The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson – Swanston Edition. Volume 11

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 scamper off into the sandhills.

“But it’s high time I was clear of these empty bents!” said Alan; and continued his way at top speed, and we still following, to the back-door of Bazin’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 Catriona, “quick! upstairs with you and make your packets; this is no fit scene for you.”

In the meanwhile James and Alan 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. Alan wore as they met one of his best appearances of courtesy and friendliness, yet with something eminently warlike, so that James smelled danger off the man, as folk smell fire in a house, and stood prepared for accidents.

Time pressed. Alan’s situation in that solitary place, and his enemies about him, might have daunted Cæsar. It made no change in him; and it was in his old spirit of mockery and daffing that he began the interview.

“A braw good day to ye again, Mr. Drummond,” said he. “What’ll 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 Alan. “It sticks in my mind it’s either now or never; for the fact is me and Mr. Balfour 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 stoutly.

“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 Alan. “Hout! wha minds for Davie?”

“It is a matter that would make us both rich men,” said James.

“Do ye tell me that?” cries Alan.

“I do, sir,” said James. “The plain fact is that it is Cluny’s Treasure.”

“No!” cried Alan. “Have ye got word of it?”

“I ken the place, Mr. Stewart, and can take you there,” said James.

“This crowns all!” says Alan. “Well, and I’m glad I came to Dunkirk. And so this was your business, was it? Halvers, I’m thinking?”

“That is the business, sir,” says James.

“Well, well,” says Alan; and then in the same tone of childlike interest, “it has naething to do with the Seahorse, then?” he asked.

“With what?” says James.

“Or the lad that I have just kicked the bottom of behind yon windmill?” pursued Alan. “Hut, man! have done with your lees! I have Palliser’s letter here in my pouch. – You’re by with it, James More. You can never show your face again with dacent folk.”

James was taken all aback with it. He stood a second, motionless and white, then swelled with the living anger.

“Do you talk to me, you bastard?” he roared out.

“Ye glee’d swine!” cried Alan, and hit him a sounding buffet in the mouth, and the next wink of time their blades clashed together.

At the first sound of the bare steel I instinctively leaped back from the collision. The next I saw, James parried a thrust so nearly that I thought him killed; and it lowed 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 sever them.

“Keep back, Davie! Are ye daft? Damn ye, keep back!” roared Alan. “Your blood be on your ain heid then!”

I beat their blades down twice. I was knocked reeling against the wall; I was back again betwixt them. They took no heed of me, thrusting at each other like two furies. I can never think how I avoided being stabbed myself or stabbing one of these two Rodomonts, 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 Catriona sprang before her father. In the same moment the point of my sword encountered something yielding. It came back to me reddened. I saw the blood flow on the girl’s kerchief, and stood sick.

“Will you be killing him before my eyes, and me his daughter after all?” she cried.

“My dear, I have done with him,” said Alan, and went and sat on a table, with his arms crossed and the sword naked in his hand.

A while she stood before the man, panting, with big eyes, then swung suddenly about and faced him.

“Begone!” was her word, “take your shame out of my sight; leave me with clean folk. I am a daughter of Alpin! Shame of the sons of Alpin, begone!”

It was said with so much passion as awoke me from the horror of my own bloodied sword. The two stood facing, she with the red stain on her kerchief, 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 betook himself to a bravado air.

“Why,” says he, sheathing his sword, though still with a bright eye on Alan, “if this brawl is over I will but get my portmanteau – ”

“There goes no pockmantie out of this place except with me!” says Alan.

“Sir!” cries James.

“James More,” says Alan, “this lady daughter of yours is to marry my friend Davie, upon the which account I let you pack with a hale carcase. But take you my advice of it and get that carcase out of harm’s way or ower late. Little as you suppose it, there are leemits to my temper.”

“Be damned, sir, but my money’s there!” said James.

“I’m vexed about that too,” says Alan, with his funny face, “but now, ye see, it’s mine’s.” 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 Alan’s swordsmanship, 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 gone.

At the same time a spell was lifted from me.

“Catriona,” I cried, “it was me – it was my sword. O, are ye much hurt?”

“I know it, Davie, 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 Alan; and putting me aside and taking Catriona by either shoulder, “My dear,” he said, “you’re a true daughter of Alpin. By all accounts, he was a very fine man, and he may weel be proud of you. If ever I was to get married, it’s the marrow of you I would be seeking for a mother to my sons. And I bear a king’s name and speak the truth.”

He said it with a serious heat of admiration that was honey to the girl, and, through her, to me. It seemed to wipe us clean of all James More’s disgraces. And the next moment he was just himself again.

“And now by your leave, my dawties,” said he, “this is a’ very bonny; but Alan Breck’ll be a wee thing nearer to the gallows than he’s caring for; and, Dod! I think this is a grand place to be leaving.”

The word recalled us to some wisdom. Alan ran upstairs and returned with our saddle-bags and James More’s portmanteau; I picked up Catriona’s bundle where she had dropped it on the stair; and we were setting forth out of that dangerous house, when Bazin stopped the way with cries and gesticulations. He had whipped under a table when 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, Alan had sat among his dinner things, James More had fled.

“Here,” I cried, “pay yourself,” and flung him down some Lewie d’ors; for I thought it was no time to be accounting.

