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 readier 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 publicity as a visitor to Catriona in her prison the world would scarce stint to draw conclusions, and the true nature of James More’s escape must become evident to all. This was the little problem I had to set him of a sudden, and to which he had so briskly found an answer. I was to be tethered in Glasgow by that job of copying, which in mere outward decency I could not well refuse; and during these hours of employment Catriona was privately got rid of. I think shame to write of this man that loaded me with so many goodnesses. He was kind to me as any father, yet I ever thought him as false as a cracked bell. CHAPTER XIX. I AM MUCH IN THE HANDS OF THE LADIES The copying was a weary business, the more so as I perceived very early there was no sort of urgency 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 benighted, slept in a house by Almond-Water side. I was in the saddle again before the day, and the Edinburgh booths were just opening when I clattered in by the West Bow and drew up a smoking horse at my lord Advocate’s door. I had a written word for Doig, 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-sufficiency. Him I found already at his desk and already bedabbled with maccabaw, in the same anteroom where I rencountered with James More. He read the note scrupulously through like a chapter in his Bible. “H’m,” says he; “ye come a wee thing ahint-hand, Mr. Balfour. The bird’s flaen—we hae letten her out.” “Miss Drummond is set free?” I cried. “Achy!” said he. “What would we keep her for, ye ken? To hae made a steer about the bairn would has pleased naebody.” “And where’ll she be now?” says I. “Gude kens!” says Doig, with a shrug. “She’ll have gone home to Lady Allardyce, I’m thinking,” said I. “That’ll be it,” said he. “Then I’ll 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 wauch of milk in by Ratho.” “Aweel, aweel,” says Doig. “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. “Tamson’s mear [17] would never be the thing for me this day of all days.” Doig speaking somewhat broad, I had been led by imitation into an accent much more countrified than I was usually careful to affect 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: