s such a thing as a boat,” says Alan, “or I’m the more deceived.”
“Ay, and such a thing as money,” says I. “But for us that have neither one nor other, they might just as well not have been invented.”
“Ye think so?” said Alan.
“I do that,” said I.
“David,” says he, “ye’re a man of small invention and less faith. But let me set my wits upon the hone, and if I canna beg, borrow, nor yet steal a boat, I’ll make one!”
“I think I see ye!” said I. “And what’s more than all that: if ye pass a bridge, it can tell no tales; but if we pass the firth, there’s the boat on the wrong side—somebody must have brought it—the countryside will all be in a bizz——”
“Man!” cried Alan, “if I make a boat, I’ll make a body to take it back again! So deave me with no more of your nonsense, but walk (for that’s what you’ve got to do)—and let Alan think for ye.”
All night, then, we walked through the north side of the Carse, under the high line of the Ochil mountains; and by Alloa and Clackmannan and Culross, all of which weavoided: and about ten in the morning, mighty hungry and tired, came to the little clachan of Limekilns. This is a place that sits near in by the waterside and looks across the Hope to the town of the Queen’s Ferry. Smoke went up from both of these and from other villages and farms upon all hands. The fields were being reaped; two ships lay anchored, and boats were coming and going on the Hope. It was altogether a right pleasant sight to me; and I could not take my fill of gazing at these comfortable, green, cultivated hills and the busy people both of the field and sea.
For all that, there was Mr. Rankeillor’s house on the south shore, where I had no doubt wealth awaited me; and here was I upon the north, clad in poor enough attire of an outlandish fashion, with three silver shillings left to me of all my fortune, a price set upon my head, and an outlawed man for my sole company.
“O Alan!” said I, “to think of it! Over there, there’s all that heart could want waiting me; and the birds go over, and the boats go over—all that please can go, but just me only! O, man, but it’s a heart-break!”
In Limekilns we entered a small change-house, which we only knew to be a public by the wand over the door, and bought some bread and cheese from a good-looking lass that was the servant. This we carried with us in a bundle, meaning to sit and eat it in a bush of wood on the sea-shore, that we saw some third part of a mile in front. As we went, I kept looking across the water and sighing to myself; and, though I took no heed of it, Alan had fallen into a muse. At last he stopped in the way.
“Did ye take heed of the lass we bought this of?” says he, tapping on the bread and cheese.
“To be sure,” said I, “and a bonny lass she was.”
“Ye thought that?” cries he. “Man David, that’s good news.”
“In the name of all that’s wonderful, why so?” says I. “What good can that do?”
“Well,” said Alan, with one of his droll looks, “I was rather in hopes it would maybe get us that boat.”
“If it were the other way about, it would be liker it,” said I.
“That’s all that you ken, ye see,” said Alan. “I don’t want the lass to fall in love with ye, I want her to be sorry for ye, David; to which end there is no manner of need that she should take you for a beauty. Let me see” (looking me curiously over). “I wish ye were a wee thing paler; but apart from that ye’ll do fine for my purpose—ye have a fine, hang-dog, rag-and-tatter, clappermaclaw kind of a look to ye, as if ye had stolen the coat from a potato-bogle. Come; right about, and back to the change-house for that boat of ours.”
I followed him, laughing.
“David Balfour,” said he, “ye’re a very funny gentleman by your way of it, and this is a very funny employ for ye, no doubt. For all that, if ye have any affection for my neck (to say nothing of your own) ye will perhaps be kind enough to take this matter responsibly. I am going to do a bit of play-acting, the bottom ground of which is just exactly as serious as the gallows for the pair of us. So bear it, if ye please, in mind, and conduct yourself according.”
“Well, well,” said I, “have it as you will.”
As we got near the clachan, he made me take his arm and hang upon it like one almost helpless with weariness; and by the time he pushed open the change-house door he seemed to be half carrying me. The maid appeared surprised (as well she might be) at our speedy return; but Alan had no words to spare for her in explanation, helped me to a chair, called for a tass of brandy, with which he fed me in little sips, and then, breaking up the bread and cheese, helped me to eat it like a nursery-lass; the whole with that grave, concerned, affectionate countenance, that might have imposed upon a judge. It was small wonder if the maid were taken with the picture we presented, of a poor, sick, overwrought lad and his most tender comrade. She drewquite near, and stood leaning with her back on the next table.
