“O, you! 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?”
“Oh, what am I to do?” she cried. “Could I go against my father’s orders, and 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 say God bless you.”
She put out her hand to me. “I will be 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.
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 lie 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 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 thenceforth 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 people’s 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 couldna 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 behoved, 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 o’ 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 wouldna 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 needna 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 ignorant, and ye canna see’t. Wae’s me for my Greek and Hebrew; but, man, I ken that I dinna 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 couldna see them, says you. Ye blockhead, that’s their livelihood.”
“Take the worst of it,” said I, “and what are we to do?”
“I am thinking of that same,” said he. “We might twine. It wouldna be greatly to my taste; and forbye that, I see reasons against it. First, it’s now unco dark, and it’s just humanly possible we might give them the clean slip. If we keep together, we make but the ae line of it; if we gang separate, we make twae of them: the more likelihood to stave in upon some of these gentry of yours. And then, second, if they keep the track of us, it may come to a fecht for it yet, Davie; and then, I’ll confess I would be blithe to have you at my oxter, and I think you would be none the worse of having me at yours. So, by my way of it, we should creep out of this wood no further gone than just the inside of next minute, and hold away east for Gillane, where I’m to find my ship. It’ll be like old days while it lasts, Davie; and (come the time) we’ll have to think what you should be doing. I’m wae to leave ye here, wanting me.”
“Have with ye, then!” says I. “Do ye gang back where you were stopping.”
“Deil a fear!” said Alan. “They were good folks to me, but I think they would be a good deal disappointed if they saw my bonny face again. For (the way times go) I amna just what ye could call a Walcome Guest. Which makes me the keener for your company, Mr. David Balfour of the Shaws, and set ye up! For, leave aside twa cracks here in the wood with Charlie Stewart, I have scarce said black or white since the day we parted at Corstorphine.”
With which he rose from his place, and we began to move quietly eastward through the wood.
It was likely between one and two; the moon (as I have said) was down; a strongish wind, carrying a heavy wrack of cloud, had set in suddenly from the west; and we began our movement in as black a night as ever a fugitive or a murderer wanted. The whiteness of the path guided us into the sleeping town of Broughton, thence through Picardy, and beside my old acquaintance the gibbet of the two thieves. A little beyond we made a useful beacon, which was a light in an upper window of Lochend. Steering by this, but a good deal at random, and with some trampling of the harvest, and stumbling and falling down upon the bauks, we made our way across country, and won forth at last upon the linky, boggy muirland that they call the Figgate Whins. Here, under a bush of whin, we lay down the remainder of that night and slumbered.
The day called us about five. A beautiful morning it was, the high westerly wind still blowing strong, but the clouds all blown away to Europe. Alan was already sitting up and smiling to himself. It was my first sight of my friend since we were parted, and I looked upon him with enjoyment. He had still the same big great-coat on his back; but (what was new) he had now a pair of knitted boot-hose drawn above the knee. Doubtless these were intended for disguise; but, as the day promised to be warm, he made a most unseasonable figure.
“Well, Davie,” said he, “is this no’ a bonny morning? Here is a day that looks the way that a day ought to. This is a great change of it from the belly of my haystack; and while you were there sottering and sleeping I have done a thing that maybe I do over seldom.”
“And what was that?” said I.
“O, just said my prayers,” said he.
“And where are my gentry, as ye call them?” I asked.
“Gude kens,” says he; “and the short and the long of it is that we must take our chance of them. Up with your foot-soles, Davie! Forth, Fortune, once again of it! And a bonny walk we are like to have.”
So we went east by the beach of the sea, towards where the salt-pans were smoking, in by the Esk mouth. No doubt there was a by-ordinary bonny blink of morning sun on Arthur’s Seat and the green Pentlands; and the pleasantness of the day appeared to set Alan among nettles.
“I feel like a gomeril,” says he, “to be leaving Scotland on a day like this. It sticks in my head; I would maybe like it better to stay here and hing.”
“Ay, but ye wouldna, Alan,” said I.
“No’ but what France is a good place too,” he explained; “but it’s some way no’ the same. It’s brawer, I believe, but it’s no’ Scotland. I like it fine when I’m there, man; yet I kind of weary for Scots divots and the Scots peat-reek.”
“If that’s all you have to complain of, Alan, it’s no such great affair,” said I.
“And it sets me ill to be complaining, whatever,” said he, “and me but new out of yon deil’s haystack.”
“And so you were unco weary of your haystack?” I asked.
“Weary’s nae word for it,” said he. “I’m not just precisely a man that’s easily cast down; but I do better with caller air and the lift above my head. I’m like the auld Black Douglas (wasna’t?) that likit better to hear the laverock sing than the mouse cheep. And yon place, ye see, Davie—whilk was a very suitable place to hide in, as I’m free to own—was pit mirk from dawn to gloaming. There were days (or nights, for how would I tell one from other?) that seemed to me as long as a long winter.”
“How did you know the hour to bide your tryst?” I asked.
“The goodman brought me my meat and a drop brandy, and a candle-dowp to eat it by, about eleeven,” said he. “So, when I had swallowed a bit, it would be time to be getting to the wood. There I lay and wearied for ye sore, Davie,” says he, laying his hand on my shoulder, “and guessed when the two hours would be about by—unless Charlie Stewart would come and tell me on his watch—and then back to the dooms haystack. Na, it was a driech employ, and praise the Lord that I have warstled through with it!”
“What did you do with yourself?” I asked.
