CHAPTER X.

THE RED-HEADED MAN

It was about half-past three when I came forth on the Lang Dykes. Dean

was where I wanted to go. Since Catriona dwelled there, and her

kinsfolk the Glengyle Macgregors appeared almost certainly to be

employed against me, it was just one of the few places I should have

kept away from; and being a very young man, and beginning to be very

much in love, I turned my face in that direction without pause. As a

slave to my conscience and common sense, however, I took a measure of

precaution. Coming over the crown of a bit of a rise in the road, I

clapped down suddenly among the barley and lay waiting. After a while,

a man went by that looked to be a Highlandman, but I had never seen him

till that hour. Presently after came Neil of the red head. The next to

go past was a miller’s cart, and after that nothing but manifest

country people. Here was enough to have turned the most foolhardy from

his purpose, but my inclination ran too strong the other way. I argued

it out that if Neil was on that road, it was the right road to find him

in, leading direct to his chief’s daughter; as for the other

Highlandman, if I was to be startled off by every Highlandman I saw, I

would scarce reach anywhere. And having quite satisfied myself with

this disingenuous debate, I made the better speed of it, and came a

little after four to Mrs. Drumond-Ogilvy’s.

Both ladies were within the house; and upon my perceiving them together

by the open door, I plucked off my hat and said, “Here was a lad come

seeking saxpence,” which I thought might please the dowager.

Catriona ran out to greet me heartily, and, to my surprise, the old

lady seemed scarce less forward than herself. I learned long afterwards

that she had despatched a horseman by daylight to Rankeillor at the

Queensferry, whom she knew to be the doer for Shaws, and had then in

her pocket a letter from that good friend of mine, presenting, in the

most favourable view, my character and prospects. But had I read it I

could scarce have seen more clear in her designs. Maybe I was

_countryfeed_; at least, I was not so much so as she thought; and it

was even to my homespun wits, that she was bent to hammer up a match

between her cousin and a beardless boy that was something of a laird in

Lothian.

“Saxpence had better take his broth with us, Catrine,” says she. “Run

and tell the lasses.”

And for the little while we were alone was at a good deal of pains to

flatter me; always cleverly, always with the appearance of a banter,

still calling me Saxpence, but with such a turn that should rather

uplift me in my own opinion. When Catriona returned, the design became

if possible more obvious; and she showed off the girl’s advantages like

a horse-couper with a horse. My face flamed that she should think me so

obtuse. Now I would fancy the girl was being innocently made a show of,

and then I could have beaten the old carline wife with a cudgel; and

now, that perhaps these two had set their heads together to entrap me,

and at that I sat and gloomed betwixt them like the very image of

ill-will. At last the matchmaker had a better device, which was to

leave the pair of us alone. When my suspicions are anyway roused it is

sometimes a little the wrong side of easy to allay them. But though I

knew what breed she was of, and that was a breed of thieves, I could

never look in Catriona’s face and disbelieve her.

“I must not ask?” says she, eagerly, the same moment we were left

alone.

“Ah, but to-day I can talk with a free conscience,” I replied. “I am

lightened of my pledge, and indeed (after what has come and gone since

morning) I would not have renewed it were it asked.”

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

So I told her the tale of the lieutenant from the first step to the

last of it, making it as mirthful as I could, and, indeed, there was

matter of mirth in that absurdity.

“And I think you will be as little fitted for the rudas men as for the

pretty ladies, after all!” says she, when I had done. “But what was

your father that he could not learn you to draw the sword! It is most

ungentle; I have not heard the match of that in anyone.”

“It is most misconvenient at least,” said I; “and I think my father

(honest man!) must have been wool-gathering to learn me Latin in the

place of it. But you see I do the best I can, and just stand up like

Lot’s wife and let them hammer at me.”

“Do you know what makes me smile?” said she. “Well, it is this. I am

made this way, that I should have been a man child. In my own thoughts

it is so I am always; and I go on telling myself about this thing that

is to befall and that. Then it comes to the place of the fighting, and

it comes over me that I am only a girl at all events, and cannot hold a

sword or give one good blow; and then I have to twist my story round

about, so that the fighting is to stop, and yet me have the best of it,

just like you and the lieutenant; and I am the boy that makes the fine

speeches all through, like Mr. David Balfour.”

“You are a bloodthirsty maid,” said I.

“Well, I know it is good to sew and spin, and to make samplers,” she

said, “but if you were to do nothing else in the great world, I think

you will say yourself it is a driech business; and it is not that I

want to kill, I think. Did ever you kill anyone?”

“That I have, as it chances. Two, no less, and me still a lad that

should be at the college,” said I. “But yet, in the look-back, I take

no shame for it.”

“But how did you feel, then—after it?” she asked.

‘”Deed, I sat down and grat like a bairn,” said I.

“I know that, too,” she cried. “I feel where these tears should come

from. And at any rate, I would not wish to kill, only to be Catherine

Douglas that put her arm through the staples of the bolt, where it was

broken. That is my chief hero. Would you not love to die so—for your

king?” she asked.

“Troth,” said I, “my affection for my king, God bless the puggy face of

him, is under more control; and I thought I saw death so near to me

this day already, that I am rather taken up with the notion of living.”

“Right,” she said, “the right mind of a man! Only you must learn arms;

I would not like to have a friend that cannot strike. But it will not

have been with the sword that you killed these two?”

“Indeed, no,” said I, “but with a pair of pistols. And a fortunate

thing it was the men were so near-hand to me, for I am about as clever

with the pistols as I am with the sword.”

So then she drew from me the story of our battle in the brig, which I

had omitted in my first account of my affairs.

“Yes,” said she, “you are brave. And your friend, I admire and love

him.”

“Well, and I think anyone would!” said I. “He has his faults like other

folk; but he is brave and staunch and kind, God bless him! That will be

a strange day when I forget Alan.” And the thought of him, and that it

was within my choice to speak with him that night, had almost overcome

me.

“And where will my head be gone that I have not told my news!” she

cried, and spoke of a letter from her father, bearing that she might

visit him to-morrow in the castle whither he was now transferred, and

that his affairs were mending. “You do not like to hear it,” said she.

“Will you judge my father and not know him?”

“I am a thousand miles from judging,” I replied. “And I give you my

word I do rejoice to know your heart is lightened. If my face fell at

all, as I suppose it must, you will allow this is rather an ill day for

compositions, and the people in power extremely ill persons to be

compounding with. I have Simon Fraser extremely heavy on my stomach

still.”

“Ah!” she cried, “you will not be evening these two; and you should

bear in mind that Prestongrange and James More, my father, are of the

one blood.”

“I never heard tell of that,” said I.

“It is rather singular how little you are acquainted with,” said she.

“One part may call themselves Grant, and one Macgregor, but they are

still of the same clan. They are all the sons of Alpin, from whom, I

think, our country has its name.”

“What country is that?” I asked.

“My country and yours,” said she.

“This is my day for discovering I think,” said I, “for I always thought

the name of it was Scotland.”

“Scotland is the name of what you call Ireland,” she replied. “But the

old ancient true name of this place that we have our foot-soles on, and

that our bones are made of, will be Alban. It was Alban they called it

when our forefathers will be fighting for it against Rome and

Alexander; and it is called so still in your own tongue that you

forget.”

“Troth,” said I, “and that I never learned!” For I lacked heart to take

her up about the Macedonian.

“But your fathers and mothers talked it, one generation with another,”

said she. “And it was sung about the cradles before you or me were ever

dreamed of; and your name remembers it still. Ah, if you could talk

that language you would find me another girl. The heart speaks in that

tongue.”

I had a meal with the two ladies, all very good, served in fine old

plate, and the wine excellent, for it seems that Mrs. Ogilvy was rich.

Our talk, too, was pleasant enough; but as soon as I saw the sun

decline sharply and the shadows to run out long, I rose to take my

leave. For my mind was now made up to say farewell to Alan; and it was

needful I should see the trysting wood, and reconnoitre it, by

daylight. Catriona came with me as far as to the garden gate.

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

“It is beyond my judging,” I replied. “It will be long, it may be

never.”

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

I bowed my head, looking upon her.

“So am I, at all events,” said she. “I have seen you but a small time,

but I put you very high. You are true, you are brave; in time I think

you will be more of a man yet. I will be proud to hear of that. If you

should speed worse, if it will come to fall as we are afraid—O well!

think you have the one friend. Long after you are dead and me an old

wife, I will be telling the bairns about David Balfour, and my tears

running. I will be telling how we parted, and what I said to you, and

did to you. _God go with you and guide you_, _prays your little

friend_: so I said—I will be telling them—and here is what I did.”

She took up my hand and kissed it. This so surprised my spirits that I

cried out like one hurt. The colour came strong in her face, and she

looked at me and nodded.

“O yes, Mr. David,” said she, “that is what I think of you. The head

goes with the lips.”

I could read in her face high spirit, and a chivalry like a brave

child’s; not anything besides. She kissed my hand, as she had kissed

Prince Charlie’s, with a higher passion than the common kind of clay

has any sense of. Nothing before had taught me how deep I was her

lover, nor how far I had yet to climb to make her think of me in such a

character. Yet I could tell myself I had advanced some way, and that

her heart had beat and her blood flowed at thoughts of me.

After that honour she had done me I could offer no more trivial

civility. It was even hard for me to speak; a certain lifting in her

voice had knocked directly at the door of my own tears.

“I praise God for your kindness, dear,” said I. “Farewell, my little

friend!” giving her that name which she had given to herself; with

which I bowed and left her.

