The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 11Stevenson, Robert Louis
History
The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 11
Stevenson, Robert Louis
Adventure stories; Scotland -- History -- 18th century -- Fiction
I was infinitely taken with the spirit of the maid. "I could be wishing
I had brought you a spray of that heather," says I. "And though I did
ill to speak with you at the first, now it seems we have common
acquaintance, I make it my petition you will not forget me. David
Balfour is the name I am known by. This is my lucky day, when I have
just come into a landed estate, and am not very long out of a deadly
peril, I wish you would keep my name in mind for the sake of
Balquhidder," said I, "and I will yours for the sake of my lucky day."
"My name is not spoken," she replied, with a great deal of haughtiness.
"More than a hundred years it has not gone upon men's tongues, save for
a blink. I am nameless, like the Folk of Peace.[3] Catriona Drummond is
the one I use."
Now indeed I knew where I was standing. In all broad Scotland there was
but the one name proscribed, and that was the name of the Macgregors.
Yet so far from fleeing this undesirable acquaintancy, I plunged the
deeper in.
"I have been sitting with one who was in the same case with yourself,"
said I, "and I think he will be one of your friends. They called him
Robin Oig."
"Did ye so?" cries she. "Ye met Rob?"
"I passed the night with him," said I.
"He is a fowl of the night," said she.
"There was a set of pipes there," I went on, "so you may judge if the
time passed."
"You should be no enemy, at all events," said she. "That was his brother
there a moment since, with the red soldiers round him. It is him that I
call father."
"Is it so?" cried I. "Are you a daughter of James More's?"
"All the daughter that he has," says she: "the daughter of a prisoner;
that I should forget it so, even for one hour, to talk with strangers!"
Here one of the gillies addressed her in what he had of English, to know
what "she" (meaning by that himself) was to do about "ta sneeshin." I
took some note of him for a short, bandy-legged, red-haired, big-headed
man, that I was to know more of, to my cost.
"There can be none the day, Neil," she replied. "How will you get
'sneeshin' wanting siller? It will teach you another time to be more
careful; and I think James More will not be very well pleased with Neil
of the Tom."
"Miss Drummond," I said, "I told you I was in my lucky day. Here I am,
and a bank-porter at my tail. And remember I have had the hospitality of
your own country of Balquhidder."
"It was not one of my people gave it," said she.
"Ah, well," said I, "but I am owing your uncle at least for some springs
upon the pipes. Besides which, I have offered myself to be your friend,
and you have been so forgetful that you did not refuse me in the proper
time."
"If it had been a great sum, it might have done you honour," said she;
"but I will tell you what this is. James More lies shackled in prison;
but this time past, they will be bringing him down here daily to the
Advocate's...."
"The Advocate's?" I cried. "Is that...?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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