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headed man xi the wood by xii on the march again with xiii sands xiv the bass xv black s tale op xvi the missing witness x vii the memorial xviii the tee d ball xix i am much in the hands of the ladies xx i continue to move in good society part ii father and daughter xxi the voyage into holland xxii travels in holland xxiv full story of a copy op xxv the return of james more xxvi the a in which i am left alone we meet in xxx the letter from the ship conclusion part i the lord chapter i a beggar on horseback the th day of august about two in the afternoon i david 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 i was like a by the 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 rang to day i was served heir to my position in life a landed a bank porter by me carrying my gold in my pocket and in the words of the sa the ball directly at my foot there were two circumstances that served me as to so much sail the first was the very b 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 the sea sands and the still country sides that i had frequented up to then the throng of the citizens in particular abashed me s son was short and small in the his clothes scarce held on me and it was plain i was ill qualified to 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 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 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 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 to be well chosen said he plain as for the doubt it sits wi your degree but an i had been you i would my better gates than that and he proposed i should buy winter from a wife conspicuous a ok horseback in the back that was a cousin of his own and made them 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 not only by the number of its but the 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 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 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 and i knew from tales of mr 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 tack such a to my tails i had three visits to make all immediately needful to my mr of to the writer that was s agent and to william grant of lord advocate of scotland mr s was a non visit and besides being in the country i made bold to find the way to it myself with the help b y of my two legs and a tongue but the rest were in a case not only was the visit to s agent in the midst of the cry about the 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 s agent was little likely to mend my own affairs and might prove the mere ruin of friend 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 therefore to be done at once with mr and the whole 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 th re came a of rain nothing to hurt only for my new clothes and we took shelter under
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a 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 out one 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 a on horseback great coat he walked with a stoop that was uke a piece of courtesy genteel and he waved his hands 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 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 until but three were left one was a girl she was dressed like a lady and had a screen of the colours on her head but her comrades or i should say followers were ragged such as i had seen the matches of by the dozen in my journey they all spoke together earnestly in the sound of which was pleasant in my ears for the sake of and though the rain was by again and my porter plucked at me to be going i even drew nearer where they were to the lady sharply the others making apologies and before her so that i made sure she was come of a chiefs 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 among the party which made me smile a little to see all folk alike for fine and empty it chanced the girl turned suddenly about so that i saw her face for the first time there is no g 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 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 farther down the close and they fell again to this dispute where i could hear no more of it i had often admired a 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 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 like but there was here a different it was plain the girl thought i had been 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 the least of it not by this yoimg lady a beggar on horseback i followed accordingly and took oflf my new hat to her the best that i was able madam said i i think it only fair to to let you understand i have no it is true i was listening for i have friends of my own across the 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 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 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 bo a very unusual thing for strangers to be speaking to each other on the she but if you are bred it will be different i am as as yourself i am as you see and think myself the farther my home it is not yet a week since i passed the line aid i less than a week ago i was on the of she cries come ye from the name of it makes all there is of mo 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
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called i replied well i know 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 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 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 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 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 more than a hundred years it has not gone upon men s tongues save for a i am nameless like the folk of peace is the one i use now indeed i knew where i was standing in all broad scotland there was but the one name and that was the name of the yet so far from this i plunged the deeper in the a beggar on horseback 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 did ye so cries she ye met rob 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 addressed her in what he had of english to know what she meaning by that himself was to do about ta i took some note of him for a short legged big headed man that i was to know more of to my cost there can be none the day she replied how will you get wanting it will teach you another time to be more careful and i think james more will not be very well pleased with of the tom miss 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 i i it was not one of my people gave it said she ah well said i but i am owing your at least for some springs upon the pipes besides which i have offered to be your friend and you have been so forgetful that you did not refuse me in the proper time 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 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 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 son of has lost my 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 and bade him go about his errand then to her that sixpence came with me by said i ah she said you are a friend to the i would not like to deceive you either said i i know very little of the and less of james more and his doings but since the while i have been a beggar on horseback h standing in this close i seem to know something of yourself and if you will just say a friend to miss 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 l i must not be without it she said where is it you stop to teu 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 wiu i can trust you for that she asked you need have uttle 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 of who is my near friend and will be glad to thank you you are to see me then
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so soon as what i have to do said i and the remembrance of 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 that put me from this train of thought i 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 and his s parted eh but ye re a green he cried an a up wi if you dare to speak of the young lady i began he cried hand us and safe us ca a the s fu o them man it s seen ye re no very in 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 sang at me as he went in a very impudent manner of and with an exceedingly ill voice and ear as lee the street her did flee she a look her to see her and we re a east and we re a ave re a east and lee u chapter il the mr charles the writer dwelt at the top of the longest stair that ever set a hand to fifteen flights of it no less and when i had come to his door and a clerk opened it and told me his master was within i had scarce breath enough to send my porter packing east and wi ye said i took the money bag out of his hands and followed the clerk in the outer room was an with the clerk s chair at a table spread with law papers in the inner chamber which opened from it a httle brisk man sat on a deed from which he scarce raised his eyes upon my entrance indeed he still kept his finger in the place as though prepared to show me out and fall again to his studies this pleased me little enough and what pleased me less i thought the clerk was in a good posture to what should pass between us i asked if he was mr charles the writer the same says he and if the question is equally fair who may you be yourself you never heard tell of my name nor of either said i but i bring you a token from a friend that you know well that you know well i repeated lowering my voice but maybe are not just so keen to hear from at this present being and the bits of business that i have to to you are rather in the nature of being confidential in short i would like to think we were quite private he rose without more words casting down his paper like a man ill pleased sent forth his clerk of an errand and shut to the house door behind him now sir said he returning speak out your mind and fear nothing though before you begin he cries out i tell you mine me i tell you beforehand ye re either a or a sent ye a good name it is and one it would my father s son to lightly but i begin to at the sound of it my name is called said i david of as for him that sent me i will let his token speak and i showed the silver button put it in your pocket sir cries he ye need name no names the s i ken the button of him and de il t where is he now i told him i knew not where was but he had some sure place or thought he had about the north side where he was to lie until a ship was found for him and how and where he had appointed to be spoken with it s been always my opinion that i would hang in a tow for this family of mine he cried and i i believe the day s come now get a ship for the him he and who s to pay for it the man s that is my part of the affair mr said i here is a bag of good money and if more bo wanted more is to be had where it came from i needn t ask your politics said he ye need not said i smiling for i m as big a as grows stop a bit stop a bit says mr what s all this a then why are you here with s button and what kind of a black foot is this that i find ye out in mr here is a rebel and an accused murderer with two hundred pounds on his life and ye ask me to in his business and then teu me ye re a i have no mind of any such before though i ve plenty of them he s a rebel the more s the pity said i for the man s my friend i can only wish he had been better guided and an accused murderer that he is too for his misfortune but accused i hear you say so said more than you are to hear me say so before long said i is innocent and so is james oh says he the two cases hang together if is out james can never be in i told him briefly of my acquaintance with of the accident that brought me present at the murder and the various passages of our among the he ther and my recovery of my estate so sir you have now the whole train of these events i went
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on and can see for yourself how i come to be so much mingled up with the affairs of your family and friends which for all of our i wish had been and less bloody you can see for yourself too that i have certain pieces of business depending which were scarcely fit to lay before a lawyer chosen at random no more remains but to ask if you will undertake my service i have no great mind to it but coming as you do with s button the choice is scarcely left me said he what are your instructions he added and took up his pen the first point is to forth of this country said i but i need not be repeating that i am little likely to forget it said the next thing is the bit money i am owing to i went on it would be ill for me to find a conveyance but that should be no stick to you it was two pounds five shillings and three sterling he noted it then said i there s a mr a preacher and missionary in that i would like well to get some snuff into the hands of and as i you keep touch with your friends in so near by it s a job you could doubtless overtake with the other how much snuff are we to say he asked i was thinking of two pounds said i two said he then there s the in lime the writer said i her that helped and mo across the forth i was thinking if i could get her a good sunday go vn such as she could wear with decency in her degree it would be an ease to my conscience for the mere truth is we owe her our two lives i am glad to see you are mr says he making his notes i would think to be otherwise the day of my fortune said i and now if you will the and your own proper charges i would be glad to know if i could get some back it s not that i grudge the whole of it to get safe it s not that i lack more but having drawn so much the one day i think it would have a very ill appearance if i was back again seeking the next only bo sure you have enough i added for i am very to meet with you again well and i m pleased to see you re cautious too said the writer but i think ye take a risk to lay so considerable a sum at my discretion he said this with a plain sneer i ll have to run the hazard i replied and there s another service i would ask and that s to direct me to a lodging for i have no roof to my head but it must be a lodging i may seem to have hit upon by accident for it would never do if the lord advocate were to get any jealousy of our acquaintance ye may set your weary spirit at rest said he i will never name your name sir and it s my belief the advocate is still so much to be with that he ken of your existence c i saw i had got to the wrong side of the man there s a day coming for him then said i for hell have to learn of it on the deaf side of his head no later than to morrow when i call on him when ye call on him i repeated mr am i or are you what takes ye near the advocate just to give myself up said i mr he cried are ye making a mock of me no sir said i though i think you have allowed yourself some such freedom with myself but i give you to understand once and for all that i am in no spirit nor yet me says and i give you to understand if that s to be the word that i e the looks of your behaviour less and less you come here to me with all sorts of which will put me in a train of very doubtful acts and bring me among very persons this many a day to come and then you tell me you re going straight out of my office to make your peace with the advocate s button here or s button there the four quarters of bribe me further in i would take it with a little more temper said i and perhaps we can avoid what you object to i can see no way for it but to give myself up but perhaps you can see another and if you could i could never deny but what i would be rather relieved for i think my traffic with his is little likely to agree with my health there s just the the thing clear that i have to give my evidence for i hope it ll save s character what s left of it and james s neck which is the more immediate he was silent for a breathing space and then my man said he you ll never be allowed to give such evidence we ll have to see about that said i i m when i like ye ass cried it s james they want james has got to hang too if they could catch him but james whatever go near the advocate with any such business and you ll see he ll find a way to ye i think better of the advocate than that said i the advocate be damned cries he it s the man you ll have the whole of them on your back and so will the advocate too poor body it s ye cannot see where ye stand if there s
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no fair way to stop your there s a foul one gaping they can put ye in the dock do ye no see that he cried and me with one finger in the leg ay said i i was told that same no further back than this morning by another lawyer and who was he asked he spoke sense at least i told i must be excused firom him for he was a decent stout old and had little mind to be mixed up in such i all the world seems to be mixed up in it cries but what said you i told him what had passed between and myself before the house of well and so ye will hang said he ye u hang beside james there s your fortune told i hope better of it yet than that said i but i could never deny there was a risk risk says he and then sat silent again i ought to thank you for your to my friends to whom you show a very good spirit ho says if you have the strength to stand by it but i warn you that you re deep i wouldn t put myself in your place me that s a bom for all the that ever there were since risk ay i take over many but to be tried in court before a jury and a judge and that in a country and upon a quarrel think what you like of me it s beyond me it s a different way of thinking i suppose said i i was brought up to this one by my father before me glory to his bones he has left a decent son to his name says he yet i would not have you judge me over sorely my case is hard see sir ye tell me ye re a i wonder what i am no to be sure i be just that but in your ear man i m maybe no very keen on the other side is that a fact cried i it s what i would think of a man of your intelligence none of your cries ha the writer there s intelligence upon both sides but for my private part i have no particular desire to harm king george and as for king james god bless him he does very well for me across the water i m a lawyer ye see fond of my books and my bottle a good plea a well drawn deed a crack in the parliament house with other lawyer bodies and perhaps a turn at the on a saturday at e en where do ye come in with your and well said i it s a fact ye have little of the wild little he nothing man and yet fm bom and when the pipes who but me has to dance the and the name that goes by all it s just what you said yourself my father learned it to me and a trade i have of it treason and and the of them out and in and the french weary fall it i and the through of the and their a sorrow of their here have i been moving one for young my cousin claimed the estate imder the marriage a estate i told them it was nonsense they cared and there was i behind a that liked the business as little as myself for it was fair ruin to the pair of us a black mark on our like folk s names upon their and what can i do i m a ye see and must for my and family then no later by than yesterday there was one of our lads carried to the castle what for i ken fine act of for king and see he ll me in to be his lawyer and there ll be another black mark on my character i tell you fair if i but the of a hebrew word from the of it be but i would fling the whole thing up and turn minister it s rather a hard position said i hard cries ha and that s what makes me think so much of ye you that s no to stick your head so deep in business and for what i do not know unless it was the sense of duty i hope it will be that said i well says he it s a grand quality ut here is my clerk back and by your leave we ll pick a bit of dinner all the three of us when that s done i ll give you the direction of a very decent man that ll be very fain to have you for a and i ll fill your pockets to ye out of your ain bag for this business u not be near as dear as ye suppose not even the ship part of it i made him a sign that his clerk was within hearing ye mind for cries he a too and has out more french and than what he has hairs upon face why it s robin that that branch of my affairs who will we have now rob for across the water there ll be in the rob i saw the other day but it seems he s wanting the ship then there ll be the writer but i m none so sure of i ve seen him with some queer acquaintances and if was anybody important i would give the go by the head s worth two hundred pounds robin said that ll no be cried the clerk just said his master weary winds that s cried robin i ll try then be the best it seems it s quite a big business i observed mr there s no end to it said then was a name
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your clerk mentioned i went on that must be my man i think of the would you set your trust on him he behave very well to you and said mr but my mind of the man in general is rather otherwise if he had taken on board his ship on an agreement it s my notion he would have proved a just dealer how say ye rob no more honest in the trade than said the clerk i would to s word ay if it was the or he added and it was him that brought the doctor t asked the master he was the very man said the clerk and i think he took the doctor back says to ay with his full cried robin and of that well it seems it s hard to ken folk rightly said i that was just what i forgot when ye came in mr says the writer this must have reference to dr on his first d b chapter iii i go to the next morning i was no sooner awake in my new lodging than i was up and into my new clothes and na sooner the breakfast swallowed than i was forth on my i could hope was for james was like to be a more affair and i could not but think that enterprise might cost me dear even as everybody said to whom i had opened my opinion it seemed i was come to the top of the mountain only to cast myself down that i had up through so many and hard trials to be rich to be recognised to wear city clothes and a sword to my side all to commit mere suicide at the last end of it and the worst kind of suicide besides which is to get hanged at the king s charges what was i doing it for i asked as i went down the high street and out north by first i said it was to save james and no doubt the memory of his distress and his wife s cries and a word or so i had let drop on that occasion upon me strongly at the same time i reflected that it was or ought to be the most indifferent matter to my father s son whether james died in his bed or from a he was s cousin to be sure but so far as regarded the best thing would be to lie low and let the king and his grace of and the pick the bones of his their own way nor could i forget that while we were all in the pot together james had shown no such particular anxiety whether for or me next it came upon me i was acting for the sake of justice and i thought that a fine word and reasoned it out that since we dwelt in at some discomfort to each one of us the main thing of all must still be justice and the death of any innocent man a wound upon the whole community next again it was the of the brethren that gave me a turn of his argument bade me think shame for pretending myself concerned in these high matters and told me i was but a vain child who had spoken big words to and to and held myself bound upon my vanity to that nay and he hit me with the other end of the stick for he accused me of a kind of artful cowardice going about at the expense of a little risk to purchase greater safety no doubt until i had declared and cleared myself i might any day or the officer and be recognised and dragged into the murder by the heels and no doubt in case i could manage my declaration with success i should breathe more free for ever after but when i looked this argument full in the face i could see nothing to be ashamed of as for the rest here are the two roads i thought and both go to the same place it s unjust that james should hang if i can save him and it would be ridiculous in me to have talked so much and then do i go to nothing it s lucky for james of the that i have boasted beforehand and none so unlucky for myself because now i m committed to do right i have the name of a gentleman and the means of one it would be a poor discovery that i was wanting in the essence and then i thought this was a pagan spirit and said a prayer in to myself asking for what courage i might lack and that i might go straight to my duty like a soldier to battle and come off again as so many do this train of reasoning brought me to a more resolved complexion though it was far from closing up my sense of the dangers that surrounded me nor of how very apt i was if i went on to on the ladder of the gallows it was a plain fair morning but the wind in the east the little chill of it sang in my blood and gave me a feeling of the autumn and the dead leaves and dead folks bodies in their graves it seemed the devil was in it if i was to die in that tide of my fortunes and for other folks affairs on the top of the hill though it was not the customary time of year for that diversion some children were crying and running with their these toys appeared very plain against the sky i remarked a great one on the wind to a high and then plump among the and i thought to myself at sight of it there goes my way lay over s and through an end of a on
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the among fields there was a of in it went from house to house bees in the gardens the neighbours that i saw at the talked in a strange tongue and i found out later that this was a village where the french wrought for the linen company here i got a fresh direction for my destination and a little beyond on the came by a and two men hanged in chains they were dipped in tar as the manner is the wind span them the chains and the birds hung about the jumping and cried the sight coming on me suddenly like an illustration of my fears i could scarce be done with examining it and drinking in discomfort and as i thus turned and turned about the what should i strike on but a weird old wife that sat behind a leg of it and nodded and talked aloud to herself with and who are these two mother i asked and pointed to the a blessing on your precious face she cried o mine just o my old my dear did they for i asked ou just for the cause said she i to them the way that it would end no and there are for t they took it a to ay said i to myself and not to the and did they come to such a figure for so poor a business this is to lose all indeed s your t says she and let me your weird to ye t j palm i go to no mother said i i see far enough the way i ain it s an to see too far in front i read it in your she said there s a that has een and there s a man in a coat and a big man in a wig and there s the shadow of the joe that across your path s your and let it to ye the two chance shots that seemed to point at and the daughter of james more struck me hard and i fled from the creature casting her a which she continued to sit and play with under the moving shadows of the hanged my way down the of walk would have been more pleasant to me but for this encounter the old ran among fields the like of them i had never seen for of i was pleased besides to be so far in the but the of the in my head and the and of the old witch and the thought of the dead men rode my spirits to hang on a gallows that seemed a hard case and whether a man came to hang there for two shillings or as mr had it from the sense of duty once he was and and hung up the difference seemed small there might david hang and other lads pass on their errands and think of him and old sit at a leg foot and their fortunes and the clean maids go by and look to the other side and hold a nose i saw them plain and they had grey eyes and gallows their upon their heads were of the i was thus in the poorest of spirits though still pretty resolved when i came in view of a pleasant house set by the among some brave young the s horse was standing at the door as i came up but himself was in the study where he received me in the midst of learned works and musical instruments for he was not only a deep philosopher but much of a he greeted me at first pretty well and when he had read s letter placed himself at my disposal and what is it cousin david says he since it appears that we are cousins what is this that i can do for you a word to doubtless that is easily given but what should be the word mr said i if i were to tell you my whole story the way it fell out it s my opinion and it was s before me that you would be very little made up with it i am sorry to hear this of you says he i must not take that at your hands mr said i i have nothing to my charge to make me sorry or you for me but just the common of the guilt of adam s first sin the want of original and the corruption of my whole nature so much i must answer for and i hope i have been taught where to look for help i said for i judged from the look of the man he would i go to think the better of me if i knew my questions but in the way of worldly honour i have no great to reproach myself with and my difficulties have befallen me very much against my will and by all that i can see without my fault my trouble is to have become dipped in a political which it is judged you would be to avoid a knowledge of why very well mr david he replied i am pleased to see you are all that represented and for what you say of political you do me no more than justice it is my study to be beyond suspicion and indeed outside the field of it the question is says he how if i am to know nothing of the matter i can very well assist you why sir said i i propose you should write to his that i am a yoimg man of reasonable good family and of good means both of which i believe to be the case i have s word for it said mr and i count that a against all deadly to which you might add if you will take my word for so much that i am
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is political and i tremble when i think what issues may depend from it to a political case i need scarce tell a young man of your education we approach with very thoughts from one which is criminal only ia is a susceptible of great abuse it has that force which we find elsewhere only in th laws of nature i mean it has the force of necessity i will open this out to you if you will allow me at more length you would have me believe under your pardon my lord i would have you to believe nothing but that which i can prove said i tut tut young gentleman says he be not so and a man who might be your father if it was nothing more to employ his own imperfect language and express his own poor thoughts even when they have the misfortune not to with mr s you would have me to believe innocent i would think this of uttle account the more so as we cannot catch our man but the of s innocence shoots beyond itself once admitted it would destroy the whole of our case against another and a very different criminal a man grown old in treason already twice in arms against his king and already twice forgiven a of discontent and whoever may have fired the shot the unmistakable original of the deed in question i need not tell you that i mean james and i can just say plainly that the innocence of and of james is what i am here to declare in private to your and what i am prepared to establish at the trial by my testimony said i lord advocate to which i can only answer by an equal mr said he that in that case your testimony will not be called by me and i desire you to withhold it altogether you are at the head of justice in this country i cried and you propose to me a crime i am a man nursing with both hands the interests of this country he replied and i press on you a necessity patriotism is not always moral in the formal sense you might bo glad of it i think it is your own protection the facts are heavy against you and if i am still trying to except you from a v iy dangerous place it is in part of course because i am not insensible to your honesty in coming here in part because of s letter but in part and in chief part because i regard in this matter my political duty first and my duty only second for the same reason i repeat it to you in the same frank words i do not want your testimony i desire not to be thought to make a when i express only the plain sense of our position said i but if your has no need of my testimony i the other side would be extremely to get it arose and began to pace to and fro in the room you are not so young he said but what you must remember very clearly the year and the shock that went about the country i read in s letter that you are sound in and who saved them in fatal year i do not refer to his royal and his which were extremely useful in their day but the country had been saved and the field won before ever came upon who saved it i repeat who saved the religion and the whole frame of our civil institutions the late lord president for one he played a man s part and small thanks he got for it even as i whom you see before you straining every nerve in the same service look for no reward beyond the conscience of my duties done after the president who else you know the answer as well as i do tis partly a scandal and you glanced at it yourself and i you for it when you first came in it was the duke and the great of now here is a murdered and that in the king s service the duke and i are but we are and it is not so with the great mass of our and families they have still savage virtues and defects they are still like these only the were on the right side and the were on the wrong now be you the judge the expect vengeance if they do not get it if this man james escape there will be trouble with the that means disturbance in the which are very far from being the is a farce i can bear you out in that said i disturbance in the makes the hour of our old watchful pursued his lord advocate holding out a finger as he paced and i give you my word we may have a again with the on the other side to protect the life of this man which is already on half a dozen counts if not on this do you propose to plunge your country in war to the faith of your fathers and to expose the lives and fortunes of how many thousand innocent persons these are considerations that weigh with me and that i hope will weigh no less with mr as a lover of your country good government and religious truth you deal with me very frankly and i thank you for it said i i will try on my side to be no less honest i believe your policy to be sound i believe these deep duties may lie upon your i believe you may have laid them on your conscience when you took the oaths of the high ofl ce which you hold but for me who am just a plain man or scarce a man yet
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the plain duties must suffice i can think but of two things of a poor soul in the immediate and unjust danger of a shameful death and of the cries and tears of his wife that still in my head i cannot see beyond my lord it s the way that i am if the country has to fall it has to fall and i pray god if this be wilful blindness that ho may me before too he had heard me motionless and stood so a while longer this is an obstacle says he aloud but to himself r i and how is your to dispose of me i asked if i wished said he you know that you might sleep in my lord said i i have slept in worse places well my boy said he there is one thing appears very plainly from our interview that i may rely on your q d word give me your honour that you will be wholly secret not only on what has passed to night but in the matter of the case and i let you go free i will give it till to morrow or any other near day that you may please to set said i i would not be thought too but if i gave the promise without your would have attained his end i had no thought to you said ha i am sure of that said i let me see he continued to morrow is the sabbath come to me on monday by eight in the morning and give me your promise until then freely given my lord said i and with regard to what has fallen from yourself i will give it for as long as it shall please god to spare your days you will observe he said next that i have made no employment of it was like your s nobility said i yet i am not altogether so dull but what i can perceive the nature of those you have not uttered lord advocate well said he good night to you may you sleep well for i think it is more than i am like to do with that he sighed took up a candle and gave me his conveyance as far as the street door chapter v in the advocate s house the next day sabbath august th i had the occasion i had long looked forward to to hear some of the famous all well known to ine already by the report of mr alas and i might just as well have been at and sitting under mr s worthy self the turmoil of my thoughts which dwelt continually on the interview with me from all attention i was indeed much less impressed by the reasoning of the than by the spectacle of the thronged congregation in the churches like what i imagined of a theatre or in my then disposition of an of trial above all at the west with its three of galleries where i went in the vain hope that i might see miss on the monday i me for the first time to a s and was very well pleased with the result thence to the advocate s where the red coats of the soldiers showed again about his door making a bright place in the close i looked about for the yoimg lady and her there was never a sign of them but i was no sooner shown into the cabinet or where i had spent so a time upon the in the advocate s house saturday than i was aware of the tall figure of james more in a comer he seemed a prey to a painful uneasiness reaching forth his feet and hands and his eyes here and there without rest about the walls of the small chamber which recalled to me with a sense of pity the man s wretched situation i suppose it was partly this and partly my strong continuing interest in his daughter that moved me to him give you a good morning sir said i and a good morning to you sir said he you bide with i asked i do sir and i pray your business with that gentleman be more agreeable than mine was his reply i hope at least that yours will be brief for i suppose you pass before me said i all pass before me he said with a shrug and a gesture upward of the open hands it was not always so sir but times change it was not so when the sword was in the scale young gentleman and the virtues of the soldier might sustain themselves there came a kind of out of the man that raised my strangely well mr said i i understand the main thing for a soldier is to be silent and the first of his virtues never to complain you have my name i perceive he bowed to me with his arms crossed though it s one i must not use myself well there is a i have shown my face and told my too often in the of my enemies i must not wonder if both should be known to many that i know not that you know not in the least sir said i nor yet anybody else but the name i am called if you care to hear it is it is a good name he replied there are many decent folk that use it and now that i call to mind there was a young gentleman your that marched surgeon in the year with my i believe that would be a brother to of said i for i was ready for the surgeon now the same sir said james more and since i have been fellow soldier with your you must suffer me to grasp your hand he shook hands with me long and tenderly
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beaming on me the while as though he had found a brother ah says he these are changed days since your cousin and i heard the balls whistle in our i think he was a very far away cousin said i and i ought to tell you that i never clapped eyes upon the man well well said he it makes no change and you i do not think you were out yourself sir i have no clear mind of your face which is one not probable to be forgotten in the year you refer to mr i was getting in the parish school said i so young cries he ah then you will never in the advocate s house be able to think what this meeting is to me in the hour of my and here in the house of my enemy to meet in with the blood of an old brother it me mr like the of the pipes sir this is a sad look back that many of us have to make some with falling tears i have lived in my own country like a king my sword my mountains and the faith of my friends and for me now i lie in a and do you know mr he went on taking my arm and to lead me about do you know sir that i lack mere necessaries the malice of my foes has quite my resources i ue as you know sir on a up charge of which i am as innocent as yourself they dare not bring me to my trial and in the meanwhile i am held naked in my prison i could have wished it was your cousin i had met or his brother himself either would i know have been rejoiced to help me while a comparative stranger hke yourself i would be ashamed to set down all he poured out to me in this vein or the very short and answers that i made to him there were times when i was tempted to stop his mouth with some small change but whether it was from shame or pride whether it was for my own sake or s whether it was because i thought him no fit father for his daughter or because i resented that of immediate that clung about the man himself the thing was clean beyond me and i was still being and preached to and still being marched to and fro three steps and a turn in that chamber and had already by some very short replies highly although not finally discouraged my beggar when appeared in the doorway and bade me eagerly into his big chamber i have a moments engagement said he and that you may not sit empty handed i am going to present you to my three daughters of whom perhaps you may have heard for i think they are more famous than papa this way he led me into another long room above where a dry old lady sat at a frame of and the three young women i suppose in scotland stood together by a window this is my new friend mr said he presenting me by the arm david here is my sister miss grant who is so good as keep my house for me and will be very pleased if she can you and here says he turning to the three younger ladies here are my three a fair question to ye mr which of the three is the best favoured and i he will never have the impudence to honest s answer all three and the old miss grant as well cried out against this sally which as i was acquainted with the verses he referred to brought shame into my own cheek it seemed to me a in a father and i was d that these ladies could laugh even while they or made believe to under cover of this mirth got forth in the advocate s house of the chamber and i was left like a fish upon dry land in that very society i could never deny in looking back upon what followed that i was eminently and i must say the ladies were well to have so long a patience with me the aunt indeed sat close at her only looking now and again and smiling but the and especially the eldest who was besides the most handsome paid me a score of attentions which i was very ill able to repay it was all in vain to tell myself i was a young fellow of some worth as well as a good estate and had no call to feel abashed before these the eldest not so much older than myself and no one of them by any probability half as learned reasoning would not change the fact and there were times when the colour came into my face to think i was shaved that day for the first time the talk going with all their very heavily the eldest took pity on my awkwardness sat down to her instrument of which she was a passed mistress and entertained me for a while with playing and singing both in the and in the italian manners this put me more at my ease and being reminded of s air that he had taught me in the hole near i made so bold as to whistle a bar or two and ask if she knew that she shook her head i never heard a note of it said she whistle it all through and now once again she added after i had done so then she picked it out upon the and to my surprise instantly enriched the same with well sounding and sang as she played with a very droll expression and broad accent i got just the of it p this the tune that ye f you
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than the master of and chief of the great i knew he had led his men in the rebellion i knew his father s head the master of my old lord s that grey fox of the mountains to have fallen on the block for that offence the lands of the family to have been seized and their nobility i could not conceive what he should be doing in grant s house i could not conceive that he had been called to the bar had eaten all his principles and was now favour with the government even to the extent of acting advocate in the murder well mr said he what is all this i hear of ye it would not become me to said i but if the advocate was your authority he is fully possessed of my opinions i may tell you i am engaged in the case he went on i am to appear under and from my study of the i can assure you your opinions are the guilt of is manifest and your testimony in which you admit you saw him on the hill at the very moment wiu his hanging it wiu be rather ill to hang him till you catch him i observed and for other matters i very leave you to your own impressions the duke has been informed he went on i have just come from his grace and he expressed himself before me with an honest freedom like the great nobleman he is he spoke of you by name mr and declared his gratitude beforehand in case you would be led by those who understand your own interests and those of the country so much better than yourself gratitude is no empty expression in that mouth i you know something of my name and and the example and lamented end of my late father to say nothing of my own well i have made my peace with that good duke he has for me with our friend and here i am with my foot in the again and some of the responsibility shared into my hand of king george s enemies and the late daring and insult to his majesty doubtless a proud position for your father s son says i he his bald eyebrows at me you are pleased to make experiments in the i think said he but i am here upon duty i am here to discharge my errand in good faith it is in vain you think to divert me and let me tell you for a young fellow of spirit and ambition like yourself a good in the beginning will do more than ten years the is now at your command choose what you will to be advanced in the duke will watch upon you with the affectionate disposition of a father i am thinking that i lack the of the son says i and do you really suppose sir that the whole policy of this country is to be suffered to trip up and tumble down for an ill of a boy he cried this has been a test case all who would in the future must put a shoulder to the wheel look at me do you suppose it is for my the master of pleasure that put myself in the highly position of a man that i have drawn the sword alongside of the choice is not left me r but i think sir that you your choice when you mixed in with that unnatural rebellion i remarked my case is happily otherwise i am a true man and can look either the duke or king george in the face without concern is it so the wind sits says he i protest you are fallen in the worst sort of error has been hitherto so civil he tells me as not to combat your but you must not think they are not looked upon with strong suspicion you say you are innocent my dear sir the facts declare you guilty i was waiting for you there said i the evidence of your after the completion of the murder your long course of my good man said mr here is enough evidence to hang a et be a david i shall be upon that trial my voice shall be raised i shall then speak much other wise from what i do to day and far less to your gratification little as you like it now ah you look white cries he i have found the key of your impudent heart you look pale your eyes mr david you see the grave and the gallows nearer by than you had fancied i own to a natural weakness said i think no shame for that shame i was going on shame waits for you on the he broke in where i shall but be even d with my lord your father said i but not so he cried and you do not yet see to the bottom of this business my father suffered in a great cause and for dealing in the affairs of kings you arc to hang for a dirty murder about pieces your personal part in it the treacherous one of holding the poor wretch in talk your a pack of ragged and it can be shown my great mr it can be shown and it will be shown trust that has a finger in the it can be shown and shall be shown that you were paid to do it i think i can see the looks go round the court when i my evidence and it shall appear that you a young man of education let yourself be to this shocking act for a suit of cast clothes a bottle of spirits and three and in copper money there was a touch of the truth in these words that knocked me uke a blow clothes a
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bottle of and three and in change made up indeed the most of what and i had carried from and i saw some of james s people had been in their you see i know more than you fancied he resumed in triumph and as for giving it this turn great mr david you must not suppose the government of great britain and ireland will ever be stuck for want of evidence we have men here in prison who will swear out their lives as we direct them as i direct if you prefer the phrase so now the master of you are to guess your part of glory if you choose to die on the one hand life wine women and a duke to be your hand gun on the other a rope to your and a to clatter your bones on and the lowest story to hand down to your in the future that was ever told about a hired and see here he cried with a formidable shrill voice see this paper that i pull out of my pocket look at the name there it is the name of the great david i believe the ink scarce dry yet can you guess its nature it is the warrant for your arrest which i have but to touch this bell beside me to have executed on the spot once in the upon this paper may god help you for the die is cast i must never deny that i was greatly by so much and much by the and of my danger mr had already in the changes of my hue i make no doubt i was now no than my shirt my speech besides trembled there is a gentleman in this room cried i i appeal to him i put my life and credit in his hands range shut his book with a snap i told you so said he you have played your hand for all it was worth and you have lost mr david he went on i wish you to believe it was by no choice of mine you were subjected to this proof i wish you could understand how glad i you should come forth from it with so much credit you may not quite see how but it is a little of a service to myself for had our friend here been more successful than i f was last night it might have appeared that he was a better judge of men than i it might have appeared we were altogether in the wrong situations mr and myself and i know our friend to be ambitious says he striking lightly on s shoulder as for this stage play it is over my sentiments are very much engaged in your behalf and whatever issue we can find to this unfortunate affair i shall make it my business to see it is adopted with tenderness to you these were very good words and i could see besides that there was little love and perhaps a of genuine ill will between those two who were opposed to me for all that it was unmistakable this interview had been designed perhaps with the consent of both it was plain my were in earnest to try me by all methods and now persuasion flattery and having been tried in vain i could not but wonder what would be their next expedient my eyes besides were still troubled and my knees loose under me with the distress of the late ordeal and i could do no more than the same form of words i put my life and credit in your hands well well says he we must try to save them and in the meanwhile let us return to methods you must not bear any grudge upon my friend mr who did but speak by his brief and even if you did conceive some malice against myself who stood by and seemed rather to hold a candle i must not let that extend to innocent members of my family these are greatly engaged to see more of the master of you and i cannot consent to have my young disappointed to morrow they will be going to hope park where i think it very proper you should make your bow call for me first when i may possibly have something for your private hearing you shall be turned abroad again under the conduct of my and until that time repeat to me your promise of secrecy i had done better to have instantly refused but in truth i was beside the power of reasoning did as i was bid took my leave i know not how and when i was forth again in the close and the door had shut behind me was glad to lean on a house wall and wipe my face that horrid apparition as i may call it of mr rang in my memory as a sudden noise rings after it is over in the ear tales of the man s father of his of his manifold perpetual rose before me from all that i had heard and read and joined on with what i had just experienced of himself each time it occurred to me the ingenious of that he had proposed to nail upon my character startled me afresh the case of the man upon the by walk appeared scarce from that i was now to consider as my own to rob a child of so little more than nothing was certainly a paltry enterprise for two grown men but my o vn tale as it was to be represented in a court by appeared a fair second in every possible point of view of and cowardice the voices of two of s men upon his recalled me to myself f ha e said the one this as fast as ye can link to the captain is that for the back