“What’s like wrong with him?” said she at last.
Alan turned upon her, to my great wonder, with a kind of fury. “Wrong?” cries he. “He’s walked more hundreds of miles than he has hairs upon his chin, and slept oftener in wet heather than dry sheets. Wrong, quo’ she! Wrong enough, I would think! Wrong, indeed!” and he kept grumbling to himself, as he fed me, like a man ill-pleased.
“He’s young for the like of that,” said the maid.
“Ower young,” said Alan, with his back to her.
“He would be better riding,” says she.
“And where could I get a horse to him?” cried Alan, turning on her with the same appearance of fury. “Would ye have me steal?”
I thought this roughness would have sent her off in dudgeon, as indeed it closed her mouth for the time. But my companion knew very well what he was doing; and, for as simple as he was in some things of life, had a great fund of roguishness in such affairs as these.
“Ye needna tell me,” she said at last—“ye’re gentry.”
“Well,” said Alan, softened a little (I believe against his will) by this artless comment, “and suppose we were? Did ever you hear that gentrice put money in folk’s pockets?”
She sighed at this, as if she were herself some disinherited great lady. “No,” says she, “that’s true indeed.”
I was all this while chafing at the part I played, and sitting tongue-tied between shame and merriment; but somehow at this I could hold in no longer, and bade Alan let me be, for I was better already. My voice stuck in my throat, for I ever hated to take part in lies; but my very embarrassment helped on the plot, for the lass no doubt set down my husky voice to sickness and fatigue.
“Has he nae friends?” said she, in a tearful voice.
“That has he so!” cried Alan, “if we could but win to them!—friends and rich friends, beds to lie in, food toeat, doctors to see to him—and here he must tramp in the dubs and sleep in the heather like a beggar-man.”
“And why that?” says the lass.
“My dear,” said Alan, “I canna very safely say; but I’ll tell ye what I’ll do instead,” says he, “I’ll whistle ye a bit tune.” And with that he leaned pretty far over the table, and in a mere breath of a whistle, but with a wonderful pretty sentiment, gave her a few bars of “Charlie is my darling.”
“Wheesht,” says she, and looked over her shoulder to the door.
“That’s it,” said Alan.
“And him so young!” cries the lass.
“He’s old enough to——” and Alan struck his forefinger on the back part of his neck, meaning that I was old enough to lose my head.
“It would be a black shame,” she cried, flushing nigh.
“It’s what will be, though,” said Alan, “unless we manage the better.”
At this the lass turned and ran out of that part of the house, leaving us alone together.—Alan in high good humour at the furthering of his schemes, and I in bitter dudgeon at being called a Jacobite and treated like a child.
“Alan,” I cried, “I can stand no more of this.”
“Ye’ll have to sit it, then, Davie,” said he. “For if ye upset the pot now, ye may scrape your own life out of the fire, but Alan Breck is a dead man.”
This was so true that I could only groan; and even my groan served Alan’s purpose, for it was overheard by the lass as she came flying in again with a dish of white puddings and a bottle of strong ale.
“Poor lamb!” says she, and had no sooner set the meat before us, than she touched me on the shoulder with a little friendly touch, as much as to bid me cheer up. Then she told us to fall-to, and there would be no more to pay; for the inn was her own, or at least her father’s, and he was gone for the day to Pittencrieff. We waited for no secondbidding, for bread and cheese is but cold comfort, and the puddings smelt excellently well; and while we sat and ate, she took up that same place by the next table, looking on, and thinking, and frowning to herself, and drawing the string of her apron through her hand.
“I’m thinking ye have rather a long tongue,” she said at last to Alan.
“Ay,” said Alan; “but ye see I ken the folk I speak to.”
“I would never betray ye,” said she, “if ye mean that.”
“No,” said he, “ye’re not that kind. But I’ll tell ye what ye would do, ye would help.”
“I couldna,” said she, shaking her head. “Na, I couldna.”
“No,” said he, “but if ye could?”
She answered him nothing.