“Faith,” said he, “the best I could! Whiles I played at the knucklebones. I’m an extraordinar good hand at the knucklebones, but it’s a poor piece of business playing with naebody to admire ye. And whiles I would make songs.”
“What were they about?” says I.
“O, about the deer and the heather,” says he, “and about the ancient old chiefs that are all by with it lang syne, and just about what songs are about in general. And then whiles I would make believe I had a set of pipes and I was playing. I played some grand springs, and I thought I played them awful bonny; I vow whiles that I could hear the squeal of them! But the great affair is that it’s done with.”
With that he carried me again to my adventures, which he heard all over again with more particularity, and extraordinary approval, swearing at intervals that I was “a queer character of a callant.”
“So ye were frich’ened of Sim Fraser?” he asked once.
“In troth was I!” cried I.
“So would I have been, Davie,” said he. “And that is indeed a dreidful man. But it is only proper to give the deil his due; and I can tell you he is a most respectable person on the field of war.”
“Is he so brave?” I asked.
“Brave!” said he. “He is as brave as my steel sword.”
The story of my duel set him beside himself.
“To think of that!” he cried. “I showed ye the trick in Corrynakiegh too. And three times—three times disarmed! It’s a disgrace upon my character that learned ye! Here, stand up, out with your airn; ye shall walk no step beyond this place upon the road till ye can do yoursel’ and me mair credit.”
“Alan,” said I, “this is midsummer madness. Here is no time for fencing lessons.”
“I canna well say no to that,” he admitted. “But three times, man! And you standing there like a straw bogle and rinning to fetch your ain sword like a doggie with a pocket-napkin! David, this man Duncansby must be something altogether by-ordinar! He maun be extraordinar skilly. If I had the time, I would gang straight back and try a turn at him mysel’. The man must be a provost.”
“You silly fellow,” said I, “you forget it was just me.”
“Na,” said he, “but three times!”
“When ye ken yourself that I am fair incompetent,” I cried.
“Well, I never heard tell the equal of it,” said he.
“I promise you the one thing, Alan,” said I. “The next time that we forgather, I’ll be better learned. You shall not continue to bear the disgrace of a friend that cannot strike.”
“Ay, the next time!” says he. “And when will that be, I would like to ken?”
“Well, Alan, I have had some thoughts of that, too,” said I; “and my plan is this. It’s my opinion to be called an advocate.”
“That’s but a weary trade, Davie,” says Alan, “and rather a blagyard one forbye. Ye would be better in a king’s coat than that.”
“And no doubt that would be the way to have us meet,” cried I. “But as you’ll be in King Lewie’s coat, and I’ll be in King Geordie’s, we’ll have a dainty meeting of it.”
“There’s some sense in that,” he admitted.
“An advocate, then, it’ll have to be,” I continued, “and I think it a more suitable trade for a gentleman that was three times disarmed. But the beauty of the thing is this: that one of the best colleges for that kind of learning—and the one where my kinsman, Pilrig, made his studies—is the college of Leyden in Holland. Now, what say you, Alan? Could not a cadet of Royal Ecossais get a furlough, slip over the marches, and call in upon a Leyden student!”
“Well, and I would think he could!” cried he. “Ye see, I stand well in with my colonel, Count Drummond-Melfort; and, what’s mair to the purpose, I have a cousin of mine lieutenant-colonel in a regiment of the Scots-Dutch. Naething could be mair proper than what I would get a leave to see Lieutenant-Colonel Stewart of Halkett’s. And Lord Melfort, who is a very scienteefic kind of a man, and writes books like Cæsar, would be doubtless very pleased to have the advantage of my observes.”
“Is Lord Melfort an author, then?” I asked; for much as Alan thought of soldiers, I thought more of the gentry that write books.
“The very same, Davie,” said he. “One would think a colonel would have something better to attend to. But what can I say that make songs?”
“Well, then,” said I, “it only remains you should give me an address to write you at in France; and as soon as I am got to Leyden I will send you mine.”
“The best will be to write me in the care of my chieftain,” said he, “Charles Stewart, of Ardshiel, Esquire, at the town of Melons, in the Isle of France. It might take long, or it might take short, but it would aye get to my hands at the last of it.”
We had a haddock to our breakfast in Musselburgh, where it amused me vastly to hear Alan. His great-coat and boot-hose were extremely remarkable this warm morning, and perhaps some hint of an explanation had been wise; but Alan went into that matter like a business, or, I should rather say, like a diversion. He engaged the goodwife of the house with some compliments upon the rizzoring of our haddocks; and the whole of the rest of our stay held her in talk about a cold he had taken on his stomach, gravely relating all manner of symptoms and sufferings, and hearing with a vast show of interest all the old wives’ remedies she could supply him with in return.
We left Musselburgh before the first ninepenny coach was due from Edinburgh, for (as Alan said) that was a rencounter we might very well avoid. The wind, although still high, was very mild, the sun shone strong, and Alan began to suffer in proportion. From Prestonpans he had me aside to the field of Gladsmuir, where he exerted himself a great deal more than needful to describe the stages of the battle. Thence, at his old round pace, we travelled to Cockenzie. Though they were building herring-busses there at Mrs. Cadell’s, it seemed a desert-like, back-going town, about half full of ruined houses; but the ale-house was clean, and Alan, who was now in a glowing heat, must indulge himself with a bottle of ale, and carry on to the new luckie with the old story of the cold upon his stomach, only now the symptoms were all different.