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ye ll find your work cut out for ye to establish that she i perceive you know my uncle said i and i you may be the better pleased to hear that business is arranged and what brings ye here after miss she pursued i m come after said i it s to be thought being my uncle s nephew i would bo found a careful lad so ye have a spark of in ye observed the old lady with some approval i thought ye had just been a you and your and your day and your sake of from which i was gratified to learn that had not forgotten some of our talk but all this is by the purpose she resumed am i to understand that ye come here keeping company this is surely rather an early question said i the maid is young so am i worse fortune i have but seen her the once i ll not deny i added making up my mind to try her with some frankness i ll not deny but she has run in my head a good deal since i met in with her that is one thing but it would be quite another and i think i would look very like a fool to commit myself you can speak out of your mouth i see said the old lady praise god and so can i was fool enough to take charge of this rogue s daughter a fine charge i have gotten but it s mine and carry it the way i want to do ye mean to tell me mr of that you would marry james more s daughter and him hanged well then where there s no possible marriage there shall be no i make a fault in honour manner of on and take that for said are things she added with a nod and though ye would never think it by my i was a and a one lady said i for that i suppose to be your name you seem to do the two sides of the talking which is a very poor manner to come to an agreement you give me rather a home thrust when you ask if i would marry at the gallows foot a young lady whom i have seen but the once i have told you already i would never be so as to commit myself and yet i ll go some way with you if i continue to hke the as well as i have reason to expect it will be something more than her father or the gallows either that keeps the two of us apart as for my family i foimd it by the like a lost i owe less than nothing to my uncle and if ever i marry it will be to please one person that s myself i have heard this kind of talk before ye were bom said mrs which is perhaps the reason that i think of it so little there s much to be considered this james more is a of mine to my shame be it spoken but the better the family the men hanged or that s always been poor scotland s story and if it was just the hanging for my part i think i would be best pleased with james upon the gallows which would be at least an end to him s a good enough and a good hearted and lets herself be all day with a of an wife like me but ye see there s the weak bit she s about that long false beggar of a father of hers and red mad about the and names and king james and a and you might think ye could guide her ye would find yourself sore ea ye say ye ve seen her but the once spoke with her but the once i should have said i interrupted i saw her again this morning from a window at s this i i put in because it sounded well but i was properly paid for my on the return what s this of it cries the old lady with a sudden of her face i think it was at the advocate s door cheek that ye met her first i told her that was so h m she said and then suddenly upon rather a scolding tone i have your bare word for it she cries as to who and what you are by your way of it you re of the but for what i ken you may be of the s it s possible ye may here for what ye say and it s equally possible ye may come here for care what i m good enough to sit quiet and to have all my men folk s heads upon their shoulders but i m not just a good enough to be made a fool of neither and i tell you fairly there s too much advocate s door and advocate s window here for a man that comes after a s daughter ye can tell that to the advocate that sent ye with my fond love and i kiss my to ye mr says she the action to the word and a journey to ye back to where ye i make a fault in honour if you think me a spy i broke out and speech stuck in my throat x stood and looked murder at the old lady for a space then bowed and turned away here the s in a she cried think ye a spy what else would i think ye me that by ye but i see that i was wrong and as i cannot fight i ll have to a figure i would be with a ay i ay she went on you re none such a bad lad in your way i think ye
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u have some vices but ye re damned ye ll have to win over that lad ye ll have to your back bone and think a less of your dainty self and ye ll have to try to find out that women folk are but that can never be to your last day you ll ken no more of women folk than what i do of sow i had never been used with such expressions from a lady s tongue the only two ladies i had known mrs and my mother being most devout and most particular women and i suppose my amazement must have been depicted in my countenance for mrs burst forth suddenly in a fit of laughter keep me she cried struggling with her mirth you have the finest timber face and you to marry the daughter of a my dear i think we ll have to make a match of it if it was just to see the and now she went on there s no manner of service in your here for the young woman is from home and it s my fear that the old woman is no suitable companion for your father s that i have nobody but myself to look after my reputation and have been long enough alone with a youth and come back another day for your i she cried after me as i left my with this lady gave my thoughts a boldness they had otherwise wanted for two days the image of had mixed in all my meditations she made their background so that i scarce enjoyed my own company without a of her in a comer of my mind but now she came immediately near i seemed to touch her whom i had never touched but the once i let myself flow out to her in a happy weakness and looking all about and before and behind saw the world like an desert where men go as soldiers on a march following their duty with what constancy they have and alone there to offer me some pleasure of my days i wondered at myself that i could dwell on such considerations in that time of my and disgrace and when i remembered my youth i was ashamed i had my studies to complete i had to be called into some useful business i had yet to take my part of service in a place where all must serve i had yet to learn and know and prove myself a man and i had so much sense as blush that i should be already tempted with these further on and delights and duties my education spoke home to me sharply i was never brought up on sugar but on the hard food of the truth i knew that he was quite unfit to bo a husband who was not prepared i make a fault in honour to be a father also and for a boy like me to play the father was a mere derision when i was in the midst of these thoughts and about half way back to town i saw a figure coming to meet me and the trouble of my heart was heightened it seemed i had everything in the world to say to her but nothing to say first and remembering how tongue tied i had been that morning at the advocate s i made sure that i would find myself struck dumb but when she came up my fears fled away not even the consciousness of what i had been privately thinking disconcerted me the least and i found i could talk with her as easily and as i might with she cried you have been seeking your sixpence did you get it i told her no but now i had met with her my walk was not in vain though i have seen you to day already said i and told her where and when i did not see you she said my eyes are big but there are better than mine at far only i heard singing in the house that was miss grant said i the eldest and the they say they are all beautiful said she they think the same of you miss i replied and were all crowding to the window to observe you it is a pity about my being so blind said she or i might have seen them too and you were in the house you must have been having the fine time with the fine music and the pretty ladies there is just where you are wrong said i for i was as uncouth as a sea fish upon the of a mountain the truth is that i am better fitted to go about with men than pretty ladies well i would think so too at all events said she at which we both of us laughed it is a strange thing now said i i am not the least afraid with you yet i could have run from the miss and i was afraid of your cousin too think any man will be afraid of her she cried my father is afraid of her himself the name of her father brought me to a stop i looked at her as she walked by my side i recalled the man and the little i knew and the much i guessed of him and comparing the one with the other felt like a traitor to be silent speaking of which said i i met your father no later than this morning did you she cried with a voice of joy that seemed to mock at me you saw james more you will have spoken with him then i did even that said i then i think things went the worst way for me that was possible she gave me a look of mere gratitude ah thank you for that says she you
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thank me for very little said i and then stopped but it seemed when i was holding back so much something at least had to come out i spoke rather ill to him said i f i did not hke him very much i spoke him rather ill and he was angry i think you had little to do then and less to tell i make a fault in honour it to his daughter she cried out but those that do not love and cherish him i will not know i will take the freedom of a word yet said i beginning to tremble perhaps neither your father nor i are in the best of good spirits at s i we both have anxious business there for it s a dangerous house i was sorry for him too and spoke to him the first if i could but have spoken the wiser and for one thing in my opinion you will soon find that his are mending it will not be through your friendship i am thinking said she and he is much made up to you for your sorrow miss cried i i am alone in this world and i am not wondering at that said she o let me speak said i i will speak but the once and then leave you if you will for ever i this day in the hopes of a kind word that i am sore in want o i know that what i said must hurt you and i knew it then it would have been easy to have spoken smooth easy to lie to you can you not think how was tempted to the cannot you see the truth of my heart shine out i think here is a great deal of work said she i think we will have met but the once and will can part hke gentle folk o let me have one to believe in me i pleaded i bear it else the whole world is against me how am i to go through with my dreadful fate if there s to be none to believe in me i cannot do it the man must just die for i cannot do it she had still looked straight in front of her head in air but at my words or the tone of my voice she came to a stop what is this you say she asked what are you talking of it is my testimony which may save an innocent life said i and they will not suffer me to bear it what would you do yourself you know what this is whose father lies in danger you desert the poor soul they have tried all ways with me they have sought to bribe me they offered me hills and valleys and to day that hound told me how i stood and to what a length he would go to butcher and disgrace me i am to be brought in a party to the murder i am to have held in talk for money and old clothes i am to be killed and if this is the way i am to fall and me scarce a man if this is the story to be told of me in all scotland if you are to believe it too and my name is to be nothing but a by word how can i go through with it the thing s not possible it s more than a man has in his heart i poured my words put in a whirl one upon the other and when i i found her gazing on me with a startled face it is the murder she said softly but with a very deep surprise i had turned back to bear her company and we were now come near the head of the above dean village at this word i stepped in front of her like one suddenly distracted for god s sake i cried for god s sake what is this that i have done and carried my fists to my i make a fault in honour temples what made me do it sure i am to say these things in the name of heaven what you now she cried i gave my honour i groaned i gave my honour and now i have broke it i am asking you what it is she said was it these things you should not have spoken and do you think i have no honour then or that i am one that would betray a friend i hold up my right hand to you and swear i knew you would be true said i it s me it s here i that stood but this morning and out faced them that risked rather to die disgraced upon the gallows than do wrong and a few hours after i throw my honour away by the roadside in common talk there is one thing clear upon our interview says he that i can rely on your pledged word where is my word now who could believe me now could not believe me i am clean fallen down i had best die all this i said with a weeping voice but i had no tears in my body my heart is sore for you said she but be sure you are too nice i would not you do you say i would trust you with anything and these men i would not be thinking of them men who go about to and to destroy you this is no time to look up do you not think i wiu be admiring you like a gi eat hero of the good and you a boy not much older than myself and because you said a word too much in a friend s ear that would die ere she betrayed you to make such a
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matter it is one thing that we must both forget said i looking at her hang dog is this true of it would ye trust me yet will you not believe the tears upon my face she cried it is the world i am thinking of you mr david let them hang you i will never forget i will grow old and still remember you i think it is great to die so i will envy you that gallows and maybe all this while i am but a child with said i maybe they but make a mock of me it is what i must know she said i must hear the whole the harm is done at events and i must hear the whole i had sat down on the where she took a place beside me and i told her all that matter much as i have written it my thoughts about her father s dealing being alone omitted well she said when i had finished you are a hero surely and i never would have thought that same and i think you are in peril too to think upon that man for his life and the dirty money to be dealing in such traffic and just then she called out aloud with a queer word that was common with her and belongs i believe to her own language my torture says she look at the sun indeed it was already dipping towards the mountains she bid me come again soon gave me her hand i a fault in honour and left me in a turmoil of glad spirits i delayed to go home to my lodging for i had a terror of immediate arrest but got some supper at a change house and the better part of that night walked by myself in the fields and had such a sense of s presence that i seemed to bear her in my arms g chapter viii the the next day august th i kept my appointment at the advocate s in a coat that i had made to my own measure and was but newly ready says you are very fine to day my are to have a fine come i take that kind of you i take that kind of you mr david we shall do very well yet and i believe your troubles are nearly at an end you have news for me cried i beyond anticipation he replied your testimony is after all to be received and you may go if you will in my company to the trial which is to bo held at thursday st i was too much amazed to find words in the meanwhile he continued though i will not ask you to renew your pledge i must caution you strictly to be to morrow your must be taken and outside of that do you know i think least said wiu be mended i shall try to go said i i believe it is yourself that i must thank for this crowning mercy and i do thank you gratefully after yesterday my lord this is uke the doors of heaven i cannot find it in my heart to get the thing believed the ah but you must try and manage you must try and manage to believe it says he soothing like and i am very glad to hear your acknowledgment of obligation for i think you may be able to repay me very shortly he or even now the matter is much changed your testimony which i shall not trouble you for to day will doubtless alter the complexion of the case for all concerned and this makes it less delicate for me to enter with you on a side issue my lord i interrupted excuse me for you but how has this been brought about the obstacles you told me of on saturday appeared even to me to be quite how has it been contrived my dear mr david said he it would never do for me to even to you as you say the of the government and you must content yourself if you please with the gross fact he smiled upon me like a father as he spoke playing the while with a new pen it was impossible there could be any shadow of deception in the man yet when he drew to him a sheet of paper dipped his pen among the ink and began again to address me i was somehow not so certain and fell instinctively into an attitude of guard there is a point i wish to touch upon he began i purposely left it before upon one side which need be now no longer necessary this is not of course a part of your examination which is to follow by another hand this is a private interest of my own you say you encountered upon the hill i did my lord said i this was immediately after tlie murder it was did you speak to him i did you had known him before i think says my lord carelessly i cannot guess your reason for so thinking my lord i replied but such is the fact and when did you part with him again said he i reserve my answer said i the question will be put to me at the mr said he will you not understand that au this is without prejudice to yourself i have promised you life and honour and believe me i can keep my word you are therefore clear of all anxiety it appears you suppose you can protect and you talk to me of your gratitude which i think if you push me is not ill deserved there are a great many different considerations all pointing the same way and i will never be persuaded that you could not help us if you chose to put salt on s tail my lord said
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i i give you my word i do not so much as guess where is he paused a breath nor how he might be found he asked i sat before him like a log of wood and so much for your gratitude mr david he observed again there was a piece of silence well said he rising i am not fortunate and we are a the couple at cross purposes let us speak of it no more you will receive notice when where and by whom we are to take your and in the meantime my must be waiting you they will never forgive me if i detain their into the hands of these graces i was accordingly offered up and found them dressed beyond what i had thought possible and looking fair as a as we went forth from the doors a small circumstance occurred which came afterwards to look extremely big i heard a whistle sound loud and brief like a signal and looking all about for one moment the red head of of the tom the son of the next moment he was gone again nor could i see so much as the skirt tail of upon whom i naturally supposed him to be then attending my three led me out by and the links whence a path carried us to hope park a beautiful laid with gravel walks furnished with seats and summer sheds and by a keeper the way there was a little the two younger affected an air of genteel weariness that me cruelly the eldest considered me with something that at times appeared like mirth and though i thought myself more justice than the day before it was not without some effort upon our reaching the park i was launched on a of eight or ten young gentlemen some of them officers the rest chiefly who crowded to attend upon these beauties and though i was presented to all of them in very good words it seemed i was by all immediately forgotten young folk in a company are like to savage animals they fall upon or scorn a stranger without civility or i may say humanity and i am sure if i had been among they would have shown me quite as much of both some of the set up to be wits and some of the soldiers to be and i could not tell which of these extremes annoyed me most all had a manner of handling their swords and coat skirts for the which in mere black envy i could have kicked them from that park i upon their side they me extremely the fine company in which i had arrived and altogether i had soon fallen behind and stepped in the rear of all that merriment with my own thoughts from these i was recalled by one of the lieutenant a boy asking if my name was not i told him it not very kindly for his manner was scant civil ha says he and then repeating it i am afraid you do not like my name sir says i annoyed with myself to be annoyed with such a fellow no says he but i thinking i would not advise you to make a practice of that sir says i i feel sure you would not find it to agree with you you offer hear where the said he i asked him what he could possibly mean and he the answered witli a laugh that he thought i must have found the in the same place and swallowed it there could be no mistake about this and my cheek burned before i went about to put on gentlemen said i i i would learn the language first he took me by the sleeve with a nod and a wink and led me quietly outside hope park but no sooner were we beyond the view of the than the fashion of his countenance changed you cries he and hit me a on the jaw with his closed fist i paid him as good or better on the return whereupon he stepped a little back and took off his hat to me enough i think says he i will be the offended for who heard of such as tell a that is the king s officer he speak cot s english wo have swords at our and here is the king s park at hand will ye walk first or let me show ye the way i returned his bow told him to go first and followed him as he went i heard him to himself about cot s english and the king s coat so that i might have supposed him to be seriously offended but his manner at the beginning of our interview was there to him it was manifest he had come prepared to fasten a quarrel on me right or wrong manifest that i was taken in a fresh contrivance of my enemies and to me conscious as i was of my manifest enough that i should be the one to fall in our encounter as we came into that rough rocky desert of the king s park i was half a dozen times to take to my heels and run for it so was i to show my ignorance in and so much averse to die or even to be wounded but i considered if their malice went as far as this it would likely stick at nothing and that to fall by the sword however was still an improvement on the gallows i considered besides that by the of my words and the quickness of my blow i had put myself quite out of court and that even if i ran my adversary would probably pursue and catch me which would add disgrace to my misfortune so that taking all in all continued marching behind him much as a man follows the and certainly
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with no more hope we went about the end of the long and came into the hunter s here on a piece of fair turf my adversary drew there was nobody there to see us but some birds and no resource for me but to follow his example and stand on guard with the best face i could display it seems it was not good enough for mr who some flaw in my paused looked upon me sharply and came off and on and me with his blade in the air as i had seen no such proceedings from and was besides a good deal affected with the of death i grew quite bewildered stood helpless and could have longed to run away the fat her cries the lieutenant and suddenly engaging he the sword out of my grasp and sent it flying far among the rushes twice was this repeated and the third time when i brought back my weapon i found he had returned his own to the and stood awaiting me with a face of some anger and his hands clasped under his skirt pe if i touch you he cried and asked me bitterly what right i had to stand up before when i did not know the back of a sword from the front of it i answered that was the fault of my and would he do me the justice to say i had given him all the satisfaction it was unfortunately in my power to offer and had stood up like a man and that is the truth said he i am myself and as a lions but to stand up there and you ken of fence the way that you did i declare it was me and i am sorry for the though i declare i your own was the elder brother and my still sings with it and i declare if i had what way it i would not put a hand to such a piece of that is handsomely said i replied and i am sure you will not stand up a second time to be tho actor for my private enemies indeed no said he and i think i was used extremely myself to be set up to with an wife or all the same as a and i will tell the master so and him by cot himself and if you knew the nature of mr s quarrel with me said i you would be yet the more to be mingled up with such affairs he swore he could well believe it that all the were made of the same meal and the devil was he miller that ground that then suddenly shaking me by the hand he vowed i was a pretty enough fellow after all that it was a thousand i had been neglected and that if he could find the time he would give an eye himself to have me educated you can do me a better service than even what you propose said i and when he had asked its nature come with me to the house of one of my enemies and testify how i have carried myself this day i told him that will be the true service for though he has sent me a gallant adversary for the first the thought in mr s mind is merely murder there will be a second and then a third and by what you have seen of my cleverness with the cold steel you can judge for yourself what is like to be the and i would not like it myself if i was no more of a man that what you he cried but i will do you right lead on if i had walked slowly on the way into that accursed park my heels were light enough on the way out they kept time to a very good old air that is as ancient as the bible and the words of it are surely the bitterness of death is passed i mind that i was extremely thirsty and had a drink at saint margaret s well on the road down and the sweetness of that water passed belief wo went the through the up the in by the and straight to s door talking as we came and arranging the details of our affair the footman owned his master was at home but declared him engaged with other gentlemen on very private business and his door forbidden my business is but for three minutes and it cannot wait said i you may say it is by no means private and i shall be even glad to have some witnesses as the man departed unwillingly enough upon this errand we made so bold as to follow him to the whence i could hear for a while the murmuring of several voices in the room within the truth is they were three at the one table and mr of and as they were met in consultation on the very business of the murder they were a little disturbed at my appearance but decided to receive me well well mr and what brings you here again and who is this you bring with you says as for he looked before him on the table he is here to bear a little testimony in my favour my lord i think it very needful you should hear said i and turned to i have only to say this said the lieutenant that i stood up this day with in the hunter s which i am now sorry for and he behaved himself as pretty as a could ask it and i have respects for he added i thank your for your honest expressions said i whereupon made his bow to the company and left the chamber as we had agreed upon before what have i to do with this says i will tell
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your in two words said l i have brought this gentleman a king s officer to do me so much justice now i think my character is covered and until a certain date which your can very well supply it will be quite in vain to despatch against me any more officers i will not consent to fight my way through the garrison of the castle the veins swelled on s brow and he regarded me with fury i think the devil this dog of a lad between my legs he cried and then turning fiercely on his neighbour this is some of your work he said i spy your hand in the business and let me tell you i resent it it is when we are agreed upon one expedient to follow another in the dark you are to me what you let me send this lad to the place with my very daughters and because i let drop a word to you sir keep your to yourself was deadly pale will be a kick ball between you and the duke no longer he exclaimed either come to an agreement or come to a differ and have it out among yourselves but i no longer fetch and carry and get your contrary the instructions and be blamed by both for if i were to tell you what i think of all your business it would make your head sing but had preserved his temper and now smoothly and in the meantime says he i think we should tell mr that his character for is quite established he may sleep in peace until the date he was so good as to refer to it shall be put to the proof no more his coolness brought the others to their prudence and they made haste with a somewhat distracted civility to pack me from the house f chapter ix the on fire when i left that afternoon i was for the st time angry the advocate had made a mock of me he had pretended my testimony was to be received and myself respected and in that very hour not only was against my life by the hands of the soldier but as appeared from his own language himself had some design in operation i counted my enemies with all the king s authority behind him and the duke with the power of the west and the interest by their side to help them with so great a force in the north and the whole of old and and when i remembered james more and the red head of the son of i thought there was perhaps a fourth in the and what remained of rob s old desperate of would be against me with the others one thing was requisite some strong friend or wise adviser the country must be full of such both able and eager to support me or and the duke and had not been for and it made me rage to think that i might brush against my in the street and be no wiser the on fire and just then like an answer a gentleman brushed against me going by gave me a meaning look and turned into a close i knew him with the tail of my eye it was the writer and blessing my good fortune turned in to him as soon as i had entered the close i saw him standing in the mouth of a stair where he made mo a signal and immediately vanished seven up there he was again in a house door the which he locked behind us after we had entered the house was quite with not a stick of furniture indeed it was one of which had the letting in his hands we ll have to sit upon the floor said he but we re safe here for the time being and ive been to see ye mr how s it with i asked said he him up at sands to morrow wednesday he was keen to say good bye to ye but the way that things were going i was feared the pair of ye was maybe best apart and that brings me to the essential how does your business speed why said i i was told only this morning that my testimony was accepted and i was to travel to with the advocate no less cried til never believe that i have maybe a suspicion of my own says i but i would like fine to hear your reasons well i tell ye fairly i m horn mad cries if my one hand could pull their government down i would pluck it like a rotten apple i m for h and for james of the and of course it s my duty to defend my for his hear how it goes with me and leave the judgment of it to yourself the first thing they have to do is to get rid of they bring in james as art and part until brought in first as principal that s sound law they could never put the cart before the horse and how are they to bring in tiu they can catch him says i ah but there is a way to that said he sound law too it would be a thing if by the escape of one ill another was to go and the is to summon the principal and put him to for the non now there s four places where a person can be summoned at his dwelling house at a place where he has resided forty days at the head of the where he ordinarily or lastly if there be ground to think him forth of scotland at the cross of and the pier and shore of for sixty days the purpose of which last provision is evident upon its face being that ships may have time to
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carry news of the transaction and the be something other than a form now take the case of he has no dwelling house that ever i could hear of i would be obliged if anyone would show me where he has lived forty days together since the there is no where he whether ordinarily or if he has a at all which i it must be with his regiment in and if he is not yet forth of scotland as we the on fire happen to know and they happen to guess it must be evident to the most dull it s what he s for where then and what way should he be summoned i ask it at yourself a you have given the very words said i here at the cross and at the pier and shore of for sixty days ye re a lawyer than then cries the writer he has had summoned once that was on the twenty fifth the day that we first met once and done with it and where where but at the cross of the head of the a word in your ear mr they re not seeking what do you mean i cried not seeking him by the best that i can make of it said he not wanting to find him in my poor thought they think perhaps he might set up a fair defence upon the back of which james the man they re really after might climb out this is not a case ye see it s a conspiracy yet i can tell you asked after keenly said i though when i come to think of it he was something of the easiest put by see that says he but there i may be right or wrong that s at the best and let me get to my facts again it comes to my ears that james and the witnesses the witnesses mr lay in close and sha in the military prison at fort william none allowed in to them nor they to write the witnesses mr heard ye ever the match of that i assure ye no old crooked h of the gang ever out faced the law more im it s clean in the two eyes of the act of parliament of imprisonment no sooner did i get the news than i the lord justice clerk i have his word to day there s law for ye here s justice he put a paper in my hand that same false faced paper that was printed since in the by a for as the title says of james s poor widow and five children see said he couldn t dare to refuse me access to my so he the commanding officer to let ne in the lord justice clerk of scotland is not the purpose of such language plain they hope the officer may be so dull or so very much the reverse as to refuse the recommendation i would have to make the journey back again here and fort william then would follow a fresh delay till i got fresh authority and they had the officer military man ignorant of the law and that i ken the cant of it then the journey a third time and there we should be on the immediate heels of the trial before i had received my first instruction am i not right to call this a conspiracy it wiu bear that colour said i and i ll go on to prove it you outright said he have the right to hold james in prison yet they cannot deny me to visit him they have no right to hold the witnesses but am i to get a sight of them that should be as free as the lord justice clerk himself see read for the rest refuses to the on fire give any orders to of who are not as having done anything contrary to the duties of their anything contrary and the act of seventeen mr this makes my heart to burst the is on fire inside my and the plain of that phrase said i is that the witnesses are still to he in prison md you are not to see them and i am not to see them until when the court is set cries he and then to hear upon the anxious of his office and the great afforded the defence but i ll them there mr david i have a plan to the witnesses upon the road and see if i get a little of justice out of the military man ignorant of the law that shall command the party it was actually so it was actually on the near and by the of a soldier that mr first saw the witnesses upon the case there is nothing that would surprise me in this business i remarked i ll surprise you ere i m done i cries he do ye see this producing a print still wet from the press this is the see there s s name to the list of witnesses and i find no word of any but here is not the question who do ye think paid for the of this paper i suppose it would likely be king george said l but it happens it was me he cried not but it was printed by and for themselves for the and the and yon thief of the black midnight but could i win to get a copy no i was to go to my defence i was to hear the charges for the first time in court the jury is not this against the law i asked i cannot say so much he replied it was a favour so natural and so constantly rendered till this business that the law has never looked to it and now admire the hand of
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providence a stranger is in s house a proof on the floor it up and carries it to me of all things it was just this whereupon i had it set again printed at the expense of the defence heard ever man the like of it and here it is for anybody the secret out all may see it now but how do you think i would enjoy this that has the life of my on my con science i think you would enjoy it iu said i and now you see how it is he concluded and why when you tell me your evidence is to be let in i laugh aloud in your face it was now my turn i laid before him in brief mr s threats and offers and the whole incident of the with the subsequent scene at s of my first talk according to promise i said nothing nor indeed was it necessary all the time i was talking nodded his head like a mechanical figure and no sooner had my voice ceased t it the on fire than he opened his mouth and gave me his opinion in two words dwelling strong on both of disappear yourself said he i do not take you said i then i ll carry you there said he by my view of it you re to disappear whatever o that s outside debate the advocate who is not without some of a remainder decency has wrung your life safe out of and the duke he has refused to put you on your trial and refused to have you killed and there is the clue to their ill words together for and the duke can keep faith with neither friend nor enemy ye re not to be tried then and ye re not to be murdered but i m in bitter error if ye re not to be and carried away like the lady bet me what ye please there was their expedient you make me think said i and told him of the whistle and the red headed wherever james more is there s one big rogue never be deceived on that said he his father was none so ill a man though a on the wrong side of the law and no friend to my family that i should waste my breath to be defending him but as for james he s a and a i like the appearing of this red headed as little as yourself it looks it smells bad it was old that the lady if young is to handle yours it ll be all in the family what s james more in prison for the same offence his men have had practice in the business he ll be to lend them to be s instruments and the next thing we ll be hearing james will have made his peace or else he ll have escaped and you in or ye make a strong case i admitted and what i want he resumed is that you should disappear yourself ere they can get their hands upon ye lie quiet until just before the trial and spring upon them at the last of it when they ll be looking for you least this is always supposing mr that your evidence is worth so very great a measure of both risk and i will tell you one thing said i i saw the murderer and it was not then by god my cousin s saved cried you have his life upon your tongue and there s neither time risk nor money to be spared to bring you to the trial he emptied his pockets on the floor here is all that i have by me he went on take it ye ll want it ere ye re through go straight down this close there s a way out by there to the and by my will of it see no more of till the clash is over where am i to go then i inquired and i wish that i could tell ye says he but all the places that i could send ye to would be just the places they would seek no ye must for yourself and god be your guiding five days before the trial september the sixteen get word to me at the king arms in and if ye ve managed for yourself as long as that i ll see that ye reach one thing more said l can i no see the on fire he seemed i would rather you said he but i can never deny that is extremely keen of it and is to lie this night by on purpose if you re sure that you re not followed mr but make sure of that lie in a good place and watch your road for a clear hour before ye risk it it would be a dreadful business if both you and him was to i chapter x the red headed man it was about half past three when i came forth on the dean was where i wanted to go since there and her the 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 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 and lay waiting after a while a man went by that looked to be a but i had never seen him till that hour presently after came of the red head the next to go past was a miller s cart and after that nothing but
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manifest country people here was enough to have turned the most from his purpose but my ran too strong the other way i argued it out that if was on that road it was the right road to find him in leading direct to his chiefs daughter as for the other if i was to be startled off by every i saw i would scarce reach anywhere and having quite satisfied myself with this debate i made the the red headed man better speed of it and came a little after four to mrs 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 which i thought might please the 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 by daylight to at the whom she knew to be the for 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 country feed at least i was not so much so as she thought and it was plain enough even to my wits that she was bent to hammer up a match between her cousin and a boy that was something of a in had better take his with us says she run and tell the 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 still calling me but with such a turn that should rather me in my own opinion when returned the design became if possible more obvious and she showed off the girl s advantages like a with a horse my face that she should think me so now i would fancy the girl was being innocently made a show of and then i could have beaten the old wife with a and now that perhaps these two had set their heads together to me and at that i sat and them like the very image of ill will at last the match maker 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 them but though i knew what breed she was of and that was a breed of thieves i could never look in s face and 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 as i could and indeed there was matter of mirth in that absurdity and i think you will be as little fitted for the 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 i have not heard the match of that in anyone it is most at least said i and i think my father honest man must have been to learn me latin in the place of it but the red headed 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 tho 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 you are a maid said i well i know it is good to and spin and to make she said but if you were to do nothing else in the great world i think you will say yourself it is a business and it is not that 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 f but how did you feel then after it she asked deed i sat down and like a 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 that put her arm through the of the bolt where it was broken that is my chief hero would you not love to die for your king she asked i said i my for my king god bless the 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 w right she said the right mind of
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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 to me for i am about as clever with the pistols as i am with the sword so then she di from me the story of our battle in the 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 any one would said i ho has his faults like other folk but he is brave and and kind god bless him that will be a strange day when i forget 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 the red headed man ill 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 and the people in power extremely ill persons to be i have extremely heavy on my stomach still ah she cried you will not be evening these two and you should bear in mind that and james more my father are of the one blood i never heard tell of that said i it is rather singular how httle you are acquainted with said she one part may call themselves grant and one but they are still of the same they are all the sons of 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 discoveries 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 on and that our bones are made of will be it was they called it when our forefathers will be fighting for it against borne and alexander and it is called so still in your own tongue that you forget said i and that i never learned for i lacked heart to take her up about the but your fathers and mothers talked it one generation another said she and it was sung about the 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 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 d was now made up to say farewell to and it was needful i should see the wood and it by daylight 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 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 weu think you have the one friend long after you are dead and me an old wife i will be telling the about david and my tears running i will be telling how we parted and what i said to you and did to you ood go with and guide 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 mo and nodded the red headed man o yes mr david said she that is what i of you the heart 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 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
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we go too fast said i this may be a lie too he may have no right orders all may be contrived by 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 one good word she sobbed the full hour then said i keeping her hand in mine three of it my the full hour she said and cried aloud on her to forgive her i thought it no fit place for me and fled chapter xi the wood by i lost no time but down through the valley and by and as hard as i could it was s to lie every night between twelve and two in a bit of wood by east of and by south the south mill this i found easy enough where it grew on a steep with the 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 it was not to be supposed that 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 s father and nothing the least material to help to tell the truth i fancied neither one of these ideas suppose by holding back 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 and how would i like that i was up with the west end of that wood when these two considerations struck me like a my feet stopped of themselves and my heart along the wood by 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 the path came past the village with a but all plainly visible and or there was nobody stirring here was my advantage here was just such a as had me to profit by and i ran by the side of the mill fetched about beyond the east comer of the wood through the midst of it and returned to the west 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 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 and the few that had gone west were honest and their wives upon the road to bed if i were by the most cunning in europe i judged it was beyond the course of nature they could have any jealousy of where i was and going a uttle further home into the wood i lay down to wait for 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 m her first quarter 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 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 to that same night how i had of the two lives i carried and had thus forced her to her father s and how i was here exposing them again it seemed in a good conscience is eight parts of courage no sooner had i lost conceit of my behaviour than i seemed to stand amidst a throng of terrors of a sudden i sat up how if i went now to caught him as i stiu easily might before he slept and made a full submission who could blame me not the writer i had but to say that i was followed of getting clear and so gave in not 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 murder get forth out of of all the and all the and in the land and live to my own mind and be able to enjoy and to improve my the wood by fortunes and devote some hours of my youth to 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 at first i thought no shame of this i was only amazed i had not thought upon
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the thing and done it earlier and began to inquire into the causes of the change these i traced to my of spirits that back to my late and that again to the common old public 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 of a young maid cast myself wholly out of conceit with my own character and the of james and 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 must be i looked about me for that course which i least liked to follow this was to leave the wood without waiting to see 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 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 and even in and religion room for common sense it was already close on s hour and the moon was down if i left as i could not very decently whistle to my to follow me they might miss me in the dark and tack themselves to 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 other safety in a course of self indulgence to have 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 at my past weakness and rejoicing in my present composure presently after came a in the thicket putting my mouth near down to the ground i whistled a note or two of s air an answer came in the like guarded tone and soon we had knocked together in the dark is this you at last he whispered just myself said i god man but i ve been to see ye i says he i ve had the longest kind of a time a day i ve had my dwelling into the inside of a of hay where i see the of my ten fingers and then two hours of it waiting here for you and you never coming and ye re none too soon the way it is with me to sail the mom the what am i saying the day i mean ay man the day sure enough said l 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 ha the wood by well indeed and i have a good deal it will be telling you to hear said i and i told him what making rather a 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 ye re a queer character says he when i had done a queer after a and i have no mind of meeting with the like of ye as for your story is a like so til say the less of him and i believe he was the best friend ye had if ye could only trust him but and james more are my ain kind of cattle and i u give them the name that they deserve the black was father to the a body that and as for the i never could the of them since i could on two feet i the nose of one i mind when i was still so on my legs that i upon the top of him a proud man was my father that day god rest him and i think he had the cause til never can deny but what robin was something of a he added but as for james more the guide him for me one thing ave have to consider said i was charles 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 do ye think this would keep her word to ye he asked i do that said i well there s telling said he and anyway that s over and done hell be joined to the rest of them how many would ye think there would be of them i asked that depends said if it was only you they would likely send two three lively brisk young and if they thought that i was to appear in the employ l 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 doubt that s your opinion said he but i be the least surprised if they were this wood ye see david man they ll be folk there ll be some i m thinking and some of the and i would never deny but what the both of them and the in especial were clever experienced persons a man little
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till he s driven a of neat cattle say ten miles through a throng country and the black soldiers maybe at his tail it s there that i learned a great part of my penetration and ye need tell me it s better than war which is the next best however though generally rather a of a the wood by business now the 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 but that s the strange thing about you folk of the college learning ye re ignorant and ye see t s me for my greek and hebrew but man i ken that i ken them there s the differ of it now here s you ye lie on your a in the of this wood and ye tell me that ye ve off these and why because i see them says you ye that s their take the worst of it said i and what are we to do i am thinking of that same said he we might it be greatly to my taste and that i see reasons against it first it s now dark and it s just 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 of them the more to in upon some of these gentry of yours and then second if they keep the track of us it may come to a for it yet and then i ll confess i would be to have you at my 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 where i m to find my ship it u be like old days while it lasts and come the time well have to think what you should be doing i m to leave ye here wanting me have with ye then says i do ye gang back where you were stopping a fear said they were good folks to but i think they would be a good deal disappointed if they saw my face again for the way times go i just what ye could call a guest which makes me the for your ny mr david of the and set ye up for leave aside cracks here in the wood with i have scarce said black or white since the day we parted at with which he rose from his place and we began to move quietly eastward through the wood chapter xii on the march again with it was likely between one and two the moon as i have said was down a wind carrying a heavy 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 thence through and beside my old acquaintance the of the two thieves a little beyond we made a useful was a light in an upper window of by this but a good deal at random and with some of the harvest and stumbling and falling down upon the banks we made our way across country and won forth at last upon the that they call the here under a bush of we lay down the of that night and the day called us about five a beautiful morning it was the high wind still blowing strong but the clouds all blown away to europe 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 big great coat on his back but what was new i he had now a pair of boot drawn above the knee doubtless these were intended for disguise but as the day promised to be warm he made a most figure well said he is this no a 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 and while you were there and sleeping i have done a thing that maybe i do over seldom and what was that said i just said my prayers said he and where are my gentry as ye call them i asked says he and the short and the long of it is that we must take our chance of them up with your foot forth fortune once again of it and a walk we are like to have so we went east by the beach of the sea towards where the salt smoking in by the mouth no doubt there was a by ordinary of morning sun on arthur s seat and the green and the of the day appeared to set among i feel like a 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 ay but ye said i no but what france is a good place too he explained but it s some way no the same it s i believe but it s no scotland i like it fine on the march again with when tm there man yet i kind of weary for and the if that s all you have to complain of 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 s and so you were weary of your i asked weary s
