CHAPTER I.

A BEGGAR ON HORSEBACK

The 25th day of August, 1751, about two in the afternoon, I, David

Balfour, came forth of the British Linen Company, a porter attending me

with a bag of money, and some of the chief of these merchants bowing me

from their doors. Two days before, and even so late as yestermorning, I

was like a beggar-man by the wayside, clad in rags, brought down to my

last shillings, my companion a condemned traitor, a price set on my own

head for a crime with the news of which the country rang. To-day I was

served heir to my position in life, a landed laird, a bank porter by me

carrying my gold, recommendations in my pocket, and (in the words of

the saying) the ball directly at my foot.

There were two circumstances that served me as ballast to so much sail.

The first was the very difficult and deadly business I had still to

handle; the second, the place that I was in. The tall, black city, and

the numbers and movement and noise of so many folk, made a new world

for me, after the moorland braes, the sea-sands and the still

country-sides that I had frequented up to then. The throng of the

citizens in particular abashed me. Rankeillor’s son was short and small

in the girth; his clothes scarce held on me; and it was plain I was ill

qualified to strut in the front of a bank-porter. It was plain, if I

did so, I should but set folk laughing, and (what was worse in my case)

set them asking questions. So that I behooved to come by some clothes

of my own, and in the meanwhile to walk by the porter’s side, and put

my hand on his arm as though we were a pair of friends.

At a merchant’s in the Luckenbooths I had myself fitted out: none too

fine, for I had no idea to appear like a beggar on horseback; but

comely and responsible, so that servants should respect me. Thence to

an armourer’s, where I got a plain sword, to suit with my degree in

life. I felt safer with the weapon, though (for one so ignorant of

defence) it might be called an added danger. The porter, who was

naturally a man of some experience, judged my accoutrement to be well

chosen.

“Naething kenspeckle,”[1] said he; “plain, dacent claes. As for the

rapier, nae doubt it sits wi’ your degree; but an I had been you, I

would has waired my siller better-gates than that.” And he proposed I

should buy winter-hosen from a wife in the Cowgate-back, that was a

cousin of his own, and made them “extraordinar endurable.”

But I had other matters on my hand more pressing. Here I was in this

old, black city, which was for all the world like a rabbit-warren, not

only by the number of its indwellers, but the complication of its

passages and holes. It was, indeed, a place where no stranger had a

chance to find a friend, let be another stranger. Suppose him even to

hit on the right close, people dwelt so thronged in these tall houses,

he might very well seek a day before he chanced on the right door. The

ordinary course was to hire a lad they called a _caddie_, who was like

a guide or pilot, led you where you had occasion, and (your errands

being done) brought you again where you were lodging. But these

caddies, being always employed in the same sort of services, and having

it for obligation to be well informed of every house and person in the

city, had grown to form a brotherhood of spies; and I knew from tales

of Mr. Campbell’s how they communicated one with another, what a rage

of curiosity they conceived as to their employer’s business, and how

they were like eyes and fingers to the police. It would be a piece of

little wisdom, the way I was now placed, to take such a ferret to my

tails. I had three visits to make, all immediately needful: to my

kinsman Mr. Balfour of Pilrig, to Stewart the Writer that was Appin’s

agent, and to William Grant Esquire of Prestongrange, Lord Advocate of

Scotland. Mr. Balfour’s was a non-committal visit; and besides (Pilrig

being in the country) I made bold to find the way to it myself, with

the help of my two legs and a Scots tongue. But the rest were in a

different case. Not only was the visit to Appin’s agent, in the midst

of the cry about the Appin murder, dangerous in itself, but it was

highly inconsistent with the other. I was like to have a bad enough

time of it with my Lord Advocate Grant, the best of ways; but to go to

him hot-foot from Appin’s agent, was little likely to mend my own

affairs, and might prove the mere ruin of friend Alan’s. The whole

thing, besides, gave me a look of running with the hare and hunting

with the hounds that was little to my fancy. I determined, therefore,

to be done at once with Mr. Stewart and the whole Jacobitical side of

my business, and to profit for that purpose by the guidance of the

porter at my side. But it chanced I had scarce given him the address,

when there came a sprinkle of rain—nothing to hurt, only for my new

clothes—and we took shelter under a pend at the head of a close or

alley.

Being strange to what I saw, I stepped a little farther in. The narrow

paved way descended swiftly. Prodigious tall houses sprang upon each

side and bulged out, one storey beyond another, as they rose. At the

top only a ribbon of sky showed in. By what I could spy in the windows,

and by the respectable persons that passed out and in, I saw the houses

to be very well occupied; and the whole appearance of the place

interested me like a tale.

I was still gazing, when there came a sudden brisk tramp of feet in

time and clash of steel behind me. Turning quickly, I was aware of a

party of armed soldiers, and, in their midst, a tall man in a great

coat. He walked with a stoop that was like a piece of courtesy, genteel

and insinuating: he waved his hands plausibly as he went, and his face

was sly and handsome. I thought his eye took me in, but could not meet

it. This procession went by to a door in the close, which a serving-man

in a fine livery set open; and two of the soldier-lads carried the

prisoner within, the rest lingering with their firelocks by the door.