I sat listening; and it came in my mind that I had scarce ever heard him address three serious words to any woman, but he was always drolling and fleering and making a private mock of them, and yet brought to that business a remarkable degree of energy and interest. Something to this effect I remarked to him, when the goodwife (as chanced) was called away.
“What do ye want?” says he. “A man should aye put his best foot forrit with the women-kind; he should aye give them a bit of a story to divert them, the poor lambs! It’s what ye should learn to attend to, David; ye should get the principles, it’s like a trade. Now, if this had been a young lassie, or onyways bonny, she would never have heard tell of my stomach, Davie. But aince they’re too old to be seeking joes, they a’ set up to be apotecaries. Why? What do I ken? They’ll be just the way God made them, I suppose. But I think a man would be a gomeril that didna give his attention to the same.”
And here, the luckie coming back, he turned from me as if with impatience to renew their former conversation. The lady had branched some while before from Alan’s stomach to the case of a good-brother of her own in Aberlady, whose last sickness and demise she was describing at extraordinary length. Sometimes it was merely dull, sometimes both dull and awful, for she talked with unction. The upshot was that I fell in a deep muse, looking forth of the window on the road, and scarce marking what I saw. Presently, had any been looking, they might have seen me to start.
“We pit a fomentation to his feet,” the goodwife was saying, “and a het stane to his wame, and we gied him hyssop and water of pennyroyal, and fine clean balsam of sulphur for the hoast....”
“Sir,” says I, cutting very quietly in, “there’s a friend of mine gone by the house.”
“Is that e’en sae?” replies Alan, as though it were a thing of small account. And then, “Ye were saying, mem?” says he; and the wearyful wife went on.
Presently, however, he paid her with a half-crown piece, and she must go forth after the change.
“Was it him with the red head?” asked Alan.
“Ye have it,” said I.
“What did I tell you in the wood?” he cried. “And yet it’s strange he should be here too. Was he his lane?”
“His lee-lane for what I could see,” said I.
“Did he gang by?” he asked.
“Straight by,” said I, “and looked neither to the right nor left.”
“And that’s queerer yet,” said Alan. “It sticks in my mind, Davie, that we should be stirring. But where to?—deil hae’t! This is like old days fairly,” cries he.
“There is one big differ, though,” said I, “that now we have money in our pockets.”
“And another big differ, Mr. Balfour,” says he, “that now we have dogs at our tail. They’re on the scent; they’re in full cry, David. It’s a bad business and be damned to it.” And he sat thinking hard with a look of his that I knew well.
“I’m saying, Luckie,” says he, when the goodwife returned, “have ye a back road out of this change-house?”
She told him there was, and where it led to.
“Then, sir,” says he to me, “I think that will be the shortest road for us. And here’s good-bye to ye, my braw woman; and I’ll no’ forget thon of the cinnamon-water.”
We went out by way of the woman’s kale-yard, and up a lane among fields. Alan looked sharply to all sides, and seeing we were in a little hollow place of the country, out of view of men, sat down.
“Now for a council of war, Davie,” said he. “But first of all, a bit lesson to ye. Suppose that I had been like you, what would yon old wife have minded of the pair of us? Just that we had gone out by the back gate. And what does she mind now? A fine, canty, friendly, cracky man, that suffered with the stomach, poor body! and was rael ta’en up about the good-brother. O man, David, try and learn to have some kind of intelligence!”
“I’ll try, Alan,” said I.
“And now for him of the red head,” says he; “was he gaun fast or slow?”
“Betwixt and between,” said I.
“No kind of a hurry about the man?” he asked.
“Never a sign of it,” said I.
“Nhm!” said Alan, “it looks queer. We saw nothing of them this morning on the Whins; he’s passed us by, he doesna seem to be looking, and yet here he is on our road! Dod, Davie, I begin to take a notion. I think it’s no’ you they’re seeking, I think it’s me; and I think they ken fine where they’re gaun.”
“They ken?” I asked.
“I think Andie Scougal’s sold me—him, or his mate, wha kennt some part of the affair—or else Chairlie’s clerk callant, which would be a pity too,” says Alan; “and if you askit me for just my inward private conviction, I think there’ll be heads cracked on Gillane Sands.”
“Alan,” I cried, “if you’re at all right, there’ll be folk there and to spare. It’ll be small service to crack heads.”
“It would aye be a satisfaction, though,” says Alan. “But bide a bit, bide a bit; I’m thinking—and thanks to this bonny westland wind, I believe I’ve still a chance of it. It’s this way, Davie. I’m no’ trysted with this man Scougal till the gloaming comes. ‘But,’ says he, ‘if I can get a bit of a wind out of the west I’ll be there long or that,’ he says, ‘and lie-to for ye behind the Isle of Fidra.’ Now if your gentry kens the place, they ken the time forbye. Do ye see me coming, Davie? Thanks to Johnnie Cope and other red-coat gomerils, I should ken this country like the back of my hand; and if ye’re ready for another bit run with Alan Breck, we’ll can cast back inshore, and come down to the seaside again by Dirleton. If the ship’s there, we’ll try and get on board of her. If she’s no’ there, I’ll just have to get back to my weary haystack. But either way of it, I think we will leave your gentry whistling on their thumbs.”
“I believe there’s some chance in it,” said I. “Have on with ye, Alan!”
I did not profit by Alan’s pilotage as he had done by his marchings under General Cope; for I can scarce tell what way we went. It is my excuse that we travelled exceeding fast. Some part we ran, some trotted, and the rest walked at a vengeance of a pace. Twice, while we were at top speed, we ran against country-folk; but though we plumped into the first from round a corner, Alan was as ready as a loaded musket.