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slow and between said i no kind of a hurry about the man he asked never a sign of it said l on the march again with said it looks queer we saw nothing of them this morning on the he s passed us by he seem to be looking and yet here he is on our road 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 they ken i asked i think s sold me him or his mate some part of the affair or else s clerk which would be a pity too says and if you me for just my inward private conviction i think there ll be heads cracked on sands 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 but bide a bit bide a bit i m thinking and thanks to this wind i believe i ve still a chance of it it s this way i m no with this man till the comes but says he if i can get a bit of a wind out of the west i ii be there long or that he says and lie to for ye behind the isle of now if your gentry the place they ken the time do ye see me coming thanks to cope and other red coat i should ken this country like the back of my hand and if ye re ready for another bit run with we ll can cast back and come down to the again by 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 but either way of it i think we will leave your gentry whistling on their i there s some chance in it said i have on with ye chapter xiii i did not profit by s as he had done by his 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 into the first from round a corner was as ready as a loaded ye seen my horse he gasped na man i seen horse the day replied the and spared the time to explain to him that we were travelling ride and tie that our had escaped and it was feared he had gone home to 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 tell the truth he observed to myself as we went on again should be aye to leave an honest handy lee behind them if folk ken what ye re doing they re terrible taken up with it but if they think they ken they care for it than what i do for as we had first made inland so our road came in the end to ue very near due north the old of oi k on the left on the right the top of the law and it was thus we struck the shore again not far from from north west to ness there runs a string of four small the lamb and notable by their of size and shape is the most particular being a strange grey of two 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 there is a good in winds and there from a far way off we could see the riding the shore in face of these is altogether waste here is no dwelling of man and scarce any passage or at most of vagabond children running at their play is a small place on the far side of the ness the folk of go to their business in the inland fields and those of north straight to the sea fishing from their haven so that few parts of the coast are but t mind as we crawled upon our into that of heights and hollows keeping a bright eye upon all sides and our hearts 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 and up flying that the sands desert seemed to me like a place alive no doubt it was in all ways well chosen for a secret if the secret had been kept and even now that it was out and the place watched we were able creep to the front of the they look down immediately on the beach and sea but here came to a stop said he this is a passage as long as we he here we re safe but i m nearer to my ship or the coast of france and as soon as we stand up and signal the 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 but they ll have arranged for our coming firom the east and here we are upon their west ay says i wish we were in some force and this was
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a battle we would have them but it and the way it is is a thing less inspiring to i time flies said i i ken that said i ken else as the french folk say but this is a case of or tails if i could but ken where your gentry were said i this is no uke yoa it s got to be now or never this is no me he sang with a queer face shame and neither you nor me he neither you nor me na 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 the to the east his appearance was at first not expecting him so early and ray gentry watching on the other side then they awoke on board the and it seemed they had all in readiness for there was scarce a second s bustle on the deck before we saw a put round her stem and begin to pull lively for the coast almost at the same moment of time and perhaps half a mile away towards ness the figure of a man appeared for a upon a waving with his arms and though he was gone again in the same flash the s in that part continued a little longer to fly wild had not seen this looking straight to at the ship and it be as it will said he when i had told him may yon row or my have to a that part of the beach was long and flat and excellent walking when the tide was down a little bum flowed over it in one place to the sea and the ran along the head of it like the of a town no eye of ours could spy what was passing behind there in the no hurry of ours could mend the speed of the boat s coming time stood still with us through that period of waiting there is one thing i would like to ken says i would like fine to ken these gentry s orders we re worth four pound the pair of us how if they took the guns to us they would get a shot from the top of that sandy 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 for all which i am 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 wo 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 over which the and behind which our enemies were doubtless this is a fine bright place to get shot in says suddenly and man i wish that i had your courage 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 courage i am not fit to hold a candle to look at us two here upon the sands here am i fair 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 because i got the courage and 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 you can your old wives but you never can me of my temptation in the wood made me strong as iron i have a to keep i continued i am with your cousin i have passed my word that you ll can keep said ye u just and for a with the gentry in the and what for he went on with an extreme threatening gravity just tell me that my are ye to be away like lady are they to drive a in your inside and bury ye in the or is it to be the other way and are they to bring ye in with james are they folk to be would ye stick your head in the mouth of sim and the he added with extraordinary bitterness cried i they re all and 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 to your that i at no risk do ye mind of that the night red fell it was no more i will then here i stop promised me my ufe if he s to be here i ll have to die said all this time we had seen or heard no more of our 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 towards it was quite an affair to them in and bring them over and the boat was making speed they were besides but cowardly fellows a mere of of several no gentleman there to be
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the captain and the more they looked at and me upon the beach the less i must suppose they liked the looks of us whoever had betrayed it was not the captain he was in the himself and stirring up his hke a man with his heart in his employ already he was near in and the boat already s face had crimson with the excitement of his when our friends in the either in despair to see their prey escape them or with some hope of raised suddenly a shrill cry of several voices this sound arising from what appeared to be a k quite deserted coast was really very 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 o mine says and began immediately to forth in the shallow water towards the boat he said pausing are ye no coming i am 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 to said he and in deeper than his waist was hauled into the which was immediately directed for the ship i stood where he had left me with my hands behind my back 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 there was no sight or sound of man the sun shone on the wet sand and the dry the wind blew in the the made a dreary as i passed higher up the beach the sand were about the the devil any other sight or sound in that place and yet i knew there were folk there observing me upon some secret they were no soldiers or they would have fallen on and taken us ere now doubtless they were some common hired for my perhaps to sands 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 in this business i thought the second very possible and the blood ran cold about my heart i had a mad idea to my sword in the for though i was very unfit to stand up like a gentleman blade to blade i thought i could do some in a random combat but i perceived in time the folly of resistance this was no doubt the joint expedient on which and 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 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 the and flew his handkerchief for a farewell which i replied to with the waving of my hand but 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 but i caught hold at last by the long bent grass on the top and pulled myself to a good footing the same moment men stirred and stood up here and there six or seven of them each with a dagger in his hand the truth is i shut my eyes and prayed when k opened them again the 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 if i surrendered under protest said i if ye ken what that means which i at that word they came all in upon me like a flight of birds upon a seized me took my sword and all the money from my pockets bound me hand and foot with some strong and cast me on a of bent there they sat about their captive in a part of a circle and gazed upon him silently uke something dangerous perhaps a or a tiger on the spring presently this attention was relaxed they drew nearer together fell to speech in the and very divided my property before my eye 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 and be hoisted in the sails fill and the ship pass out behind the and by north in the course of two hours or so more and more ragged kept collecting 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 sands 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 and two others remaining on the prisoner i could name one who would be very ill pleased with your day s work said i when the rest had moved away he assured
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me in answer i should be tenderly used for he knew he was wi the 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 mountains and the was beginning to grow dark at which hour i was aware of a long lean bony like man of a very countenance that came towards us among the on a farm horse lads cried he ye a paper like this and held up one in his hand 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 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 bo free fled on our approach we were at one time close at the foot of law on the south side at another as we passed over some open hills i the lights of a and the old tower of a church among some trees not far ofl 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 hy this i could see the three huge towers and broken of that old chief place of the red the horse was in the bottom of the ditch to and i was led within and forth into the court and thence into a tumble down stone hall here my built a brisk fire in the midst of the pavement for there was a chill in the night my hands were i was set by the wall in the inner end and the having produced provisions i was given bread and a of french brandy this done i was left once more alone with my three they sat close by the fire drinking and talking the wind blew in by the 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 i had no means of at what hour i was only the moon was down and the fire low my feet were now and i was carried through the ruins and down the side by a path to where i found a 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 chapter xiv the bass had no thought where they were taking only looked here and there for the appearance of a ship and there ran the while in my head a word of s the if i were to be exposed a second time to that same former danger of the i judged it must turn ill with me there was no second and no second and spare yard to be expected now and i saw myself tobacco under the whip s lash the thought chilled me the air was sharp upon the water the of the boat with a cold dew and i shivered in my place beside the this was the dark man whom i have called hitherto the his name was ordinarily called black 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 but know what the law is and the risks of those that break it i am no just exactly what ye would ca an for the law says he at the best of times but in this business i act with a good what are you going to do with me i asked harm said he harm ye ll strong i m thinking yell be yet there began to fall a on the face of the sea little of pink and red like coals of slow fire came in the east and at the same time the awakened and began crying about the top of the bass it is just the one of rock as everybody knows but great enough to a city from the sea was extremely little but there went a hollow round the base of it with the growing of the dawn i could see it clearer and clearer the straight painted with sea birds like a morning frost the sloping top of it green with grass the of white 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 said he the were afore ye and i if ye have come so fairly by your but none dwells there now i cried the place is long a ruin it ll be the a change for the then the day coming slowly brighter i observed on the among the big stones with which their boats several and baskets and a the provision of all these were discharged upon the myself and my three 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
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and or i would have set hand to it the master of ll be a says l and a grand i ken by him said he i wi no it ll be that you u be dealing with said i ah but i ll no tell ye that said little need when i ken was my retort there s just the ae thing ye can be fairly sure of says and that is that try as ye please i m no dealing wi nor yet i goin to he added weu i see i ll have to be 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 httle with said he at last i ll deal with the naked hand it s a queer tale and no very creditable the the bass way you tell it and i m far v at is other than the way that ye believe it ai o ye seem to me rather a like young but me that s and see perhaps a bit further in the job than what ye can and here is the clear and plain to ye there ll be to if i keep ye here far that i think ye ll be a better by it there ll be to the just ae a on the hand it would be considerable to me if i would let you free as a an honest to you and an anxious to my the plain fact is that i think ye ll just have to bide here wi an the said i laying my hand upon his knee this s innocent ay it s a about that said he but ye see in this the way god made it we just get a thing that we want chapter xv black s tale of i have yet said little of the they were all three of the followers of james more which bound the accusation very tight about their master s neck all understood a word or two of english but was the only one who judged he had enough of it for general converse in which when once ho got embarked his company was often tempted to the contrary opinion they were simple creatures showed much more courtesy than might have been expected from their and their uncouth appearance and fell to be like three servants for and myself dwelling in that isolated place in the old falling ruins of a prison and among endless strange sounds of the sea and the sea birds i thought i perceived in them early the effects of superstitious fear when there was nothing doing they would either lie and sleep for which their appetite appeared or would entertain the others with stories which seemed always of a strain if neither of these delights were within reach if perhaps two were sleeping and the third could find no means to follow their example i would see him sit and listen and look about him in a of uneasiness starting his face hands a man black s tale of strung like a bow the nature of these fears i had never an occasion to find out but the sight of them was catching and the nature of the place that we were in favourable to i can find no word for it in the english but had an expression for it in the from which he never varied ay he would say it an place the bass it is so i always think of it it was an place by night by day and these were sounds of the calling of the and the of the sea and the rock echoes that hung continually in our cars it was chiefly so in moderate weather when the waves were anyway great they roared about the rock like and the drums of armies dreadful but merry to hear and it was in the calm days that a man could himself with listening not a only as i several times on myself so many still hollow noises and in the of the rock this brings me to a story i heard and a scene i took part in quite changed our terms of living and had a great effect on my departure it chanced one night i fell in a muse beside the fire and that little air of s coming back to my memory began to whistle a hand was laid upon my arm and the voice of bade me to stop for it was not not i asked how can that be na said he it will be made by a and her wanting ta upon his body a learned of my acquaintance s air it has been printed it seems in s of the l well said i there can be no here for it s not likely they would themselves to frighten ay says is that what ye think of it but can tell ye there s been nor here what s than said i said he or a at the least of it and that s a queer tale too he added and if ye would like i ll teu it ye to be sure we were all of the one mind and even the that had the least english of the three set himself to listen with au his might the tale of my peace to his was a lad in his young days wi little wisdom and less grace he was fond of a and fond of a glass and fond of dan but i could hear tell that he was use for honest employment ae thing to he at last for a and was in the garrison of this fort which was the first way that of the to set
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the winter s day in but there would be folk there to them company and the lads to egg them on and this thing was its lee lane and there would be a his in the chimney side and this thing had music but the of the and the were bits o young things wi the life and in their members and this was a fat man and him fa n in the o years say what ye like i say what i believe it was joy was in the creature s heart the joy o hell i joy whatever a time i have why and should sell their are their dear possessions and be wives or men and then i mind upon dancing a they hours by his lane in the black glory of his heart doubt they bum for it in hell but they have a grand time here of it whatever and the lord us at the hinder end we saw the flag up to the mast upon the harbour rocks that was a waited for he up wi the gun took a aim an d the there a bang and then ae the bass and there were we our een and at like folk for wi the bang and the the thing had clean disappeared the sun the blew and there was the bare the wonder had been and flinging but ae second the hale way i roared and wi the terror of that the folk were better there was little said in s boat but just the name of god and when we won in by the pier the harbour rocks were fair black wi the folk us it seems they had fund in of his the and smiling ae lad they sent to the flag and the rest abode there in the s house you may be sure they liked it little but it was a means of grace to that stood there praying in to s for cared to pray out loud and looking on then thing as it the upon a and wi the ae sprang up his and fell on the a when the was examined the played butt upon the s body sorrow a was to be fund but there was s in the s heart of him had scarce done w hen there a mighty silly affair that had its consequence as i have said was himself a great i have heard since that he knew all the stories in the and thought much of himself and was thought much of by others on the strength of it now s tale reminded him of one he had already heard she would ken that story he said she was the story of more m and the it is no a thing cried it is the story of my now wi god and black s tale of and the same in your beard says he and keep the tongue of ye inside your in dealing with it will be found and has been shown in history how well it goes with but the thing appears scarce for i had already remarked that was continually on the point of quarrelling with our three and now sure enough it was to come will bo no words to use to says cries ye if god would give ye the grace to see the way that see ye ye would throw your up there came some kind of a oath from and the black knife was in his hand that moment there was no time to think and i caught the by the leg and had him down and his armed hand out before i knew what i was doing his comrades sprang to rescue him and i were without weapons the three to two it seemed we were beyond salvation when screamed in his own tongue ordering the others back and made his submission to myself in a manner the most abject even giving me up his knife which upon a repetition of his promises i returned to him on the morrow two things i saw plain the first that i must not build too high on who had shrunk against the wall and stood there as pale as death till the affair was over the second the strength of my own position r i f i mm chapter xvi the missing witness on the the day i was with the writer i had much rebellion against fate the thought of him waiting in the kings arms and of what he would think and what he would say when next we met tormented and oppressed me the truth was so much i had to grant and it seemed cruel hard i should be posted as a liar and a coward and have never omitted what it was possible that i should do i repeated this form of words with a kind of bitter relish and re examined in that light the steps of my behaviour it seemed i had behaved to james as a brother might all the past was a picture that i could be proud of and there was only the present to consider i could not swim the sea nor yet fly in the air but there was always i had done him a service he liked me i had a there to work on if it were just for decency i must try once more with it was late afternoon there was no sound in all the bass but the lap and of a very quiet sea and my four companions were all crept apart the three higher on the rock and with his bible to a sunny place among the ruins there i found him in deep sleep and as soon as he was awake m appealed to him with some of manner and a good show of argument if i it was to do to
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ye said he staring at me over his spectacles it s to save another said i and to redeem my word what would be more good than that do ye no mind the scripture and you with the book upon your lap shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world ay said he that s grand for you but where do i come in i have my word to redeem the same s and what are ye asking me to do but just to sell it ye for have i named the name of cried i ou the name s said he the thing is there whatever it just comes to this if i am to service ye the way that you propose i ll lose my then it s clear ye ll have to make it up to me and a for your ain credit like and what s that but just a bribe and if even i was certain of the bribe but by a that i can learn it s far that and if you were to hang where would be na the thing s no possible and just wi ye uke a lad and let read his chapter i remember i was at bottom a good deal gratified with this result and the next humour i fell into was one i had near said of gratitude to who had saved me in this violent manner out of the midst of my dangers temptations and but this was both too and too cowardly to last me long and the remembrance of the missing witness james began to succeed to the possession of my spirits the st the day set for the trial i passed in such misery of mind as i can scarce recall to have endured save perhaps upon isle only much of the time i lay on a side sleep and waking my body motionless my mind full of violent thoughts sometimes i slept indeed but the of and the prisoner glancing on all sides to find his missing witness followed me in slumber and i would wake again with a start to darkness of spirit and distress of body i thought seemed to observe me but i paid him little heed verily my bread was bitter to me and my days a early the next morning friday nd a boat came with provisions and placed a packet in my hand the cover was without address but sealed with a government seal it enclosed two notes mr can now see for himself it is too late to his conduct wiu be observed and his discretion rewarded so ran the first which seemed to be laboriously writ with the left hand there was certainly nothing in these expressions to compromise the writer even if that person could be found the seal which served instead of signature was to a separate sheet on which there was no scratch of writing and i had to confess that so far my knew what they were doing and to as well as i was able the threat that peeped under the promise but the second was by far the more surprising it was in a lady s hand of writ is informed a friend m for him and her eyes were of the grey it ran and seemed so extraordinary a piece to come to my hands at such a moment and under cover of a government seal that i stood stupid s grey eyes shone in my remembrance i thought with a bound of pleasure she must be the friend but who should the writer be to have her thus enclosed with s and of all wonders why was it thought needful to give me this pleasing but most intelligence upon the bass for the writer i could hit upon none possible except miss grant her family i had remarked on s eyes and even named her for their colour and she herself had been much in the habit to address me with a broad by way of a i supposed at my no doubt besides but she lived in the same house as this letter came fix m so there remained but one step to be accounted for and that was how should have permitted her at au in an affair so secret or let her like go in the same cover with his own but even here i had a glimmering for first of all there was something rather alarming about the young lady and papa might be more under her than i knew and second there was the man s continual to be remembered how his conduct had been continually mingled with caresses and he had scarce ever in the midst of so much laid aside a mask of friendship he must conceive that my imprisonment had me perhaps this little friendly message was intended to my the missing i wiu be honest and i think it did i felt a sudden warmth towards that beautiful miss grant that she should stoop to so much interest in my affairs the up of moved me of itself to and more cowardly counsels if the advocate knew of her and of our acquaintance if i should please him by some of that discretion at which his letter pointed to what might not this lead in vain is the net spread in the sight of any fowl the scripture says well fowls must be wiser than folk for i thought i perceived the policy and yet fell in with it i was in this frame my heart beating the grey eyes plain before me like two stars when broke in upon my musing i see ye gotten news said he i found him looking curiously in my face with that there came before me like a vision of james and the court of and my mind turned at once hke a door
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upon its hinges trials i reflected sometimes draw out longer than is looked for even if i came to just too late something might yet be attempted in the interests of james and in those of my own character the best would be accomplished in a moment it seemed without thought i had a plan devised said i is it still to be to morrow he told me nothing was changed was anything said about the hour v i asked he told me it was to be two o clock afternoon and about the place i pursued place says the place i m to be landed at said l he owned there was nothing as to that very well then i said this shall be mine to arrange the wind is in the east my road lies westward keep your boat i hire it let us work up the forth all day and land me at two o clock to morrow at the we ll can have reached ye he cried ye would try for after a just that says i ye re ill to beat says he and i was kind o sorry for ye a day yesterday he added ye see i was never entirely sure till then which way of it ye really here was a spur to a lame horse a word in your ear said i this plan of mine has another advantage yet we can leave these behind us on the rock and one of your boats from the can bring them off tomorrow yon has a queer eye when he regards you maybe if i was once out of the gate there might be knives again these red are and if there should come to be any question here is your excuse our lives were in danger by these savages being for my safety you chose the part to bring me from their neighbourhood and detain me the rest of the time on board your boat and do you know says i with a smile i think it was very wisely chosen the truth is i have for says nor he for me fm thinking and i would ill to come to my hands wi the will make a better hand of it with the cattle the missing witness for this man came from where the is still spoken ay ay says ll can deal with them the best and the i think of it the less i see what way we would be required the place ay they had forgot the place eh ye re a when ye like that i m ye my life he added with more solemnity and offered me his hand upon the bargain whereupon with scarce more words we stepped suddenly on board the boat cast off and set the the were then busy upon breakfast for the was their usual part but one of them stepping to the our flight was observed before we were twenty from the rock and the three of them ran about the ruins and the for all the like about a broken nest and crying on us to return we were still in both the lee and the shadow of the rock last lay broad upon the waters but presently came forth in almost the same moment into the wind and sunshine the sail filled the boat to the and we swept immediately beyond sound of the men s voices to what terrors they endured upon the rock where they were now deserted without the countenance of any person or so much as the protection of a bible no limit can be set nor had they any brandy left to be their consolation for even in the haste and secrecy of our departure had managed to remove it it was our first care to set ashore in a by the rocks so that the of our might be duly seen to the next day thence we kept away up the breeze which was then so spirited swiftly declined but never wholly failed us all day we kept moving though often not much more and it was after dark ere we were up with the to keep the letter of s engagement or what was left of it i must remain on board but i thought no harm to communicate with the shore in writing on s cover where the government seal must have a good deal surprised my correspondent i by the boat s lantern a few necessary words and carried them to in about an hour he came aboard again with a purse of money and the assurance that a good horse should be standing for me by two to morrow at pool this done and the boat riding by her stone anchor we lay down to sleep under the sail we were in the pool the next day long ere two and there was nothing left for me but sit and wait i felt little alacrity upon my errand i would have been glad of any excuse to lay it down but none being to be found my uneasiness was no less great than if i had been running to some desired pleasure by shortly after one the horse was at the and i could see a man walking it to and fro till i should land which vastly swelled my impatience ran the moment of my very fine showing himself a man of his bare word but scarce serving his with a heaped measure and by about fifty seconds after two i was in the saddle and on the full stretch for in a little than an hour i had passed that town and was already the missing witness mounting water side when the weather broke in a small tempest the rain blinded me the wind had nearly beat me from the saddle and the first darkness of the night surprised me in a still some
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way east of not very sure of my direction and mounted on a horse that began already to be weary in the press of my hurry and to be spared the delay and annoyance of a guide i had followed so far as it was possible for any the line of my journey with this i did with open eyes a great risk in it which the tempest had now brought to a reality the last that i knew of where i was i think it must have been about the hour perhaps six at night i must still think it great good fortune that i got about eleven to my destination the house of where i had wandered in the interval perhaps the horse could tell i know wo were twice down and once over the saddle and for a moment carried away in a roaring burn and rider were up to the eyes from i had news of the trial it was followed in all these regions with religious interest news of it spread from as swift as men could travel and i was rejoiced to learn that up to a late hour that saturday it was not yet concluded and all men began to suppose it must spread over to the monday under the spur of this intelligence i not sit to eat but having agreed to bo my guide took the road again on foot with the piece in my hand and as i went brought with him a of and a hand lantern which last enlightened us just so long as we could find houses where to it for the thing and blew out with every gust the more part of the night we walked among sheets of rain and day found us on the mountains hard by we struck a hut on a burn side where we got a bite and a direction and a little before the end of the sermon came to the doors of the rain had somewhat washed the upper parts of me but i was still as high as to the knees i streamed water i was so weary i could hardly limp and my face like a ghost s i stood certainly more in need of a change of and a bed to lie on than of all the benefits in christianity for all which being persuaded the chief point for me was to make myself immediately public i set the door open entered that church with the dirty at my tails and finding a vacant place hard by sat down my brethren and in the law itself must be regarded as a means of grace the minister was saying in the voice of one to pursue an argument the sermon was in on account of the the judges were present with their armed attendants the glittered in a corner by the door and the seats were thronged beyond custom with the array of lawyers the text was in th and th the minister a skilled hand and the whole of that able from and my lords and down to the that came in their attendance was sunk with gathered the missing witness brows in a profound critical attention the minister himself and a of those about the door observed our entrance at the moment and immediately forgot the same the rest either did not hear or would not heed and i sat there amongst my friends and enemies the first that i out was he sat well forward like an eager in the saddle his lips moving with relish his eyes on the minister the doctrine was clearly to his mind charles on the other hand was half asleep and looked harassed and pale as for he appeared like a blot and almost a scandal in the midst of that attentive congregation digging his hands in his pockets shifting his legs clearing his throat rolling up his bald eyebrows and shooting out his eyes to right and left now with a now with a secret smile at times too he would take the bible in front of him run it through seem to read a bit run it through again and stop and the whole as if for exercise in the course of this restlessness his eye alighted on myself he sat a second then tore a half leaf out of the bible upon it with a pencil and passed it with a whispered word to his next neighbour the note came to who gave me but the one look thence it to the hands of mr thence again to where he sat between the other two lords of and his grace turned and fixed me with an eye the last of those interested to observe my presence was and he too began to pencil and hand about none of which i was able to trace to their destination in the crowd but the passage of these notes had aroused notice all who were in the secret or supposed themselves to be so were whispering information the rest questions and the minister himself seemed quite by the flutter in the church and sudden stir and whispering his voice changed he plainly faltered nor did he again recover the easy conviction and full tones of his delivery it would be a puzzle to him till his dying day why a sermon that had gone with triumph through four parts should thus in the fifth as for me i continued to sit there very wet and weary and a good deal anxious as to what should happen next but greatly in my success chapter xvii the memorial the last word of the blessing was scarce out of the minister s mouth before had me by the arm we were the first to be forth of the church and he made such extraordinary expedition that we were safe within the four walls of a house before
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the street had begun to be thronged with the home going congregation am i yet in time i asked ay and no said he the case is over the jury is enclosed and will be so kind as let us ken their view of it to morrow in the morning the same as i could have told it my own self three days ago before the play began the thing has been public from the start the it ye may do ye for me whispers he two days ago ken my fate by what the duke of has just said to mr it s been a scandal the great he before he the and guns to roar and the very cried but now that i have got you again i ll never despair the oak shall go over the m yet we ll the yet in their own town praise god that i should see the day he was leaping with excitement emptied out his upon the floor that i might have a change of clothes and me with his assistance as i changed what remained to be done or how i was to do it was what he never told me nor i believe so much as thought of we ll the yet that was still his overcome and it was forced home upon my mind how this that had the of a sober process of law was in its essence a battle between savage i thought my friend the writer none of the least savage who that had only seen him at a counsel s back before the lord ordinary or following a ball and laying down his clubs on links could have recognised for the same person this and violent james s counsel were four in number brown of and miller mr robert and mr younger of hall these were to dine with the writer after sermon and i was very included of the party no sooner the cloth lifted and the first bowl very by miller than we fell to the subject in hand i made a short of my and and was then examined and re examined upon the circumstances of the murder it will be remembered this was the first time i had had my say out or the matter at all handled among lawyers and the consequence was very to the others and i must own to myself to sum up said you prove that was on the spot you have heard him the memorial against and though you assure us he was not the man who fired you leave a strong impression that he was in league with him and perhaps immediately assisting in the act you show him besides at the risk of his own liberty the criminal s escape and the rest of your testimony so far as the least material depends on the bare word of or of james the two accused in short you do not at all break but only by one personage the chain that our to the murderer and i need scarcely say that the introduction of a third rather that appearance of a conspiracy which has been our stumbling block from the beginning i am of the same opinion said miller i think we may all be very much obliged to for taking a most uncomfortable witness out of our way and chiefly i think mr himself might be obliged for you talk of a third but mr in my view has very much the appearance of a fourth allow me interposed the writer there is another view here we have a witness never whether material or not a witness in this cause by that old lawless crew of the and for near upon a month in a of old cold ruins on the bass move that and see what dirt you fling on the proceedings this is a tale to make the world ring with it would be strange with such a grip as this if we squeeze out a pardon for my and suppose we took up mr s cause to morrow said hall i am deceived or we should find so many thrown in our path as that james should have been hanged before we had found a court to hear us this is a great scandal but i suppose we have none of us forgot a greater still i mean the matter of the lady the woman was still in my friend mr hope of did what was possible and how did he speed he never got a warrant well it ll be the same now the same weapons will bo used this is a scene gentlemen of the hatred of the name which i have the honour to bear in high there is nothing here to be viewed but naked spite and you may be sure this was to touch a welcome topic and i sat for some time in the midst of my learned counsel almost with their talk but extremely little the wiser for its purport the writer was led into some hot expressions must take him up and set him right the rest joined in on different sides but all pretty noisy the duke of was beaten like a blanket king george came in for a few in the by going and a great deal of rather elaborate defence and there was only one person that seemed to be forgotten and that was james of the through all this mr miller sat quiet he was a slip of an gentleman ruddy and twinkling he spoke in a smooth rich voice with an infinite effect of dealing out each word the way an the memorial actor does to give the most expression possible and even now when he was silent and sat there with his wig laid aside his glass in both hands his mouth and his chin out he seemed the mere picture
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my attitude on the affair but miller was ready at all events if i may be allowed to put our young friend s notion in more formal shape says he i understand him to propose that we should the fact of his and perhaps some heads of the the memorial testimony he was prepared to offer in a memorial to the crown this plan has elements of success it is as likely as any other and perhaps to help our perhaps his majesty would have the goodness to feel a certain gratitude to all concerned in such a memorial which might be into an expression of a very delicate loyalty and i think in the of the same this view might be brought forward they all nodded to each other not without sighs for the former alternative was doubtless more after their inclination paper then mr if you please pursued miller and i think it might very be signed by the five of us here present as for the condemned man it can do none of us any harm at least says heaving another sigh for he had seen himself lord advocate the last ten minutes thereupon they set themselves not very to the memorial a process in the course of which they soon caught fire and i had no more but to sit looking on and answer an occasional question the paper was very well expressed beginning with a of the facts about myself the reward offered for my apprehension my surrender the pressure brought to bear upon me my and my arrival at in time to be too late going on to explain the reasons of loyalty and interest for which it was agreed to any right of action and winding up with a forcible appeal to the king s mercy on behalf of i was a good deal sacrificed and rather represented in the light of a of a fellow whom my cloud of lawyers had restrained with difficulty from extremes but i let it pass and made but the one suggestion that i should be described as ready to deliver my own evidence and that of others before any commission of inquiry and the one demand that i should bo immediately furnished with a copy and this is a very confidential document said he and my position towards is highly peculiar i replied no question but i must have touched his heart at our first interview so that he has since stood my friend but for him gentlemen i must now be lying dead or awaiting my sentence alongside poor james for which reason i choose to communicate to him the fact of this memorial as soon as it is copied you are to consider also that this step will make for my protection i have enemies here accustomed to drive hard his grace is in his own country by his side and if there should hang any over our proceedings i think i might very well awake in not finding any very ready answer to these considerations my company of were at the last persuaded to consent and made only this condition that i was to lay the paper before with the express compliments of all concerned the advocate was at the castle dining with his by the hand of one of s servants i sent him a asking for an interview and received the memorial a summons to meet him at once in a private house of the town here i found him alone in a chamber from his face there was nothing to be yet i was not so but what i some in the hall and not so stupid but what i gather he was prepared to arrest me there and then should it appear advisable so mr david this is you said he i fear i am not welcome my lord said i and i would like before i go further to express my sense of your s continued good offices even should they now cease i have heard of your gratitude before he replied and i think this can scarce be the matter you called me from my wine to listen to i would remember also if i were you that you still stand on a very foundation not now my lord i think said i and if your will but glance an eye along this you will perhaps think as i do he read it through frowning heavily then turned back to one part and another which he seemed to weigh and compare the of his face a little lightened this is not so bad but what it might be worse said he though i am still likely to pay dear for my acquaintance with mr david rather for your indulgence to that unlucky young man my lord said i he still the paper and all the while liis spirits seemed to mend and to whom am i indebted for this he asked presently other counsels must have been discussed i think who was it proposed this private method my lord it was myself said i these gentlemen have shown me no such consideration as that i should deny myself any credit i can fairly claim or spare them any responsibility they should properly bear and the mere truth is that they were all in favour of a process which should have remarkable consequences in the parliament house and prove for them in one of their own expressions a dripping roast before i i think they were on the point of sharing out the different law our friend mr was to be taken in upon some composition smiled these are our friends said he and what were your reasons for mr david i told them without concealment expressing however with more force and volume those which regarded himself you do me no more than justice said he i have fought as hard in your interest as you
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peace made yet a little concerned in conscience nor could i help wondering as i went back whether perhaps i had not been a scruple too good natured but there was the fact that this was a man that might have been my father an able man a great and one that in the hour of my need had reached a hand to my assistance i was in the better humour to enjoy the remainder of that evening which i passed with the in excellent company no doubt but perhaps with rather more than a of punch for though i went early to bed i have no clear mind of how i got i chapter xviii the tee d ball on the morrow from the private room where none could see me i heard the verdict given in and judgment rendered upon james the duke s words i am quite sure i have correctly and since that famous passage has been made a subject of dispute i may as my version having referred to the year the chief of the sitting as justice general upon the bench thus addressed the before him if you had been successful in that rebellion you might have been giving the law where you have now received the judgment of it we who are this day your judges might have been tried before one of your mock courts of and then you might have been with the blood of any name or to which you had an aversion this is to let the cat out of the bag indeed thought i and that was the general impression it was extraordinary how the young advocate lads took hold and made a mock of this speech and how scarce a meal passed but what some one would get in the words and then you might have been many songs were made in that time for the hour s diversion and are near all forgot i remember one began what do ye want the of of is it a name or is it a or is it an that ye want the of of another went to my old favourite air the house of and began thus it fell on a day when ar k was on the bench that they served him a for his and one of the verses ran then np and the and on his cook i it as a sensible that i would sap an my with the of of my aversion james was as fairly murdered as though the had got a piece and stalked him so much of course i knew but others knew not so much and were more affected by the of scandal that came to light in the progress of the cause one of the chief was certainly this sally of the justice s it was run hard by another of a who had struck into the midst of s speech for the defence with a pray sir cut it short we are quite weary which seemed the very excess of impudence and simplicity but some of my new lawyer friends were still more staggered with an that had disgraced and even the proceedings one witness was never called his name indeed was printed where it may still be seen on the fourth page of the list the tee d ball james james more late tenant in and his had been taken as the manner is in writing he had remembered or invented god help him matter which was lead in james s shoes and i saw was like to prove wings to his own this testimony it was highly desirable to bring to the notice of the jury without exposing the man himself to the perils of cross examination and the way it was brought about was a matter of surprise to all for the paper was handed round like a curiosity in court passed through the jury box where it did its work and disappeared again as though by accident before it reached the counsel for the prisoner this was counted a most device and that the name of james more should be mingled up with it filled me with shame for and concern for myself the following day and i with a considerable company set out for where to my impatience we continued to linger some time in a mixture of pleasure and affairs i lodged with my lord with whom i was encouraged to familiarity had my place at was presented to the chief guests and altogether made more of than i thought accorded either with my parts or station so that on strangers being present i would often blush for it must be owned the view i had taken of the world in these last months was fit to cast a gloom upon my character i had met many men some of them leaders in whether by their birth or talents and who among them all had shown clean hands as for the and i had seen their self seeking i could never again respect was the best yet he had saved me had spared me rather when others had it in their minds to murder me outright but the blood of james lay at his door and i thought his present with myself a thing below pardon that he should affect to find pleasure in my discourse almost sur me out of my patience i would sit and watch him with a kind of a slow fire of anger in my ah friend friend i would think to myself if you were but through with this affair of the memorial would you not kick me in the streets here i did him as events have proved the most grave injustice and i think he was at once far more sincere and a far more artful than i supposed but i had some warrant for my incredulity in the behaviour of that court
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least official is the more full and far the more entertaining being from the lively pen of my eldest daughter here is all the town with a fine piece of work she writes and what would make the thing more noted if it were only known the is a of his my papa i am sure your heart is too much in your duty if it were nothing else to have forgotten grey eyes what does she do but ge a broad hat with the open a long hairy like man s and a big her coats up to clap two pair of boot upon her legs take a pair of in her hand and off to the castle here she gives herself out to be a sou turf in the employ of james more and j admitted to his cell the lieutenant who seems to have been full of making sport among his soldiers of the s presently they hear and the sound of blows inside out flies the his coat flying the of his hat beat about his face and the lieutenant and his soldiers mock at patched shoes t the tee d ball liim as he runs off they laughed not so hearty the next time they had occasion to visit the cell and found nobody but a tall pretty grey eyed in the female habit as for the he was over the hills and it s thought that poor scotland will have to console herself without i drank s health this night in public indeed the whole town her and i think the would wear bits of her in their button holes if they could only get them i would have gone to visit her in prison too only i remembered in time i was papa s daughter so i wrote her a instead which i to the faithful and i hope you admit i can be political when i please the same faithful is to despatch this letter by the express along with those of the so that you may hear tom fool in company with solomon talking of do tell i would i could see the face of him at the thought of a long legged in such a to say nothing of the of your affectionate daughter and his respectful friend so my rascal signs herself continued and you see mr david it is quite true what i tell you that my daughters regard you with the most affectionate the is much obliged said i and was not this prettily done he went on is not this maid a piece of a heroine i was always sure she had a great heart said i and i she guessed nothing but i beg your pardon this is to tread upon forbidden subjects i will go she did not he returned quite openly i will go she thought she was flying straight into king george s face remembrance of and the thought of her lying in moved me strangely i could see that even admired and could not withhold his lips from smiling when he considered her behaviour as for miss grant for all her iu habit of mockery her admiration shone out a kind of a heat came on me i am not your s daughter i began that i know of he put in smiling i speak like a fool said i or rather i began wrong it would doubtless be unwise in mistress grant to go to her in prison but for me i think i would look like a half hearted friend if i did not fly there instantly so ho mr david says he i thought that you and i were in a bargain my lord i said when i made that bargain i was a good deal affected by your goodness but i ll never can deny that i was moved besides by my o vn interest there was self seeking in my heart and i think shame of it n ow it may be for your s safety to say this fashions is your friend and say it then never contradict you but as for your patronage i give it all back i ask but the one let me go and ve me a pass to see her in her prison he looked at me with a hard eye you put the cart before the horse i think says he that which the tee d ball i had given was a portion of my liking which your nature does not seem to have remarked but for my patronage it is not given nor to te exact is it yet offered he paused a bit and i warn you you do not know yourself he added youth is a hasty season you wiu think better of all this before a year well and i would like to be that kind of youth i cried i have seen too much of the other party in these young that upon your and are even at the pains to on me and i have seen it in the old ones also they are all for by ends the whole of them it s this that makes me seem to your s liking why would i think that you would like me but ye told me yourself ye had an interest i stopped at this confounded that i had run so far ho was observing me an face my lord i ask your pardon i i have nothing in my but a rough country tongue i think it would be decent like if i would go to see my friend in her but i m owing you my life i ll never forget that and if it s for your s good here i ll stay that s barely gratitude this might have been reached in fewer words says grimly it is easy and it is at times gracious to say a