“Look here, my lass,” said Alan, “there are boats in the kingdom of Fife, for I saw two (no less) upon the beach, as I came in by your town’s end. Now if we could have the use of a boat to pass under cloud of night into Lothian, and some secret, decent kind of a man to bring that boat back again and keep his counsel, there would be two souls saved—mine to all likelihood—his to a dead surety. If we lack that boat, we have but three shillings left in this wide world; and where to go, and how to do, and what other place there is for us except the chains of a gibbet—I give you my naked word, I kenna! Shall we go wanting, lassie? Are ye to lie in your warm bed and think upon us, when the wind gowls in the chimney and the rain tirls on the roof? Are ye to eat your meat by the cheeks of a red fire, and think upon this poor sick lad of mine, biting his finger-ends on a blae muir for cauld and hunger? Sick or sound, he must aye be moving; with the death-grapple at his throat he must aye be trailing in the rain on the lang roads; and when he gants his last on a rickle of cauld stanes, there will be nae friends near him but only me and God.”
At this appeal I could see the lass was in great troubleof mind, being tempted to help us, and yet in some fear she might be helping malefactors; and so now I determined to step in myself and to allay her scruples with a portion of the truth.
“Did ever you hear,” said I, “of Mr. Rankeillor of the Ferry?”
“Rankeillor the writer?” said she. “I daursay that!”
“Well,” said I, “it’s to his door that I am bound, so you may judge by that if I am an ill-doer; and I will tell you more, that though I am indeed, by a dreadful error, in some peril of my life, King George has no truer friend in all Scotland than myself.”
Her face cleared up mightily at this, although Alan’s darkened.
“That’s more than I would ask,” said she. “Mr. Rankeillor is a kennt man.” And she bade us finish our meat, get clear of the clachan as soon as might be, and lie close in the bit wood on the sea beach. “And ye can trust me,” says she, “I’ll find some means to put you over.”
At this we waited for no more, but shook hands with her upon the bargain, made short work of the puddings, and set forth again from Limekilns as far as to the wood. It was a small piece of perhaps a score of elders and hawthorns and a few young ashes, not thick enough to veil us from passers-by upon the road or beach. Here we must lie, however, making the best of the brave warm weather and the good hopes we now had of a deliverance, and planning more particularly what remained for us to do.
We had but one trouble all day; when a strolling piper came and sat in the same wood with us; a red-nosed, blear-eyed, drunken dog, with a great bottle of whisky in his pocket, and a long story of wrongs that had been done him by all sorts of persons, from the Lord President of the Court of Session who had denied him justice, down to the Bailies of Inverkeithing, who had given him more of it than he desired. It was impossible but he should conceive some suspicion of two men lying all day concealed in a thicketand having no business to allege. As long as he stayed there, he kept us in hot water with prying questions; and after he was gone, as he was a man not very likely to hold his tongue, we were in the greater impatience to be gone ourselves.
The day came to an end with the same brightness; the night fell quiet and clear; lights came out in houses and hamlets, and then, one after another, began to be put out; but it was past eleven, and we were long since strangely tortured with anxieties, before we heard the grinding of oars upon the rowing-pins. At that we looked out and saw the lass herself coming rowing to us in a boat. She had trusted no one with our affairs, not even her sweetheart, if she had one; but, as soon as her father was asleep, had left the house by a window, stolen a neighbour’s boat, and come to our assistance single-handed.
I was abashed how to find expression for my thanks; but she was no less abashed at the thought of hearing them; begged us to lose no time and to hold our peace, saying (very properly) that the heart of our matter was in haste and silence; and so, what with one thing and another, she had set us on the Lothian shore not far from Carriden, had shaken hands with us, and was out again at sea and rowing for Limekilns, before there was one word said either of her service or our gratitude.
Even after she was gone, we had nothing to say, as indeed nothing was enough for such a kindness. Only Alan stood a great while upon the shore shaking his head.
“It is a very fine lass,” he said at last. “David, it is a very fine lass.” And a matter of an hour later, as we were lying in a den on the sea-shore, and I had been already dozing, he broke out again in commendations of her character. For my part, I could say nothing, she was so simple a creature that my heart smote me both with remorse and fear: remorse because we had traded upon her ignorance; and fear lest we should have any way involved her in the dangers of our situation.
32Hollow.
32Hollow.