“Hae ye seen my horse?” he gasped.
“Na, man, I haena seen nae horse the day,” replied the countryman.
And Alan spared the time to explain to him that we were travelling “ride and tie”; that our charger had escaped, and it was feared he had gone home to Linton. Not only that, but he expended some breath (of which he had not very much left) to curse his own misfortune and my stupidity, which was said to be its cause.
“Them that canna tell the truth,” he observed to myself as we went on again, “should be aye mindfu’ to leave an honest, handy lee behind them. If folk dinna ken what ye’re doing, Davie, they’re terrible taken up with it; but if they think they ken, they care nae mair for it than what I do for pease porridge.”
As we had first made inland, so our road came in the end to lie very near due north; the old Kirk of Aberlady for a landmark on the left; on the right, the top of the Berwick Law; and it was thus we struck the shore again, not far from Dirleton. From North Berwick west to Gillane Ness there runs a string of four small islets, Craigleith, the Lamb, Fidra, and Eyebrough, notable by their diversity of size and shape. Fidra is the most particular, being a strange grey islet of two humps, made the more conspicuous by a piece of ruin; and I mind that (as we drew closer to it) by some door or window of these ruins the sea peeped through like a man’s eye. Under the lee of Fidra there is a good anchorage in westerly winds, and there, from a far way off, we could see the Thistle riding.
The shore in face of these islets is altogether waste. Here is no dwelling of man, and scarce any passage, or at most of vagabond children running at their play. Gillane is a small place on the far side of the Ness, the folk of Dirleton go to their business in the inland fields, and those of North Berwick straight to the sea-fishing from their haven; so that few parts of the coast are lonelier. But I mind, as we crawled upon our bellies into that multiplicity of heights and hollows, keeping a bright eye upon all sides, and our hearts hammering at our ribs, there was such a shining of the sun and the sea, such a stir of the wind in the bent-grass, and such a bustle of down-popping rabbits and up-flying gulls, that the desert seemed to me like a place alive. No doubt it was in all ways well chosen for a secret embarkation, if the secret had been kept; and even now that it was out, and the place watched, we were able to creep unperceived to the front of the sandhills, where they look down immediately on the beach and sea.
But here Alan came to a full stop.
“Davie,” said he, “this is a kittle passage! As long as we lie here we’re safe; but I’m nane sae muckle nearer to my ship or the coast of France. And as soon as we stand up and signal the brig, it’s another matter. For where will your gentry be, think ye?”
“Maybe they’re no’ come yet,” said I. “And even if they are, there’s one clear matter in our favour. They’ll be all arranged to take us, that’s true. But they’ll have arranged for our coming from the east and here we are upon their west.”
“Ay,” says Alan, “I wish we were in some force, and this was a battle, we would have bonnily outmanœuvred them! But it isna, Davit; and the way it is, is a wee thing less inspiring to Alan Breck. I swither, Davie.”
“Time flies, Alan,” said I.
“I ken that,” said Alan. “I ken naething else, as the French folk say. But this is a dreidful case of heids or tails. O! if I could but ken where your gentry were!”
“Alan,” said I, “this is no’ like you. It’s got to be now or never.”
“This is no’ me, quo’ he,”
sang Alan, with a queer face betwixt shame and drollery,
|
“Neither you nor me, quo’ he, neither you nor me, Wow, na, Johnnie man! neither you nor me.” |
And then of a sudden he stood straight up where he was, and with a handkerchief flying in his right hand, marched down upon the beach. I stood up myself, but lingered behind him, scanning the sandhills to the east. His appearance was at first unremarked: Scougal not expecting him so early, and my gentry watching on the other side. Then they awoke on board the Thistle, and it seemed they had all in readiness, for there was scarce a second’s bustle on the deck before we saw a skiff put round her stern and begin to pull lively for the coast. Almost at the same moment of time, and perhaps half a mile away towards Gillane Ness, the figure of a man appeared for a blink upon a sandhill, waving with his arms; and though he was gone again in the same flash, the gulls in that part continued a little longer to fly wild.
Alan had not seen this, looking straight to seaward at the ship and skiff.
“It maun be as it will!” said he, when I had told him. “Weel may yon boatie row, or my craig’ll have to thole a raxing.”
That part of the beach was long and flat, and excellent walking when the tide was down; a little cressy burn flowed over it in one place to the sea; and the sandhills ran along the head of it like the rampart of a town. No eye of ours could spy what was passing behind there in the bents, no hurry of ours could mend the speed of the boat’s coming: time stood still with us through that uncanny period of waiting.
“There is one thing I would like to ken,” says Alan. “I would like fine to ken these gentry’s orders. We’re worth four hunner pound the pair of us: how if they took the guns to us, Davie? They would get a bonny shot from the top of that lang sandy bauk.”
“Morally impossible,” said I. “The point is that they can have no guns. This thing has been gone about too secret; pistols they may have, but never guns.”
“I believe ye’ll be in the right,” says Alan. “For all which I am wearying a good deal for yon boat.”
And he snapped his fingers and whistled to it like a dog.
It was now perhaps a third of the way in, and we ourselves already hard on the margin of the sea, so that the soft sand rose over my shoes. There was no more to do whatever but to wait, to look as much as we were able at the creeping nearer of the boat, and as little as we could manage at the long impenetrable front of the sandhills, over which the gulls twinkled and behind which our enemies were doubtless marshalling.