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plain ay ah but my lord i think ye take me not yet entirely cried i for your sake for my life safe and the kindness that ye say ye bear to me for these consent but not for any good that might be coming to if i stand aside when this young maid is in her trial it s a thing i will be by i will lose by it i will never gain i would rather make a wholly than to build on that foundation he was a minute serious then smiled you mind me of the man with the long nose said he was you to look at the moon by a you would see david there but you shall have your way of it i will ask at you one service and then set you free my clerks are be so good as copy me these few pages says he visibly among some huge rolls of and when that is done i shall bid you god speed i would never charge myself with mr david s conscience and if you could cast some part of it as you went by in a moss you would find yourself to ride much easier without it perhaps not just entirely in the same direction though my lord says i and you shall have the last word too cries he gaily indeed he had some cause for gaiety having now found the means to gain his purpose to lessen the weight of the memorial or to have a answer at his hand he desired i should appear publicly in the character of his intimate but if i were to appear with the same as a visitor to in her prison the world would scarce to draw conclusions and the nature of james more s escape must become evident to all this was the little problem i had the tee d ball set him of a sudden and to which he had so briskly found an answer i was to be in by that job of which in mere outward decency i could not well refuse and during these hours of my employment was privately got rid of i think shame to write of this man that loaded me with so many he was kind to me as any father yet i over thought him as false as a cracked bell chapter xix i am much in the hands of the ladies the was a weary business the more so as i perceived very early there was no sort of in the matters treated and began very early to consider my employment a pretext i had no sooner finished than i got to horse used what remained of daylight to the best purpose and being at last fairly slept in a house by water side i was in the saddle again before the day and the were just opening when i in by the west bow and drew up a smoking horse at my lord advocate s door i had a written word for my lord s private hand that was thought to be in all his secrets a worthy little plain man all fat and snuff and self him i foimd already at his desk and already with in the same room where i with james more he read the note through like a chapter in his bible h m says he ye come a thing hand mr the bird s we her out miss is set free i cried said he what would we keep her for ye ken to made a steer about the would pleased i am much in the hands of the ladies and she be now says i says with a shrug shell have gone home to lady i m thinking said i that ll be it said he then gang there straight says i but ye ll be for a bite or ye go said he neither bite nor sup said i i had a good of milk in by says but ye ll can leave your horse here and your bags for it seems we re to have your up put na na said i s would never be the thing for me this day of all days speaking somewhat broad i had been led b imitation into an accent much more than i was usually careful to a good deal broader indeed than i have written it down and i was the more ashamed when another voice joined in behind me with a scrap of a ballad saddle me the black saddle and him far i will down the slack and a to see my the young lady when i turned to her stood in a morning gown and her hands muffled in the same as if to hold me at a distance yet i could not but think there was kindness in the eye with which she saw me my best respects to you mistress grant said i bowing s mare to go the like to yourself mr david she replied with a deep courtesy and i beg to remind you of an old saw that meat and mass never man the mass i cannot afford you for we are all good but the meat i press on your attention and i would not wonder but i could find something for your private ear that would be worth the stopping for mistress grant said i i i am already your for some merry words and i think they were kind on a piece of paper paper says she and made a droll face which was likewise wondrous beautiful as of one trying to remember or else i am the more deceived i went oa but to be sure we shall have the time to speak of these since your father is so good as to make me for a while your and the you
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at this time only for the favour of his you give yourself hard names said she mr and i would be the to take harder at your clever pen says i once more i have to admire the discretion of all men folk she replied but if you will not eat off with you at once you will be back the sooner for you go on a errand off with you mr david she continued opening the door he on his grey he the gate and the ready i he would neither nor stay far he was seeking his i am much in the hands of the ladies i lid not wait to be twice and did justice to miss grant s on the way to dean old lady walked there alone in the garden in her hat and and having a staff of some black wood to lean upon as i alighted from my horse and drew near to her with i could see the blood come in her face and her head fling into the air like what i had conceived of what brings you to my poor door she cried speaking high through her nose i cannot bar it the of my house are dead and buried i have neither son nor husband to stand in the gate for me any beggar can pluck me by the and a there is and that s the worst of it yet she added partly to herself i was extremely put out at this reception and the last remark which seemed like a wife s left me near hand speechless i see i have fallen under your displeasure ma am said i yet i will still be so bold as ask after mistress she considered me with a burning eye her lips pressed close together into twenty her hand shaking on her staff this cows all she cried ye come to me to for her would god knew she is not here i cried she threw up her chin and made a step and a cry at me so that i fell back out upon your throat she cried beard what ye come and at me she s in ye took her to that s all there is to it and of a the beings ever i beheld in to think it should be you ye if i had a male left to my name i would have your tiu ye i thought it not good to delay longer in that place because i remarked her passion to be rising as i turned to the horse post she even followed me and i make no shame to confess that i rode away with the one on and the other as i knew no other quarter where i could push my inquiries there was nothing left me but to return to the advocate s i was well received by the four ladies who were now in company together and must give the news of and what word went in the west country at the most length and with great weariness to myself while all the time that young lady with whom i so much desired to be alone again observed me and seemed to find pleasure in the sight of my impatience at last after i had endured a meal with them and was come very near the point of appealing for an interview before her mother she went and stood by the and picking out a tune sang to it on a high key he that will not when he may when he will he shall have nay but this was the end of her and presently after making some excuse of which i have no mind she carried me away in private to her father s library i should not fail to say that was dressed to the and appeared extraordinary handsome i am much in the hands of the ladies now mr david sit ye down here and let us have a two handed crack said she for i have much to tell you and it appears besides that i have been unjust to your good taste in what manner mistress grant i asked i trust i have never seemed to fail in due respect i will be your mr david said she your respect whether to yourself or your poor neighbours has been always and most fortunately beyond imitation but that is by the question you got a note from me she asked i was so bold as to suppose so upon said i and it was kindly thought upon it must have surprised you said she but let us begin with the beginning you have not perhaps forgot a day when you were so kind as to escort three very tedious to hope park i have the less cause to forget it myself because you was so particular obliging as to introduce me to some of the principles of the latin grammar a thing which wrote itself profoundly on my gratitude i fear i was sadly said i overcome with confusion at the memory you are only to consider i am quite unused with the society of ladies i will say the less about the grammar then she replied but how came you to desert your charge he has thrown her out overboard his ain dear she and his ain dear and her two sisters had to home by like a string of it you returned to my papa s where you sh wed yourself excessively martial and then on to unknown with an eye it appears to the bass rock being perhaps more to your mind than through all this there was something indulgent in the lady s eye which made me suppose there might be better coming you take a pleasure to torment me said i and i make a very but let me ask you to be more merciful at
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this time there is but the one thing that i care to hear of and that will be news of do you call her by that name to her face mr she asked in and i am not very sure i stammered i would not do so in any case to strangers said miss grant and why are you so much in the of this young lady i heard she was in prison said i well and now you hear that she is out of it she and what more would you have she has no need of any further champion i may have the greater need of her ma am said i come this is better says miss grant but look fairly in the face am i not than she i be the last to be denying it said i there is not your in all scotland well hero you have the j of the two at your hand and must needs speak of the other said she this is never the way to please the ladies mr but mistress said i there are surely other things besides mere beauty i am much in the hands of the ladies by which i am to understand that i am no better than i should be perhaps she asked by which you will please understand that i am like the cock in the in the fable book said i i see the jewel and i like fine to see it too but i have more need of the corn she cried there is a word well said at last and i will reward you for it with my story that same night of your desertion i came late from a friend s house where i was excessively admired whatever you may think of it and what should i hear but that a in a screen desired to speak with me she had been there an hour or better said the servant and she in to herself as she sat waiting i went to her direct she rose as i came in and i knew her at a look grey eyes says i to myself but was more wise than to let on you will he miss grant at last she says rising and looking at me hard and pitiful ay it was true he said are at all events the way god made me my dear i said hut i would he and if ye could tell me what here at such a time of the night lady she said we are we are both come of the of the sons of my dear i replied think no more of or his sons than i do of a you have a better argument in these tears upon your face and at that i was so weak minded as to kiss her which is what you would like to do dearly and i will never find the courage of i say it was of me for i knew no more of her than the outside but it was the wisest stroke i could have hit upon she is a very brave nature but i think she has been little used with tenderness and at that caress though to say the truth it was but lightly given her heart went out to me i will never betray the secrets of my sex mr i will never tell you the way she turned me round her thumb because it is the same she will use to twist ay it is a fine she is as clean as hill well water she is e en t i cried well then she told me her concerns pursued miss grant and in what a she was in about her papa and what a taking about yourself with very little cause and in what a perplexity she had found herself after you was gone away then i at long last says she that we were and that mr david should have given the name of the of the and i was thinking to my self if she is so she will be good at all events and i took up my foot out of that that was when i forgave yourself mr when you was in my society you seemed upon hot iron by all marks if ever i saw a young man that wanted to be gone it was yourself and i and my two sisters were the ladies you were so desirous to be gone from and now it appeared you had given me some notice in the and was so kind as to comment on my attractions from that hour you may date our friendship and i began to think with tenderness upon the latin grammar i am much in the hands of the ladies you will have many hours to rally me in said i and i think besides you do yourself injustice i think it was turned your heart in my direction she is too simple to perceive as you do the of her friend i would not like to upon that mr david said she the have clear eyes but at least she is your friend entirely as i was to see i carried her in to his my papa and his being in a favourable stage of was so good as to receive the pair of us here is grey eyes that you have been with these days past said i she is come to prove that we spoke and i lay the prettiest in the three at your feet making a of myself she suited her action to my words down she went upon her knees to him i would not like to swear but he saw two of her which doubtless made her appeal the more irresistible for you are all a pack of told him what had
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passed that night and how she had withheld her father s man from following of you and what a case she was in about her father and what for yourself and begged with weeping for the lives of both of you neither of which was in the slightest danger till i vow i was proud of my sex because it was done so pretty and ashamed for it because of the of the occasion she had not gone far i assure you before the advocate was wholly sober to see his inmost politics out by a young and discovered to the most of his daughters but we took him in hand the pair of us and brought that matter p but there is yet one thing more i cried there is one thing that must be stopped being mere ruin to herself and to me too well she said be brief i have spent half the day on you already my lady believes i began she she thinks that i her the colour came into miss grant s face so that at first i was quite abashed to find her ear so delicate till i me she was struggling rather with mirth a notion in which i was altogether confirmed by the shaking of her voice as she replied i will take up the defence of your reputation said she t ou may leave it in my hands and with that she withdrew out of the library chapter xx i continue to move in good society for about exactly two months i remained a guest in s family where i my acquaintance with the bench the bar and the flower of company you are not to suppose my education was neglected on the contrary i was kept extremely busy i studied the french so as to be more prepared o go to i set myself to the and wrought hard sometimes three hours in the day with notable advancement at the suggestion of my cousin who was an apt i was put to a singing class and by the orders of my miss grant to one for the dancing at which i must say i proved far from ornamental however all were good enough to say it gave me an address a little more genteel and there is no question but i learned to manage my coat skirts and sword with more dexterity and to stand in a room as though the same belonged to me my clothes themselves were all re ordered and the most trifling circumstance such as i should tie my hair or the colour of my ribbon among the three like a thing of weight one way with another no doubt i was a good deal improved to look at and acquired a bit of a air that would have surprised the good folks at the two younger were very willing to discuss a point of my because that was in the line of their chief thoughts i cannot say that they appeared any other way conscious of my presence and though always more than civil with a kind of heartless cordiality could not hide how much i wearied them as for the aunt she was a wonderful still woman and i think she gave me much the same attention as she gave the rest of the family which was little enough the eldest daughter and the advocate himself were thus my principal friends and our familiarity was much increased by a pleasure that we took in common before the court met we spent a day or two at the house of living very nobly with an open table and here it w as that we three began to ride out together in the fields a practice afterwards maintained in so far as the advocate s continual affairs permitted when we were put in a good frame by the of the exercise the difficulties of the way or the accidents of bad weather my shyness wore entirely off we forgot that we were strangers and speech not being required it flowed the more naturally on then it was that they had my story from me bit by bit from the time that i left with my age and battle in the wanderings in the etc and from the interest they found in my adventures sprung the circumstance of a we made a little later on on a day when the courts were not sitting and of which i will tell a trifle more at length we took horse early and passed first by the house of where it stood in a great field of i continue to move in good society white frost for it was yet early in the day here alighted down gave me his horse and proceeded alone to visit my uncle my heart i remember swelled up bitter within me at the sight of that bare house and the thought of the old sitting within in the cold kitchen there is my home said i and my family poor david said miss grant what passed during the visit i have never heard but it would doubtless not be very agreeable to for when the advocate came forth again his face was dark i think you will soon be the indeed mr says he turning half about with the one foot in the i will never pretend sorrow said i and to say the truth during his absence miss grant and i had been the place in fancy with and a terrace much as i have since earned out in fact thence wo pushed to the where gave us a good welcome being indeed out of the body to receive so great a visitor here the was so good as to go quite fully over my affairs sitting perhaps two hours with tho writer in his study and expressing i was told a great esteem for myself and concern
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for my fortunes to while this time miss grant and i and young took boat and passed the hope to made himself very ridiculous and i thought offensive with his admiration for the yoimg lady and to my wonder only it is so common a weakness of her sex she seemed if anything to be a little gratified one use it had for when wo were come to the other side she laid her commands on him to mind the boat while she and i passed a little further to the this was her own thought for she had been taken with my account of and desired to see the herself we found her once more alone indeed i believe her father wrought all day in the fields and she to the gentry folk and the beautiful young lady in the riding coat is this all the welcome i am to get said l holding out my hand and have you no more memory of old friends keep me s this of it she cried and then god s truth it s the the very same says i s the time i ve upon you and your and am i to see in your f she cried though i ye were come to your ain folk by the grand present that ye sent me and that i thank ye for with a my heart there said miss grant to me run out by with ye like a good i come here to stand and a candle it s her and me that are to crack i suppose she stayed ten minutes in the house but when she came forth i observed two things that her eyes were and a silver was gone out of her bosom this very much affected me i never saw you so well adorned said l ragged t fine things i continue to move in good society o man be a said she and was more than usually sharp to me the remainder of the day about we came home from this excursion for a good while i heard nothing further of my miss grant remaining quite impenetrable and stopping my mouth with at last one day that she returned from walking and found me alone in the parlour over my french i thought there was something unusual in her looks the colour heightened the eyes sparkling high and a bit of a smile continually bitten in as she regarded me she seemed indeed like the very spirit of mischief and walking briskly in the room had soon involved me in a kind of quarrel over nothing and at the least with nothing intended on my side i was hke christian in the the more i tried to out upon the side the deeper i became involved until at last i heard her declare with a great deal of passion that she would take that answer at the hands of none and i must down upon my knees for pardon the of all this stirred my own i have said nothing you can properly object to said i and as for my knees that is an attitude i keep for god and as a goddess i am to be served she cried shaking her brown locks at me and with a bright colour every man that comes within of my shall use me so i will go so far as ask your pardon for the fashion s sake although i vow i know not why i replied but for these play acting you can go to others she said not if i was to beg you i me i was fighting with a woman which is the same as to say a child and that upon a point entirely formal i think it a thing i said not worthy in you to ask or me to render yet i will not refuse you neither said i and the stain if there be any rests with yourself and at that i fairly down there she cried there is the proper station there is where i have been to you and then suddenly said she flung me a folded and ran from the apartment laughing the had neither place nor date dear mr david it began i get your news continually by my cousin miss grant and it is a hearing i am very well in a good place among good folk but to be quite private though i am hoping that at long last we may meet again all your have been told me by my loving cousin who loves us both she bids me to send you this writing and the same i will be asking you to do all her commands and rest your friend p s will you not see my cousin i think it not the least brave of my as the soldiers say that i should have done as i was here and gone to the house by dean but the old lady was now entirely changed and as a glove by what means miss grant catch i continue to move in good society had brought this round i could never guess i am sure at least she dared not to appear openly in the affair for her papa was in it pretty deep it was he indeed who had persuaded to leave or rather not to return to her cousin s placing her instead with a family of decent people quite at the advocate s disposition and in whom she might have the more confidence because they were of her own and family these kept her private till all was ripe heated and helped her to attempt her father s rescue and after she was discharged from prison received her again into the same secrecy thus obtained and used his instrument nor did there out the smallest word of his acquaintance with the daughter
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of james more there was some whispering of course upon the escape of that person but the government by a show of one of the cell was the lieutenant of the guard my i friend was broken of his rank and as for all men were well enough pleased that her fault should be passed by in silence i could never induce miss grant to carry back an answer no she would say when i persisted i am going to keep the big feet out of the this was the more hard to bear as i was aware she saw my uttle friend many times in the week and carried her my news whenever as she said i had behaved myself at last she treated me to what she called an indulgence and i thought rather more of a she was certainly a strong almost a violent friend to all she chief among whom was a certain frail old very blind and very witty who dwelt in the top of a land on a strait close with a nest of in a cage and thronged all day with visitors miss grant was very fond to carry me there and put me to entertain her friend with the narrative of my misfortunes and miss that was her name was particular and told me a great deal that was worth knowledge of old folks and past affairs in scotland i should say that from her chamber window and not three feet away such is the of that close it was possible to look into a barred lighting the of the opposite house here upon some pretext miss grant left me one day alone with miss i mind i thought that lady and like one i was besides very uncomfortable for the window contrary to custom was left open and the day was cold all at once the voice of miss grant sounded in my ears as from a distance here she cried out of the window and see what i have you i think it was the prettiest sight that ever i beheld the well of the close was all in clear shadow where a man could see distinctly the walls very black and dingy and there from the barred i saw two faces smiling across at me miss grant s and s there says miss grant i wanted her to see you in your like the of i wanted her to see what i could make of you when i to the job in earnest i continue to move in good society it came in my mind she had been more than common particular that day upon my dress and i think that some of the same care had been bestowed upon for so merry and sensible a lady miss grant was certainly wonderful taken up with was all i could get out as for her she said nothing in the world but only waved her hand and smiled to me and was suddenly carried away again from before the that vision was no sooner lost than i ran to the house door where i found i was locked in thence back to miss crying for the key but might as well have cried upon the castle rock she had passed her word she said and i must be a good lad it was impossible to burst the door even if it had been it was impossible i should leap from the window being seven above ground all i could do was to over the close and watch for their from the stair it little to see being no more than the tops of their two heads each on a ridiculous of skirts uke to a pair of nor did so much as look up for a farewell being prevented as i heard afterwards by miss grant who told her folk were never seen to less advantage than from above downward on the way home as soon as i was set free i miss grant with her cruelty i am sorry you was disappointed says d for my part i was very pleased you looked better than i dreaded you looked if it will not make you vain a mighty pretty young man when you appeared in the window you are to remember that she could not see your feet says she with the manner of one me cried i leave my feet be they are no bigger than my neighbour s they are even smaller than some said she but i speak in like a hebrew pf i marvel little they were sometimes sap i but you miserable girl how could you do it why should you care to me with a moment love is like folk says she it needs some kind of let me see her properly i pleaded can you see her when you please let me have half an hour who is it that is managing this love affair you or me she asked and as i continued to press her with my instances fell back upon a deadly expedient that of the tones of my voice when i called on by name with which indeed she held me in for some days to follow there was never the least word heard of the memorial or none by me and his grace the lord president may have heard of it for what i know on the sides of their heads they kept it to themselves at least the public was none the wiser and in course of time on november th and in the midst of a prodigious storm of wind and i continue to move in good society rain poor james of the was duly hanged at by so there was the final of my politics innocent men have perished before james and are like to keep on in spite of all our wisdom till the end of time
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and till the end of time young folk who are not yet used with the of life and men will struggle as i did and make and take long risks and the course of events will push them upon the one side and go on like a marching army james was hanged and here was i dwelling in the house of and grateful to him for his attention he was hanged and behold when i met mr in the i was fain to pull my to him like a good little boy before his he had been hanged by fraud and violence and the world along and there was not a of difference and the of that horrid plot were decent kind respectable fathers of families who went to and took the but i had had my view of that detestable business they call politics i had seen it from behind when it is all bones and blackness and i was cured for life of any temptations to take part in it again a plain quiet private path was that which i was ambitious to walk in when i might keep my head out of the way of dangers and my conscience out of the road of temptation for upon a it appeared i had not done so after all but with tho greatest possible amount of big speech and preparation had accomplished nothing the th of the same month a ship was advertised to sail from and i was suddenly recommended to make up my for to i could of course say nothing for i had already been a long while on his house and table but with his daughter i was more open my fate that i should be sent out of the country and a her unless she should bring me to farewell with i would refuse at the last hour have i not given you my advice she asked i know you have said i and i know how much i am to you already and that i am to obey your orders but you must confess you are something too merry a at times to to entirely i will tell you then said she be you on board by nine o clock the ship does not sail before one keep your boat alongside and if you are not pleased with my when i shall send them you can come ashore again and seek for yourself since i could make no more of her i was fain to be content with this the day came round at last when she and i were to separate we had been extremely intimate and familiar i was much in her debt and what way we were to part was a thing that put me from my sleep like the i was to give to the domestic servants i knew she considered me too backward and rather desired to rise in her opinion on that head besides which after so much affection shown and i believe trust i continue to move in good society felt upon both sides it would have looked cold like to be accordingly i got my courage up and my words ready and the last chance we were like to be alone asked pretty boldly to be allowed to salute her in farewell you forget yourself strangely mr said she i cannot call to mind that i have given you any right to presume on our i stood before her like a stopped clock and knew not what to think far less to say when of a sudden she cast her arms about my neck and kissed me with the best will in the world you she cried did you think that i would let us part like strangers because i can never keep my gravity at you five minutes on end you must not dream i do not love you very well i am all love and laughter every time i cast an eye on you and now i will give you an advice to conclude your education which you will have need of before it s very long never ash they re bound to answer no god never made the that could resist the temptation it s supposed by to be the curse of eve because she did not say it when the devil offered her the apple her daughters can say nothing else since i am so soon to lose my professor i began this is gallant indeed says she i would put the one question i went on may i ask a to marry me you think you could not marry her without she asked or else get her to offer q you you cannot bo serious said i i shall be very serious in one thing david said she i shall always be your friend as i got to my house the next morning the four ladies were all at that same window whence we had once looked down on and all cried farewell and waved their pocket as i rode away one out of the four i knew was truly sorry and at the thought of that and how i had come to the door three months ago for the first time sorrow and gratitude made a confusion in my mind l part il father and daughter chapter xxi the voyage into holland the ship lay at a single anchor well outside the pier of so that all we passengers must come to it by the means of this was very little troublesome for the reason that the day was a flat calm very frosty and cloudy and with a low shifting fog upon the water the body of the vessel was thus quite hid as i drew near but the tall of her stood high and bright in a sunshine like the flickering of a fire she proved to be a very merchant but somewhat blunt in
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the bows and extraordinary deep with salt salmon and fine white linen stockings for the dutch upon my coming on board the captain welcomed me one sang out of i believe a very hearty friendly of a man but at the moment in rather of a bustle there had no other of the passengers yet appeared so that i was left to walk about upon the deck the prospect and wondering a good deal what these should be which i was promised ah and the hills above me in a kind of brightness now and again overcome with of cloud of there was no more than the tops of chimneys visible and on the face of the water where the lay nothing at all out of this i was presently aware of a sound of oars pulling and a httle after as if out of the smoke of a fire a boat issued there sat a grave man in the stem sheets well muffled from the cold and by his side a tall pretty tender figure of a maid that brought my heart to a stand i had scarce the time to catch my breath in and be ready to meet her as she stepped upon the deck smiling and making my best bow which was now vastly finer than some months before when first i made it to her no doubt we were both a good deal changed she seemed to have shot up taller like a young comely tree she had now a kind of pretty that became her well as of one that regarded herself more highly and was fairly woman and for another thing the hand of the same had been at work upon the pair of us and miss grant had made us both if she could make but the one the same cry in words not very different came from both of us that the other was come in compliment to say farewell and then we perceived in a flash we were to ship together why will not baby have been telling me she cried and then remembered a letter she had been given on the condition of not opening it till she was sea fog the voyage into holland well on board within was an for myself and ran thus dear what do yon think of my farewell and what do you say to your fellow passenger did you kiss or did you ask i was about to have signed here but that would leave the purport of my question doubtful and in my own case i ken the answer so fill up here with good advice do not be too and for god s sake do not try to be too forward nothing sets you worse i am your affectionate friend and grant i wrote a word of answer and compliment on a leaf out of my put it in with another scratch from sealed the whole with my new of the arms and despatched it by the hand of s servant that still waited in my boat then we had time to look upon each other more at leisure which we had not done for a piece of a minute before upon a common impulse we shook hands again said i it seemed that was the first and last word of my eloquence you will be glad to see me again says she and i think that is an idle word said j we are too deep friends to make speech upon such trifles is she not the girl of all the world she cried again i was never knowing such a girl so honest and so b aad yet she cared no more for than what she did for a stock said i ul ah she will say so indeed yet it was for the name and the gentle kind blood that she took me up and was so good to me well i will tell you why it was said i there are all sorts of people s faces in this world there is s face that must look at and admire and think her a fine brave merry girl and then there is your face which is quite different i never knew how different till to day you cannot see yourself and that is why you do not understand but it was for the love of your face that she took you up and was so good to you and everybody in the world would do the same everybody says she every living soul said i ah then that will be why the soldiers at the castle took me up she cried has been teaching you to catch me said i she will have taught me more than that at all events she will have taught me a great deal about mr david all the ill of him and a uttle that was not so ill either now and then she said smiling she will have told me all there was of mr david only just that he would sail upon this very same ship and why it is you go i told her ah well said she we will be some days in company and then i suppose good bye for altogether i go to meet my father at a place of the name of and from there to france to be by the side of our the voyage into holland i could say no more than just the name of james more always up my very voice she was quick to perceive it and to guess some portion of my thought there is one thing i must be saying first of all mr david said she i think two of my have not behaved to you altogether very well and the one of them two is james more my father and the other is the of will have spoken by
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himself or his daughter in the place of him but for james more my father i have this much to say he lay in a prison he is a plain honest soldier and a plain gentleman what they would be after he would never be but if he had understood it was to be some prejudice to a young gentleman like yourself he would have died first and for the sake of all your i will be asking you to pardon my father and family for that same mistake said i what that mistake was i do not care to know i know but the one thing that you went to and begged my life upon your knees ken well it was for your father that you went but when you were there you pleaded for me also it is a thing i cannot speak of there are two things i cannot think of in to myself and the one is your good words when you called yourself my little friend and the other that you pleaded for my life us never speak more we two of pardon or we stood after that silent looking on the deck and i on her and before there was more speech a little wind having sprung up in the nor west they b an to shake out the sails and heave in upon the anchor there were six passengers besides our two selves which made of it a full cabin three were solid merchants out of and all engaged in the same adventure into high germany one was a returning the rest worthy merchants wives to the charge of one of whom was recommended mrs for that was her name was by great good fortune heavily by the sea and lay day and night on the broad of her back we were besides the only creatures at all young on board the rose except a white faced boy that did my old duty to attend upon the table and it came about that and i were left almost entirely to ourselves we had the next seats together at the table where i waited on her with extraordinary pleasure on deck i made her a soft place with my cloak and tho weather being singularly fine for that season with bright frosty days and nights a steady gentle wind and scarce a sheet started all the way through the north sea we sat there only now and again walking to and fro for warmth from the first of the sun till eight or nine at night under the clear stars the merchants or captain sang would sometimes glance and smile upon us or pass a merry word or two and give us the go by again but the most part of the time they were deep in and and linen or in of the of tho the voyage into holland passage and left us to our own concerns which were very little important to any but ourselves at the first we had a great deal to say and thought ourselves pretty witty and i was at a little pains to be the beau and she i believe to play the young lady of experience but soon we grew with each other i laid aside my high english what little there was of it and forgot to make my bows and she upon her side fell into a sort of kind familiarity and we dwelt together like those of the same household only upon my side with a more deep emotion about the same time the bottom seemed to fall out of our conversation and neither one of us the less pleased she would tell me old wives tales of which she had a wonderful variety many of them from my friend she told them very pretty and they were pretty enough childish tales but the pleasure to myself was in the sound of her voice and the thought that she was telling and i listening again we would sit entirely silent not communicating even with a look and pleasure enough in the sweetness of that neighbourhood i speak here only for myself of what was in the maid s mind i am not very sure that ever i asked myself and what was in my own i was afraid to consider i need make no secret of it now either to myself or to the reader i was fallen totally in love she came between me and the sun she had grown suddenly taller as i say but with a wholesome growth she seemed all health and lightness and brave spirits and i thought she walked like a young deer and stood like a upon the mountains it was enough for me to sit near by her on the deck and i declare i scarce spent two thoughts upon the future and was so well content with what i then enjoyed that i was never at the pains to imagine any further step unless perhaps that i would be sometimes tempted to take her hand in mine and hold it there but i was too like a of what joys i had and would venture nothing on a hazard what we spoke was usually of ourselves or of each other so that if anyone had been at so much pains as us he must have supposed us the most persons in the world it one day when we were at this practice that we came on a discourse of friends and friendship and i think now that we were sailing near the wind we said what a thing friendship was and how little we had guessed of it and how it made life a new thing and a thousand covered things of the same kind that will have been said since the foundation of the world by young folk in the same then we remarked upon the strangeness of that circumstance that friends
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came together in the beginning as if they were there for the first time and yet each had been alive a good while losing time with other people it is not much that i have done said she and i could be telling you the five of it in two three words it is only a girl i am and what can befall a girl at all events but i went with the in the year the men marched with swords and and some of them in in the same set of the voyage into they were not backward at the marching i can tell you and there were gentlemen from the low country with their tenants mounted and trumpets to sound and there was a grand of war pipes i rode on a little horse on the right hand of my father james more and of himself and here is one fine thing that i remember that kissed me in the face because says he my you are the only lady of the that has come out and me a little maid of maybe twelve years old i saw prince too and the blue eyes of him he was pretty indeed i had his hand to kiss in the front of the army well these were the good days but it is all like a dream that i have seen and then awakened it went what way you very well know and these were the worst days of all when the red coat soldiers were out and my father and my lay in the hill and was to be carrying them their meat in the middle night or at the short side of day when the crow yes i have walked in the night many s the time and my heart great in me for terror of the darkness it is a strange thing i will never have been with a but they say a maid goes safe next there was my uncle s marriage and that was a dreadful affair beyond all was that woman s name and she had me in the room with her that night at the night we took her from her friends in the old ancient manner she would and she wouldn t she was for marrying rob the one minute and the next she would be for none of him i will never have seen such a creature of a woman surely all there was of her would tell her ay or no well she was a widow and i can never be thinking a widow a good woman says i how do you make out that i do not know said she i am only telling you the seeming in my heart and then to marry a new man but that was her and she was married again upon my uncle robin and went with him awhile to and market and then wearied or else her friends got of her and talked her round or maybe she turned ashamed at the least of it she ran away and went back to her own folk and said we had held her in the lake and i will never tell you all what i have never thought much of any females that day and so in the end my father james more came to be cast in prison and you know the rest of it as well as me and through all you had no friends said i no said she i have been pretty chief with two three on the but not to it friends well mine is a plain tale said i i never had a friend to my name till i met in with you and that brave mr she asked yes i was forgetting him i said but he is a man and that is very different i would think so said she yes it is quite different and then there was one other said i i once thought i had a friend but it proved a disappointment she asked me who she was the voyage into holland it was a he then said i we were the two best lads at my father s school and we thought we loved each other dearly well the time came when he went to to a merchant s house that was his second cousin once removed and wrote me times by the and then he found new friends and i might write till i was tired he took no notice eh it took me a long while to forgive the world there is not anything more bitter than to lose a fancied friend then she began to question me close upon his looks and character for we were each a great deal concerned in all that touched the other till at last in a very evil hour i minded of his letters and went and fetched the bundle from the cabin here are his letters said i and all the letters that ever i got that will be the last i ll can tell of myself you know the lave as well as i do will you let me read them then says she i told her if she he at the and she bade me go away and she would read them from the one end to the other now in this bundle that i gave her there were packed together not only all the letters of my false friend but one or two of mr s when he was in town at the assembly and to make a complete roll of all that ever was written to me s little word and the two i had received from miss grant one when i was on the bass and one on board that ship but of these last i had no particular mind at the moment i was in that state of to the thought of my friend that
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it mattered not what i did nor scarce whether i was in her presence or out of it i had caught her like some kind of a noble fever that lived continually in my bosom by night and by day and whether i was waking or asleep so it that after i was come into the fore part of the ship where the broad bows into the i was in no such hurry to return as you might fancy rather prolonged my absence like a variety in pleasure i do not think i am by nature much of an and there had come till then so small a share of pleasure in my way that i might be excused perhaps to dwell on it when i returned to her again i had a faint painful impression as of a slipped so coldly she returned the packet you have read them said i and i thought my voice sounded not wholly natural for i was turning in my mind for what could ail her did you mean me to read all she asked i told her yes with a drooping the last of them as well said she i knew where we were now yet i would not lie to her either i gave them all without i said as i supposed that you would read them i see no harm in any i will be made said she i thank god i am differently made it was not a fit letter to be shown me it was not fit to be written i think you are speaking of your o vn friend grant said i there will not be anything as bitter as to lose a the voyage into holland fancied friend said she quoting my own expression i think it is sometimes the friendship that was fancied i cried what kind of justice do you call this to blame me for some words that a of a has written down upon a piece of paper you know yourself with what respect i have behaved and would do always yet you show me that same letter says she i want no such friends i can be doing very well mr without her or you this is your fine gratitude says i i am very much obliged to you said she i will be asking you to take away your letters she seemed to choke upon the word so that it sounded like an oath you shall never ask twice said i picked up that bundle walked a little way forward and cast them as far as possible into the sea for a very little more i could have cast myself after them the rest of the day i walked up and down raging there were few names so ill but what i gave her them in my own mind before the sun went down all that i had ever heard of pride seemed quite that a girl scarce grown should resent so trifling an allusion and that from her next friend that she had near wearied me with of i had bitter sharp hard thoughts of her like an angry boy s if i had kissed her indeed i thought perhaps she would have taken it pretty well and only because it had been written down and with a of up i he must in this ridiculous passion it seemed to me there was a want of penetration in the female sex to make angels weep over the case of the poor men we were side by side again at supper and what a change was there she was like milk to me her face was like a wooden doll s i could have indifferently smitten her or at her feet but she gave me not the least occasion to do either no sooner the meal done than she herself to attend on mrs which i think she had a little neglected heretofore but she was to make up for lost time and in what remained of the passage was extraordinary with the old lady and on deck began to make a great deal more than i thought wise of captain sang not but what the captain seemed a worthy man but i hated to behold her in the least familiarity with anyone except myself altogether she was so quick to avoid me and so constant to keep herself surrounded with others that i must watch a long while before i could find my opportunity and after it was found i made not much of it as you are now to hear i have no guess how i have offended said i it should scarce be beyond pardon try if you can pardon me have no pardon to ve said she and the words seemed to out of her throat like i will be very much obliged for all your and she made me an eighth part of a but i had myself beforehand to say more and i was going to say it too there is one thing said l if i have shocked the voyage into holland your by the showing of that letter it cannot touch miss grant she wrote not to you but to a poor common ordinary lad who might have had more sense than show it if you are to blame me i will advise you to say no more about that girl at all events said it is her i will never look the road of not if she lay dying she turned away from me and suddenly back will you swear you will have no more to deal with her v she cried indeed and i will never be so unjust then said i nor yet so ungrateful and now it was i that turned away p chapter xxii the weather in the end considerably the wind sang in the the sea swelled higher and the ship began