Thenext day it was agreed that Alan should fend for himself till sunset; but as soon as it began to grow dark, he should lie in the fields by the roadside near to Newhalls, and stir for naught until he heard me whistling. At first I proposed I should give him for a signal the “Bonnie House of Airlie,” which was a favourite of mine; but he objected that as the piece was very commonly known, any ploughman might whistle it by accident; and taught me instead a little fragment of a Highland air, which has run in my head from that day to this, and will likely run in my head when I lie dying. Every time it comes to me, it takes me off to that last day of my uncertainty, with Alan sitting up in the bottom of the den, whistling and beating the measure with a finger, and the grey of the dawn coming on his face.
I was in the long street of Queensferry before the sun was up. It was a fairly built burgh, the houses of good stone, many slated; the town-hall not so fine, I thought, as that of Peebles, nor yet the street so noble; but, take it altogether, it put me to shame for my foul tatters.
As the morning went on, and the fires began to be kindled, and the windows to open, and the people to appear out of the houses, my concern and despondency grew ever the blacker. I saw now that I had no grounds to stand upon; and no clear proof of my rights, nor so much as of my own identity. If it was all a bubble, I was indeed sorely cheated and left in a sore pass. Even if things were as I conceived, it would in all likelihood take time to establishmy contentions; and what time had I to spare with less than three shillings in my pocket, and a condemned, hunted man upon my hands to ship out of the country? Truly, if my hope broke with me, it might come to the gallows yet for both of us. And as I continued to walk up and down, and saw people looking askance at me upon the street or out of windows, and nudging or speaking to one another with smiles, I began to take a fresh apprehension: that it might be no easy matter even to come to speech of the lawyer, far less to convince him of my story.
For the life of me I could not muster up the courage to address any of these reputable burghers; I thought shame even to speak with them in such a pickle of rags and dirt; and if I had asked for the house of such a man as Mr. Rankeillor, I supposed they would have burst out laughing in my face. So I went up and down, and through the street, and down to the harbour-side, like a dog that has lost its master, with a strange gnawing in my inwards, and every now and then a movement of despair. It grew to be high day at last, perhaps nine in the forenoon; and I was worn with these wanderings, and chanced to have stopped in front of a very good house on the landward side, a house with beautiful, clear glass windows, flowering knots upon the sills, the walls new-harled,33and a chase-dog sitting yawning on the step like one that was at home. Well, I was even envying this dumb brute, when the door fell open and there issued forth a shrewd, ruddy, kindly, consequential man in a well-powdered wig and spectacles. I was in such a plight that no one set eyes on me once, but he looked at me again; and this gentleman, as it proved, was so much struck with my poor appearance that he came straight up to me and asked me what I did.
I told him I was come to the Queen’s Ferry on business, and taking heart of grace, asked him to direct me to the house of Mr. Rankeillor.
“Why,” said he, “that is his house that I have justcome out of; and, for a rather singular chance, I am that very man.”
“Then, sir,” said I, “I have to beg the favour of an interview.”
“I do not know your name,” said he, “nor yet your face.”
“My name is David Balfour,” said I.
“David Balfour?” he repeated, in rather a high tone, like one surprised. “And where have you come from, Mr. David Balfour?” he asked, looking me pretty drily in the face.
“I have come from a great many strange places, sir,” said I; “but I think it would be as well to tell you where and how in a more private manner.”
He seemed to muse a while, holding his lip in his hand, and looking now at me and now upon the causeway of the street.
“Yes,” says he, “that will be the best, no doubt.” And he led me back with him into his house, cried out to some one whom I could not see that he would be engaged all morning, and brought me into a little dusty chamber, full of books and documents. Here he sat down, and bade me be seated; though I thought he looked a little ruefully from his clean chair to my muddy rags. “And now,” says he, “if you have any business, pray be brief and come swiftly to the point.Nec gemino bellum Trojanum orditur ab ovo—do you understand that?” says he, with a keen look.
“I will even do as Horace says, sir,” I answered, smiling, “and carry you inmedias res.” He nodded as if he was well pleased, and indeed his scrap of Latin had been set to test me. For all that, and though I was somewhat encouraged, the blood came in my face when I added: “I have reason to believe myself some rights on the estate of Shaws.”
He got a paper book out of a drawer and set it before him open. “Well?” said he.