“This is a fine, bright, caller place to get shot in,” says Alan suddenly; “and, man, I wish that I had your courage!”
“Alan!” I cried, “what kind of talk is this of it? You’re just made of courage; it’s the character of the man, as I could prove myself if there was nobody else.”
“And you would be the more mistaken,” said he. “What makes the differ with me is just my great penetration and knowledge of affairs. But for auld, cauld, dour, deidly courage, I am not fit to hold a candle to yourself. Look at us two here upon the sands. Here am I, fair hotching to be off; here’s you (for all that I ken) in two minds of it whether you’ll no’ stop. Do you think that I could do that, or would? No’ me! Firstly, because I havena got the courage and wouldna daur; and secondly, because I am a man of so much penetration and would see ye damned first.”
“It’s there ye’re coming, is it?” I cried. “Ah, man Alan, you can wile your old wives, but you never can wile me.”
Remembrance of my temptation in the wood made me strong as iron.
“I have a tryst to keep,” I continued. “I am trysted with your cousin Charlie; I have passed my word.”
“Braw trysts that you’ll can keep,” said Alan. “Ye’ll just mistryst aince and for a’ with the gentry in the bents. And what for?” he went on with an extreme threatening gravity. “Just tell me that, my mannie! Are ye to be speerited away like Lady Grange? Are they to drive a dirk in your inside and bury ye in the bents? Or is it to be the other way, and are they to bring ye in with James? Are they folk to be trustit? Would ye stick your head in the mouth of Simon Fraser and the ither Whigs?” he added with extraordinary bitterness.
“Alan,” cried I, “they’re all rogues and liars, and I’m with ye there. The more reason there should be one decent man in such a land of thieves! My word is passed, and I’ll stick to it. I said long syne to your kinswoman that I would stumble at no risk. Do ye mind of that?—the night Red Colin fell, it was. No more I will, then. Here I stop. Prestongrange promised me my life; if he’s to be man-sworn, here I’ll have to die.”
“Aweel, aweel,” said Alan.
All this time we had seen or heard no more of our pursuers. In truth we had caught them unawares; their whole party (as I was to learn afterwards) had not yet reached the scene; what there was of them was spread among the bents towards Gillane. It was quite an affair to call them in and bring them over, and the boat was making speed. They were, besides, but cowardly fellows; a mere leash of Highland cattle-thieves, of several clans, no gentleman there to be the captain: and the more they looked at Alan and me upon the beach, the less (I must suppose) they liked the looks of us.
Whoever had betrayed Alan it was not the captain: he was in the skiff himself, steering and stirring up his oars-men, like a man with his heart in his employ. Already he was near in, and the boat scouring—already Alan’s face had flamed crimson with the excitement of his deliverance, when our friends in the bents, either in despair to see their prey escape them, or with some hope of scaring Andie, raised suddenly a shrill cry of several voices.
This sound, arising from what appeared to be a quite deserted coast, was really very daunting, and the men in the boat held water instantly.
“What’s this of it?” sings out the captain, for he was come within an easy hail.
“Freens o’ mine,” says Alan, and began immediately to wade forth in the shallow water towards the boat. “Davie,” he said, pausing, “Davie, are ye no’ coming? I am sweer to leave ye.”
“Not a hair of me,” said I.
He stood part of a second where he was to his knees in the salt water, hesitating.
“He that will to Cupar, maun to Cupar,” said he, and swashing in deeper than his waist, was hauled into the skiff, which was immediately directed for the ship.
I stood where he had left me, with my hands behind my back; Alan sat with his head turned, watching me; and the boat drew smoothly away. Of a sudden I came the nearest hand to shedding tears, and seemed to myself the most deserted, solitary lad in Scotland. With that I turned my back upon the sea and faced the sandhills. There was no light or sound of man; the sun shone on the wet sand and the dry, the wind blew in the bents, the gulls made a dreary piping. As I passed higher up the beach, the sand-lice were hopping nimbly about the stranded tangles. The devil any other sight or sound in that unchancy place. And yet I knew there were folk there, observing me, upon some secret purpose. They were no soldiers, or they would have fallen on and taken us ere now: doubtless they were some common rogues hired for my undoing, perhaps to kidnap, perhaps to murder me outright. From the position of those engaged, the first was the more likely; from what I knew of their character and ardency in this business, I thought the second very possible; and the blood ran cold about my heart.
I had a mad idea to loosen my sword in the scabbard; for though I was very unfit to stand up like a gentleman blade to blade, I thought I could do some scathe in a random combat. But I perceived in time the folly of resistance. This was no doubt the joint “expedient” on which Prestongrange and Fraser were agreed. The first, I was very sure, had done something to secure my life; the second was pretty likely to have slipped in some contrary hints into the ears of Neil and his companions; and if I were to show bare steel I might play straight into the hands of my worst enemy and seal my own doom.
These thoughts brought me to the head of the beach. I cast a look behind, the boat was nearing the brig, and Alan flew his handkerchief for a farewell, which I replied to with the waving of my hand. But Alan himself was shrunk to a small thing in my view, alongside of this pass that lay in front of me. I set my hat hard on my head, clenched my teeth, and went right before me up the face of the sand-wreath. It made a hard climb, being steep, and the sand like water underfoot. But I caught hold at last by the long bent-grass on the brae-top, and pulled myself to a good footing. The same moment men stirred and stood up here and there, six or seven of them, ragged-like knaves, each with a dagger in his hand. The fair truth is, I shut my eyes and prayed. When I opened them again, the rogues were crept the least thing nearer without speech or hurry. Every eye was upon mine, which struck me with a strange sensation of their brightness, and of the fear with which they continued to approach me. I held out my hands empty: whereupon one asked, with a strong Highland brogue, if I surrendered.