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to labour and cry out among the the song of the in the chains was now scarce ceasing for we all the way among about nine in the morning in a burst of wintry sun between two of hail i had my first look of a of m the breeze it was besides my first knowledge of these like which gave me a near sense of foreign travel and a new world and life we came to an anchor about half past eleven outside the harbour of in a place where the sea sometimes broke and the ship pitched you may be sure we were all on deck save mrs some of us in others in the ship s all clinging on by ropes and the most hke old sailor folk that we could presently a boat that was backed like a came alongside and the of it hailed our master in the dutch thence captain sang turned very troubled like to and the rest of us crowding about the nature of the difficulty was made plain to all the was bound to the port of whither the other passengers were in a great impatience to arrive in view of a conveyance due to leave that very evening in the direction of the upper this with the present of the captain if no time were lost declared himself still capable to save now james more had in with his daughter and the captain had engaged to call before the port and place her according to the custom in a shore boat there was the boat to be sure and here was ready but both our master and the of the boat at the risk and the first was in no humour to delay your father said he would be an little pleased if we was to break a leg to ye miss let a be drowning of you take my way of it says he and come on by with the rest of us here to ye can get a passage down the in a sailing as far as to the and thence on again by a place in a back to but would hear of no change she looked white like as she beheld the bursting of the the green seas that sometimes poured upon the and the perpetual bounding and of the boat among the but she stood firmly by her father s orders my father james more will have arranged it so was her first word and her last i thought it very idle and indeed wanton in the girl to be so literal and stand opposite to so much kind advice but the fact is she had a very good reason if she would have told us sailing and are excellent things only the i g use of them must first be paid for and all she was possessed of in the world was just two shillings and a penny sterling so it fell out that captain and passengers not knowing of her and she being too proud to tell them spoke in vain but you ken french and dutch neither said one it is very true says she but since the year there are so many of the honest abroad that i will be doing very well i thank yoa there was a pretty country simplicity in this that made some laugh others looked the more sorry and mr fall outright in a passion i believe he knew it was his duty his wife having accepted charge of the girl to have gone ashore with her and seen her safe nothing would have induced him to have done so since it must have involved the loss of his conveyance and i think he made it up to his conscience by the of his voice at least he broke out upon captain sang raging and saying the thing was a disgrace that it was mere death to try to leave the ship and at any event we could not cast down an innocent maid in a of nasty holland and leave her to her fate i was thinking something of the same took the mate upon one side arranged with him to send on my by track to an address i had in and stood up and to the i will go ashore with the young lady captain sang said i it is all one what way i go to and leaped at the same time into the which i managed not so but what i fell with two of the in the from the boat the business appeared yet more precarious than from the ship she stood so high over us swung down so swift and us so perpetually with her and upon the anchor cable i began to think i had made a fool s bargain that it was merely impossible should be got on board to me and that i stood to be set ashore at all by myself and with no hope of any reward but the pleasure of embracing james more if i should want to but this was to reckon without the s courage she had seen me leap with very little appearance however much reality of hesitation to be sure she was not to be beat by her discarded friend up she stood on the and held by a stay the wind blowing in her which made the enterprise more dangerous and gave us rather more of a view of her stockings than would be thought genteel in cities there was no minute lost and scarce time given for any to interfere if they had wished the same i stood up on the other side and spread my arms the ship swung down on us the humoured his boat nearer in than was perhaps wholly safe and leaped into the air i was so happy as to catch her and the readily supporting us escaped a fall
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this young lady is come from scotland seeking him and by whatever mistake was given the name of your house for a direction an error it seems to have been but i think this places both you and me who am but her fellow traveller by accident under a strong obligation to help our wiu you me he cries i tell ye i ken and care less either for him or his breed i tell ye the man owes me money that may very well be sir said i who was now rather more angry than himself at least i owe nothing the young lady is under my protection and i am neither at all used with these manners nor in the least content with them as i said this and without particularly thinking what i did i drew a step or two nearer to his table thus striking by mere good on the only argument that could at all the man the blood left his countenance for the lord s sake be hasty sir he cried i am truly no to be offensive but ye ken sir i m like a natured honest my bark is nor my bite to hear me ye fancy i was a thing but na na it s a kind at heart and ye could never imagine the and this man has been to me very good sir said i then i will make that much freedom with your kindness as trouble you for your last news of mr you re welcome sir said he as for the young my s to her he ll just have clean forgotten her i ken the man ye see i have lost by him ere now he thinks of but just king or if he can get his he would give them a the go by ay or his correspondent either for there is a sense in i may be nearly almost said to be his correspondent the fact is we are employed in a business and i think it s like to turn out a dear affair for the man s as s my and i give ye my mere word i ken by where he is he be coming here to he come here the mom he come for a i would wonder at or just at the ae thing and that s if he was to pay me my ye see what way i stand with it and it s clear i m no very likely to up with the young as ye ca her she stop here that s ae thing certain sure sir i m a lone man i if i was to her in it s highly possible the would try and me marry her when he turned up enough of this talk said l i will take the young lady among better friends give me pen ink and paper and i will leave here for james more the address of my correspondent in he can inquire from me where he is to seek his daughter this word i wrote and sealed which while i was doing of his own motion made a welcome offer to charge himself with miss s and even send a porter for them to the inn i advanced him to that a dollar or two to be a cover and he gave me an acknowledgment in writing of the sum whereupon i giving my arm to we left the house of this rascal she had said no word throughout leaving me to judge and speak in her place i upon my side had been careful not to her by a glance and even now although my heart still glowed inside of me with shame and anger i made it my affair to seem quite easy now said i let us get back to yon same inn where they can speak the french have a piece of dinner and inquire for to i will never be easy till i have you safe again in the hands of mrs i suppose it will have to be said though whoever will be pleased i do not think it will be her and i will remind you this once again that i have but one shilling and three and just this once again said i i will remind you it was a blessing that i came with you what else would i be thinking all this time says she and i thought weighed a little on my arm it is you that are the good friend to me chapter travels in holland the wagon which is a kind of a long wagon set with benches carried us in four hours of travel to the great city of it was long past dark by then but the streets pretty brightly lighted and thronged with wild like characters bearded black men and the of most adorned with finery and stopping by their very sleeves the clash of talk about us made our heads to whirl and what was the most unexpected of all we appeared to be no more struck with all these foreigners than they with us i made the best face i could for the s sake and my own credit but the truth is i felt like a lost sheep and my heart beat in my bosom with anxiety once or twice i inquired after the harbour or the berth of the ship rose but either fell on some who spoke only or my own french failed me trying a street at a venture i came upon a lane of lighted houses the doors and windows thronged with like painted women these and upon us as we passed and i was thankful we had nothing of their language a little after we issued forth upon an open place along the harbour travels in holland we shall be doing now cries i as soon as
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i let us walk here by the harbour we are sure to meet some that has the english and at the best of it we may light upon that very ship we did the next best as happened for about nine of the evening whom should we walk into the arms of but captain sang he told us they had made their run in the most incredible brief time the wind holding strong till they reached port by which means his passengers were all gone already on their further travels it was impossible to chase after the into the high germany and we had no other acquaintance to fall back upon but captain sang himself it was the more gratifying to find the man friendly and to assist he made it a small affair to find some good plain family of merchants where might harbour till the rose was declared he would then carry her back to for nothing and see her safe in the hands of mr and in the meanwhile carried us to a late ordinary for the meal we stood in need of he seemed extremely friendly as i say but what surprised me a good deal rather boisterous in the bargain and the cause of this was soon to appear for at the ordinary calling for wine and drinking of it deep he soon became in this case as too common with all men but especially with those of his rough trade what little sense or manners he possessed deserted him and he behaved himself so scandalous to the young lady most ill at the figure she had made on the ship s rail that i had no resource but carry her suddenly away she came out of that clinging to me close take me away david she said keep me i am not afraid with you and have no cause my little friend i cried i and could have found it in my heart to weep where will you be taking me she said again don t leave me at all events never leave me where am i taking you indeed says i stopping for i had been on ahead in mere blindness i must stop and think but i ll not leave you the lord do so to me and more also if i should fail or you she crept closer in to me by way of a reply here i said is the place that we have hit on yet in this busy of a city let us sit down here under yon tree and consider of our course that tree which i am little like to forget stood hard by the harbour side it was a black night but lights were in the houses and nearer hand in the quiet ships there was a shining of the city on the one hand and a hung over it of many thousands walking and talking on the other it was dark and the water on the sides i spread my cloak upon a s stone and made her sit there she would have kept her hold upon me for she still shook with the late but i wanted to think clear disengaged myself and paced to and fro before her in the manner of what we call a s walk my brains for any remedy by the course of these scattering thoughts i was brought travels in holland suddenly face to face with a remembrance that in the heat and haste of our departure i had left captain sang to pay the ordinary at this i began to laugh out loud for i thought the man well served and at the same time by an instinctive movement carried my hand to the pocket where my money was i suppose it was in the lane where the women us but there is only the one thing certain that my purse was gone you will have thought of something good said she observing me to pause at the pinch we were in my mind became suddenly clear as a perspective glass and i saw there was no choice of methods i had not one of coin but in my pocket book i had still my letter on the merchant and there was now but the one way to get to and that was to walk on our two feet said i i know you re brave and i believe you re strong do you think you could walk thirty miles on a plain road we found it i believe scarce the two thirds of that but such was my notion of the distance david she said if you will just keep near i will go anywhere and do anything the courage of my heart it is all broken do not be leaving me in this horrible country by myself and i will do all else can you start now and march all night said i i will do all that you can ask of me she said and never ask you why i have been a bad ungrateful girl to you and do what you please with me now and i think miss grant is the best lady in the world she added and i do not see what she would deny you for at all events this was greek and hebrew to me but i had other matters to consider and the first of these was to get clear of that city on the road it proved a cruel problem and it may have been one or two at night ere we had solved it once beyond the houses there was neither moon nor stars to guide us only the whiteness of the way in the midst and a blackness of an alley on both hands the walking was besides made most extraordinary difficult by a plain black frost that fell suddenly in the small hours and turned that highway into one long
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slide well said i here we are like the king s sons and the old wives daughters in your tales soon we ll be going over the seven the seven and the seven mountain which was a common or overcome in those tales of hers that had stuck in my memory ah says she but here are no or mountains though i will never be denying but what the trees and some of the plain places are very pretty but our country is the best yet i wish we could say as much for our own folk says i recalling and sang and perhaps james more himself i never complain of the country of my friend said she and spoke it out with an accent so particular that i seemed to see the look upon her travels in holland i caught in my breath sharp and came near falling for my pains on the black ice i do not know what you think said i when i was a little recovered but this has been the best day yet i think shame to say it when you have met in with such misfortunes and but for me it has been the best day yet it was a good day when you showed me so much love said she and yet i think shame to be happy too i went on and you here on the road in the black night where in the great world would i be else she cried i am thinking i am safest where i am with you i am quite forgiven then i asked will you not forgive me that time so much as not to take it in your mouth again she cried there is nothing in this heart to you but thanks but i will be honest too she added with a kind of suddenness and tu never can forgive that l is this miss grant again said i you said yourself she was the best lady in the world so she will be indeed says but i wiu never forgive her for all that i will never never forgive her and let me hear tell of her no more well said i this beats all that ever came to my knowledge and i wonder that you can indulge yourself in such here is a young lady that was the best friend in the world to the both of us that learned us how to dress ourselves and in a s great manner how to behave as anyone can see that knew us both before and after but stopped square m the midst of the highway it is this way of it said she either you will go on to speak of her and i will go back to yon town and let come of it what god pleases or else you will do me that politeness to talk of other things i was the most person in this world but i me that she depended altogether on my help that she was of the frail sex and not so much beyond a child and it was for me to be wise for the pair of us my dear girl said i i can make neither head nor tails of this but god forbid that i should do anything to set you on the as for talking of miss grant i have no such a mind to it and i believe it was yourself began it my only design if i took you up at all was for your own improvement for i hate the very look of injustice not that i do not wish you to have a good pride and a nice female delicacy they become you well but here you show them to excess well then have you done said sha i have done said i a very good thing said she and we went on again but now in silence it was an employment to walk in the gross night beholding only shadows and hearing but our own steps at first i believe our hearts burned against each other with a deal of enmity but the darkness and the cold and the silence which travels in holland only the sometimes interrupted or sometimes the dogs had pretty soon brought down our pride to the dust and for my own particular i would have jumped at any decent opening for speech before the day peeped came on a rain and the frost was all wiped away from among our feet i took my cloak to her and sought to hap her in the same she bade me rather impatiently to keep it indeed and i will do no such thing said i here am i a great ugly lad that has seen all kinds of weather and here are you a tender pretty maid my dear you would not put me to a shame without more words she let me cover her which as i was doing in the darkness i let my hand rest a moment on her shoulder almost like an embrace you must try to be more patient of your friend said i i thought she seemed to lean the least thing in the world against my bosom or perhaps it was but fancy there will be no end to your goodness said she and we went on again in silence but now all was changed and the happiness that was in my heart was like a fire in a great chimney the rain passed ere day it was but a morning as we came into the town of the red houses made a handsome show on either hand of a canal the servant were out and at the very stones upon the public highway smoke rose from a hundred and it came in upon me strongly it was time to break our said i i believe you have yet a shilling and three e you wanting
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it v said she and passed me her purse i am wishing it was five pounds what will you want it for and what have we been walking for all night like a pair of says i just because i was robbed of my purse and all i possessed in that town of i wiu tell you of it now because i think the worst is over but we have still a good tramp before us tiu we get to where my money is and if you would not buy me a piece of bread i were to go she looked at me with open eyes by the light of the new day she was all black and pale for weariness so that my heart smote me for her but as for her she broke out laughing my torture are we beggars then she cried you too i could have wished for this same thing and i am glad to buy your breakfast to you but it would be if i would have had to dance to get a meal to you for i believe they are not very well acquainted with our manner of dancing over here and might be paying for the curiosity of that sight i could have kissed her for that word not with a lover s mind but in a heat of admiration for it always a man to see a woman brave we got a drink of milk from a country wife but new come to the town and in a baker s a piece of excellent hot sweet smelling bread which we ate upon the road as we went on that road from travels in holland to the is just five miles of a fine avenue shaded with trees a canal on the one hand on the other excellent pastures of cattle it was pleasant here indeed and now said she what will you do with me at all events it is what what we have to speak of said i and the sooner yet the better i can come by money in that will be all well but the trouble is how to dispose of you until your father come i thought night you seemed a uttle to part from me it will be more than seeming then said she you are a very young maid said i and i am but a very yoimg this is a great piece of what way are we to manage unless indeed you could pass to be my sister and what for no said she if you would let me i wish you were so indeed i cried i would be a fine man if i had such a sister but the rub is that you are and now i wiu be she said and who is to ken they are all strange folk here if you think that it would do says i i own it troubles me i would like it very ill if i advised you at all wrong david i have no friend here but you she said the mere truth is i am too young to be your mend said i i am too yoimg to advise you or you to be advised i see not what else we are to do and yet i ought to warn you i will have no choice left said she my father james more has not used me very well and it is not the first time i am cast upon your hands like a sack of meal and have nothing else to think of but your pleasure if you will have me good and well if you will not she turned and touched her hand upon my arm david i am afraid said she no but i ought to warn you i began and then me that i was the bearer of the purse and it would never do to seem too said i don t me i am just trying to do my duty by you girl here am i going alone to this strange city to be a solitary student there and here is this chance arisen that you might dwell with me a bit and be like my sister you can surely understand this much my dear that i would just love to have you well and here i am said she so that s soon settled i know i was in duty to have spoke more plain i know this was a great blot on my character for which i was lucky that i did not pay more dear but i minded how easy her delicacy had been startled with a word of kissing her in s letter now that she depended on me how was i to be more bold besides the truth is i could see no other method to dispose of her and i inclination pulled me very strong a little beyond the she fell very lame and made the rest of the distance heavily enough twice she must rest by the which she did with pretty apologies calling herself a shame to the and the race she came of and nothing but a travels in holland to myself it was her excuse she said that she was not much used with walking shod i would have had her strip off her shoes and stockings and go but she pointed out to me that the women of that country even in the roads appeared to be all shod i must not be my brother said she and was very merry with it all although her face told tales of her there is a garden in that city we were bound to below with clean sand the trees meeting overhead some of them trimmed some and the whole place with and here i left and went forward by myself to find my correspondent there i drew on my credit and asked to be recommended
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to some decent retired lodging my baggage not being yet arrived i told him i supposed i should require his caution with the people of the house and explained that my sister being come for a while to keep house with me i should be wanting two chambers this was all very well but the trouble was that mr in his letter of recommendation had condescended on a great deal of particulars and never a word of any sister in the case i could see my was extremely suspicious and me over the of a great pair of spectacles he was a poor frail body and reminded me of an rabbit he began to question me close here i fell in a panic suppose he accept my tale thinks i suppose he invite my sister to his house and that i bring her i shall have a fine to and may end by both the and thereupon i began hastily to to him my sister s character she was of a disposition it appeared and so extremely fearful of meeting strangers that i had left her at that moment sitting in a public place alone and then being launched upon the stream of falsehood i must do like all the rest of the world in the same circumstance and plunge in deeper than was any service adding some altogether needless particulars of miss s ill health and retirement during childhood in the midst of which i awoke to a sense of my behaviour and was turned to one blush the old gentleman was not so much deceived but what he discovered a to be quit of me but he was first of all a man of business and knowing that my money was good enough however it might be with my conduct he was so far obliging as to send his son to be my guide and caution in the matter of a lodging this implied my presenting of the young man to the poor pretty child was much recovered with resting looked and behaved to perfection and took my arm and gave me the name of brother more easily than i could answer her but there was one misfortune thinking to help she was rather than otherwise to my and i could not but reflect that miss had rather suddenly her and there was another thing the difference of our speech i had the low tongue and upon my words she had a hill voice spoke with something of an accent only far more delightful and was travels in holland scarce quite fit to be called a in the craft of talking english grammar so that for a brother and sister we made a most pair but the young was a heavy dog without so much spirit in his belly as to remark her for which i scorned him and as soon as he had found a cover to our heads he left us alone which was the greater service of the two i chapter xxiv full story of a copy of s the place found was in the upper part of a house backed on a canal we had two rooms the second entering from the first each had a chimney built out into the floor in the dutch manner and being alongside each had the same prospect from the window of the top of a tree below us in a little court of a piece of the canal and of houses in the architecture and a church spire upon the further side a full set of bells hung in that spire and made delightful music and when there was any sun at all it shone direct in our two chambers from a hard by we had good meals sent in the first night we were both pretty weary and she extremely so there was little talk between us and i packed her off to her bed as soon as she had eaten the first thing in the morning i wrote word to to have her sent on together with a line to at his chiefs and had the same despatched and her breakfast ready ere i her i was a little abashed when she came forth in her one habit and the mud of the way upon her stockings by what inquiries i had made it seemed a good few days must pass before her could come to hand in and it was plainly needful she must have a shift of things full story of a copy of she was unwilling at first that i should go to that expense but i reminded her she was now a rich man s sister and must appear in the part and we had not got to the second merchant s before she was entirely charmed into the spirit of the thing and her eyes shining it pleased me to see her so innocent and thorough in this pleasure what was more extraordinary was the passion into which i fell on it myself being never satisfied that i had bought her enough or fine enough and never weary of beholding her in indeed i began to understand some little of miss grant s in that interest of clothes for the truth is when you have the ground of a beautiful person to adorn the whole business becomes the dutch i should say were extraordinary cheap and fine but i would be ashamed to set down what i paid for stockings to her altogether i spent so great a sum upon this as i may call it that i was ashamed for a great while to spend more and by way of a set off i left our chambers pretty bare if we had beds if was a little and i had light to see her by we were richly enough lodged for me by the end of this i was glad to leave her at the door with
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all our purchases and go for a long walk alone in which to read myself a lecture here had i taken under my roof and as good as to my bosom a young extremely beautiful and whose innocence was her peril my talk with the old and the lies to which i was constrained had already given me a sense of how my conduct must appear to others and now after the strong admiration i had just experienced and the with which i had continued my vain purchases i began to think of it myself as very i me if i had a sister indeed whether i would so expose her then judging the case too i varied my question into this whether i would so trust in the hands of any other christian being the answer to which made my face to bum the more cause since i had been and had the girl into an situation that i should behave in it with scrupulous she depended on me wholly for her bread and shelter in case i should alarm her delicacy she had no retreat besides i was her host and her protector and the more i had fallen in these positions the less excuse for me if i should profit by the same to forward even the most honest suit for with the opportunities that i enjoyed and which no wise parent would have suffered for a moment even the most honest suit would be i saw i must be extremely in my relations and yet not too much so neither for if i had no right to appear at all in the character of a i must yet appear continually and if possible agreeably in that of host it was plain i should require a great deal of tact and conduct perhaps more than my years afforded but i had rushed in where angels might have feared to tread and there was no way out of that position save by right while i waa in it i made a set of rules for my guidance prayed for strength to be enabled to observe them and as a more human aid to the same end purchased a study book in law full story of a copy of this being all that i could think of i relaxed from these grave considerations whereupon my mind at once into an of pleasing spirits and it was uke one treading on air that i turned homeward as i thought that name of home and recalled the image of that figure awaiting me between four walls my heart beat upon my bosom my troubles began with my return she ran to greet me with an obvious and affecting pleasure she was clad besides entirely in the new clothes that i had bought for her looked in them beyond expression well and must walk about and drop me to display them and to be admired i am sure i did it with an ill grace for i thought to have choked upon tho words well she said if you will not be caring for my pretty clothes see what i have done with our two chambers and she showed me the place all very finely swept and the fires glowing in the two i was glad of a chance to seem a little more severe than i quite felt said i i am very much displeased with you and you must never again lay a hand upon my room one of us two must have the rule while we are here together it is most fit it should be i who am both the man and the elder and i give you that for my command she dropped me one of her which were extraordinary taking if you will be cross said she i must be making pretty manners at you i will be very obedient as i should be when every upon all there is of me belongs to you but you will not be very cross either because now i have not anyone else this struck me hard and i made haste in a kind of to blot out all the good effect of my last speech in this direction progress was more easy being down hill she led me forward smiling at the sight of her in the brightness of the fire and with her pretty and looks my heart was altogether melted we made our meal with infinite mirth and tenderness and the two seemed to be into one so that our very laughter sounded like a kindness in the midst of which i awoke to recollections made a lame word of excuse and set myself to my it was a substantial instructive book that i had bought by the late dr in which i was to do a great deal of reading these next days and often very glad that i had no one to question me of what i read she bit her up at me a httle and that cut me indeed it left her wholly solitary the more as she was very little of a reader and had never a book but what was i to do so the rest of the evening flowed by almost without speech i could have beat myself i could not lie in my bed that night for rage and repentance but walked to and fro on my bare feet till i was nearly perished for the chimney was gone out and the frost keen the thought of her in the next room the thought that she might even hear me as i walked the remembrance of my and that i must full story op a copy of continue to practise the same ungrateful course or be put me beside my reason i stood like a man between and what she think of me was my one thought that softened mo continually into weakness what is to become of
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us the other which me again to resolution this was my first night of and divided counsels of which i was now to pass many pacing like a madman sometimes weeping like a childish boy sometimes praying i would fain hope uke a christian but prayer is not very difficult and the comes in practice in her presence and above all if i allowed any beginning of familiarity i found i had very little command of what should follow but to sit all day in the same room with her and to be engaged upon surpassed my strength so that i fell instead upon the expedient of myself so much as i was able taking out classes and sitting there regularly often with small attention the test of which i found the other day in a of that period where i had left off to follow an lecture and actually in my book some very ill verses though the is rather better than i thought i could ever have the evil of this course was unhappily near as great as its advantage i had the less time of trial but i believe while that time lasted i was tried the more extremely for she being so much left to solitude she came to greet my return with an increasing that came nigh to me these friendly offers i must cast back and my t f sometimes wounded her so cruelly tliat i must and seek to make it up to her in kindness so that our time passed in and downs and disappointments upon the which i could almost say if it may be said with reverence that i was the base of my trouble was s extraordinary innocence at which i was not so much surprised as filled with pity and admiration she seemed to have no thought of our position no sense of my struggles welcomed any mark of my weakness with joy and when i was drove again to my did not always her there were times when i have thought to myself if she were over head in love and set her cap to catch me she would scarce behave much otherwise and then i would fall again into wonder at the simplicity of woman from whom i felt in these moments that i was not worthy to be descended there was one point in particular on which our warfare turned and of all things this was the question of her clothes my baggage had soon followed me from and hers from she had now as it were two and it grew to be understood between us i could never tell how that when she was friendly she would wear my clothes and when otherwise her own it was meant for a and as it were the of her gratitude and i felt it so in my bosom but was generally more wise than to appear to have observed the circumstance once indeed i was betrayed into a full story of a copy of greater than her own it fell in this way on my return from classes thinking upon her devoutly with a great deal of love and a good deal of annoyance in the bargain the annoyance began to fade away out of my mind and in a window one of those forced flowers of which the are so skilled in the i gave way to an impulse and bought it for i do not know the name of that flower but it was of the pink colour and i thought she would admire the same and carried it home to her with a wonderful soft heart i had left her in my clothes and when i returned to find her all changed and a face to match i cast but the one look at her from head to foot ground my teeth together flung the window open and my flower into the court and then between rage and prudence myself out of that room again of which i the door as i went out on the steep stair i came near falling and this brought me to myself so that i began at once to see the folly of my conduct i went not into the street as i had but to the house court which was always a place and where i saw my flower that had cost me vastly more than it was worth hanging in the i stood by the side of the canal and looked upon the ice country people went by on their and i envied them i could see no way out of the i was in no way so much as to return to the room i had just left no doubt was in my mind but i had now betrayed the secret of my feelings and to make things worse i had shown at the same time and that with wretched to my helpless guest t i suppose she must have seen me from the open window it did not seem to me that i had stood there very long before i heard the of footsteps on the frozen snow and turning somewhat angrily for i was in no spirit to be interrupted saw drawing near she was all changed again to the stockings are we not to have our walk to day said she i was looking at her in a where is your says i she carried her hand to her bosom and coloured high i will have forgotten it said she i will run upstairs for it quick and then surely we ll can have our walk there was a note of pleading in that last that staggered me i had neither words nor voice to utter them i could do no more than nod by way of answer and the moment she had left me into the tree and recovered my flower which on her return i offered her i
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bought it for you said i she fixed it in the midst of her bosom with the i could have thought tenderly it is none the better of my handling said i again and blushed i will be liking it none the worse you may be sure of that said she we did not speak so much that day she seemed a thought on the reserve though not as for me all the time of our walking and after we came home and i had seen her put my flower into a pot of water i was thinking to myself what women full story of a copy of were i was thinking the one moment it was the most stupid thing on earth she should not have perceived my love and the next that she had certainly perceived it long ago and being a wise girl with the fine female instinct of propriety concealed her knowledge we had our walk daily out in the streets i felt more safe i relaxed a uttle in my and for one thing there was no this made these periods not only a to myself but a particular pleasure to my poor child when i came back about the hour appointed i would generally find her ready dressed and glowing with anticipation she would their duration to the extreme seeming to dread as i did myself the hour of the there is scarce a field or near scarce a street or lane there where we have not lingered outside of these i bade her confine herself entirely to our lodgings this in the fear of her any acquaintance which would have rendered our position very from the same apprehension i would never her to attend church nor even go myself but made some kind of shift to hold worship privately in our own chamber i hope with an honest but i am quite sure with a very much divided mind indeed there was scarce anything that more affected me than thus to kneel down alone with her before god like man and wife one day it was downright hard i had thought it not possible that we should venture forth and was surprised to find her waiting for me ready dressed i will not be doing without my walk she cried you are never a good boy in the house i will never be caring for you only in the open air i think we two will better turn egyptian and dwell by the roadside that was the best walk yet of all of them she clung near to mo in the falling snow it beat about and melted on us and the drops stood upon her bright cheeks like tears and ran into her smiling strength seemed to come upon me with the sight like a giant s i thought i could have caught her up and run with her into the places in the earth and we spoke together all that time beyond for freedom and sweetness it was the dark night when we came to the house door she pressed my arm upon her bosom thank you kindly for these same good hours said she on a deep note of her voice the concern in which i fell instantly on this address put me with the same swiftness on my guard and we were no sooner in the chamber and the light made than she beheld the old stubborn countenance of the student of doubtless she was more than usually hurt and i know for myself i found it more than usually difficult to maintain my strangeness even at the meal i scarce and scarce lift my eyes to her and it was no sooner over than i fell again to my with more seeming abstraction and less understanding than before as i read i could hear my heart strike like an eight day clock hard as i feigned to study there was still some of my full story of a copy of that beyond the book upon she sat on the floor by the side of my great mail and the chimney lighted her up and shone and upon her and made her glow and through a wonder of fine hues now she would be gazing in the fire and then again at me and at that i would be plunged in a terror of myself and turn the pages of like a man looking for the text in church suddenly she called out aloud why does not my father come she cried and fell at once into a storm of tears i leaped up flung fairly in the fire ran to her side and cast an arm around her sobbing body she put me from her sharply you do not love your friend says she i could be so happy too if you would let me and then what will i have done that you should hate me so hate you cries i and held her firm you blind can you not see a little in my wretched heart do you think when i sit there reading in that fool book that i have just burned and be damned to it i take ever the least thought of any stricken thing but just yourself night after night i could have to see you sitting there your lone and what was i to do you are here under my honour would you punish me for that is it for that that you would a loving servant at the word with a small sudden motion she near to me i raised her face to mine i kissed it and she bowed her brow upon my bosom clasping me tight i sat in a mere whirl like a man drunken then i heard her voice very small and muffled in my clothes did you kiss her truly she asked there went through me so great a heave of surprise that i
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was all shook with it miss grant i cried all in a disorder yes i asked her to kiss me good bye the which she did ah well said she you have kissed me too at all events at the strangeness and sweetness of that word i saw where we had fallen rose and set her on her feet this will never do said i this will never never do then there came a pause in which i was from any speaking and then go away to your bed said i go away to your bed and leave me she turned to obey me like a little child and the next i knew of it had stopped in the very doorway good night said sha and good night my love i cried with a great outbreak of my soul and caught her to me again so that it seemed i have broken her the next moment i had thrust her from the room shut to the door even with violence and stood alone the milk was now the word was out and the truth told i had crept like an man into the poor maid s affections she was in my hand like any frail innocent thing to make or mar and what weapon of defence was left me it seemed like full story of a copy of a symbol that my old protection was now burned i repented yet could not find it in my heart to blame myself for that great failure it seemed not possible to have resisted the boldness of her innocence or that last temptation of her weeping and all that i had to excuse me did but make my sin appear the greater it was upon a nature so and with such advantages of the position that i seemed to have practised what was to become of us now it seemed we could no longer dwell in the one place but where was i to go or where she without either choice or fault of ours life had to wall us together in that narrow place i had a wild thought of marrying out of hand and the next moment put it from me with revolt she was a child she could not tell her own heart i had surprised her weakness i must never go on to build on that i must keep her not only clear of reproach but free as she had come to me down i sat before the fire and reflected and repented and beat my brains in vain for any means of escape about two of the morning there were three red embers left and the house and all the city was asleep when i was aware of a small sound of weeping in the next room she thought that i slept the poor soul she regretted her weakness and what perhaps god help her she called her and in the dead of the night herself with tears tender and bitter feelings love and and pity struggled in my soul it seemed i was under bond to heal that weeping o try to forgive me i cried out try to forgive ma let us forget it all let us try if we ll no can forget it there come no answer but the sobbing ceased i stood a long while with my hands still clasped as i had spoken then the cold of the night laid hold upon me with a shudder and i think my reason you can make no hand of this thinks i to bed with you like a wise lad and try if you can sleep to morrow you may see your way chapter xxv the return of james i was called on the morrow out of a late and troubled slumber by a knocking on my door ran to open it and had almost with the of my feelings mostly painful for on the threshold in a rough and an extraordinary big hat there stood james more i ought to have been glad perhaps without for there was a sense in which the man came like an answer to prayer i had been saying till my head was weary that and i must separate and looking till my head ached for any possible means of separation here were the means come to me upon two legs and joy was the of my thoughts it is to be considered however that even if the weight of the future were oflf me by the man s arrival the present heaved up the more black and menacing so that as i first stood before him in my shirt and breeches i believe i took a leaping step backward like a person shot ah said he i have found you mr and offered me his large fine hand the which recovering at the same time my post in the doorway as if with some thought of resistance i took him by doubtfully it is a remarkable circumstance how our affairs appear to he continued i am owing you an apology for an unfortunate intrusion upon yours which i myself to be into by my confidence in that false face i think shame to own to you that i was ever trusting to a lawyer he shrugged his shoulders with a very french air but indeed the man is very plausible says he and now it seems that you have busied yourself handsomely in the matter of my daughter for whose direction i was to yourself i think sir said i with a very painful air that it will be necessary we two should have an explanation there is nothing amiss he asked my agent mr for god s sake moderate your voice i cried she must not hear till we have had an explanation she is in this place cries he that is her chamber door said i you are here with her alone
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he asked and who else would i have got to stay with us cries i i will do him the justice to admit that he turned pa e this is very unusual said he this is a very unusual circumstance you are right we must hold an explanation so saying he passed me by and i must own the tall old rogue appeared at that moment extraordinary dignified he had now for the first time the view of my chamber which i i may say with his the return of james more eyes a bit of morning sun in by the window pane and showed it off my bed my and washing dish with some disorder of my clothes and the chimney made the only no mistake but it looked bare and cold and the most place conceivable to harbour a young lady at the same time came in on my mind the recollection of the clothes that i had bought for her and i thought this contrast of poverty and bore an ill appearance he looked all about the chamber for a seat and finding nothing else to his purpose except my bed took a place upon the side of it where after i had closed the door i could not very well avoid joining him for however this extraordinary interview might end it must pass if possible without waking and the one thing needful was that we should sit close and talk low but i can scarce picture what a pair we made he in his great coat which the coldness of my chamber made extremely suitable i shivering in my shirt and he with very much the air of a judge and i whatever i looked with very much the feelings of a man who has heard the last trumpet well says he and well i began but found myself unable to go further you tell me she is here said he again but now with a of impatience that seemed to brace me up she is in this house said i and i knew the circumstance would be called unusual but you are to consider how very unusual the whole business was from the beginning here is a young lady landed on the coast of europe with two shillings and a penny she is directed to yon man in i hear you call him your agent all i can say is he could do nothing but damn and swear at the mere mention of your name and i must fee him out of my own pocket even to receive the of her effects you speak of unusual circumstances mr if that be the name you prefer here was a circumstance if you like to which it was to have exposed her but this is what i cannot understand the least said james my daughter was placed into the charge of some responsible persons whose names i have forgot was the name said i and there is no doubt that mr should have gone ashore with her at but he did not mr and i think you might praise god that i was there to in his place i shall have a word to say to mr before long said he as for yourself i think it might have occurred that you were somewhat young for such a post but the choice was not between me and somebody else it was between me and nobody i cried nobody in my place and i must say i think you show a very small degree of gratitude to me that did i shall wait until i understand my obligation a more in the particular says he indeed and i think it you in the face then said i your child was deserted she was clean flung away in the midst of europe with scarce the return of james more two shillings and not two words of any language spoken there i must say a business i brought her to this place i gave her the name and the tenderness due to a sister all this has not gone without expense but that i scarce need to hint at they were services due to the young lady s character which i respect and i think it would be a business too if i was to be singing her praises to her father you are a young man he began so i hear you tell me said i with a good deal of heat you are a very young man he repeated or you would have understood the of the step i think you speak very much at your ease cried i what else was i to do it is a fact i might have hired some decent poor woman to he a third to us and i declare i never thought of it until this moment but where was i to find her that am a foreigner myself and let me point out to your observation mr that it would have cost me money out of my pocket for here is just what it comes to that i had to pay through the nose for your n and there is only the one story to it just that you were so and so careless as to have lost your daughter he tiiat lives in a glass house should not be casting stones says he and we will finish inquiring into the behaviour of miss before we go on to sit in judgment on her father but i will be into no such attitude said l the character of miss is far above inquiry as her father ought to know so is mine and i am telling you that there are but the two ways of it open the one is to express your thanks to me as one gentleman to another and to say no more the other if you are so difficult as to be still dissatisfied is to
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pay me that which i have expended and be done he seemed to soothe me with a hand in the air there there said he you go too fast you go too fast mr it is a good thing that i have learned to be more patient and i believe you forget that i have yet to see my daughter i began to be a httle relieved upon this speech and a change in the man s manner that i in as soon as the name of money fell between us i was thinking it would be more fit if you will excuse the of my dressing in your presence that i should go forth and leave you to encounter her alone said i what i would have looked for at your hands i says he and there was no mistake but what he said it i thought this better and better still and as i began to pull on my recalling the man s impudent at s i determined to pursue what seemed to be my victory if you have any mind to stay some while in said i this room is very much at your disposal and i can easy find another for myself in which way we shall have the least amount of flitting possible there being only one to change why sir said he making his bosom big i the return of james more think no of a poverty i have come by in the service of my king i make no secret that my affairs are quite involved and for the moment it would be even impossible for me to undertake a journey until you have occasion to communicate with your friends said i perhaps it might be convenient for you as of course it would be honourable to myself if you were to regard yourself in the light of my guest sir said he when an offer is frankly made i think i honour myself most to imitate that frankness your hand mr david you have the character that i respect the most you are one of those from whom a gentleman can take a favour and no more words about it i am an old soldier he went on looking rather disgusted like around my chamber and you need not fear i shall prove i have ate too often at a side drank of the ditch and had no roof but the rain i should be telling you said i that our are sent in about this time of morning i propose i should go now to the tavern and bid them add a cover for yourself and delay the meal the matter of an hour which will give you an interval to meet your daughter in his nostrils at this an says he that is perhaps superfluous half an hour mr david or say twenty minutes i shall do very well in that and by the way he adds me by the coat what is it you drink in the morning whether ale or wine u to be frank with you sir says i i drink nothing else but spare cold water tut tut says he that is fair destruction to the stomach take an old s word for it our country spirit at home is perhaps the most entirely wholesome but as that is not come at able or a white wine of will be next best i shall make it my business to see you are supplied said i why very good said he and we shall make a man of you yet mr david by this time i can hardly say that i was him at all beyond an odd thought of the kind of father in law that he was like to prove and all my cares about the his daughter to whom i determined to convey some warning of her visitor i stepped to the door accordingly and cried through the knocking at the same time miss here is your father come at last with that i went forth upon my errand having by two words my affairs chapter xxvi the whether or not i was to be so much blamed or rather perhaps pitied i must leave others to judge my of which i have a good deal too seems not so great with the ladies no doubt at the moment when i her i was thinking a good deal of the effect upon james more and when i returned and we were all sat down to breakfast i continued to behave to the young lady with deference and distance as i still think to have been most wise her father had cast doubts upon the innocence of my friendship and these it was my first business to but there is a kind of an excuse for also we had shared in a scene of some tenderness and passion and given and received caresses i had thrust her from me with violence i had called aloud upon her in the night from the one room to the other she had passed hours of and weeping is not to be supposed i had been absent from her pillow thoughts upon the back of this to be with formality under the name of miss and to bo used with a great deal of distance and respect led her entirely in error on my private sentiments and she was indeed so abused u as to imagine me and trying to draw off the trouble us seems to have been this that whereas i since i had first set eyes on his great hat thought singly of james more his return and suspicions she made so little of these that i may say she scarce remarked them and all her troubles and doings regarded what had passed between us in the night before this is partly to be explained by the innocence and boldness of her character and