But I had shot my bolt and sat speechless.
“Come, come, Mr. Balfour,” said he, “you must continue. Where were you born?”
“In Essendean, sir,” said I, “the year 1733, the 12th of March.”
He seemed to follow this statement in his paper book; but what that meant I knew not. “Your father and mother?” said he.
“My father was Alexander Balfour, schoolmaster of that place,” said I, “and my mother Grace Pitarrow; I think her people were from Angus.”
“Have you any papers proving your identity?” asked Mr. Rankeillor.
“No, sir,” said I, “but they are in the hands of Mr. Campbell, the minister, and could be readily produced. Mr. Campbell, too, would give me his word; and, for that matter, I do not think my uncle would deny me.”
“Meaning Mr. Ebenezer Balfour?” says he.
“The same,” said I.
“Whom you have seen?” he asked.
“By whom I was received into his own house,” I answered.
“Did you ever meet a man of the name of Hoseason?” asked Mr. Rankeillor.
“I did so, sir, for my sins,” said I; “for it was by his means and the procurement of my uncle, that I was kidnapped within sight of this town, carried to sea, suffered shipwreck and a hundred other hardships, and stand before you to-day in this poor accoutrement.”
“You say you were shipwrecked,” said Rankeillor; “where was that?”
“Off the south end of the Isle of Mull,” said I. “The name of the isle on which I was cast up is the Island Earraid.”
“Ah!” says he, smiling, “you are deeper than me in the geography. But so far, I may tell you, this agrees pretty exactly with other informations that I hold. But you say you were kidnapped; in what sense?”
“In the plain meaning of the word, sir,” said I. “I was on my way to your house, when I was trepanned onboard the brig, cruelly struck down, thrown below, and knew no more of anything till we were far at sea. I was destined for the plantations; a fate that, in God’s providence, I have escaped.”
“The brig was lost on June the 27th,” says he, looking in his book, “and we are now at August the 24th. Here is a considerable hiatus, Mr. Balfour, of near upon two months. It has already caused a vast amount of trouble to your friends; and I own I shall not be very well contented until it is set right.”
“Indeed, sir,” said I, “these months are very easily filled up; but yet before I told my story, I would be glad to know that I was talking to a friend.”
“This is to argue in a circle,” said the lawyer. “I cannot be convinced till I have heard you. I cannot be your friend till I am properly informed. If you were more trustful, it would better befit your time of life. And you know, Mr. Balfour, we have a proverb in the country that evil-doers are aye evil-dreaders.”
“You are not to forget, sir,” said I, “that I have already suffered by my trustfulness; and was shipped off to be a slave by the very man that (if I rightly understand) is your employer.”
All this while I had been gaining ground with Mr. Rankeillor, and, in proportion as I gained ground, gaining confidence. But at this sally, which I made with something of a smile myself, he fairly laughed aloud.
“No, no,” said he, “it is not so bad as that.Fui, non sum. Iwasindeed your uncle’s man of business; but while you (imberbis juvenis custode remoto) were gallivanting in the west, a good deal of water has run under the bridges; and, if your ears did not sing, it was not for lack of being talked about. On the very day of your sea disaster, Mr. Campbell stalked into my office, demanding you from all the winds. I had never heard of your existence; but I had known your father; and from matters in my competence (to be touched upon hereafter) I was disposed to fear theworst. Mr. Ebenezer admitted having seen you; declared (what seemed improbable) that he had given you considerable sums; and that you had started for the continent of Europe, intending to fulfil your education, which was probable and praiseworthy. Interrogated how you had come to send no word to Mr. Campbell, he deponed that you had expressed a great desire to break with your past life. Further interrogated where you now were, protested ignorance, but believed you were in Leyden. That is a close sum of his replies. I am not exactly sure that any one believed him,” continued Mr. Rankeillor, with a smile; “and in particular he so much disrelished some expressions of mine that (in a word) he showed me to the door. We were then at a full stand; for, whatever shrewd suspicions we might entertain, we had no shadow of probation. In the very article, comes Captain Hoseason with the story of your drowning; whereupon all fell through; with no consequences but concern to Mr. Campbell, injury to my pocket, and another blot upon your uncle’s character, which could very ill afford it. And now, Mr. Balfour,” said he, “you understand the whole process of these matters, and can judge for yourself to what extent I may be trusted.”
