Kidnapped (Illustrated): Being Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour in the Year 1751Stevenson, Robert Louis
History
Kidnapped (Illustrated): Being Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour in the Year 1751
Stevenson, Robert Louis
Adventure and adventurers -- Fiction; Historical fiction; Kidnapping -- Fiction; Scotland -- History -- 18th century -- Fiction
We came the by-way over the hill of Corstorphine; and when we got near
to the place called Rest-and-be-Thankful, and looked down on
Corstorphine bogs and over to the city and the castle on the hill, we
both stopped, for we both knew without a word said that we had come to
where our ways parted. Here he repeated to me once again what had been
agreed upon between us: the address of the lawyer, the daily hour at
which Alan might be found, and the signals that were to be made by any
that came seeking him. Then I gave what money I had (a guinea or two of
Rankeillor’s) so that he should not starve in the meanwhile; and then we
stood a space, and looked over at Edinburgh in silence.
“Well, good-bye,” said Alan, and held out his left hand.
“Good-bye,” said I, and gave the hand a little grasp, and went off down
hill.
Neither one of us looked the other in the face, nor so long as he was in
my view did I take one back glance at the friend I was leaving. But as I
went on my way to the city, I felt so lost and lonesome, that I could
have found it in my heart to sit down by the dyke, and cry and weep like
any baby.
It was coming near noon when I passed in by the West Kirk and the
Grassmarket into the streets of the capital. The huge height of the
buildings, running up to ten and fifteen storeys, the narrow arched
entries that continually vomited passengers, the wares of the merchants
in their windows, the hubbub and endless stir, the foul smells and the
fine clothes, and a hundred other particulars too small to mention,
struck me into a kind of stupor of surprise, so that I let the crowd
carry me to and fro; and yet all the time what I was thinking of was
Alan at Rest-and-be-Thankful; and all the time (although you would think
I would not choose but be delighted with these braws and novelties)
there was a cold gnawing in my inside like a remorse for something
wrong.
The hand of Providence brought me in my drifting to the very doors of
the British Linen Company’s bank.
* * * * *
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_By Robert Louis Stevenson_
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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