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partly because james more having sped so ill in his interview with me or had his mouth closed by my invitation said no word to her upon the subject at the breakfast accordingly it soon appeared we were at cross purposes i had looked to find her in clothes of her own i found her as if her father were forgotten wearing some of the best that i had bought for her and which she knew or thought that i admired her in i had looked to find her imitate my affectation of distance and bo most precise and formal instead i found her flushed and wild like with eyes extraordinary bright and a painful and varying expression calling me by name with a sort of appeal of tenderness and referring and to my thoughts and wishes like an anxious or a suspected wife but this was not for long as i beheld her so regardless of her own interests which i had and was now endeavouring to recover i my own coldness in the manner of a lesson to the girl the more she came forward the further i drew back the more she betrayed the of our intimacy the more civil i became until the even her father if he had not been so engrossed with eating might have observed the opposition in the midst of which of a sudden she became wholly changed and i told myself with a good deal of relief that she had took the hint at last all day i was at my classes or in quest of my new lodging and though the hour of our customary walk hung miserably on my hands i cannot say but i was happy on the whole to find my way cleared the girl again in proper keeping the father satisfied or at least and myself free to my love with honour at supper as at all our meals it was james more that did the talking no doubt but he talked well if anyone could have believed him but i will speak of him presently more at large the meal at an end he rose got his great coat and looking as i thought at me observed he had abroad i took this for a hint that i was to be going also and got up whereupon the girl who had scarce given me greeting at my entrance turned her eyes on me wide open with a look that bade me stay i stood between them like a fish out of water turning from one to the other neither seemed to observe me she gazing on the floor he his coat which vastly swelled my embarrassment this appearance of indifference argued upon her side a good deal of anger very near to burst out upon his i thought it horribly alarming i made sure there was a tempest there and considering that to be the chief peril turned towards him and put myself so to speak in the man s hands can i do anything for mr says l he stifled a which again i thought to be why mr david said he since you are so obliging as to propose it you might show me the way to a certain tavern of which he gave the name where i hope to fall in with some old companions in arms there was no more to say and i got my hat and cloak to bear him company and as for you says he to his daughter you had best go to your i shall be late home and early to bed and early to rise have bright eyes whereupon he kissed her with a good deal of tenderness and ushered me before him from the door this was so done i thought on purpose that it was scarce possible there should be any parting salutation but i observed she did not look at me and set it down to terror of james more it was some distance to that tavern he talked all the way of matters which did not interest me the smallest and at the door dismissed me with empty manners thence i walked to my new lodging where i had not so much as a chimney to hold me warm and no society but my own thoughts these were still bright enough i did not so much as dream that was turned against me i thought we were like folk pledged i thought we had been too near and spoke too warmly to be severed least of all by what were only steps in a most needful policy and the chief of my concern was only the kind of father in law that i was getting which was not at all the kind i would have chosen and the matter of how soon i ought to the speak to him which was a delicate point on several sides in the first place when i thought how young i was i blushed au over and could almost have found it in my heart to have only that if once i let them go from without explanation i might lose her altogether and in the second place there was our very irregular situation to be kept in view and the rather scant measure of satisfaction i had given james more that morning i concluded on the whole that delay would not hurt anything yet i would not delay too long neither and got to my cold bed with a heart the next day as james more seemed a little on the hand in the matter of my chamber i offered to have in more furniture and coming in the afternoon with bringing chairs and tables found the girl once more left to she greeted me on my admission but withdrew at once to her own room of which she shut the door i made my disposition and paid and dismissed the men so that
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she might hear them go when i supposed she would at once come forth again to speak to me i waited yet awhile then knocked upon her door said i the door was opened so quickly even before i had the word out that i thought she must have stood behind it listening she remained there in the interval quite still but she had a look that i cannot put a name on as of one in a bitter trouble are we not to have our walk to day either so i faltered i am thanking you said sha i will not be caring much to walk now that my father is come home but i think he has gone out himself and left you here alone said i and do you think that was very kindly said she asked it was not meant i replied what you what have i done to you that you should turn from me like this i do not turn from you at all she said speaking very carefully i will ever be grateful to my friend that was good to me i will ever be his friend in all that i am able but now that my father james more is come again there is a difference to be made and i think there are some things said and done that would be better to be forgotten but i will ever be your friend in au that i am able and if that is not all that if it is not so much not that you will be caring but i would not have you think of me too hard it was true what you said to me that i was too young to be advised and i am hoping you will remember i was just a child i would not like to lose your friendship at all events she began this very pale but before she was done the blood was in her face like scarlet so that not her words only but her face and the trembling of her very hands me to be gentle i saw for the first time how very wrong i had done to place the child in that position where she had been into a moment s weakness and now stood before me like a person the miss i said and stuck and made the same beginning once again i wish you could see into my heart i cried you would read there that my respect is if that were possible i should say it was increased this is but the result of the mistake we made and had to come and the less said of it now the better of all of our hfe here i promise you it shall never pass my lips i would like to promise you too that i would never think of it but it s a memory that will be always dear to me and as for a friend you have one here that would die for you i am thanking you said she we stood awhile silent and my sorrow for myself began to get the upper hand for here were all my dreams come to a sad tumble and my love lost and myself alone again in the world as at the beginning well said i we shall be friends always that s a certain thing but this is a kind of a farewell too it s a kind of a farewell after all i shall always ken miss but this is a farewell to my i looked at her i could hardly say i saw her but she seemed to grow great and in my eyes and with that i suppose i must have lost my head for i called out her name again and made a step at her with my hands reached forth she shrank back like a person struck her face but the blood sprang no faster up into her cheeks than what it flowed back upon my own heart at sight of it with and concern i found no words to excuse myself but bowed before her very deep and went my ways out of the house with death in my bosom i think it was about five days that followed without any change i saw her scarce ever but at meals and then of course in the company of james more if we were alone even for a moment i made it my to behave the more and to respectful attentions having always in my mind s eye that picture of the l shrinking and flaming in a blush and in my heart more pity for her than i could in i was sorry enough for myself i need not dwell on that having fallen all my length and more than all my height in a few seconds but indeed i was near as sorry for the girl and sorry enough to be scarce angry with her save by fits and her plea was good she was but a child she had been placed in an unfair position if she had deceived herself and me it was no more than was to have been looked for and for another thing she was now very much her father when he was by was rather a caressing parent but he was very easy led away by his and pleasures neglected her without or remark spent his nights in when he had the money which was more often than i could at all account for and even in the course of these few days failed once to come to a meal which and i were at last compelled to partake of without him it was the evening meal and i left immediately that i had eaten observing i supposed she would prefer to be alone to which she agreed and strange as it may seem i quite believed her indeed i the thought
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myself but an to the girl and a of a moment s weakness that she now to think of so she must sit alone in that room where she and i had been so and in the of that whose upon our many difficult and tender moments there she must sit alone and think of herself as of a maid who had most her affections and had the same rejected and in the meanwhile i would be alone some other place and reading myself whenever i was tempted to be angry lessons upon human and female and altogether i suppose there were never two poor fools made themselves more unhappy in a greater as for james he paid not so much heed to us oi to anything in nature but his pocket and his belly and his own talk before twelve hours were gone he had raised a small loan of me before thirty he had asked for a second and been refused money and refusal he took with the same kind of high indeed he had an outside air of that was very well fitted to impose upon a daughter and the light in which he was constantly presented in his talk and the man s fine presence and great ways went together pretty so that a man that had no business with him and either very little penetration or a furious deal of prejudice might almost have been taken in to me after my first two he was as plain as print i saw him to be perfectly selfish with a perfect in the same and i would to his talk of arms and an old soldier and a poor and the strength of my country and my friends as i might to the of a the odd thing was that i fancy he some part of it himself or did at times i think he was so false all through that he scarce knew when he was lying and for one thing his moments of must have been wholly genuine there were times when he would be the most silent affectionate clinging creature possible holding s hand like a big baby and begging of me not to leave if i had any love to him of which indeed i had none but all the more to his daughter he would press and indeed us to entertain him with our talk a thing veiy difficult in the state of our relations and again break forth in pitiable regrets for his own land and friends or into singing this is one of the melancholy airs of my native land he would say you may think it strange to see a soldier weep and indeed it is to make a near friend of you says he but the notes of this singing are in my blood and the words come out of my heart and when i mind upon my red mountains and the wild birds calling there and the brave streams of water running down i would scarce think shame to weep before my enemies then he would sing again and to me pieces of the song with a great deal of and much expressed contempt against the english language it says here he would say that the sun is gone down and the battle is at an end and the brave chiefs are defeated and it tells here how the stars see them into strange countries or lying dead on the red mountain and the they will never more shout the call of battle or wash their feet in the streams of the valley but if you had only some of this language you would weep also because the words of it are beyond all expression and it is mere mockery to tell you it in english weu i thought there was a good deal of mockery in the business one way and another and yet there was some feeling too for which i hated him i think the worst of all and it used to cut me to the quick to see so much concerned for the old rogue and weeping herself to see him weep when i was sure one half of his distress flowed from his last night s drinking in some tavern there were times when i was tempted to lend him a round sum and see the last of him for good but this would have been to see the last of as well for which i was scarcely so prepared and besides it went against my conscience to my good money on one who was so little of a chapter a i believe it was about the fifth day and i know at least that james was in one of his fits of gloom when i received three letters the first was from offering to visit me in the other two were out of scotland and prompted by the same affair which was the death of my uncle and my own complete accession to my rights s was of course wholly in the business view miss grant s was like herself a uttle more witty than wise full of blame to me for not having written though how was i to write with such intelligence and of talk about which it cut me to the quick to read in her very presence for it was of course in my own rooms that i found them when i came to dinner so that i was surprised out of my news in the very first moment of reading it this made a welcome diversion for all three of us nor could any have foreseen the ill consequences that ensued it was accident that brought the three letters the same day and that gave them into my hand in the same room with james more and of au the events that flowed from that accident and which i might have prevented if i had held
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my tongue the truth is that they were pre ordained before came into scotland or set out upon his travels a the first that i opened was naturally s and what more natural than that i should comment on his design to visit me but i observed james to sit up with an air of immediate attention is that not that was suspected of the accident he inquired i told him ay it was the same and he withheld me some time from my other letters asking of our acquaintance of s manner of life in france of which i knew very little and further of his visit as now proposed all we folk hang a little together he explained and besides i know the gentleman and though his descent is not the thing and indeed he has no true right to use the name of he was very much admired in the day of he did there uke a soldier if some that need not be named had done as well the need not have been so melancholy to remember there were two that did their best that day and it makes a bond between the pair of us says he i could scarce refrain from shooting out my tongue at him and could almost have wished that had been there to have inquired a little further into that mention of his birth though they tell me the same was indeed not wholly regular meanwhile i had opened miss grant s and could not withhold an exclamation i cried forgetting the first time since her father was arrived to address her by a handle i am come into my kingdom fairly i am the of indeed my is dead at last she clapped her hands together leaping from lier seat the next moment it must have come over both of us at once what little cause of joy was left to either and we stood opposite staring on each other sadly but james showed himself a ready my daughter says he is this how my cousin learned you to behave mr david has lost a near friend and we should first with him on his sir said i turning to him in a kind of anger i can make no such his death is as news as ever i got it s a good soldier s philosophy says tis the way of flesh we must au go all go and if the gentleman was so far from your favour why very well but we may at least congratulate you on your accession to your estates nor can i say that either i replied with the same heat it is a good estate what matters that to a lone man that has enough already i had a good before in my and but for the man s death which me shame to me that must confess it i see not how anyone is to be by this change come come said he you are affected than you let on or you would never make yourself out so lonely here are three letters that means three that wish you well and i could name two more here in this very chamber i have known you not so very long but when we are alone is never done with the singing of your praises she looked up at him a little wild at that and a he slid off at once into another matter the extent of my estate which during the most of the dinner time he continued to dwell upon with interest but it was to no purpose he he had touched the matter with too gross a hand and i knew what to expect dinner was scarce ate when he plainly discovered his designs he reminded of an errand and bid her attend to it i do not see you should be gone beyond the hour he added and friend david will be good enough to bear me company till you return she made haste to obey him without words i do not know if she understood i believe not but i was completely satisfied and sat my mind for what should follow the door had scarce closed behind her departure when the man leaned back in his chair and addressed me with a good affectation of only the one thing betrayed him and that was his face which suddenly shone all over with fine points of sweat i am rather glad to have a word alone with you says he because in our first interview there were some expressions you and i have long meant to set you right upon my daughter stands beyond doubt so do you and i would make that good with my sword against all but my dear david this world is a place as who should know it better than who have ever since the days of my late departed father god him in a perfect of we have to face to that you and me have to consider of that we have to consider of that and he his head like a minister in a pulpit v to what effect mr said i i would be obliged to you if you would approach your point ay ay says he laughing like your character indeed and what i most admire in it but the point my worthy fellow is sometimes in a bit he filled a glass of wine though between you and me that are such fast friends it need not bother us long the point i need scarcely tell you is my daughter and the first thing is that i have no thought in my mind of you in the unfortunate circumstances what could you do else deed and i cannot tell i thank you for that said i pretty close upon my guard i have besides studied your character he went on your talents are
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fair you seem to have a moderate which does no harm and one thing with another i am very happy to have to announce to you that i have decided on the latter of the two ways open i am afraid i am dull said i what ways are these he bent his brows upon me and his legs why sir says he i think i need scarce describe them to a gentleman of your condition either that i should cut your throat or that you should marry my daughter you are pleased to be quite plain at last said i and i believe i have been plain from the beginning cries he i am a careful parent mr but i thank god a patient and a man there is many a father sir that would have you at once either to the altar or the field my esteem for your character mr i interrupted if you have any esteem for me at all i will beg of you to moderate your voice it is quite needless to at a gentleman in the same chamber with yourself and you his best attention why very true says he with an immediate change and you must excuse the of a parent i understand you then i continued for i will take no note of your other alternative which perhaps it was a pity you let fall i understand you rather to offer me encouragement in case i should desire to apply for your daughter s hand it is not possible to express my meaning better said he and i see we shall do well together that remains to be yet seen said i but so much i need make no secret of that i bear the lady you refer to the most tender affection and i could not fancy even in a dream a better fortune than to get her i was sure of it i felt certain of you david ho cried and reached out his hand to me i put it by you go too fast mr said i there are conditions to be made and there is a difficulty in the path which i see not entirely how we shall come over i have told you that upon my side there is no objection to the marriage but i have good reason to believe there will be much on the young lady s v this is all beside the mark says he i will engage for her acceptance i think you forget mr said i that even in dealing with myself you have been betrayed into two three expressions i will have none such employed to the young lady i am here to speak and think for the two of us and i give you to understand that i would no more let a wife be forced upon myself than what i would let a husband be forced on the young lady he sat and at me like one in doubt and a good deal of temper so that this is to be the way of it i concluded i will marry miss and that if she is entirely willing but if there be the least as i have reason to fear marry her will i never well well said he this is a small as soon as she returns i will sound her a bit and hope to you but i cut in again not a finger of you mr or i cry off and you can seek a husband to your daughter somewhere else said i it is i that am to be the only dealer and the only i shall satisfy myself exactly and none else shall you the least of all upon my word sir he exclaimed and who are you to be the judge the bridegroom i believe said i this is to he cried you turn your back upon the facts the girl my daughter has no choice left to exercise her character is gone a and i ask your pardon said i but while this matter between her and you and me that is not so what security have i he cried am i to let my daughter s reputation depend upon a chance you should have thought of all this long ago said i before you were so as to lose her and not afterwards when it is quite too late i refuse to regard myself as any way for your neglect and i will be by no man living my mind is quite made up and come what may i wiu not depart from it a hair s breadth you and me are to sit here in company till her return upon which without either word or look from you she and i are to go forth again to hold our talk if she can satisfy me that she is willing to this step will then make it and if she cannot i will not he leaped out of his seat like a man stung i can spy your he cried you would work upon her to refuse maybe ay and maybe no said i that is the way it is to be whatever and if i refuse cries he then mr it will have to come to the throat cutting said i what with the size of the man his great length of arm in which he came near his father and his skill at weapons i did not use this word without some to say nothing at all of the circumstance that he was s father but i might have spared myself from the of my lodging he does not seem to have remarked his daughter s dresses which were indeed all equally new to him and from the fact that i had shown myself averse to lend he had embraced a strong idea of my poverty the sudden news of my
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i am not thinking of you she said i am thinking of that man my father well and that way too said l i can be of use to you that way too i will have to be it is very needful my dear that we should consult about your father for the way this talk has gone an angry man will be james more she stopped again it is because i am disgraced she asked that is what he is thinking i replied but i have told you already to make of it it will be all one to me she cried i prefer to be disgraced i did not know very well what to answer and stood silent there seemed to be something working in her bosom after that last cry presently she broke out and what is the meaning of all this why is all this shame on my head how could you dare it david my dear said i what else was i to do i am not your dear she said and i defy you to be calling me these words i am not thinking of my words said i my heart for you miss whatever i may say be sure you have my pity in your difficult position but there is just the one thing that i wish you would bear in view if it was only long enough to discuss it quietly for there is going to be a in which i am left alone when we two get home take my word for it it will need the two of us to make this matter end in peace ay said she there sprang a patch of red in either of her cheeks was he for fighting you said she well he was that said i she gave a dreadful kind of laugh at all events it is complete she cried and then turning on me my father and i are a fine pair said she but i am thanking the good god there will be somebody worse than what we are i am thanking the good god that he has let me see you so there will never be the girl made that would not scorn you i had borne a good deal pretty patiently but this was over the mark you have no right to speak to me like that said l what have i done but to be good to you or try to be and here is my it is too much she kept looking at me with a hateful smile coward said she the word in your throat and in your father s i cried i have dared him this day already in your interest i will dare him again the nasty pole cat little i care which of us should fall come said i back to the house with us let us be done with it let me be done with the whole crew of you you will see what you think when i am dead she shook her head at me with that same smile i could have struck her for o smile away i cried i have seen your father smile on the wrong side this day not that i mean he was afraid of course i added hastily but he preferred the other way of it what is this she asked when i offered to draw with him said i you offered to draw upon james more she cried and i did so said i and found him backward enough or how would we be here there is a meaning upon this said she what is it you are meaning he was to make you take me i replied and i would not have it i said you should be free and i must speak with you alone little i supposed it would be such a speaking and what if i refuse says he then it come to the throat cutting says i for i will no more have a husband forced on that young lady than what i have a wife forced upon myself these were my words they were a friend s words have i been paid for them now you have refused me of your own clear free will and there lives no father in the or out of them that can force on this marriage i will see that your wishes are respected i will make the same my business as i have all through but i think you might have that decency as to affect some gratitude deed and i thought you knew me better i have not behaved quite well to you but that was weakness and to think me a coward and such a coward as that my there was a for the last of it how would i guess she cried this is a dreadful business me and mine she gave a kind of wretched cry at the word me and mine are in which i am left alone not fit to speak to you o i could be kneeling down to you in the street i could be kissing your hands for your forgiveness i will keep the kisses i have got from you already cried l i will keep the ones i wanted and that were something worth i will not be kissed in what can you be thinking of this miserable girl says she what i am trying to tell you all this while said i that you had best leave me alone whom you can make no more unhappy if you tried and turn your attention to james more your father with whom you are hke to have a queer to wind o that i must be going out into the world alone with such a man she cried and seemed to catch herself in with a great but trouble yourself no more for that said
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she he does not know what kind of nature is in my heart he will pay me dear for this day of it dear dear will he pay she turned and began to go home and i to accompany her at which she stopped i will be going alone she said it is alone i must be seeing him some little while i raged about the streets and told myself i was the worst used lad in anger choked me it was all very well for me to breathe deep it seemed there was not air enough about to supply me and i thought i would have burst like a man at the bottom of the sea i stopped and laughed at myself at a street comer a minute together laughing out loud so that a passenger looked at me which brought me to well i thought i have been a and a and a soft long enough time it was done here is a good lesson to have nothing to do with that accursed sex that was the ruin of the man in the beginning and will be so to the end god knows i was happy enough before ever i saw her god knows i can be happy again when i have seen the last of her that seemed to me the chief to see them go i upon the idea fiercely and presently slipped on in a kind of to consider how very poorly they were like to fare when was no longer by to be their milk cow at which to my o vn very great surprise the disposition of my mind turned bottom up i was still angry i still hated her and yet i thought i owed it to myself that she should suffer nothing this carried me home again at once where i found the drawn out and ready fastened by the door and the father and daughter with every mark upon them of a recent was like a wooden doll james more breathed hard his face was dotted with white spots and his nose upon one side as soon as i came in the girl looked at him with a steady clear dark look that might very well have been followed by a blow it was a hint that was more contemptuous than a command and i was surprised to see james more accept it it was plain he had had a master talking to and i could see there must be more of the devil in the girl than i had guessed in which i am left alone and more good humour about the man than i had given him the credit of he began at least calling me mr and plainly speaking from a lesson but he got not very far for at the first swell of his voice cut ia i will teu you what james more is meaning said she he means we have come to you and have not behaved to you very well and we are ashamed of our ingratitude and ill behaviour now we are wanting to go away and be forgotten and my father will have guided his gear so ill that we cannot even do that unless you will give us some more for that is what we are at all events beggar folk and by your leave miss said i i must speak to your father by myself she went into her own room and shut the door without a word or a look you must excuse her mr says james more she has no delicacy i am not here to discuss that with you said i but to be quit of you and to that end i must talk of your now mr i have kept the run of your affairs more closely than you for i know you had money of your own when you were mine i know you have had more since you were here in though you concealed it even from your daughter i bid you beware i will stand no more he broke out i am sick of her and you what kind of a damned trade is this to be a parent i have had expressions used to me there he broke off sir this is the heart of a soldier and a parent he went on again laying his hand on his bosom outraged in both characters and i bid you beware if you would have let me finish says i you would have found i spoke for your advantage my dear friend he cried i know i might have relied upon the generosity of your character man will you let me speak said l the fact is that i cannot win to find out if you are rich or poor but it is my idea that your means as they are mysterious in their source so they are something insufficient in amount and i do not choose your daughter to be lacking if i speak o herself you may be certain i would never dream of trusting it to you because i know you like the back of my hand and all your talk is that much wind to me however i believe in your way you do still care something for your daughter after all and i must just be doing with that ground of confidence such as it is whereupon i arranged with him that he was to communicate with me as to his whereabouts and s welfare in consideration of which i was to serve him a small he heard the business out with a great deal of eagerness and when it was done my dear fellow my dear son he cried out this is more like yourself than any of it yet i will serve you with a soldier s let me hear no more of it says i you have in which i am left alone got
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me to that pitch that the bare name of soldier rises on my stomach our traffic is settled i am now forth and wiu return in one half hour when i expect to find my chambers of you i gave them good measure of time it was my one fear that i might see again because tears and weakness were ready in my heart and i cherished my anger hke a piece of dignity perhaps an hour went by the sun had gone down a little of a i moon was following it across a scarlet sunset already there were stars in the east and in my chambers when at last i entered them the night lay blue i lit a and the rooms in the first there remained nothing so much as to awake a memory of those who were gone but in the second in a comer of the floor i a little heap that brought my heart into my she had left behind at her departure all that ever she had of me it was the blow that i felt perhaps because it was the last and i fell upon that pile of clothing and behaved myself more foolish than i care to tell of late in the night in a strict frost and my teeth chattering i came again by some portion of my manhood and considered with myself the sight of these poor and ribbons and her and the stockings was not to be endured and if i to recover any constancy of mind i saw i must be rid of them ere the morning it was my first thought to have made a fire and burned them but my disposition has always been opposed to for one thing and for another to have burned these things that she had worn so close upon her body seemed w in the nature of a cruelty there was a comer cupboard in that chamber there i determined to bestow them the which i did and made it a long business folding them with very little skill indeed but the more care and sometimes dropping them with my all the heart was gone out of me i was weary as though i had run miles and sore like one beaten when as i was folding a that she wore often at her neck i observed there was a comer neatly cut from it it was a of a very pretty hue on which i had frequently remarked and once that she had it on i remembered telling her by way of a that she wore my colours there came a glow of hope and like a tide of sweetness in my bosom and the next moment i was plunged back in a fresh despair for there was the comer in a knot and cast down by itself in another part of the floor but when i with myself i grew more hopeful she had cut that comer off in some childish that was tender that she had cast it away again was little to be wondered at and i was inclined to dwell more upon the first than upon the second and to be more pleased that she had ever conceived the idea of that than concerned because she had flung it from her in an hour of natural resentment chapter we meet in altogether then i was scare so miserable the next days but what i had hopeful and happy threw myself with a good deal of constancy upon my studies and made out to endure the time till should arrive or i might hear word of by the means of james more i had altogether three letters in the time of our separation one was to announce their arrival in the town of in france from which place james shortly after started alone upon a private this was to england and to see lord and it has always been a bitter thought that my good money helped to pay the charges of the same but he has ne of a long spoon who with the or james more either during this absence the time was to fall due for another letter and as the letter was the condition of his he had been so careful as to prepare it beforehand and leave it with to be despatched the fact of our correspondence aroused her suspicions and he was no sooner gone than she had burst the seal what i received began accordingly in the writing of james more my dear sir your esteemed favour came to hand duly and i have to acknowledge the according to agreement w it be all f ally expended on my b well and desires to be remembered to ber dear friend i find ber in a disposition but trust in tbe mercy of god to see ber re our manner of life is very alone but we solace ourselves witb tlie tunes of our native mountains and by walking upon tbe margin of tbe sea tbat lies next to scotland it was better days witb me when i lay witb five wounds upon my body on tbe field of i found employment in tbe of a french nobleman where my experience is valued but my dear sir tbe wages are so exceedingly tbat i would be ashamed to mention them which makes your the more necessary to ny daughter s comfort though i tbe sight of old friends would be still better my dear sir your affectionate obedient servant james below it began again in the hand of do not bo believing him it is all lies together m d not only did she add this but i think she must have come near the letter for it came long after date and was closely followed by the third in the time them had arrived and made another life to me with his merry conversation i had
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the other side there lay a lighted which we for a while then turned into a dark lane and presently found ourselves in the night among deep sand where we could hear a of the sea we travelled in this fashion for some while following our conductor mostly by the sound of his voice and i had begun to think he was perhaps us when we came to the top of a small and there appeared out of the darkness a dim light in a window d says the guide his lips an lonely bit said he and i thought by his tone he was not wholly pleased a little after and we stood in the lower of that house which was au in the one apartment with a stair leading to the chambers at the side benches and tables by the wall the cooking fire at the one end of it and shelves of bottles and the cellar trap at the we meet in other here who was an ill looking big man told us the gentleman was gone abroad he knew not where but the young lady was above and he would call her down to us i took from my breast that wanting the comer and knotted it about my throat i could hear my heart go and patting me on the shoulder with some of his expressions i could scarce refrain from a sharp word but the time was not long to wait i heard her step pass overhead and saw her on the stair this she descended very quietly and greeted me with a pale face and a certain seeming of earnestness or uneasiness in her manner that extremely dashed me my father james more will be here soon he will be very pleased to see you she said and then of a sudden her face her eyes lightened the speech stopped upon her lips and i made sure she had observed the it was only for a breath that she was but it was with a new animation that she turned to welcome and you will be his friend she cried many is the dozen times i will have heard him tell of you and i love you already for all your bravery and goodness well well says holding her hand in his and her and so this is the young lady at the last of it david ye re an awful poor hand of a description i do not know that ever i heard him speak so straight to people s hearts the sound of his voice was like song what will he have been describing me she cried little else of it since i ever came out of france i says he a bit of a one night in scotland in a of wood by but cheer up my dear j ye re than what he and now there s one thing sure you and me are to be a pair of friends i m a kind of a to here i m hke a at his heels and whatever he cares for i ve got to care for too and by the holy aim they ve got to care for me so now you can see what way you stand with and ye ll find ye u hardly lose on the transaction he s no very my dear but he s to them he loves i thank you with my heart for your good words said she i have that honour for a brave honest man that i cannot find any to be answering with using travellers freedom we spared to wait for james more and sat down to meat we had sit by him and wait upon his wants he made her drink first out of his glass he surrounded her with continual kind and yet never gave me the most small occasion to be jealous and ho kept the talk so much in his own hand and that in so merry a note that neither she nor i remembered to be embarrassed if any had seen us there it must have been supposed that was the old friend and i the stranger indeed i had often cause to love and to admire the man but i never loved or admired him better than that night and i could not help remarking to myself what i was sometimes rather in danger of forgetting that he had not only much experience we meet in of life but in his way a great deal of natural ability besides as for she seemed quite carried away her laugh was like a peal of bells her face gay as a may morning and i own although i was very well pleased yet i was a little sad also and thought myself a dull character in comparison of my friend and very unfit to come into a young maid s life and perhaps do vn her gaiety but if that was like to be my part i found at least that i was not alone in it for james more returning suddenly the girl was changed into a piece of stone through the rest of that evening until she made an excuse and slipped to bed i kept an eye upon her without cease and i can bear testimony that she never smiled scarce spoke and looked mostly on the board in front of her so that i really to see so much devotion as it used to be changed into the very sickness of hate of james more it is unnecessary to say much you know the man already what there was to know of him and i am weary of writing out his lies enough that he drank a great deal and told us very little that was to any possible purpose as for the business with that was to be reserved for the morrow and his private hearing it was the
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i could please myself no sooner said than done nor was i long under the of a before she appeared at the inn door looked here and there and seeing nobody set out by a path that led directly and by which i followed her i was in no haste to make my presence known the further she went i made sure of the longer hearing to my suit and the ground being all sandy it was easy to follow her unheard the path rose and came at last to the head of a thence i had a picture for the first time of what a desolate wilderness that inn stood hidden in where was no man to be seen nor any house of man except just s and the only a little further on the sea appeared and two or three ships upon it pretty as a drawing one of these was extremely close in to be so great a vessel and i was aware of a shock of new suspicion when i recognised the trim of the what should an english ship be doing so near in to france why was brought into her neighbourhood and that in a place so far from any hope of rescue and was it by accident or by design that the daughter of james more should walk that day to the presently i came forth behind her in the front of the sand hills and above the beach it was here long and solitary with a man o war s boat drawn up about the middle of the prospect m the le from the ship officer in charge and pacing the sands like one who waited i sat immediately down where the rough grass a good deal covered me and looked for what should follow went straight to the boat the officer met her with they had ten words together i saw a letter changing hands and there was returning at the same time as if this were all her business on the continent the boat off and was headed for the but i observed the officer to remain behind and disappear among the i the business little and the more i considered of it liked it less was it the officer was seeking or she drew near with her head down looking constantly on the sand and made so tender a picture that i could not bear to doubt her innocence the next she raised her face and recognised me seemed to hesitate and then came on again but more slowly and i thought with a changed colour and at that thought all else that was upon my bosom fears suspicions the care of my friend s life was clean swallowed up and i rose to my feet and stood waiting her in a of hope i gave her good morning as she came up which she returned with a good deal of composure will you forgive my having followed you said i i know you are always meaning kindly she replied and then with a uttle outburst but why will you be sending money to that man it must not be i never sent it for him said i but for you as you know well x and you have no right to be sending it to either one of us said she david it is not right it is not it is all wrong said i and i pray god he will help this dull fellow if it be at all possible to make it better this is no kind of life for you to lead and i ask your pardon for the word but yon man is no fit father to take care of you do not be speaking of him even was her cry and i need speak of him no more it is not of him that i am thinking o be sure of that says i i think of the one thing i have been alone now this long time in and when i was by way of at my studies still i was thinking of that next came and i went among soldier men to their big dinners and still i had the same thought and it was the same before when i had her there beside me do you see this at my throat you cut a comer from it once and then cast it from you they re colours now i wear them in my heart my dear i cannot be wanting you o try to put up with me i stepped before her so as to her walking on try to put up with me i was saying try and bear me with a little still she had never the word and a fear began to rise in me like a fear of death i cried gazing on her hard is it a mistake again am i quite lost she raised her face to me breathless do you want me truly said she and i scarce could hear her say it the letter from the ship i do that said i sure you know it i do that i have nothing left to give or to keep back said she i was all yours from the first day if you would have had a gift of me she said this was on the summit of a the place was windy and conspicuous we were to be seen there even from the english ship but i down before her in the sand and embraced her knees and burst into that storm of weeping that i thought it must have broken me all thought was wholly beaten from my mind by the of my i knew not where i was i had forgot why i was happy only i knew she stooped and i felt her cherish me to her face and bosom and heard her words out of a
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says he and crammed the paper in his pocket here let s get our things this place is fair death to ma and he began to walk towards the inn it was that spoke the first he has sold you she asked sold me my dear said but thanks to you and can him yet just let me win upon my horse he added must come with us said i she can have no more traffic with that man she and i are to be married at which she pressed my hand to her side are ye there with it says looking back the best day s work that ever either of ye did yet and i m bound to say my ye make a real couple the way that he was following brought us close in by the where i was aware of a man in seaman s trousers who seemed to be from behind it only of course we took him in the rear see said i said he this is my affairs the man was no doubt a little by the of the mill and we got up close before he noticed then he turned and we saw he was a big fellow with a mahogany face i think sir says that you speak the english non says he with an incredible bad accent j non cries mocking him is that how they learn you french on the ye here s a boot to your english and bounding on him before he could escape he dealt the man a kick that laid him on his nose then he stood with a savage smile and watched him scramble to his feet and off into the sand hills but it s high time i was clear of these empty said and continued his way at top speed and we still following to the back door of s inn it chanced that as we entered by the one door we came face to face with james more entering by the other here said i to quick upstairs with you and make your this is no fit scene for you in the meanwhile james and had met in the midst of the long room she passed them close by to reach the stairs and after she was some way up i saw her turn and glance at them again though without pausing indeed they were worth looking at wore as they met one of his best appearances of courtesy and friendliness yet with something eminently warlike so that james danger off the man as folk smell fire in a house and stood prepared for accidents time pressed s situation in that solitary place and his enemies about him might have it made no change in him and it was in his old spirit of mockery and that he began the interview the letter from the ship a day to ye again mr said he yon business of yours be just about why the thing being private and rather of a long story says james i think it will keep very well till we have eaten i m none so sure of that said it sticks in my mind it s either now or never for the fact is me and mr here have gotten a line and we re thinking of the road i saw a little surprise in james s eye but he held himself i have but the one word to say to cure you of that said he and that is the name of my business say it then says minds for it is a matter that would make us both rich men said james do ye tell me that cries i do sir said james the plain fact is that it is s treasure no cried have ye got word of it i ken the place mr and can take you there said james this crowns all says well and i m glad i came to and so this was your business was it i m thinking that is the business sir says james well well says and then in the same tone of interest it has to do with the then he asked with what says james or the lad that i have just kicked the bottom of behind yon pursued hut man have done with your i have s letter here in my you re by with it james more you can never show your face again with folk james was taken all with it he stood a second motionless and white then swelled the living anger do you talk to me you he roared out ye swine cried and hit him a sounding on the mouth and the next wink of time their blades together at the first sound of the bare steel i instinctively leaped back from the collision the next i saw james a thrust so nearly that i thought him killed and it up in my mind that this was the girl s father and in a manner almost my own and i drew and ran in to them keep back are ye ye keep back roared your blood be on your ain then i beat their blades down twice i was knocked against the wall i was back again them they took no heed of me thrusting at each other like two i can never think how i avoided being myself or one of two and the whole business turned about me like a piece of a dream in the midst of which i heard a great cry from the stair and sprang the letter from the ship before her father in the same moment the point of my sword yielding it came back to me i saw the blood flow on the girl s and stood sick will you be killing him before my eyes and me his daughter after all she cried my dear i have done
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with him said and went and sat on a table with his arms crossed and the sword naked in his hand awhile she stood before the man panting with big eyes then swung suddenly about and faced him was her word take your shame out of my sight leave me with clean folk i am a daughter of shame of the sons of it was said so much passion as awoke mo the horror of my own sword the two stood facing she with the red on her he white as a rag i knew him well enough i knew it must have pierced him in the quick place of his soul but he himself to a air why says he his sword though still a bright eye on if this is over i will but get my there goes no out of this place except with me says sir cries james james more says this lady daughter of yours is to marry my friend upon the which account i let you pack with a hale but take you my advice of it and get that out of harm s way or late little as you suppose it there are to my temper be damned sir but my money s there said james i m vexed about that too says with his funny face but now ye see it s mines and then with more gravity be you advised james more you leave this house james seemed to cast about for a moment in his mind but it s to be thought he had enough of s for he suddenly put off his hat to us and with a face like one of the damned bade us farewell in a series with which he was at the same time a was lifted from ma i cried it was me it was my sword are ye much hurt i know it i am loving you for the pain of it it was done defending that bad man my father see she said and showed me a bleeding scratch see you have made a man of me now i will carry a wound like an old soldier joy that she should be so little hurt and the love of her brave nature transported me i embraced her i kissed the wound and am i to be out of the kissing me that never lost a chance says and putting me aside and taking by either shoulder my dear he said you re a true daughter of by all accounts he was a very fine man and he may be proud of you if ever i was to get married it s the of you i would be seeking for a mother to my and i bear a king s name and speak the truth the letter from the ship he said it with a serious beat of admiration that was honey to the girl and through her to me it seemed to wipe us clean of all james and the next moment he was just himself again and now by your leave my said he this is a very but u be a thing nearer to the gallows than he s caring for and i think this is a grand place to be leaving the word recalled us to some wisdom ran upstairs and returned with our saddle bags and james more s i picked up s bundle where she had dropped it on the stair and wo were setting forth out of that dangerous house when stopped the way with cries and ho had whipped under a table the swords were drawn but now he was as bold as a lion there was his bill to be settled there was a chair broken had sat among his dinner things james more had fled here i cried pay yourself and flung him down some d for i thought it was no time to be he sprang upon that money and we passed him by and ran forth into the open upon three sides of the house were and closing in a little nearer to us james more waved his hat as if to hurry them and right behind him like some foolish person holding up its hands were the sails of the turning gave but the one glance and laid himself down to run he carried a great weight in james more s but i think he would as soon have lost his life as cast away that which was his revenge and he ran so that i was distressed to follow him and and to see the girl bounding at my side as soon as we appeared they cast off all upon the other side and the pursued us with shouts and view we had a start of some two hundred yards and they were but legged after all that could not hope to better us at such an exercise i suppose they were armed but did not care to use their pistols on french ground and as soon as i perceived that we not only held our advantage but drew a little away i b an to feel quite easy of the issue for all which it was a hot brisk bit of work so long as it lasted was stiu far off and when we over a and found a company of the garrison marching on the other side on some i could very well understand the word that had he stopped running at once and at his brow they re a real folk the french nation says he conclusion no sooner were we safe within the walls of than we held a very necessary council of war on our position we had taken a daughter from her father at the sword s point any judge would give her back to him at once and by all clap me and into jail and though we had an