“Under protest,” said I, “if ye ken what that means, which I misdoubt.”
At that word, they came all in upon me like a flight of birds upon a carrion, seized me, took my sword, and all the money from my pockets, bound me hand and foot with some strong line, and cast me on a tussock of bent. There they sat about their captive in a part of a circle and gazed upon him silently like something dangerous, perhaps a lion or a tiger on the spring. Presently this attention was relaxed. They drew nearer together, fell to speech in the Gaelic, and very cynically divided my property before my eyes. It was my diversion in this time that I could watch from my place the progress of my friend’s escape. I saw the boat come to the brig and be hoisted in, the sails fill, and the ship pass out seaward behind the isles and by North Berwick.
In the course of two hours or so, more and more ragged Highlandmen kept collecting, Neil among the first, until the party must have numbered near a score. With each new arrival there was a fresh bout of talk, that sounded like complaints and explanations; but I observed one thing, none of those that came late had any share in the division of my spoils. The last discussion was very violent and eager, so that once I thought they would have quarrelled; on the heels of which their company parted, the bulk of them returning westward in a troop, and only three, Neil and two others, remaining sentries on the prisoner.
“I could name one who would be very ill pleased with your day’s work, Neil Duncanson,” said I, when the rest had moved away.
He assured me in answer I should be tenderly used, for he knew I was “acquent wi’ the leddy.”
This was all our talk, nor did any other son of man appear upon that portion of the coast until the sun had gone down among the Highland mountains, and the gloaming was beginning to grow dark. At which hour I was aware of a long, lean, bony-like Lothian man of a very swarthy countenance, that came towards us among the bents on a farm horse.
“Lads,” cried he, “hae ye a paper like this?” and held up one in his hand. Neil produced a second, which the new comer studied through a pair of horn spectacles, and saying all was right and we were the folk he was seeking, immediately dismounted. I was then set in his place, my feet tied under the horse’s belly, and we set forth under the guidance of the Lowlander. His path must have been very well chosen, for we met but one pair—a pair of lovers—the whole way, and these, perhaps taking us to be free-traders, fled on our approach. We were at one time close at the foot of Berwick Law on the south side; at another, as we passed over some open hills, I spied the lights of a clachan and the old tower of a church among some trees not far off, but too far to cry for help, if I had dreamed of it. At last we came again within sound of the sea. There was moonlight, though not much; and by this I could see the three huge towers and broken battlements of Tantallon, that old chief place of the Red Douglases. The horse was picketed in the bottom of the ditch to graze, and I was led within, and forth into the court, and thence into a tumble-down stone hall. Here my conductors built a brisk fire in the midst of the pavement, for there was a chill in the night. My hands were loosed, I was set by the wall in the inner end, and (the Lowlander having produced provisions) I was given oatmeal bread and a pitcher of French brandy. This done, I was left once more alone with my three Highlandmen. They sat close by the fire drinking and talking; the wind blew in by the breaches, cast about the smoke and flames, and sang in the tops of the towers; I could hear the sea under the cliffs, and my mind being reassured as to my life, and my body and spirits wearied with the day’s employment, I turned upon one side and slumbered.
I had no means of guessing at what hour I was wakened, only the moon was down and the fire low. My feet were now loosed, and I was carried through the ruins and down the cliff-side by a precipitous path to where I found a fisher’s boat in a haven of the rocks. This I was had on board of, and we began to put forth from the shore in a fine starlight.
I had no thought where they were taking me; only looked here and there for the appearance of a ship; and there ran the while in my head a word of Ransome’s—the twenty-pounders. If I were to be exposed a second time to that same former danger of the plantations, I judged it must turn ill with me; there was no second Alan, and no second shipwreck and spare yard to be expected now; and I saw myself hoe tobacco under the whip’s lash. The thought chilled me; the air was sharp upon the water, the stretchers of the boat drenched with a cold dew; and I shivered in my place beside the steersman. This was the dark man whom I have called hitherto the Lowlander; his name was Dale, ordinarily called Black Andie. Feeling the thrill of my shiver, he very kindly handed me a rough jacket full of fish-scales, with which I was glad to cover myself.
“I thank you for this kindness,” said I, “and will make so free as to repay it with a warning. You take a high responsibility in this affair. You are not like these ignorant, barbarous Highlanders, but know what the law is, and the risks of those that break it.”
“I am no’ just exactly what ye would ca’ an extremist for the law,” says he, “at the best of times; but in this business I act with a good warranty.”
“What are you going to do with me?” I asked.
“Nae harm,” said he, “nae harm ava’. Ye’ll hae strong freens, I’m thinking. Ye’ll be richt eneuch yet.”
There began to fall a greyness on the face of the sea; little dabs of pink and red, like coals of slow fire, came in the east; and at the same time the geese awakened, and began crying about the top of the Bass. It is just the one crag of rock, as everybody knows, but great enough to carve a city from. The sea was extremely little, but there went a hollow plowter round the base of it. With the growing of the dawn I could see it clearer and clearer; the straight crags painted with sea-birds’ droppings like a morning frost, the sloping top of it green with grass, the clan of white geese that cried about the sides, and the black, broken buildings of the prison sitting close on the sea’s edge.