There can nothing pass in the streets of a city without some following

of idle folk and children. It was so now; but the more part melted away

incontinent until but three were left. One was a girl; she was dressed

like a lady, and had a screen of the Drummond colours on her head; but

her comrades or (I should say) followers were ragged gillies, such as I

had seen the matches of by the dozen in my Highland journey. They all

spoke together earnestly in Gaelic, the sound of which was pleasant in

my ears for the sake of Alan; and, though the rain was by again, and my

porter plucked at me to be going, I even drew nearer where they were,

to listen. The lady scolded sharply, the others making apologies and

cringeing before her, so that I made sure she was come of a chief’s

house. All the while the three of them sought in their pockets, and by

what I could make out, they had the matter of half a farthing among the

party; which made me smile a little to see all Highland folk alike for

fine obeisances and empty sporrans.

It chanced the girl turned suddenly about, so that I saw her face for

the first time. There is no greater wonder than the way the face of a

young woman fits in a man’s mind, and stays there, and he could never

tell you why; it just seems it was the thing he wanted. She had

wonderful bright eyes like stars, and I daresay the eyes had a part in

it; but what I remember the most clearly was the way her lips were a

trifle open as she turned. And, whatever was the cause, I stood there

staring like a fool. On her side, as she had not known there was anyone

so near, she looked at me a little longer, and perhaps with more

surprise, than was entirely civil.

It went through my country head she might be wondering at my new

clothes; with that, I blushed to my hair, and at the sight of my

colouring it is to be supposed she drew her own conclusions, for she

moved her gillies farther down the close, and they fell again to this

dispute, where I could hear no more of it.

I had often admired a lassie before then, if scarce so sudden and

strong; and it was rather my disposition to withdraw than to come

forward, for I was much in fear of mockery from the womenkind. You

would have thought I had now all the more reason to pursue my common

practice, since I had met this young lady in the city street, seemingly

following a prisoner, and accompanied with two very ragged

indecent-like Highlandmen. But there was here a different ingredient;

it was plain the girl thought I had been prying in her secrets; and

with my new clothes and sword, and at the top of my new fortunes, this

was more than I could swallow. The beggar on horseback could not bear

to be thrust down so low, or, at least of it, not by this young lady.

I followed, accordingly, and took off my new hat to her the best that I

was able.

“Madam,” said I, “I think it only fair to myself to let you understand

I have no Gaelic. It is true I was listening, for I have friends of my

own across the Highland line, and the sound of that tongue comes

friendly; but for your private affairs, if you had spoken Greek, I

might have had more guess at them.”

She made me a little, distant curtsey. “There is no harm done,” said

she, with a pretty accent, most like the English (but more agreeable).

“A cat may look at a king.”

“I do not mean to offend,” said I. “I have no skill of city manners; I

never before this day set foot inside the doors of Edinburgh. Take me

for a country lad—it’s what I am; and I would rather I told you than

you found it out.”

“Indeed, it will be a very unusual thing for strangers to be speaking

to each other on the causeway,” she replied. “But if you are landward

[2] bred it will be different. I am as landward as yourself; I am

Highland, as you see, and think myself the farther from my home.”

“It is not yet a week since I passed the line,” said I. “Less than a

week ago I was on the braes of Balwhidder.”

“Balwhither?” she cries. “Come ye from Balwhither! The name of it makes

all there is of me rejoice. You will not have been long there, and not

known some of our friends or family?”

“I lived with a very honest, kind man called Duncan Dhu Maclaren,” I

replied.

“Well, I know Duncan, and you give him the true name!” she said; “and

if he is an honest man, his wife is honest indeed.”

“Ay,” said I, “they are fine people, and the place is a bonny place.”

“Where in the great world is such another!” she cries; “I am loving the

smell of that place and the roots that grow there.”

I was infinitely taken with the spirit of the maid. “I could be wishing

I had brought you a spray of that heather,” says I. “And, though I did

ill to speak with you at the first, now it seems we have common

acquaintance, I make it my petition you will not forget me. David

Balfour is the name I am known by. This is my lucky day, when I have

just come into a landed estate, and am not very long out of a deadly

peril. I wish you would keep my name in mind for the sake of

Balwhidder,” said I, “and I will yours for the sake of my lucky day.”

“My name is not spoken,” she replied, with a great deal of haughtiness.

“More than a hundred years it has not gone upon men’s tongues, save for

a blink. I am nameless, like the Folk of Peace. [3] Catriona Drummond

is the one I use.”

Now indeed I knew where I was standing. In all broad Scotland there was

but the one name proscribed, and that was the name of the Macgregors.

Yet so far from fleeing this undesirable acquaintancy, I plunged the

deeper in.

“I have been sitting with one who was in the same case with yourself,”

said I, “and I think he will be one of your friends. They called him

Robin Oig.”

“Did ye so?” cries she. “Ye met Rob?”

“I passed the night with him,” said I.

“He is a fowl of the night,” said she.

“There was a set of pipes there,” I went on, “so you may judge if the

time passed.”

“You should be no enemy, at all events,” said she. “That was his

brother there a moment since, with the red soldiers round him. It is

him that I call father.”

“Is it so?” cried I. “Are you a daughter of James More’s?”

“All the daughter that he has,” says she: “the daughter of a prisoner;

that I should forget it so, even for one hour, to talk with strangers!”

Here one of the gillies addressed her in what he had of English, to

know what “she” (meaning by that himself) was to do about “ta

sneeshin.” I took some note of him for a short, bandy-legged,

red-haired, big-headed man, that I was to know more of to my cost.

“There can be none the day, Neil,” she replied. “How will you get

‘sneeshin,’ wanting siller! It will teach you another time to be more

careful; and I think James More will not be very well pleased with Neil

of the Tom.”

“Miss Drummond,” I said, “I told you I was in my lucky day. Here I am,

and a bank-porter at my tail. And remember I have had the hospitality

of your own country of Balwhidder.”

“It was not one of my people gave it,” said she.

“Ah, well,” said I, “but I am owing your uncle at least for some

springs upon the pipes. Besides which, I have offered myself to be your

friend, and you have been so forgetful that you did not refuse me in

the proper time.”

“If it had been a great sum, it might have done you honour,” said she;

“but I will tell you what this is. James More lies shackled in prison;

but this time past they will be bringing him down here daily to the

Advocate’s. . . .”

“The Advocate’s!” I cried. “Is that . . . ?”

“It is the house of the Lord Advocate Grant of Prestongrange,” said

she. “There they bring my father one time and another, for what purpose

I have no thought in my mind; but it seems there is some hope dawned

for him. All this same time they will not let me be seeing him, nor yet

him write; and we wait upon the King’s street to catch him; and now we

give him his snuff as he goes by, and now something else. And here is

this son of trouble, Neil, son of Duncan, has lost my four-penny piece

that was to buy that snuff, and James More must go wanting, and will

think his daughter has forgotten him.”

I took sixpence from my pocket, gave it to Neil, and bade him go about

his errand. Then to her, “That sixpence came with me by Balwhidder,”

said I.

“Ah!” she said, “you are a friend to the Gregara!”

“I would not like to deceive you, either,” said I. “I know very little

of the Gregara and less of James More and his doings, but since the

while I have been standing in this close, I seem to know something of

yourself; and if you will just say ‘a friend to Miss Catriona’ I will

see you are the less cheated.”

“The one cannot be without the other,” said she.

“I will even try,” said I.

“And what will you be thinking of myself!” she cried, “to be holding my

hand to the first stranger!”

“I am thinking nothing but that you are a good daughter,” said I.

“I must not be without repaying it,” she said; “where is it you stop!”

“To tell the truth, I am stopping nowhere yet,” said I, “being not full

three hours in the city; but if you will give me your direction, I will

be so bold as come seeking my sixpence for myself.”

“Will I can trust you for that?” she asked.

“You need have little fear,” said I.

“James More could not bear it else,” said she. “I stop beyond the

village of Dean, on the north side of the water, with Mrs.

Drummond-Ogilvy of Allardyce, who is my near friend and will be glad to

thank you.”

“You are to see me, then, so soon as what I have to do permits,” said

I; and, the remembrance of Alan rolling in again upon my mind, I made

haste to say farewell.

I could not but think, even as I did so, that we had made extraordinary

free upon short acquaintance, and that a really wise young lady would

have shown herself more backward. I think it was the bank-porter that

put me from this ungallant train of thought.

“I thoucht ye had been a lad of some kind o’ sense,” he began, shooting

out his lips. “Ye’re no likely to gang far this gate. A fule and his

siller’s shune parted. Eh, but ye’re a green callant!” he cried, “an’ a

veecious, tae! Cleikin’ up wi’ baubeejoes!”

“If you dare to speak of the young lady. . . ” I began.

“Leddy!” he cried. “Haud us and safe us, whatten leddy? Ca’ _thon_ a

leddy? The toun’s fu’ o’ them. Leddies! Man, its weel seen ye’re no

very acquant in Embro!”

A clap of anger took me.

“Here,” said I, “lead me where I told you, and keep your foul mouth

shut!”

He did not wholly obey me, for, though he no more addressed me

directly, he very impudent sang at me as he went in a manner of

innuendo, and with an exceedingly ill voice and ear—

“As Mally Lee cam doun the street, her capuchin did flee,

She cuist a look ahint her to see her negligee.

And we’re a’ gaun east and wast, we’re a’ gann ajee,

We’re a’ gaun east and wast courtin’ Mally Lee.”