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e and i have come so far and the sights and thoughts of my youth pursue and i see like a vision the youth of my father and of his father and the whole stream of lives flowing down there far in the north with the sound of laughter and tears to cast me out in the end as by a sudden on these ultimate islands and i admire and bow my head before the romance of destiny k l s summary of thb earlier adventures of david as set forth in alexander and brothers of the house of near in the forest of being in love with the same lady and she preferring the elder brother ale it was agreed between them that alexander should take the lady and as amends for his disappointment the estate of alexander and his wife removed to where they lived alexander in the character of and where an only son was born to them namely david ihe hero of this david brought up in ignorance of the family affairs and of his own claim on the estates and losing both parents before he was eighteen was left with no other fortune than a sealed letter from his father addressed to his uncle which was handed him by the minister of mr proceeding to deliver it david found his uncle living and a at who received him ill and after vainly endeavouring to compass his death had him on board the captain bound to to the end that he might be sold to labour in the but early in the voyage the running through the struck and sent to the bottom an open boat from which there saved himself and came on board one a gentleman banished after the and now engaged in rents from his the to their chief living in exile in france earlier adventures of david and his crew that gold him to rob and murder him but david being made to the plot put on his guard and promised to stand by him favoured by the shelter of the round house and by s courage and skill of fence the two got the better of their in the attack which followed killing or more than half of them whereby captain was from his voyage and came to terms with agreeing to land him on a part of the coast whence he might best make his way to his own country of but in attempting this the took ground and sank off the coast of those on board saved themselves as they best could david separately being first cast on tlie isle of and thence making hia way across had passed before by the same road and left word that david should follow and him in his own country at the house of his james of the on his way to keep this david found himself in on the same day when the king s of came with a force of red coats to drive out the tenants from the estates of and was present when was slain upon the roadside by a shot out of a neighbouring wood suspected of at the moment when he was in the act of giving chase to the unknown murderer david to flight and was quickly joined by who though he had not fired the shot was lurking not far off the two now lived the life of hunted men upon the the on account of the murder being very great and its guilt being declared to rest on james of the the already and a lad unknown being no other than david for whose apprehension blood money was offered and the country by in the course of their wanderings david and visited james at were concealed in s cage and earlier adventures of david ix suffered to rest daring sickness in the house of dim in played a match upon the pipes against the son of bob at last after much peril and suffering they made their way down to the line and the forth which they dared not cross for fear of arrest until an s daughter of was prevailed on to row them over to the shore under cover of night here again went into hiding while david made himself known to mr hope of lawyer and lately agent to the estate who promptly took up his cause and contrived a plan whereby with the help of was compelled to recognise his nephew s title as heir to the estate and in the meantime to make a suitable allowance from its income david having thus come to his own to go and complete his education at the university of but must first satisfy the claims of friendship by helping out of scotland and of conscience by to the innocence of james of the now a prisoner awaiting his trial for the murder contents v of part i the lord advocate chapter i a beggar on horseback ii the iii i to iv lord advocate ton range v in the advocate s house vi the master of vii i make a fault in honour viii the ix the on fire x the red headed man xl the wood by xii on the march again with xiii sands xiv the bass xv black s tale of xvi the missing witness the memorial xviii the tee d ball xix i am much in the hands of the ladies xx i continue to move in good part il father and daughter xxi the voyage into holland xxii travels in holland xxiv full story of a copy of xxv the return of james more xxvi the a in which i am left alone we meet in xxx the letter from the ship conclusion part l the lord chapter i a beggar on horseback the th day of august about two in the afternoon i david came forth of the british linen company a porter attending
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me with a bag of money and some of the chief of these merchants bowing me from their two days before and even so late as i was like a by the 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 a bank porter by me carrying my gold in my pocket and in the words of the saying the ball directly at my foot there were two circumstances that served me as 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 the sea sands and the still country sides that i had frequented up to then the throng of the citizens in particular abashed me s son was short and small in the his clothes scarce held on me and it was plain i was ill qualified to 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 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 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 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 to be weu chosen said he plain as for the doubt it sits wi your degree but an i had been you i would my better gates than that and he proposed i should buy winter from a wife a on horseback in the back that a cousin of his own and made them 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 not only by the number of its but the 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 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 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 and i knew from tales of mr 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 tack such a to my tails i had three visits to make all needful to my mr of to the writer that was s agent and to william grant of lord advocate of scotland mr s was a non visit and besides being in the i made bold to find the way to it myself with the help b of my two legs and a tongue but the rest were in a different case not only was the visit to s agent in the midst of the cry about the murder dangerous in itself but it was highly inconsistent with the 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 s agent was little likely to mend my own affairs and might prove the mere ruin of friend s the whole thing besides gave me a look of running with the hare and with the hounds that was little to my fancy i determined therefore to be done at once with mr and the whole 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 of rain nothing to hurt only for my new clothes and we took shelter under a 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 out one 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 a on horseback great coat he walked
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am not very long out of a deadly peril i wish you would keep my name in mind for the sake of 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 more than a hundred years it has not gone upon men s tongues save for a i am nameless like the folk of peace is the one i use now indeed i knew where i was standing in all broad scotland there was but the one name and that was the name of the yet so far from this i plunged the deeper in the a beggar on horseback 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 did ye so cries she ye met rob 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 addressed her in what he had of english to know what she meaning by that himself was to do about ta i took some note of him for a short legged big headed man that i was to know more of to my cost there can be none the day she replied how will you get wanting it will teach you another time to be more careful and i think james more will not be very well pleased with of the torn miss 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 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 in prison but this time past they will be bringing him down here daily to the advocate s the advocate s i is that it is the house of the lord advocate grant of 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 son of has lost my 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 and bade him go about his errand then to her that sixpence came with me by said i ah she said you are a friend to the i would not like to deceive you either said i i know very httle of the and less of james more and his doings but since the while i have been a on standing in this close seem to know something oi yourself and if you will just say a friend to miss 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 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 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 of 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 said i and the remembrance of 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 yoimg lady would have shown herself more backward i think it was the that put me from this train of thought i 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 and his s parted eh but ye re a green he cried an a up wi if you dare to speak of the young lady i began he cried us and safe us ca a the s fu o them man it s seen ye re no very in
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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 sang at me as he went in a very impudent manner of and with an exceedingly ill voice and ear as lee the street her did flee she a look her to see her a nd we re a east and we re a ave re a east and lee chapter il the writer mr charles the writer dwelt at the top of the longest stair that ever set a hand to fifteen flights of it no less and when i had come to his door and a clerk had opened it and told me his master was within i had scarce breath enough to send my porter packing east and wi ye said i took the money bag out of his hands and followed the clerk in the outer room was an office with the clerk s chair at a table spread with law papers in the inner chamber which opened from it a little brisk man sat on a deed from which he scarce raised his eyes upon my entrance indeed he still kept his finger in the place as though prepared to show me out and fall again to his studies this pleased me little enough and what pleased me less i thought the clerk was in a good posture to what should pass between us i asked if he was mr charles the writer the same says he and if the question is equally fair who may you be yourself you never heard tell of my name nor of me either said i but i bring you a token from a friend that you know well that you know well i repeated lowering my voice but maybe are not just so keen to hear from at this present being and the bits of business that i have to to you are rather in the nature of being confidential in short i would like to think we were quite private he rose without more words casting down his paper like a man ill pleased sent forth his clerk of an errand and shut to the house door behind him now sir said he returning speak out your mind and fear nothing though before you begin he cries out i tell you mine me i tell you beforehand ye ro either a or a sent ye a good name it is and one it would my father s son to lightly but i begin to at the sound of it my name is called said i david of as for him that sent me i will let his token speak and i showed the button put it in your pocket sir cries he ye need name no names the s i ken the button of him and de il t where is he now i told him i knew not where was but he had some sure place or thought he had about the north side where he was to lie a ship was foimd for him and how and where he had appointed to be spoken with it s been always my opinion that i would hang in a tow for this family of mine he cried and i believe the day s come now i get a ship for the writer him he and who s to pay for it f the man s that is my part of the affair mr said i here is a bag of good money and if be wanted more is to be had where it came from i needn t ask your politics said he ye need not said i smiling for i m as big a as grows stop a bit stop a bit says mr what s all this a then why are you here with s button and what kind of a black foot is this that i find ye out in mr here is a rebel and an accused murderer with two hundred pounds on his life and ye ask me to in his business and then tell me ye re a i have no mind of any such before though i ve plenty of them he s a rebel the more s the pity said i for the man s my friend i can only wish he had been better guided and an accused murderer that he is too for his misfortune but accused i hear you say so said more than you are to hear me say so before long said i is innocent and so is james oh says he the two cases hang together if is out james can never be in i told him briefly of my acquaintance with of the accident that brought me present at the murder and the various passages of our among tho and my recovery of my estate so sir you have now the whole train of these events i went on and can see for yourself how i come to be so much mingled up with the affairs of your family and friends which for all of our i wish had been and less bloody you can see for yourself too that i have certain pieces of business depending which were scarcely fit to lay before a lawyer chosen at random no more remains but to ask if you will undertake my service i have no great mind to it but coming as you do with s button the choice is scarcely left me said he what are your instructions he added and took up his pen the first point is to forth of this country said i but i need not be repeating that i am little likely to forget it said the next thing is the bit money i am owing to i went
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on it would be ill for me to find a conveyance but that should be no stick to you it was two pounds five shillings and three sterling he noted it then said i there s a mr a preacher and missionary in that i would like well to get some snuff into the hands of and as i you keep touch with your friends in so near by it s a job you could doubtless overtake with the other how much snuff are we to say he asked i was thinking of two pounds said i two said he then there s the in lime the writer said i her that helped and me across the forth i was thinking if i could get her a good sunday gown such as she could wear with decency in her degree it would be an ease to my conscience for the mere truth is we owe her our two lives i am glad to see you are mr says he making his notes i would think shame to be otherwise the first day of my fortune said i and now if you will the and your own proper charges i would be glad to know if i could get some back it s not that i grudge the whole of it to get safe it s not that i lack more but having drawn so much the one day i think it would have a very ill appearance if i was back again seeking the next only bo sure you have enough i added for i am very to meet with you again well and i m pleased to see you re cautious loo said the writer but i think ye take a risk to lay so considerable a sum at my discretion he said this with a plain sneer i ll have to run the hazard i replied and there s another service i would ask and that s to direct me to a lodging for i have no roof to my head but it must be a lodging i may seem to have hit upon by accident for it would never do if the lord advocate were to get any jealousy of our acquaintance ye may set your weary spirit at rest said he i will never name your name sir and it s my belief the advocate is still so much to be with that he ken of your existence c i saw i had got to the wrong side of the man there s a day for him then said i for hell have to learn of it on the deaf side of his head no later than to morrow when i call on him when ye on him repeated mr am i or are you what takes ye near the advocate just to give myself up said i mr he cried are ye making a mock of me v no sir said i though i think you have allowed yourself some such freedom with myself but i give you to understand once and for all that i am in no spirit nor yet me says and i give you to understand if that s to be the word that i like the looks of your behaviour less and less you come here to me with all sorts of which will put me in a train of very doubtful acts and bring me among very persons this many a day to come and then you tell me you re going straight out of my office to make your peace with the advocate s button here or s button there the four quarters of bribe me further in i would take it with a little more temper said i and perhaps we can avoid what you object to i can see no way for it but to give myself up but perhaps you can see another and if you could i could never deny but what i would be rather for i think my traffic with his is little likely to agree with my health there s just the one the writer thing clear that i have to give my evidence for i hope it ll save s character what s left of it and james s neck which is the more immediate he was silent for a breathing space and then my man said he you u never be allowed to give such evidence well have to see about that said i i m when i like ye ass cried it s james they want james has got to hang too if they could catch him but james whatever go near the advocate with any such business and you ll see i he ll find a way to ye i think better of the advocate than that said i the advocate be damned cries he it s the man you ll have the whole of them on your back and so will the advocate too poor body it s ye cannot see where ye stand if there s no fair way to stop your there s a foul one gaping they can put ye in the dock do ye no see that he cried and me with one finger in the leg ay said i i was told that same no further back than this morning by another lawyer and who was he asked he spoke sense at least i told i must be excused from him for he was a decent stout old and had little mind to be mixed up in such affairs i think all the world seems to be mixed up in it cries but what said you c i told him what had passed between and before the house of well and so ye will hang said he ye ll hang beside james there s your fortune told i hope better of it yet than that said i
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but i could never deny there was a risk risk says he and then sat silent again i ought to thank you for your to my friends to whom you show a very good spirit ho says if you have the strength to stand by it but i warn you that you re deep i wouldn t put myself in your place me that s a bom for all the that ever there were since risk ay i take over many but to be tried in court before a jury and a judge and that in a country and upon a quarrel think what you like of me it s beyond me it s a way of thinking i suppose said i i was brought up to this one by my father before me glory to his bones he has left a decent son to his name says he yet i would not have you judge me over sorely my case is hard see sir ye tell me ye re a i wonder what i am no to be sure i be just that but in your ear man i m maybe no very keen on the other side is that a fact cried i it s what i would think f a man of your intelligence hut none of your cries ha the writer there s intelligence upon both sides but for my private part i have no particular desire to harm king george and as for king james god bless him he does very well for me across the water i m a lawyer ye see fond of my books and my bottle a good plea a well drawn deed a crack in the parliament house with other lawyer bodies and perhaps a turn at the on a saturday at e en where do ye come in with your and well said i it s a fact ye have little of the wild little he nothing man and yet i m bom and when the pipes who but me has to dance the and the name that goes by all it s just what you said yourself my father learned it to me and a trade i have of it treason and and the of them out and in and the french weary fall it and the through of the and their a sorrow of their here have i been moving one for young my cousin claimed the estate under the marriage a estate i told them it was nonsense they cared and there was i behind a that liked the business as little as myself for it was fair ruin to the pair of us a black mark on our like folk s names upon their and what can i do i m a ye see and must for my and family then no later by than yesterday there was one of our lads carried to the castle what for i ken fine act of for king and you ll see he ll whistle me in to be his lawyer and there ll be another black mark on my ter i tell you fair if i but the of a hebrew word from the of it be but i would fling the whole thing up and turn minister it s rather a hard position said i hard cries he and that s what makes me think so much of ye you that s no to stick your head so deep in business and for what i do not know unless it was the sense of duty i hope it will be that said l well says he it s a grand but here is my clerk back and by your leave we ll pick a bit of dinner all the three of us when that s done i ll give you the direction of a very decent man that ll be very fain to have you for a and i u fill your pockets to ye out of your ain bag for this business u not be near as dear as ye suppose not even the ship part of it i made him a sign that his clerk was within hearing ye mind for cries he a too and has out more french and than what he has hairs upon his face why it s robin that that branch of my affairs who will we have now rob for across the water there ll be in the replied rob i saw the other day but it seems he s wanting the ship then there ll be the writer but i m none so sure of i ve seen him with some queer acquaintances and if was anybody important i would give the go by the head s worth two hundred pounds said that ll no be cried the clerk just said his master weary winds that s cried robin i ll try then be the best it seems it s quite a big business i observed mr there s no end to it said there was name your clerk mentioned i went on that must be my man i think of the would you set your trust on him he behave very well to you and said mr but my mind of the man in general is rather otherwise if he had taken on board his ship on an agreement it s my notion he would have proved a just dealer how say ye rob no more honest in the trade t han said the clerk i would to s word ay if it was the or he added and it was him that brought the doctor t asked the master he was the very man said the clerk and i think he took the doctor back says trust to ay with his full cried robin and of that well it seems it s hard to
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ken folk rightly said i that was just what i forgot when ye came in mr says the writer this must have reference to dr on hia first d b chapter iii i go to the next morning i was no sooner awake in my new lodging than i was up and into my new clothes and no sooner the breakfast swallowed than i was forth on my adventures i could hope was for james was like to be a more affair and i could not but think that enterprise might cost me dear even as everybody said to whom i had opened my opinion it seemed i was come to the top of the mountain only to cast myself down that i had up through so many and hard trials to be rich to be recognised to wear city clothes and a sword to my side all to commit mere suicide at the last end of it and the worst kind of suicide besides which is to get hanged at the king s charges what was i doing it for i asked as i went down the high street and out north by first i said it was to save james and no doubt the memory of his distress and his wife s cries and a word or so i had let drop on that occasion worked upon me strongly at the same time i reflected that it was or ought to be the most indifferent matter to my father s son whether james died in his bed or from a he was s cousin to be sure but so far as regarded the best thing would bo to lie low and let the king and his grace of and the pick the bones of his their own way nor could i forget that while we were all in the pot together james had shown no such particular anxiety whether for or me next it came upon i was acting for the sake of justice and i thought that a fin word and reasoned it out that since we dwelt in at some discomfort to each one of us the main thing of all must still be justice and the death of any innocent man a wound upon the whole community next again it was the of the brethren that gave me a turn of his argument bade me think shame for pretending myself concerned in these high matters and told me i was but a vain child who had spoken big words to and to and held myself bound upon my vanity to make good that nay and he hit me with the other end of the stick for he accused me of a kind of artful cowardice going about at the expense of a little risk to purchase greater safety no doubt until i had declared and cleared myself i might any day encounter or the and be recognised and dragged into the murder by the heels and no doubt in case i could manage my declaration with success i should breathe more free for ever after but when i looked this argument full in the face i could see nothing to be ashamed of as for the rest here are the two roads i thought and both go to the same place it s unjust that james should hang if i can save him and it would be ridiculous in me to have talked so much and then do i go to nothing it s lucky for james of the that i have boasted beforehand and none so unlucky for myself because now i m committed to do right i have the name of a gentleman and the means of one it would be a poor discovery that i was wanting in the essence and then i thought this was a pagan spirit and said a prayer in to myself asking for what courage i might lack and that i might go straight to my duty uke a soldier to battle and come off again as so many do this train of reasoning brought me to a more resolved complexion though it was far from closing up my sense of the dangers that surrounded me nor of how very apt i was if i went on to on the ladder of the it was a plain fair morning but the wind in the east the little chill of it sang in my blood and gave me a feeling of the autumn and the dead leaves and dead folks bodies in their graves it seemed the devil was in it if i was to die in that tide of my fortunes and for other folks affairs on the top of the hill though it was not the customary time of year for that diversion some children were crying and running with their these toys appeared very plain against the sky i remarked a great one oh the wind to a high and then plump among the and i thought to myself at sight of it there goes my way lay over s hill and through an end of a on the among fields there was a of in it went from house to house bees in the gardens the neighbours that i saw at the talked in a strange tongue and i found later that this was a village where the french wrought for the linen company here i got a fresh direction for my destination and a little beyond on the came by a and two men hanged in chains they were dipped in tar as the manner is the wind span them the chains and the birds hung about the jumping and cried the sight coming on me suddenly hke an illustration of my fears i could scarce be done with examining it and drinking in discomfort and as i thus turned and turned about the what should i strike on but a weird
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old wife that sat behind a leg of it and nodded and talked aloud to herself with and who are these two mother i asked and pointed to the a blessing on your precious face she cried o mine just o my old my dear what did they for i asked ou just for the cause said she i to them the way that it would end no and there are for t they took it a to ay said i to myself and not to the and did they come to such a figure for so poor a business this is to lose all indeed s your j says she and let me your weird to ye f child i go to no mother said i i see far enough the way i am it s an thing to see too far in t i read it in your she said there s a that has een and there s a man in a coat and a big man in a wig and there s the shadow of the joe that lies across your path s your and let it to ye the two chance shots that seemed to point at and the daughter of james more struck me hard and i fled from the creature casting her a which she continued to sit and play with under the moving shadows of the hanged my way down the of walk would have been more pleasant to me but for this encounter the old ran among fields the like of them i had never seen for of i was pleased besides to be so far in the still but the of the in head and the and of the old witch and the thought of the dead men rode my spirits to hang on a gallows that seemed a hard case and whether a man came to hang there for two shillings or as mr had it from the sense of duty once he was and and hung up the difference seemed small there might david hang and other lads pass on their errands and think light of him and old sit at a leg foot and their fortunes and the clean maids go by and look to the other side and hold a nose i saw them plain and they had grey eyes and gallows their upon their heads were of the colours i was thus in the poorest of spirits though still pretty resolved when i came in view of a pleasant house set by the among some brave young woods the s horse was standing at the door as i came up but himself was in the study where he received me in the midst of learned works and musical instruments for he was not only a deep philosopher but much of a he greeted me at first pretty well and when he had read s letter placed himself at my disposal and what is it cousin david says he since it appears that we are cousins what is this that i can do for you a word to doubtless that is easily given but what should be the word mr said i if i were to tell you my whole story the way it fell out it s my opinion and it was s before me that you would be very little made up with it i am sorry to hear this of you says he i must not take that at your hands mr said i i have nothing to my charge to make me sorry or you for me but just the common of mankind the guilt of adam s first sin the want of original and the corruption of my whole nature so much i must answer for and i hope i have been taught where to look for help i said for i judged from the look of the man he would i go to think the better of me if i knew my questions but in the way of worldly honour i have no great to reproach myself with and my difficulties have befallen me very much against my will and by all that i can see without my fault my trouble is to have become dipped in a political which it is judged you would be to avoid a knowledge of why very well mr david he replied i am pleased to see you are all that represented and for what you say of political you do me no more than justice it is pay study to be beyond suspicion and indeed outside the field of it the question is says he how if i am to know nothing of the matter i can very well assist you why sir said i i propose you should write to his that i am a young man of reasonable good family and of good means both of which i believe to be the case i have s word for it said mr and i count that a against all deadly to which you might add if you will take my word for so much that i am a good loyal to king george and so brought up i went on none of which will do you any harm said mr then you might go on to say that i sought his on a matter of great moment connected with his majesty s service and the administration of justice i suggested my as i am not to hear the matter says the i will not take upon myself to its weight great moment therefore falls and moment along with it for the rest i might express myself much as you propose and then sir said i and rubbed my neck a little with my thumb then i would be very desirous if you could slip in a word that might perhaps tell for my protection protection says he for your
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protection here is a phrase that somewhat me if the matter be so dangerous i own i would be a little to move in it i believe i could indicate in two words where the thing sticks said i perhaps that would be the best said he well it s the murder said i he held up both the hands cried he i thought by the expression of his face and voice that i had lost my let me explain i began i thank you kindly i will hear no more of it says he i decline in to hear more of it for your name s sake and s and perhaps a little for your own i will do what i can to help you but i will hear no more upon the facts and it is my first clear duty to warn you these are deep waters mr david and you are a young man be cautious and think twice it is to be supposed i will have thought oftener than that mr said i and i will direct your i go to attention again to s letter where i hope and believe he has his approval of that which i design well well said he and then again well well i ami do what i can for you he took a pen and paper sat awhile in thought and began to write with much consideration i understand that of what you have in mind he asked presently after some discussion sir he bade me to go forward in god s name said i that is the name to go in said mr and resumed his writing presently he signed re read what he had written and addressed me again now here mr david said he is a letter of introduction which i will seal without closing and give into your hands open as the form requires but since i am acting in the dark i will just read it to you so that you may see if it will secure your end august my this is to bring to your notice my and cousin david of a young gentleman of descent and good est ate he has enjoyed besides the more valuable advantages of a training and his political principles are all that your can desire i am not in mr s confidence but i understand him to have a matter to declare touching his majesty s service and the administration of justice purposes for which your s zeal is known i should add that the young gentleman s intention is known to and approved by some of friends who will watch with hopeful anxiety the event of his success or failure whereupon continued mr i have d myself with the usual compliments you observe i have said some of your friends i hope you can justify my perfectly sir my purpose is known and approved by more than one said l and your letter which i take a pleasure to thank you for is all i could have hoped it was all i could squeeze out said he and from what i know of the matter you design to in i can only pray god that it may prove sufficient chapter iv lord advocate my kept me to a meal for the honour of the roof he said and i believe i made the better speed on my return i had no thought but to be done with the next stage and have myself fully committed to a person as i was the appearance of closing a door on hesitation and temptation was itself extremely tempting and i was the more disappointed when i came to s house to be informed he was abroad i believe it was true at the moment and for some hours after and then i have no doubt the advocate came home again and enjoyed himself in a neighbouring chamber among friends while perhaps the very fact of my arrival was forgotten i would have gone away a dozen times only for this strong drawing to have done with my declaration out of hand and be able to lay me down to sleep with a free conscience at first i read for the little cabinet where i was left contained a variety of books but i fear i read with httle profit and the weather falling cloudy the dusk coming up than usual and my cabinet being lighted with but a of a window i was at last obliged to from this diversion such as it was and pass the rest of my time of waiting in a very d the sound of people talking in a near chamber the pleasant note of a and once the voice of a lady singing bore me a kind of company i do not know the hour but the darkness was long come when the door of the cabinet opened and i was aware by the light behind him of a tall figure of a man upon the threshold i rose at once is anybody there he asked who is that i am bearer of a letter from the of to the lord advocate said i have you been here long he asked would not hke to hazard an estimate of how many hours said i it is the first i hear of it he replied with a chuckle the lads must have forgotten you but you are in the bit at last for i am so saying he passed before me into the next room whither upon his sign i followed him and where he lit a candle and took his place before a business table it was a long room of a good proportion wholly lined with books that small spark of light in a comer struck out the man s handsome person and strong face he was flushed his eye watered and sparkled and before he sat down i
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see you come to me well recommended there is a good honest name to this letter says he picking it up a moment from the table and extra mr there is always the possibility of some arrangement i tell you and i tell you beforehand that you may be the more upon your guard your fate lies with me singly in such a matter be it said with reverence i am more powerful than the king s majesty and should you please me and of course satisfy my conscience in what remains to be held of our interview i tell you it may remain between ourselves meaning how i asked why i mean it thus mr said he that if ou give satisfaction no soul need know so much as lord advocate that you visited my house and you may observe that i do not even call my clerk i saw what way he was i suppose it is needless anyone should be informed upon my visit said i though the precise nature of my gains by that i cannot see i am not at all ashamed of coming here and have no cause to be says he nor yet if you are careful to fear the consequences my lord said i speaking under your i am not very easy to be frightened and i am sure i do not seek to frighten you says he but to the and let me warn you to nothing beyond the questions i shall ask you it may consist very immediately with your safety i have a great discretion it is true but are to it i shall try to follow your s advice said i he spread a sheet of paper on the table and wrote a heading it appears you were present by the way in the wood of at the moment of the fatal shot he began was this by accident by accident said i how came you in speech with he asked i was inquiring my way of him to i replied i observed he did not this answer down h m true said he i had forgotten that and do you know mr i would dwell if i were yon as little as might be on your relations with these it might be found to our business i am not yet inclined to regard these matters as essential i had thought my lord that all points of fact were equally material in such a case said i you forget we are now trying these he replied with great significance if we should ever come to be trying you it wiu be very different and i shall press these very questions that i am now willing to glide upon but to resume i have it here in mr s that you ran immediately up the how came that not immediately my lord and the cause was my seeing of the murderer you saw him then as plain as i see your though not so near hand you know him i should know him again in your pursuit you were not so fortunate then as to overtake him i was not was he alone he was alone there was no one else in that neighbourhood was not far off in a piece of a wood the advocate laid his pen down i think we are playing at cross purposes said he which you will find to prove a very ill amusement for yourself i content myself with following your s advice and answering what i am asked said i lord advocate be so wise as to yourself in time said he i use you with the most anxious tenderness which you scarce seem to appreciate and which unless you be more careful may prove to be in vain i do appreciate your tenderness but conceive it to be mistaken i replied with something of a for i saw we were come to at last i am here to lay before you certain information by which i shall convince you had no hand whatever in the killing of the advocate appeared for a moment at a stick sitting with lips and his eyes upon me like an angry cat mr he said at last i tell you you go an ill way for your own interests my lord i said i am as free of the charge of considering my own interests in this matter as your as god judges me i have but the one design and that is to see justice executed and the innocent go clear if in pursuit of that i come to fall under your s displeasure i must bear it as i may at this he rose from his chair lit a second candle and for a while gazed upon me steadily i was surprised to see a great change of gravity fallen upon his face and i could have almost thought he was a little pale you are either very simple or extremely the reverse and i see that i must deal with you more says he this is a case ah yes mr whether we like it or no the case is political and i tremble when i think what issues may depend from it to a political case i need scarce tell a young man of your education we approach with very different thoughts from one which is criminal only is a susceptible of great abuse but it has that force which we find elsewhere only in the laws of nature i mean it has the force of necessity i will open this out to you if you will allow me at more length you would have me believe under your pardon my lord i would have you to believe nothing but that which i can prove said i tut tut young gentleman says he be not so and suffer a man who might be your father
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if it was nothing more to employ his own imperfect language and express his own poor thoughts even when they have the misfortune not to with mr s you would have me to believe innocent i would think this of uttle account the more so as we cannot catch our man but the matter of s innocence shoots beyond itself once admitted it would destroy the whole of our case against another and a very different criminal a man vn old in treason already twice in arms against his king and already twice forgiven a of discontent and whoever may have fired the shot the unmistakable original of the deed in question i need not tell you that i mean james and i can just say plainly that the innocence of and of james is what i am here to declare in private to your and what i am prepared to establish at the trial by my testimony said i lord advocate to which i can only answer by an equal mr said he that in that case your testimony will not be called by me and i desire you to withhold it altogether you are at the head of justice in this country i cried and you propose to me a crime i am a man nursing with both hands the interests of this country he replied and i press on you a necessity patriotism is not always moral in the formal sense you might be glad of it i think it is your own protection the facts are heavy against you and if i am still trying to except you from a very dangerous place it is in part of course because i am not insensible to your honesty in coming here in part because of s letter but in part and in chief part because i regard in this matter my political duty first and my duty only second for the same reason i repeat it to you in the same frank words i do not want your testimony i desire not to bo thought to make a when i express only the plain sense of our position said i but if your has no need of my testimony i the other side would be extremely to get it arose and began to pace to and fro in the room you are not so young he said but what you must remember very clearly the year and the shock that went about the country i read in s letter that you are sound in and state who saved them in that fatal year i do not refer to his royal and his which were extremely useful in their day but the country had been saved and the field won before ever came upon who saved it i repeat who saved the religion and the whole frame of our civil institutions the late lord president for one he played a man s part and small thanks he got for it even as i whom you see before you straining every nerve in the same service look for no reward beyond the conscience of my duties done after the president who else you know the answer as well as i do tis partly a scandal and you glanced at it yourself and i you for it when you first came in it was the duke and the great of now here is a murdered and that in the king s service the duke and i are but we are and it is not so with the great mass of our and they have still savage virtues and they are still like these only the were on the right side and the were on the wrong now be you the judge the expect vengeance if they do not get it if this man james escape there will be trouble with the that means disturbance in the which are uneasy and very far from being the is a farce i can bear you out in that said i disturbance in the makes the hour of our old watchful enemy pursued his lord advocate holding out a finger as he paced and i give you my word we may have a again with the on the other side to protect the life of this man which is already on half a dozen counts if not on this do you propose to plunge your country in war to the faith of your fathers and to expose the lives and fortunes of how many thousand innocent persons these are considerations that weigh with me and that i hope wiu weigh no less with yourself mr as a lover of your country good government and religious truth you deal with me very frankly and i thank you for it said i i will try on my side to be no less honest i believe your policy to be sound i believe these deep duties may lie upon your i believe you may have laid them on your conscience when you took the oaths of the high office which you hold but for me who am just a plain man or scarce a man yet the plain duties must suffice i can think but of two things of a poor soul in the immediate and unjust danger of a shameful death and of the cries and tears of his wife that still in my head i cannot see beyond my lord it s the way that i am made if the country has to fall it has to fall and i pray god if this be wilful blindness that he may me before too late he had heard me motionless and stood so a while longer this is an unexpected obstacle says he aloud but to himself and how is your to dispose of me i asked if i wished said he you know that you might
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to think what this meeting is to me in the hour of my and here in the house of my enemy to meet in with the blood of an old brother it me mr like the of the pipes sir this is a sad look back that many of us have to make some with falling tears i have lived in my own country like a king my sword my mountains and the faith of my friends and for me now i lie in a and do you know mr he went on taking my arm and beginning to lead me about do you know sir that i lack mere necessaries the malice of my foes has quite my resources i lie as you know sir on a up charge of which i am as innocent as yourself they dare not bring me to my trial and in the meanwhile i am held naked in my prison i could have wished it was your cousin i had met or his brother himself either would i know have been rejoiced to help me while a comparative stranger uke yourself i would be ashamed to set down all he poured out to me in this vein or the very short and answers that i made to him there were times when i was tempted to stop his mouth with some small change but whether it was from shame or pride whether it was for my own sake or s whether it was because i thought him no fit father for his daughter or because i resented that of immediate that clung about the man himself the thing was clean beyond me and i was still being and preached to and still being marched to and fro three steps and a turn in that small chamber and had already by some very short replies highly although not finally discouraged my beggar when appeared in the doorway and bade me eagerly into his big chamber i have a moment s engagement said he and that you may not sit empty handed i am going to present you to my three daughters of whom perhaps you may have heard for i think they are more famous than papa this way he led me into another long room above where a dry old lady sat at a frame of and the three young women i suppose in scotland stood together by a window this is my new friend mr said he presenting me by the ann david here is my sister miss grant who is so good as keep my house for me and will be very pleased if she can help you and here says he turning to the three younger ladies here are my three a fair question to ye mr which of the three is the best favoured and i he will never have the impudence to honest s answer all three and the old miss grant as well cried out against this sally which as i was acquainted with the verses he referred to brought shame into my own cheek it seemed to me a in a father and i was amazed that these ladies could laugh even while they or made believe to under cover of this mirth got forth in the advocate s house of the chamber and i was left like a fish upon dry land in that very society i could never deny in looking back upon what followed that i was eminently and i must say the ladies were well to have so long a patience with me the aunt indeed sat close at her only looking now and again and smiling but the and especially the eldest who was besides the most handsome paid me a score of attentions which i was very ill able to repay it was all in vain to tell myself i was a young fellow of some worth as well as a good estate and had no call to feel abashed before these the eldest not so much older than myself and no one of them by any probability half as learned reasoning would not change the fact and there were times when the colour came into my face to think i was shaved that day for the first time the talk going with all their very heavily the eldest took pity on my awkwardness sat down to her instrument of which she was a passed mistress and entertained me for a while with playing and singing both in the and in the italian manners this put me more at my ease and being reminded of s air that he had taught me in the hole near i made so bold as to whistle a bar or two and ask if she knew that she shook her head i never heard a note of it said she whistle it au through and now once again she added after i had done so then she picked it out upon the and to my surprise instantly enriched the same with well sounding and sang as she played with a very droll expression and broad accent i got just the of it p this the tune that ye p you see she says i can do the poetry too only it won t rhyme and then again i am miss grant to the advocate you i believe are i told her how much astonished i was by her genius and what do you call the name of it she asked i do not know the real name said i i just call it s air she looked at me directly in the face i shall call it david s air i said she though if it s the least like what your of played to i would never wonder that the king got little good by it for it s but melancholy music your other name i do not
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it would not become me to said i but if the advocate was your authority he is fully possessed of my opinions i may tell you i am engaged in the case he went on i am to appear under and from my study of the i can assure you your opinions are the guilt of is manifest and your testimony in which you admit you saw him on the hill at the very moment will his hanging it will be rather ill to hang him till you catch him i observed and for other matters i very willingly leave you to your own impressions the duke has been informed he went on i have just come from his grace and he expressed himself before me with an honest freedom like the great nobleman he is he spoke of you by name mr and declared his gratitude beforehand in case you would be led by those who understand your own interests and those of the country so much better than yourself gratitude is no empty expression in that mouth i you know something of my name and and the example and lamented end of my late father to say nothing of my own well i have made my peace with that good duke he has for me with our friend and here i am with my foot in the again and some of the responsibility shared into my hand of king george s enemies and the late daring and insult to his majesty doubtless a proud position for your father s son says i he his bald eyebrows at me you are pleased to make experiments in the i think said he but i am here upon duty i am here to discharge my errand in good faith it is in vain you think to divert me and let me tell you for a young fellow of spirit and ambition like yourself a good in the beginning will do more than ten years the is now at your command choose what you will to be advanced in the duke will watch upon you with the affectionate disposition of a father i am thinking that i lack the of the son says i and do you really suppose sir that the whole of this country is to be suffered to trip up and tumble down for an iu of a boy he cried this has been made a test case all who would in the future must put a shoulder to the wheel look at me do you suppose it is for my the master of pleasure that put myself in the highly position of a man that i have drawn the sword alongside of the choice is not left me but i think sir that you your choice when you mixed in with that unnatural rebellion i remarked my case is happily otherwise i am a true man and can look either the duke or king george in the face without concern is it so the wind sits says he protest you are fallen in the worst sort of error has been hitherto so civil he tells me as not to combat your but you must not think they are not looked upon with strong suspicion you say you are innocent my dear sir the facts declare you guilty i was waiting for you there said i the evidence of your flight after the completion of the murder your long course of my good young man said mr here is enough evidence to hang a let be a david i shall be upon that trial my voice shall be raised i shall then speak much otherwise from what i do to day and far less to your gratification little as you like it now ah you look white cries he i have found the key of your impudent heart you look pale your eyes mr david you see the grave and the gallows nearer by than you had fancied i own to a natural weakness said i think no shame for that shame i was going on shame waits for you on the he broke in where i shall but be even d with my lord your father said i but not so he cried and you do not yet see to the bottom of this business my suffered in a great cause and for dealing in the affairs of kings you are to hang for a dirty murder about pieces your personal part in it the treacherous one of holding the poor wretch in talk your a pack of ragged and it can be shown my great mr it can be shown and it will be shown trust me that has a finger in the pie it can be shown and shall be shown that you were paid to do it i think i can see the looks go round the court when i my evidence and it shall appear that you a young man of education let yourself be to this shocking act for a suit of cast clothes a bottle of spirits and three and in copper money there was a touch of the truth in these words that knocked me uke a blow clothes a bottle of and three and in change made up indeed the most of what and i had carried from and i saw that some of james s people had been in their you see i know more than you fancied he resumed in triumph and as for giving it this turn great mr david you must not suppose the government of great britain and ireland will ever be stuck for want of evidence we have men here in prison who will swear out their lives as we direct them as i direct if you prefer the phrase so now the master of you are to guess your part of glory if you choose to die on the one
