Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (Illustrated) (240 page)

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

“And what’s your ain opinion, you that’s a man of so much experience?” said he.

“It passes me,” said I.

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

“I do that,” said I.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“No doubt that’s a branch of education that was left out with me,” said I.

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

“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 wouldnae 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 blythe 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 amnae 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.

CHAPTER XII - ON THE MARCH AGAIN WITH ALAN

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 banks, 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 very 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 gomeral,” 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 wouldnae, 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 (wasnae’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 he 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 driedful 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 cannae 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 forby.  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 Caesar, would be doubtless very pleased to have the advantage of my observes.”

“Is Lord Meloort 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 Ardsheil, 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 good-wife (as chanced) was called away.