At the sight the truth came in upon me in a clap.
“It’s there you’re taking me!” I cried.
“Just to the Bass, mannie,” said he: “whaur the auld sants were afore ye, and I misdoubt if ye have come so fairly by your preeson.”
“But none dwells there now,” I cried; “the place is long a ruin.”
“It’ll be the mair pleisand a change for the solan geese, then,” quoth Andie drily.
The day coming slowly brighter I observed on the bilge, among the big stones with which fisherfolk ballast their boats, several kegs and baskets, and a provision of fuel. All these were discharged upon the crag. Andie, myself, and my three Highlanders (I call them mine, although it was the other way about), landed along with them. The sun was not yet up when the boat moved away again, the noise of the oars on the thole-pins echoing from the cliffs, and left us in our singular reclusion.
Andie Dale was the Prefect (as I would jocularly call him) of the Bass, being at once the shepherd and the gamekeeper of that small and rich estate. He had to mind the dozen or so of sheep that fed and fattened on the grass of the sloping part of it, like beasts grazing the roof of a cathedral. He had charge, besides, of the solan geese that roosted in the crags; and from these an extraordinary income is derived. The young are dainty eating, as much as two shillings apiece being a common price, and paid willingly by epicures; even the grown birds are valuable for their oil and feathers; and a part of the minister’s stipend of North Berwick is paid to this day in solan geese, which makes it (in some folk’s eyes) a parish to be coveted. To perform these several businesses, as well as to protect the geese from poachers, Andie had frequent occasion to sleep and pass days altogether on the crag; and we found the man at home there like a farmer in his steading. Bidding us all shoulder some of the packages, a matter in which I made haste to bear a hand, he led us in by a locked gate, which was the only admission to the island, and through the ruins of the fortress, to the governor’s house. There we saw, by the ashes in the chimney and a standing bed-place in one corner, that he made his usual occupation.
This bed he now offered me to use, saying he supposed I would set up to be gentry.
“My gentrice has nothing to do with where I lie,” said I. “I bless God I have lain hard ere now, and can do the same again with thankfulness. While I am here, Mr. Andie, if that be your name, I will do my part and take my place beside the rest of you; and I ask you on the other hand to spare me your mockery, which I own I like ill.”
He grumbled a little at this speech, but seemed upon reflection to approve it. Indeed, he was a long-headed, sensible man, and a good Whig and Presbyterian; read daily in a pocket Bible, and was both able and eager to converse seriously on religion, leaning more than a little towards the Cameronian extremes. His morals were of a more doubtful colour. I found he was deep in the free trade, and used the ruins of Tantallon for a magazine of smuggled merchandise. As for a gauger, I do not believe he valued the life of one at half a farthing. But that part of the coast of Lothian is to this day as wild a place, and the commons there as rough a crew, as any in Scotland.
One incident of my imprisonment is made memorable by a consequence it had long after. There was a warship at this time stationed in the Firth, the Seahorse, Captain Palliser. It chanced she was cruising in the month of September, plying between Fife and Lothian, and sounding for sunk dangers. Early one fine morning she was seen about two miles to east of us, where she lowered a boat, and seemed to examine the Wildfire Rocks and Satan’s Bush, famous dangers of that coast. And presently, after having got her boat again, she came before the wind and was headed directly for the Bass. This was very troublesome to Andie and the Highlanders; the whole business of my sequestration was designed for privacy, and here, with a navy captain perhaps blundering ashore, it looked to become public enough, if it were nothing worse. I was in a minority of one, I am no Alan to fall upon so many, and I was far from sure that a warship was the least likely to improve my condition. All which considered, I gave Andie my parole of good behaviour and obedience, and was had briskly to the summit of the rock, where we all lay down, at the cliff’s edge, in different places of observation and concealment. The Seahorse came straight on till I thought she would have struck, and we (looking giddily down) could see the ship’s company at their quarters and hear the leadsman singing at the lead. Then she suddenly wore and let fly a volley of I know not how many great guns. The rock was shaken with the thunder of the sound, the smoke flowed over our heads, and the geese rose in number beyond computation or belief. To hear their screaming and to see the twinkling of their wings, made a most inimitable curiosity; and I suppose it was after this somewhat childish pleasure that Captain Palliser had come so near the Bass. He was to pay dear for it in time. During his approach I had the opportunity to make a remark upon the rigging of that ship by which I ever after knew it miles away; and this was a means (under Providence) of my averting from a friend a great calamity, and inflicting on Captain Palliser himself a sensible disappointment.
All the time of my stay on the rock we lived well. We had small ale and brandy, and oatmeal of which we made our porridge night and morning. At times a boat came from the Castleton and brought us a quarter of mutton, for the sheep upon the rock we must not touch, these being specially fed to market. The geese were unfortunately out of season, and we let them be. We fished ourselves, and yet more often made the geese to fish for us: observing one when he had made a capture and scaring him from his prey ere he had swallowed it.