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hand life wine women and a duke to be your hand gun on the other a rope to your and a to clatter your bones on and the lowest story to hand down to your in the future that was ever told about a hired and see here he cried with a formidable shrill voice see this paper that i pull out of my pocket look at the name there it is the name of the great david i believe the ink scarce dry yet can you guess its nature it is the warrant for your arrest which i have but to touch this beside me to have executed on the spot once in the upon this paper may god help you for the die is cast i must never deny that i was greatly by so much and much by the and of my danger mr had already in the changes of my hue i make no doubt i was now no than my shirt my speech besides trembled there is a gentleman in this room cried i i appeal to him i put my life and credit in his hands shut his book with a snap i told you so said he you have played your hand for all it was worth and you have lost mr david he went on i wish you to believe it was by no choice of mine you were subjected to this proof i wish you could understand how glad i am you should come forth from it with so much credit you may not quite see how but it is a little of a service to myself for had our friend here been more successful than i was last night it might have appeared that he was a better judge of men than i it might have appeared we were altogether in the wrong situations mr and myself and i know our friend to be ambitious says he striking lightly on s shoulder as for this stage play it is over sentiments are very much engaged in your behalf and whatever issue we can find to this unfortunate i shall make it my business to see it is adopted with tenderness to you these were very good words and i could see besides that there was little love and perhaps a of genuine ill will between those two who were opposed to me for all that it was unmistakable this interview had been designed perhaps with the consent of both it was plain my were in earnest to try me by all methods and now persuasion flattery and having been tried in vain i not but wonder what would be their next expedient my eyes besides were still troubled and my knees loose under me with the distress of the late ordeal and i could do no more than the same form of words i put my life and credit in your hands well well says he we must try to save them and in the meanwhile let us return to methods you must not bear any grudge upon my friend mr who did but speak by his brief and even if you did conceive some malice against myself who stood by and seemed rather to hold a candle i must not let that extend to innocent members of my family these are greatly engaged to see more of the master of you and i cannot consent to have my young disappointed to morrow they will be going to hope park where i think it very proper you should make your bow call for me first when i may possibly have something for your private hearing then you shall be turned abroad again under the conduct of my and until that time repeat to me your promise of secrecy i had done better to have instantly refused but in truth i was beside the power of reasoning did as i was bid took my leave i know not how and when i was forth again in the close and the door had shut behind me was glad to lean on a house wall and wipe my face that horrid apparition as i may call it of mr rang in my memory as a sudden noise rings after it is over in the ear tales of the man s father of his of his manifold perpetual rose before me from all that i had heard and read and joined on with what i had just experienced of himself each time it occurred to me the ingenious of that he had proposed to nail upon my character startled me afresh the case of the man upon the by walk appeared scarce from that i was now to consider as my own to rob a child of so little more than nothing was certainly a paltry enterprise for two grown men but my own tale as it was to be represented in a court by appeared a fair second in every possible point of view of and cowardice the voices of two of s men upon his recalled me to myself f ha e said the one this as fast as ye can link to the captain is that for the back again asked the other it would seem returned the first him and are seeking him i think is says the second he ll have james more in bed with him next it s neither your affair nor mine s says the first and they parted the one upon his errand and the other back into the this looked as ill as possible i was scarce gone and they were sending already for james more to whom i thought mr must have pointed when he spoke of men in prison and ready to redeem their lives by all my among my hair and the next moment the blood leaped in me to remember poor her father stood to be hanged for pretty what
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was yet more it now seemed he was prepared to save his four quarters by the worst of shame and the most foul of cowardly murder by the false oath and to complete our misfortunes it seemed myself was picked out to be the victim i began to walk swiftly and at random conscious only of a desire for movement air and the open country chapter i make a fault in honour i came forth i vow i know not how on the this is a rural road which runs on the north side over against the city thence i could see the whole black length of it tail down from where the castle stands upon its above the in a long line of and ends and smoking chimneys and at the sight my heart swelled in my bosom my youth as i have told was already to dangers but such danger as i had seen the face of but that morning in the midst of what they call the safety of a town shook me beyond experience peril of slavery peril of peril of sword and shot i had stood all of these without but the peril there was in the sharp voice and the fat face of properly lord me wholly i sat by the lake side in a place where the rushes went down into the water and there my wrists and my temples if i could have done so remains of self esteem i would now have fled from my enterprise but call it courage or cowardice and i it was both the one and the other i decided i was ventured out beyond the possibility of a retreat i had out faced these men now prince s street i would continue to out face them come what might i would stand by the word spoken the sense of my own constancy somewhat my spirits but not much at tiie best of it there was an icy place about my heart and life seemed a black business to be at all engaged in for two souls in particular my pity flowed the one was myself to be so and lost among dangers the other was the girl the daughter of james more i had seen but little of her yet my view was taken and my judgment made i thought her a of a clean honour like a man s i thought her one to die of a disgrace and now i believed her father to be at that moment his vile life for mine it made a bond in my thoughts the girl and me i had seen her before only as a appearance though one that pleased me strangely i saw her now in a sudden of relation as the daughter of my blood foe and i might say my murderer i reflected it was hard i should be so and persecuted all my days for other folks and have no manner of pleasure myself i got meals and a bed to sleep in when my concerns would suffer it beyond that my wealth was of no help to me if i was to hang my days were hke to be short if i was not to hang but to escape out of this trouble they might yet seem long to me ere i was done with them of a sudden her face appeared in my memory the way i had first seen it with the parted lips at that weakness came in my bosom and strength into my legs and i set resolutely forward on the way to dean if i was to hang tomorrow and it was sure enough i might very likely i make a in sleep that night in a i determined i should hear and speak once more with the exercise of walking and the thought of my destination me yet more so that i began to pluck up a kind of spirit in the village of dean where it sits in the bottom of a beside the river i inquired my way of a miller s man who sent me up the hill upon the farther side by a plain path and so to a decent like small house in a garden of and apple trees my heart beat high as i stepped inside the garden hedge but it fell low indeed when i came face to face with a grim and fierce old lady walking there in a white with a man s hat upon the top of it what do ye come seeking here she asked i told her i was after miss and what may be your business with miss says she i told her i had met her on saturday last had been so as to render her a trifling service and was come now on the young lady s so you re she cried with a very manner a gift a gentleman and ye name and or were ye she asked i told my name preserve me she cried has gotten a son no ma am said i i am a son of alexander a it s i that am the of ye ll find your work cut out for ye to establish that she i perceive you know my uncle said i and i you may be the better pleased to hear that business is arranged and what brings ye here after miss she pursued tm come after said i it s to be thought being my uncle s nephew i would be foimd a careful lad so ye have a spark of in ye observed the old lady with some approval i thought ye had just been a you and your and your lucky day and your sake of from which i was gratified to learn that had not forgotten some of our talk but all this is by the purpose she resumed am i to understand
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that ye come here keeping company this is surely rather an early question said i the maid is young so am i worse fortune i have but seen her the once i ll not deny i added making up my mind to try her with some frankness not deny but she has run in my head a good deal since i met in with her that is one thing but it would be quite another and i think i would look very like a fool to commit myself you can speak out of your mouth i see said the old lady praise god and so can i i was fool enough to take charge of this rogue s daughter a fine charge i have gotten but it s mine and i u it the way i want to do ye mean to tell me mr of that you would marry james more s daughter and him hanged well then where there s no possible marriage there shall be no i make a fault in honour manner of on and take that for said are things she added with a nod and though ye would never think it by my i was a and a one lady said i for that i suppose to be your name you seem to do the two sides of the talking which is a very poor manner to come to an agreement you give me rather a home thrust when you ask if i would marry at the foot a young lady whom i have seen but the once i have told you already i would never be so as to commit myself and yet i ll go some way with you if i continue to like the as well as i have reason to expect it will be something more than her father or the gallows either that keeps the two of us apart as for my family i foimd it by the like a lost i owe less than nothing to my uncle and if ever i marry it will be to please one person that s myself i have heard this kind of talk before ye were bom said mrs which is perhaps the that i think of it so httle there s much to be considered this james more is a of mine to my shame be it but the better the family the men hanged or that s always been poor scotland s story and if it was just the hanging for my part i think i would be best pleased with james upon the which would be at least an end to him s a good enough and a good hearted and lets herself be all day with a of an wife like me but ye see there s the weak bit she s about that long false beggar of a father of hers and red mad about the and names and king james and a and you might think ye could guide her ye would find yourself sore mistaken ye say seen her but the spoke with her but the once i should have said i interrupted i saw her again this morning from a window at s this i i put in because it sounded well but i was properly paid for my on the return what s this of it cries the old lady with a sudden of her face i think it was at the advocate s door cheek that ye met her first i told her that was so h m she said and then suddenly upon rather a scolding tone i have your bare word for it she cries as to who and what you are by your way of it you re of the but for what i ken you may be of the s it s possible ye may come here for what ye say and it s equally possible ye may come here for care what i m good enough to sit quiet and to have all my men folk s heads upon their shoulders but i m not just a good enough to be made a fool of neither and i tell you fairly there s too much advocate s door and advocate s window here for a man that comes after a s daughter ye can tell that to the advocate that sent ye with my fond love and i kiss my to ye mr says she the action to the word and a journey to ye back to where ye i make a fault in honour if you think me a spy i broke out and speech stuck in my throat i stood and looked murder at the old lady for a space then bowed and turned away here the s in a she cried think ye a spy what else would i think ye tne that by ye but i see that i was wrong and as i cannot fight i ll have to a figure i would be with a ay i ay she went on you re none such a bad lad in your way i think ye ll have some but o ye re damned ye u have to win over that lad ye ll have to your back bone and think a less of your dainty self and ye ll have to try to find out that women folk are but that can never be to your last day you ll ken no more of women folk than what i do of sow i had never been used with such expressions from a lady s tongue the only two ladies i had known mrs and my mother being most devout and most particular women and i suppose my amazement must have been depicted in my countenance for mrs burst forth suddenly in a fit of laughter keep me she cried struggling with her mirth you have the finest timber face
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and you to marry the daughter of a my dear i think we ll have to make a match of it if it was just to see the and now she went on there s no manner of service in your here for the young woman is from home and it s my fear that the old woman is no suitable companion for your father s that i have nobody but myself to look after my reputation and have been long enough alone with a youth and come back another day for your she cried after me as i left my with this lady gave my thoughts a boldness they had otherwise wanted for two days the image of had mixed in all my meditations she made their background so that i scarce enjoyed my own company without a of her in a comer of my mind but now she came immediately near i seemed to touch her whom i had never touched but the once i let myself flow out to her in a happy weakness and looking all about and before and behind saw the world like an desert where men go as soldiers on a march following their duty with what constancy they have and alone there to me some pleasure of my days i wondered at myself that i could dwell on such considerations in that time of my peril and disgrace and when i remembered my youth i was ashamed i had my studies to complete i had to be called into some useful business i had yet to take my part of service in a place where all must serve i had yet to learn and know and prove myself a man and i had so much sense as blush that i should be already tempted with these further on and delights and my education spoke home to me sharply i was never brought up on sugar but on the hard food of the truth i knew that he was quite unfit to be a husband who was not prepared i make a in h n t r to bo a father also and for a boy like me to play the father was a mere derision when i was in the midst of these thoughts and about half way back to town i saw a figure coming to meet me and the trouble of my heart was heightened it seemed i had everything in the world to say to her but nothing to say first and how tongue tied i had been that morning at the advocate s i made sure that i would find myself struck dumb but when she came up my fears fled away not even the consciousness of what i had been privately thinking disconcerted me the least and i found i could talk with her as easily and as i might with she cried you have been seeking your sixpence it i told her no but now i had met with her my walk was not in vain though i have seen you to day already said i and told her where and when i did not see you she said my eyes are big but there are better than mine at seeing far only i heard singing in the house that was miss grant said i the eldest and the they say they are all beautiful said she they think the same of you miss i replied and were all crowding to the window to observe you it is a pity about my being so blind said she or i might have seen them too and you were in the house you must have been having the fine time with the fine music and the pretty ladies there is just where you axe wrong said i for i was as uncouth as a sea fish upon the of a mountain the truth is that i am better fitted to go about with men than pretty ladies well i would think so too at all events i said she at which we both of us laughed it is a strange thing now said l i am not the least afraid with you yet i could have run from the miss and i was afraid of your cousin too think any man will be afraid of her she cried my father is afraid of her himself the name of her father brought me to a stop i looked at her as she walked by my side i recalled the man and the little i knew and the much i guessed of him and comparing the one with the other felt like a traitor to be silent speaking of which said i i met your father no later than this morning did you she cried with a voice of joy that seemed to mock at me you saw james more you will have spoken with him then i did even that said i then i think things went the worst way for me that was she gave me a look of mere ah thank you for that says she you thank me for very little said i and then stopped but it seemed when i was holding back so much something at least had to come out i spoke rather ill to him said i i did not like him very much i spoke him rather ill and he was angry i you had little to do then and less to tell i make a fault in honour it to his daughter she cried out but those that do not love and cherish him i will not know i will take the freedom of a word yet said i beginning to tremble perhaps neither your father nor i are in the best of good spirits at s i we both have anxious business there for it s a dangerous house i was sorry for him too and spoke
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to him the first if i could but have spoken the wiser and for one thing in my opinion you will soon find that his affairs are mending it will not be through your friendship i am thinking said she and he is much made up to you for your sorrow miss cried i i am alone in this world and i am not wondering at that said she o let me speak said i i will speak but the once and then leave you if you will for ever i came this day in the hopes of a kind word that i am sore in want o i know that what i said must hurt you and i knew it then it would have been easy to have spoken smooth easy to he to you can you not think how i was tempted to the same cannot you see the truth of my heart shine out i think here is a great deal of work mr said she i think we wiu have met but the once and will can part like gentle folk let me have one to believe in me i pleaded i bear it else the whole world is against me how am i to go through with my dreadful fate if there s to be none to believe in me i cannot do it the man must just die for i cannot do it she had still looked straight in front of her head in air but at my words or the tone of my voice she came to a stop what is this you say she asked what are you talking of it is my testimony which may save an innocent life said i and they will not suffer me to bear it what would you do yourself you know what this is whose father lies in danger would you desert the poor soul they have tried all ways with me they have sought to bribe me they offered me hills and valleys and to day that hound told me how i stood and to what a length he would go to butcher and disgrace me i am to be brought in a party to the murder i am to have held in talk for money and old clothes i am to be killed and if this is the way i am to fall and me scarce a man if this is the story to be told of me in au scotland if you are to believe it too and my name is to be nothing but a by word how can i go through with it the thing s not possible it s more than a man has in his heart i poured my words out in a whirl one upon the other and when i stopped i found her gazing on me with a startled face it is the murder she said softly but with a very deep surprise i had turned back to bear her company and we were now come near the head of the above dean village at this word i stepped in front of her like one suddenly distracted for god s sake i cried for god s sake what is this that i have done and carried my fists to my i make a fault in honour temples what made me do it sure i am to say these things in the name of heaven what you now she cried i gave my honour i groaned i gave my honour and now i have broke it o i am asking you what it is she said was it these things you should not have spoken and do you think have no honour then or that i am one that would betray a friend i hold up my right hand to you and swear i knew you would be true said i it s me it s here i that stood but this morning and out faced them that risked rather to die disgraced upon the gallows than do wrong and a few hours after i throw my honour away by the roadside in common talk there is one thing clear upon our interview says he that i can rely on your pledged word where is my word now who could believe me now you could not believe me i am clean fallen down i had best die all this i said with a weeping voice but i had no tears in my body my heart is sore for you said she but be sure you are too nice i would not believe you do you say i would trust you with anything and these men i would not be thinking of them men who go about to and to destroy you this is no time to look up do you not think i will be admiring you like a great hero of the good and you a boy not much older than myself and because you said a word too much in a friend s ear that would die ere she betrayed you to make such v g a matter it is one thing that we must both forget said i looking at her hang dog is this true of it would ye trust me yet will you not believe the tears upon my face she cried it is the world i am thinking of you mr david let them hang you i will never forget i wiu grow old and still remember you i think it is great to die so i will envy you that gallows and maybe all this while i am but a child with said i maybe they but make a mock of me it is what i must know she said i must hear the whole the harm is done at all events and i must hear the whole i had sat down on
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the where she took a place beside me and i told her au that matter much as i have written it my thoughts about her father s dealing being alone omitted well she said when i had finished you are a hero surely and i never would have thought that same and i think you are in peril too o to think upon that man for his life and the dirty money to be dealing in such traffic and just then she called out aloud with a queer word that was common with her and belongs i believe to her own language my torture says she look at the sim indeed it was already dipping towards the mountains she bid me come again soon gave me her hand i make a fault in honour and left me in a turmoil of glad spirits i delayed to go home to my lodging for i had a terror of immediate arrest but got some supper at a change house and the better part of that night walked by in the fields and had such a sense of s presence that i seemed to bear her in my arms g chapter viii the the next day august th i kept my appointment at the advocate s in a coat that i had made to my own measure and was but newly ready says you are very fine to day my are to have a fine come i take that kind of you i take that kind of you mr t o we shall do very well yet and i believe your troubles are nearly at an end you have news for me cried i beyond anticipation he replied your testimony is after all to be received and you may go if you will in my company to the trial which is to be held at thursday st i was too much amazed to find words in the meanwhile he continued though i will not ask you to renew your pledge i must caution you strictly to be to morrow your must be taken and outside of that do you know i think least said will be mended i shall try to go said i i believe it is yourself that i must thank for this crowning mercy and i do thank you gratefully after yesterday my lord this is like the doors of heaven i cannot find it in my heart to get the thing believed the ah but you must try and manage you must try and manage to believe it says he soothing like and i am very glad to hear your acknowledgment of obligation for i think you may be able to repay me very shortly he or even now the matter is much changed your testimony which i shall not trouble you for to day will doubtless alter the complexion of the case for all concerned and this makes it less delicate for me to enter with you on a side issue my lord i interrupted excuse me for interrupting you but how has this been brought about the obstacles you told me of on saturday appeared even to me to be quite how has it been contrived my dear mr david said he it would never do for me to even to you as you say the of the government and you must content yourself if you please with the gross fact he smiled upon me like a father as he spoke playing the while with a new pen it was impossible there could be any shadow of deception in the man yet when he drew to him a sheet of paper dipped his pen among the ink and began again to address me i was somehow not so certain and fell instinctively into an attitude of guard there is a point i wish to touch upon he began i purposely left it before upon one side which need be now no longer necessary this is not of course a part of your examination which is to by another hand this is a private interest of my own you say you encountered upon the hill i did my lord said i this was immediately after the murder it was did you speak to him i did you had known him before i think says my lord carelessly i cannot guess your reason for so thinking my lord i replied but such is the fact and when did you part with him again said he i reserve my answer said i the question will be put to me at the mr said he wiu not understand that all this is without prejudice to yourself i have promised you life and honour and believe me i can keep my word you are therefore clear of all anxiety it appears you suppose you can protect and you talk to me of your gratitude which i think if you push me is not ill deserved there are a great many different considerations all pointing the same way and i will never be persuaded that you could not help us if you chose to put salt on s tail my lord said i i give you my word i do not so much as guess where is he paused a breath nor how he might bo found he asked i sat before him like a log of wood and so much for your gratitude mr david he observed again there was a piece of silence well said he rising i am not fortunate and we are a the couple at cross purposes let us speak of it no more you will receive notice when where and by whom we are to take your and in the meantime my must be waiting you they will never forgive me if i detain their into the hands of these graces i was accordingly offered up and found them dressed beyond what i
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had thought possible and looking fair as a as we went forth from the doors a small circumstance occurred which came afterwards to look extremely big i heard a whistle sound loud and brief like a signal and looking all about for one moment the red head of of the tom the son of the next moment he was gone again nor could i see so much as the skirt tail of upon whom i naturally supposed him to be then attending my three led me out by and the links whence a path carried us to hope park a beautiful laid with gravel walks furnished with seats and summer sheds and by a keeper the way there was a little the two younger affected an air of genteel weariness that me cruelly the eldest considered me with something that at times appeared like mirth and though i thought i did myself more justice than the day before it was not without some effort upon our reaching the park i was launched on a of eight or ten young gentlemen some of them officers the rest chiefly crowded to attend upon these beauties and though i was presented to all of them in very good words it seemed i was by all immediately forgotten young folk in a company are like to savage animals they fall upon or scorn a stranger without civility or i may say humanity and i am sure if i had been among they would have shown me quite as much of both some of the set up to be wits and some of the soldiers to be and i could not tell which of these extremes annoyed me most all had a manner of handling their and coat skirts for the which in mere black envy i could have kicked them from that park i upon their side they me extremely the fine company in which i had arrived and altogether i had soon fallen behind and stepped in the rear of all that merriment with my own thoughts from these i was recalled by one of the officers lieutenant a boy asking if my name was not i told him it was not very kindly for his manner was scant civil ha says he and then repeating it i am afraid you do not like my name sir says i annoyed with myself to be annoyed with such a fellow no says he but i thinking i would not advise you to make a practice of that sir says i i feel sure you would not find it to agree with you you hear where the said he i asked him what he could possibly mean and he the answered with a laugh that he thought i must have found the in the same place and swallowed it there could be no mistake about this and my cheek burned before i went about to put on gentlemen said i i think i would learn the english language first he took me by the sleeve with a nod and a wink and led me quietly outside hope park but no sooner were we beyond the view of the than the fashion of his countenance changed you cries he and hit me a on the jaw with his closed fist i paid him as good or better on the return whereupon he stepped a little back and took off his hat to me enough i think says he i will be the offended for who heard of such as tell a that is the king s officer he speak cot s english we have swords at our and here is the king s park at hand will ye walk first or let me show ye the way i returned his bow told him to go first and followed him as he went i heard him to himself about got english and the king s coat so that i might have supposed him to be seriously offended but his manner at the beginning of our interview was there to him it was manifest he had come prepared to fasten a quarrel on me right or wrong manifest that i was taken in a fresh contrivance of my enemies and to me conscious as i was of my manifest enough that i should be the one to fall in our encounter as we came into that rough rocky desert of the king s park i was tempted half a dozen times to take to my heels and run for it so was i to show my ignorance in and so much averse to die or even to be wounded but i considered if their went as far as this it would likely stick at nothing and that to fall by the sword however was still an improvement on the gallows i considered besides that by the of my words and the quickness of my blow i had put myself quite out of court and that even if i ran my adversary would probably pursue and catch me which would add disgrace to my misfortune so that taking all in all i continued marching behind him much as a man follows the and certainly with no more hope we went about the end of the long and came into the hunter s here on a piece of fair turf my adversary drew there was nobody there to see us but some birds and no resource for me but to follow his example and stand on guard with the best face i could display it seems it was not good enough for mr who some flaw in my paused looked upon me sharply and came off and on and me with his blade in the air as i had seen no such proceedings from and was besides a good deal affected with the of death i grew quite bewildered stood helpless and could have longed to run away the
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fat her cries the lieutenant and suddenly engaging he the sword out of my grasp aud sent it flying far among the rushes twice was this repeated and the third time when i brought back my weapon i found he had returned his own to the and stood awaiting me with a face of some anger and his hands clasped under his skirt pe if i touch you he cried and asked me bitterly what right i had to stand up before when i did not know the back of a sword from the front of it i answered that was the fault of my and would he do me the justice to say i had given him all the satisfaction it was unfortunately in my power to offer and had stood up like a man and that is the truth said he i am myself and as a but to stand up there and you ken of fence the way that you did i declare it was me and i am sorry for the though i declare i your own was the elder brother and my still sings with it and i declare if i had what way it i would not put a hand to such a piece of that is handsomely said i replied and i am sure you will not stand up a second time to be the actor for my private enemies indeed no said he and i think i was used extremely myself to be set up to with an wife or all the same as a and i will tell the master so and him by cot himself and if you knew the nature of mr s quarrel with me said i you would be yet the more to be mingled up with such affairs he swore he could well believe it that all the were made of the same meal and the devil was the miller that ground that then suddenly shaking me by the hand he vowed i was a pretty enough fellow after all that it was a thousand i had been neglected and that if he could find the time he would give an eye himself to have me educated you can do me a better service than even what you propose said i and when he had asked its nature come with me to the house of one of my enemies and testify how i have carried myself this day i told him that will be the true service for though he has sent me a gallant adversary for the first the thought in mr s mind is merely murder there will be a second and then a third and by what you have seen of my cleverness with the cold steel you can judge for yourself what is like to be the and i would not like it myself if i was no more of a man that what you he cried but i will do you right lead on if i had walked slowly on the way into that accursed park my heels were enough on the way out they kept time to a very good old air that is as ancient as the bible and the words of it are surely the bitterness of death is passed i mind that i was extremely thirsty and had a drink at saint margaret s well on the road down and the sweetness of that water passed belief we went the through the up the in by the and straight to s door talking as we came and arranging the details of our the footman owned his master was at home but declared him engaged with other gentlemen on very private business and his door forbidden my business is but for three minutes and it cannot wait said i you may say it is by no means private and i shall be even glad to have some witnesses as the man departed unwillingly enough upon this errand we made so bold as to follow him to the whence i could hear for a while the murmuring of several voices in the room within the truth is they were three at the one table and mr of and as they were met in consultation on the very business of the murder they were a little disturbed at my appearance but decided to receive me well well mr and what brings you here again and who is this you bring with you says as for he looked before him on the table he is here to bear a little testimony in my favour my lord which i think it very needful you should hear said i and turned to i have only to say this said the that i stood up this day with in the hunter s which i am now sorry for and he behaved as pretty as a could ask it and i have respects for he added i thank your for your honest expressions said i whereupon his bow to the company and left the chamber as we had agreed upon before what have i to do with this says i will tell your in two words said l i have brought this gentleman a king s officer to do me so much justice now i think my character is covered and until a certain date which your can very well supply it will be quite in vain to despatch against me any more officers i will not consent to fight my way through the garrison of the castle the veins swelled on s brow and he regarded me with fury i think the devil this dog of a lad between my legs he cried and then turning fiercely on his neighbour this is some of your work he said i spy your hand in the business and let me tell you i resent it it is when we are agreed
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upon one expedient to follow another in the dark you are to me what you let me send this lad to the place with my very daughters and because i let drop a word to you sir keep your to yourself was deadly pale i will be a kick ball between you and the duke no longer he exclaimed either come to an agreement or come to a differ and have it out among yourselves but i will no longer fetch and carry and get your contrary the instructions and be blamed by both for if i were to tell you what i think of all your business it would make your head sing but had preserved his temper and now smoothly and in the meantime says he i think we should tell mr that his character for is quite established ho may sleep in peace until the date he was so good as to refer to it shall be put to the proof no more his coolness brought the others to their prudence and they made haste with a somewhat distracted civility to pack me from the house chapter ix the on fire when i left that afternoon i was for the st time angry the advocate had made a mock of me he had pretended my testimony was to be received and myself respected and in that very hour not only was against my life by the hands of the soldier but as appeared from his language himself had some design in operation i counted my enemies with au the king s authority behind him and the duke with the power of the west and the interest by their side to help them with so great a force in the north and the whole of old and and when i remembered james more and the red head of the son of i thought there was perhaps a fourth in the and what remained of rob s old desperate of would be against me with the others one thing was requisite some strong friend or wise adviser the country must be full of such both able and eager to support me or and the duke and had not been for and it made me rage to think that i might brush against my in the street and be no wiser the on fire and just then like an answer a gentleman brushed against me going by gave me a meaning look and turned into a close i knew him with the tail of my eye it was the writer and blessing my good fortune tm ned in to him as soon as i had entered the close i saw him standing in the mouth of a stair where he made mo a signal and immediately vanished seven up there he was again in a house door the which he locked behind us after we had entered the house was quite with not a stick of furniture indeed it was one of which had the letting in his hands we ll have to sit upon the floor said he but we re safe here for the time being and i ve been to see ye mr how s it with i asked said he him up at sands to morrow wednesday he was keen to say good bye to ye but the way that things were going i was feared the pair of ye was maybe best apart and that brings me to the essential how does your business speed why said i i was told only this morning that my testimony was accepted and i was to travel to with the advocate no less cried i ll never believe that i have maybe a suspicion of my own says i but i would like fine to hear your reasons well i tell ye fairly i m horn mad cries if my one hand could pull their government down i would pluck it like a rotten apple i m for h and for james of the and of course it s my duty to defend my for his life hear how it goes with me and leave the judgment of it to yourself the first thing they have to do is to get rid of they bring in james as art and part until they ve brought in first as principal that s sound law they could never put the cart before the horse and how are they to bring in till they can catch him says i ah but there is a way to that said he sound law too it would be a thing if by the escape of one ill another was to go and the is to summon the principal and put him to for the non now there s four places where a person can be summoned at his dwelling house at a place where he has resided forty days at the head of the where he ordinarily or lastly if there foe to think him forth of scotland at the of and the pier and shore of for sixty days the purpose of which last provision is evident upon its face being that ships may have time to carry news of the transaction and the be something other than a form now take the case of he has no house that ever i could hear of i would be obliged if anyone would show me where he has lived forty days together since the there is no where he whether ordinarily or if he has a at all which i it must be with his regiment in france and if he is not yet forth of scotland as wo the on fire happen to know and they happen to guess it must be evident to the most dull it s what he s for where then and what way should he be summoned i ask it at yourself a you have given
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the very words said i here at the cross and at the pier and shore of for sixty days ye re a lawyer than then cries the writer ho has had summoned once that was on the twenty fifth the day that we first met once and done with it and where where but at the cross of the head of the a word in your ear mr they re not seeking what do you mean i cried not seeking him by the best that i can make of it said ha not wanting to find him in my poor thought they think perhaps he might set up a fair defence upon the back of which james the man they re really after might out this is not a case ye see it s a conspiracy yet i can tell you asked after keenly said i though when i come to think of it he was something of the easiest put by see that says he but there i may be right or wrong that s at the best and let me get to my facts again it comes to my ears that james and the witnesses the witnesses mr lay in close and in the military prison at fort none allowed in to them nor they to write the witnesses mr heard ye ever the match of that i assure ye no old crooked h t i of the gang ever out faced the law more it s clean in the two eyes of the act of parliament of imprisonment no sooner did i get the news than i the lord justice clerk i have his word to day there s law for ye here s justice he put a paper in my hand that same false faced paper that was printed since in the by a for as the title says of james s poor widow and five children see said he couldn t dare to refuse me access to my so he the commanding officer to let ne in the lord justice clerk of scotland is not the purpose of such language plain they hope the officer may be so dull or so very much the reverse as to refuse the recommendation i would have to make the back again here and fort william then would follow a fresh delay till i got fresh authority and they had the officer military man ignorant of the law and that i ken the cant of it then the journey a third time and there we should be on the immediate heels of the trial before i had received my first instruction am i not right to call this a conspiracy it will bear that colour said i and i ll go on to prove it you outright said he have the right to hold james in prison yet they cannot deny me to visit him they have no right to hold the witnesses but am i to get a sight of them that should be as free as the lord justice clerk himself see read for the rest refuses to the on fire give any orders to of who are not a as having done anything contrary to the duties of their office anything contrary i and the act of seventeen mr this makes my heart to burst the is on fire inside my and the plain english of that phrase said i is that the witnesses are still to lie in prison and you are not to see them and i am not to see them until when the court is set cries he and then to hear upon the anxious of his office and the great afforded the defence but i ll them there mr david i have a plan to the witnesses upon the road and see if i get a little of justice out of the military man ignorant of the law that shall command the party it was actually so it was actually on the near and by the of a soldier officer that mr first saw the witnesses upon the case there is nothing that would surprise me in this business i remarked i ll surprise you ere i m done cries he do ye see this producing a print still wet from the press this is the see there s s name to the list of witnesses and i find no word of any but here is not the question who do ye think paid for the of this paper i suppose it would likely be king george said l but it happens it was me he cried not but it was printed by and for themselves for the and the and yon thief of the black midnight but could win to get a copy no i was to go to my defence i was to hear the charges for the first time in court the jury is not this against the law i asked i cannot say so much he replied it was a favour so natural and so constantly rendered till this business that the law has never looked to it and now admire the hand of providence a stranger is in s house a proof on the floor it up and carries it to me of all things it was just this whereupon i had it set printed at the expense of the defence heard ever man the like of it and here it is for anybody the secret out all may see it now but how do you think i would enjoy this that has the life of my on my conscience i think you would enjoy it iu said i and now you see how it is he concluded and why when you tell me your evidence is to be let in i aloud in your face it was now my turn i laid
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before him in brief mr s threats and offers and the whole incident of the with the subsequent scene at s of my first talk according to promise i said nothing nor indeed was it necessary au the time i was talking nodded his head hke a mechanical figure and no sooner had my voice ceased the on fire than he opened his mouth and gave me his opinion in two words dwelling strong on both of them disappear yourself said he i do not take you said i then carry you there said he by my view of it you re to disappear whatever that s outside debate the advocate who is not without some of a remainder decency has wrung your life safe out of and the duke he has refused to put you on your trial and refused to have you killed and there is the clue to their ill words together for and the duke can keep faith with neither friend nor enemy ye re not to be tried then and ye re not to be murdered but i m in bitter error if ye re not to be and carried away like the lady bet me what ye please there was their expedient you make me think said i and told him of the whistle and the red headed wherever james more is there s one big rogue never be deceived on that said he his father was none so ill a man though a on the wrong side of the law and no friend to my family that i should waste my breath to be defending him but as for james he s a and a i like the appearing of this red headed as little as yourself it looks it smells bad it was old that managed the lady affair if young is to handle yours it ll be all in the family what s james more in prison for the same offence his men have had practice in the business he ll be to lend them to be s instruments and the next thing we ll be hearing james will have made his peace or else he ll have escaped and you ll be in or ye make a strong case i admitted and what i want he resumed is that you should disappear yourself ere they can get their hands upon ye lie quiet until just before the trial and spring upon them at the last of it when they ll be looking for you least this is always supposing mr that your evidence is worth so very great a measure of both risk and i will tell you one thing said l i saw the murderer and it was not then by god my cousin s saved cried you have his life upon your tongue and there s neither time risk nor money to be spared to bring you to the trial he emptied his pockets on the floor here is au that i have by me he went on take it ye ll want it ere ye re through go straight down this close there s a way out by there to the and by my will of it see no more of till the clash is over where am i to go then i inquired and i wish that i could tell ye says he but all the places that i could send ye to would be just the places they would seek no ye must for yourself and god be your guiding five days before the trial september the sixteen get word to me at the king s arms in and if ye ve managed for yourself as long as that i ll see that ye reach one thing more said l can i no see the on fire he seemed i would rather you said he but i can never deny that is extremely keen of it and is to lie this night by on purpose if you re sure that you re not followed mr but make sure of that lie in a good place and watch your road for a clear hour before ye risk it it would be a business if both you and him was to chapter x the red headed man it was about half past three when i came forth on the dean was where i wanted to go since there and her the 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 to my conscience and common sense however i took a e of precaution coming over the crown of a bit of a rise in the road i clapped down suddenly among the and lay waiting after a while a man went by that looked to be a but i had never seen him till that hour presently after came 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 from his purpose but my inclination ran too strong the other way i argued it out that if was on that road it was the right road to find him in leading direct to his chiefs daughter as for the other if i was to be startled off by every i saw i would scarce reach and having quite satisfied myself with this debate i made the the red headed man better speed of it and came a little after four to mrs 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 which i thought might
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please the 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 by daylight to at the whom she knew to be the for 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 country feed at least i was not so much so as she thought and it was plain enough even to my wits that she was bent to hammer up a match between her cousin and a boy that was something of a in had better take his with us says she run and tell the 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 still calling me but with such a turn that should rather me in my own opinion when returned the design became if possible more obvious and she showed off the girl s advantages like a with a horse my face that she should think me so now i would fancy the girl was being innocently made a show of and then i could have beaten the old wife with a and now that perhaps these two had set their heads together to me and at that i sat and them like the very image of ill will at last the match maker 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 them but though i knew what breed she was of and that was a breed of thieves i could never look in s face and 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 teu 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 as i could and indeed there was matter of mirth in that absurdity and i think you be as little fitted for the 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 i have not heard the match of that in anyone it is most at least said i and i think my father honest man must have been to learn me latin in the place of it but the red headed man 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 hke you and the lieutenant and i am the boy that makes the fine speeches all through like mr david you are a maid said i well i know it is good to and spin and to make she said but if you were to do nothing else in the great world i think you will say yourself it is a 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 like a 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 that put her arm through the of the bolt where it was broken that is my chief hero would you not love to die so for your king she asked said i my for my king god bless the 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 eight 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 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 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 any one would said i he has his faults like other folk but he is brave and and
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