My way was down the glen of the Leith River, towards Stockbridge and

Silvermills. A path led in the foot of it, the water bickered and sang

in the midst; the sunbeams overhead struck out of the west among long

shadows and (as the valley turned) made like a new scene and a new

world of it at every corner. With Catriona behind and Alan before me, I

was like one lifted up. The place besides, and the hour, and the

talking of the water, infinitely pleased me; and I lingered in my steps

and looked before and behind me as I went. This was the cause, under

Providence, that I spied a little in my rear a red head among some

bushes.

Anger sprang in my heart, and I turned straight about and walked at a

stiff pace to where I came from. The path lay close by the bushes where

I had remarked the head. The cover came to the wayside, and as I passed

I was all strung up to meet and to resist an onfall. No such thing

befell, I went by unmeddled with; and at that fear increased upon me.

It was still day indeed, but the place exceeding solitary. If my

haunters had let slip that fair occasion I could but judge they aimed

at something more than David Balfour. The lives of Alan and James

weighed upon my spirit with the weight of two grown bullocks.

Catriona was yet in the garden walking by herself.

“Catriona,” said I, “you see me back again.”

“With a changed face,” said she.

“I carry two men’s lives besides my own,” said I. “It would be a sin

and shame not to walk carefully. I was doubtful whether I did right to

come here. I would like it ill, if it was by that means we were brought

to harm.”

“I could tell you one that would be liking it less, and will like

little enough to hear you talking at this very same time,” she cried.

“What have I done, at all events?”

“O, you I you are not alone,” I replied. “But since I went off I have

been dogged again, and I can give you the name of him that follows me.

It is Neil, son of Duncan, your man or your father’s.”

“To be sure you are mistaken there,” she said, with a white face. “Neil

is in Edinburgh on errands from my father.”

“It is what I fear,” said I, “the last of it. But for his being in

Edinburgh I think I can show you another of that. For sure you have

some signal, a signal of need, such as would bring him to your help, if

he was anywhere within the reach of ears and legs?”

“Why, how will you know that?” says she.

“By means of a magical talisman God gave to me when I was born, and the

name they call it by is Common-sense,” said I. “Oblige me so far as

make your signal, and I will show you the red head of Neil.”

No doubt but I spoke bitter and sharp. My heart was bitter. I blamed

myself and the girl and hated both of us: her for the vile crew that

she was come of, myself for my wanton folly to have stuck my head in

such a byke of wasps.

Catriona set her fingers to her lips and whistled once, with an

exceeding clear, strong, mounting note, as full as a ploughman’s. A

while we stood silent; and I was about to ask her to repeat the same,

when I heard the sound of some one bursting through the bushes below on

the braeside. I pointed in that direction with a smile, and presently

Neil leaped into the garden. His eyes burned, and he had a black knife

(as they call it on the Highland side) naked in his hand; but, seeing

me beside his mistress, stood like a man struck.

“He has come to your call,” said I; “judge how near he was to

Edinburgh, or what was the nature of your father’s errands. Ask

himself. If I am to lose my life, or the lives of those that hang by

me, through the means of your clan, let me go where I have to go with

my eyes open.”

She addressed him tremulously in the Gaelic. Remembering Alan’s anxious

civility in that particular, I could have laughed out loud for

bitterness; here, sure, in the midst of these suspicions, was the hour

she should have stuck by English.

Twice or thrice they spoke together, and I could make out that Neil

(for all his obsequiousness) was an angry man.

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

“Catriona,” said I, “do you believe the man yourself?”

She made a gesture like wringing the hands.

“How will I can know?” she cried.

“But I must find some means to know,” said I. “I cannot continue to go

dovering round in the black night with two men’s lives at my girdle!

Catriona, try to put yourself in my place, as I vow to God I try hard

to put myself in yours. This is no kind of talk that should ever have

fallen between me and you; no kind of talk; my heart is sick with it.

See, keep him here till two of the morning, and I care not. Try him

with that.”

They spoke together once more in the Gaelic.

“He says he has James More my father’s errand,” said she. She was

whiter than ever, and her voice faltered as she said it.

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

She said never anything to that, but continued gazing at me with the

same white face.

“This is a fine business,” said I again. “Am I to fall, then, and those

two along with me?”

“O, what am I to do?” she cried. “Could I go against my father’s

orders, him in prison, in the danger of his life!”

“But perhaps we go too fast,” said I. “This may be a lie too. He may

have no right orders; all may be contrived by Simon, and your father

knowing nothing.”

She burst out weeping between the pair of us; and my heart smote me

hard, for I thought this girl was in a dreadful situation.

“Here,” said I, “keep him but the one hour; and I’ll chance it, and may

God bless you.”

She put out her hand to me, “I will he needing one good word,” she

sobbed.

“The full hour, then?” said I, keeping her hand in mine. “Three lives

of it, my lass!”

“The full hour!” she said, and cried aloud on her Redeemer to forgive

her.

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