The strange nature of this place, and the curiosities with which it abounded, held me busy and amused. Escape being impossible, I was allowed my entire liberty, and continually explored the surface of the isle wherever it might support the foot of man. The old garden of the prison was still to be observed, with flowers and pot-herbs running wild, and some ripe cherries on a bush. A little lower stood a chapel or a hermit’s cell; who built or dwelt in it, none may know, and the thought of its age made a ground of many meditations. The prison, too, where I now bivouacked with Highland cattle-thieves, was a place full of history, both human and divine. I thought it strange so many saints and martyrs should have gone by there so recently, and left not so much as a leaf out of their Bibles, or a name carved upon the wall, while the rough soldier-lads that mounted guard upon the battlements had filled the neighbourhood with their mementoes—broken tobacco-pipes for the most part, and that in a surprising plenty, but also metal buttons from their coats. There were times when I thought I could have heard the pious sound of psalms out of the martyrs’ dungeons, and see the soldiers tramp the ramparts with their glinting pipes, and the dawn rising behind them out of the North Sea.
No doubt it was a good deal Andie and his tales that put these fancies in my head. He was extraordinary well acquainted with the story of the rock in all particulars, down to the names of private soldiers, his father having served there in that same capacity. He was gifted, besides, with a natural genius for narration, so that the people seemed to speak and the things to be done before your face. This gift of his, and my assiduity to listen, brought us the more close together. I could not honestly deny but what I liked him; I soon saw that he liked me; and indeed, from the first I had set myself out to capture his goodwill. An odd circumstance (to be told presently) effected this beyond my expectation; but even in early days we made a friendly pair to be a prisoner and his gaoler.
I should trifle with my conscience if I pretended my stay upon the Bass was wholly disagreeable. It seemed to me a safe place, as though I was escaped there out of my troubles. No harm was to be offered me; a material impossibility, rock and the deep sea, prevented me from fresh attempts; I felt I had my life safe and my honour safe, and there were times when I allowed myself to gloat on them like stolen waters. At other times my thoughts were very different. I recalled how strong I had expressed myself both to Rankeillor and to Stewart; I reflected that my captivity upon the Bass, in view of a great part of the coasts of Fife and Lothian, was a thing I should be thought more likely to have invented than endured; and in the eyes of these two gentlemen, at least, I must pass for a boaster and a coward. Now I would take this lightly enough; tell myself that so long as I stood well with Catriona Drummond, the opinion of the rest of man was but moonshine and spilled water; and thence pass off into those meditations of a lover which are so delightful to himself and must always appear so surprisingly idle to a reader. But anon the fear would take me otherwise; I would be shaken with a perfect panic of self-esteem, and these supposed hard judgments appear an injustice impossible to be supported. With that another train of thought would be presented, and I had scarce begun to be concerned about men’s judgments of myself, than I was haunted with the remembrance of James Stewart in his dungeon and the lamentations of his wife. Then, indeed, passion began to work in me; I could not forgive myself to sit there idle; it seemed (if I were a man at all) that I could fly or swim out of my place of safety; and it was in such humours and to amuse my self-reproaches, that I would set the more particularly to win the good side of Andie Dale.
At last, when we two were alone on the summit of the rock on a bright morning, I put in some hint about a bribe. He looked at me, cast back his head, and laughed out loud.
“Ay, you’re funny, Mr. Dale,” said I, “but perhaps if you’ll glance an eye upon that paper you may change your note.”
The stupid Highlanders had taken from me at the time of my seizure nothing but hard money, and the paper I now showed Andie was an acknowledgment from the British Linen Company for a considerable sum.
He read it. “Troth, and ye’re nane sae ill aff,” said he.
“I thought that would maybe vary your opinions,” said I.
“Hout!” said he. “It shows me ye can bribe; but I’m no’ to be bribit.”
“We’ll see about that yet a while,” says I. “And first, I’ll show you that I know what I am talking. You have orders to detain me here till after Thursday, 21st September.”
“Ye’re no’ a’thegether wrong either,” says Andie. “I’m to let ye gang, bar orders contrair, on Saturday, the 23rd.”
I could not but feel there was something extremely insidious in this arrangement. That I was to reappear precisely in time to be too late would cast the more discredit on my tale, if I were minded to tell one; and this screwed me to fighting point.
“Now then, Andie, you that kens the world, listen to me, and think while ye listen,” said I. “I know there are great folks in the business, and I make no doubt you have their names to go upon. I have seen some of them myself since this affair began, and said my say into their faces too. But what kind of a crime would this be that I had committed? or what kind of a process is this that I am fallen under? To be apprehended by some ragged John-Hielandmen on August 30th, carried to a rickle of old stones that is now neither fort nor gaol (whatever it once was) but just the gamekeeper’s lodge of the Bass Rock, and set free again, September 23rd, as secretly as I was first arrested—does that sound like law to you? or does it sound like justice? or does it not sound honestly like a piece of some low, dirty intrigue, of which the very folk that meddle with it are ashamed?”
“I canna gainsay ye, Shaws. It looks unco under-hand,” says Andie. “And werena the folk guid sound Whigs and true-blue Presbyterians I would hae seen them ayont Jordan and Jeroozlem or I would have set hand to it.”
“The Master of Lovat’ll be a braw Whig,” says I, “and a grand Presbyterian.”
“I ken naething by him,” said he. “I hae nae trokings wi’ Lovats.”
“No, it’ll be Prestongrange that you’ll be dealing with,” said I.
“Ah, but I’ll no’ tell ye that,” said Andie.
“Little need when I ken,” was my retort.
“There’s just the ae thing ye can be fairly sure of, Shaws,” says Andie. “And that is that (try as ye please) I’m no’ dealing wi’ yoursel’; nor yet I amna goin’ to,” he added.
“Well, Andie, I see I’ll have to speak out plain with you,” I replied. And I told him so much as I thought needful of the facts.
He heard me out with serious interest, and when I had done, seemed to consider a little with himself.