Indeed, he was more pedantic than I can represent him, and placed more scraps of Latin in his speech; but it was all uttered with a fine geniality of eye and manner which went far to conquer my distrust. Moreover, I could see he now treated me as if I was myself beyond a doubt; so that first point of my identity seemed fully granted.
“Sir,” said I, “if I tell you my story, I must commit a friend’s life to your discretion. Pass me your word it shall be sacred; and for what touches myself I will ask no better guarantee than just your face.”
He passed me his word very seriously. “But,” said he, “these are rather alarming prolocutions; and if there are in your story any little jostles to the law, I would beg you to bear in mind that I am a lawyer, and pass lightly.”
Thereupon I told him my story from the first, he listeningwith his spectacles thrust up and his eyes closed, so that I sometimes feared he was asleep. But no such matter! he heard every word (as I found afterward) with such quickness of hearing and precision of memory as often surprised me. Even strange outlandish Gaelic names, heard for that time only, he remembered, and would remind me of, years after. Yet when I called Alan Breck in full, we had an odd scene. The name of Alan had of course rung through Scotland, with the news of the Appin murder and the offer of the reward; and it had no sooner escaped me than the lawyer moved in his seat and opened his eyes.
“I would name no unnecessary names, Mr. Balfour,” said he; “above all of Highlanders, many of whom are obnoxious to the law.”
“Well, it might have been better not,” said I, “but, since I have let it slip, I may as well continue.”
“Not at all,” said Mr. Rankeillor. “I am somewhat dull of hearing, as you may have remarked; and I am far from sure I caught the name exactly. We will call your friend, if you please, Mr. Thomson—that there may be no reflections. And in future, I would take some such way with any Highlander that you may have to mention—dead or alive.”
By this I saw he must have heard the name all too clearly, and had already guessed I might be coming to the murder. If he chose to play this part of ignorance, it was no matter of mine; so I smiled, said it was no very Highland-sounding name, and consented. Through all the rest of my story Alan was Mr. Thomson; which amused me the more, as it was a piece of policy after his own heart. James Stewart, in like manner, was mentioned under the style of Mr. Thomson’s kinsman; Colin Campbell passed as a Mr. Glen; and to Cluny, when I came to that part of my tale, I gave the name of “Mr. Jameson, a Highland chief.” It was truly the most open farce, and I wondered that the lawyer should care to keep it up; but, after all, it was quite in the taste of that age, when there were two parties in theState, and quiet persons, with no very high opinions of their own, sought out every cranny to avoid offence to either.
“Well, well,” said the lawyer, when I had quite done, “this is a great epic, a great Odyssey of yours. You must tell it, sir, in a sound Latinity when your scholarship is riper; or in English if you please, though for my part I prefer the stronger tongue. You have rolled much;quæ regio in terris—what parish in Scotland (to make a homely translation) has not been filled with your wanderings? You have shown, besides, a singular aptitude for getting into false positions; and, yes, upon the whole, for behaving well in them. This Mr. Thomson seems to me a gentleman of some choice qualities, though perhaps a trifle bloody-minded. It would please me none the worse, if (with all his merits) he were soused in the North Sea, for the man, Mr. David, is a sore embarrassment. But you are doubtless quite right to adhere to him; indubitably he adhered to you.It comes—we may say—he was your true companion; nor lessparibus curis vestigia figit, for I daresay you would both take an orra thought upon the gallows. Well, well, these days are fortunately by; and I think (speaking humanly) that you are near the end of your troubles.”
As he thus moralised on my adventures, he looked upon me with so much humour and benignity that I could scarce contain my satisfaction. I had been so long wandering with lawless people, and making my bed upon the hills and under the bare sky, that to sit once more in a clean, covered house, and to talk amicably with a gentleman in broadcloth, seemed mighty elevations. Even as I thought so, my eye fell on my unseemly tatters, and I was once more plunged in confusion. But the lawyer saw and understood me. He rose, called over the stair to lay another plate, for Mr. Balfour would stay to dinner, and led me into a bedroom in the upper part of the house. Here he set before me water and soap, and a comb; and laid out some clothes that belonged to his son; and here, with another apposite tag, he left me to my toilet.