He sprang upon that money, and we passed him by, and ran forth into the open. Upon three sides of the house were seamen hasting 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 windmill turning.

Alan gave but the one glance, and laid himself down to run. He carried a great weight in James More’s portmanteau; but I think he would as soon have lost his life as cast away that booty which was his revenge; and he ran so that I was distressed to follow him, and marvelled and exulted to see the girl bounding at my side.

As soon as we appeared, they cast off all disguise upon the other side; and the seamen pursued us with shouts and view-hullohs. We had a start of some two hundred yards, and they were but bandy-legged tarpaulins 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 began to feel quite easy of the issue. For all which, it was a hot, brisk bit of work, so long as it lasted; Dunkirk was still far off; and when we popped over a knowe, and found a company of the garrison marching on the other side on some manœuvre, I could very well understand the word that Alan had.

He stopped running at once; and mopping at his brow, “They’re a real bonny folk, the French nation,” says he.

CONCLUSION

No sooner were we safe within the walls of Dunkirk 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 likelihood clap me and Alan into gaol; and though we had an argument upon our side in Captain Palliser’s letter, neither Catriona nor I were very keen to be using it in public. Upon all accounts it seemed the most prudent to carry the girl to Paris, to the hands of her own chieftain, Macgregor of Bohaldie, who would be very willing to help his kinswoman on the one hand, and not at all anxious to dishonour James upon the other.

We made but a slow journey of it up, for Catriona was not so good at the riding as the running, and had scarce sat in a saddle since the ’Forty-five. But we made it out at last, reached Paris early of a Sabbath morning, and made all speed, under Alan’s guidance, to find Bohaldie. He was finely lodged, and lived in a good style, having a pension on the Scots Fund, as well as private means; greeted Catriona like one of his own house, and seemed altogether very civil and discreet, but not particularly open. We asked of the news of James More. “Poor James!” said he, and shook his head and smiled, so that I thought he knew further than he meant to tell. Then we showed him Palliser’s letter, and he drew a long face at that.

“Poor James!” said he again. “Well, there are worse folk than James More too. But this is dreadful bad. Tut, tut, he must have forgot himself entirely! This is a most undesirable letter. But, for all that, gentlemen, I cannot see what we would want to make it public for. It’s an ill bird that fouls his own nest, and we are all Scots folk, and all Hieland.”

Upon this we were all agreed, save perhaps Alan; and still more upon the question of our marriage, which Bohaldie took in his own hands, as though there had been no such person as James More, and gave Catriona away with very pretty manners and agreeable compliments in French. It was not till all was over, and our healths drunk, that he told us James was in that city, whither he had preceded us some days, and where he now lay sick, and like to die. I thought I saw by my wife’s face what way her inclination pointed.

“And let us go see him, then,” said I.

“If it is your pleasure,” said Catriona. These were early days.

He was lodged in the same quarter of the city with his chief, in a great house upon a corner; and we were guided up to the garret where he lay by the sound of Highland piping. It seemed he had just borrowed a set of them from Bohaldie to amuse his sickness; though he was no such hand as was his brother Rob, he made good music of the kind; and it was strange to observe the French folk crowding on the stairs, and some of them laughing. He lay propped in a pallet. The first look of him I saw he was upon his last business; and, doubtless, this was a strange place for him to die in. But even now I find I can scarce dwell upon his end with patience. Doubtless, Bohaldie had prepared him; he seemed to know we were married, complimented us on the event, and gave us a benediction like a patriarch.

“I have been never understood,” said he. “I forgive you both without an afterthought”; after which he spoke for all the world in his old manner, was so obliging as to play us a tune or two upon his pipes, and borrowed a small sum before I left. I could not trace even a hint of shame in any part of his behaviour; but he was great upon forgiveness; it seemed always fresh to him. I think he forgave me every time we met; and when after some four days he passed away in a kind of odour of affectionate sanctity, I could have torn my hair out for exasperation. I had him buried; but what to put upon his tomb was quite beyond me, till at last I considered the date would look best alone.

I thought it wiser to resign all thoughts of Leyden, where we had appeared once as brother and sister, and it would certainly look strange to return in a new character. Scotland would be doing for us; and thither, after I had recovered that which I had left behind, we sailed in a Low Country ship.

And now, Miss Barbara Balfour (to set the ladies first), and Mr. Alan Balfour, younger of Shaws, here is the story brought fairly to an end. A great many of the folk that took a part in it you will find (if you think well) that you have seen and spoken with. Alison Hastie in Limekilns was the lass that rocked your cradle when you were too small to know of it, and walked abroad with you in the policy when you were bigger. That very fine great lady that is Miss Barbara’s name-mamma is no other than the same Miss Grant that made so much a fool of David Balfour in the house of the Lord Advocate. And I wonder whether you remember a little, lean, lively gentleman in a scratch-wig and a wraprascal, that came to Shaws very late of a dark night, and whom ye were awakened out of your beds and brought down to the dining-hall to be presented to, by the name of Mr. Jamieson? Or has Alan forgotten what he did at Mr. Jamieson’s request – a most disloyal act – for which, by the letter of the law, he might be hanged – no less than drinking the king’s health across the water? These were strange doings in a good Whig house! But Mr. Jamieson is a man privileged, and might set fire to my corn-barn; and the name they know him by now in France is the Chevalier Stewart.

As for Davie and Catriona, I shall watch you pretty close in the next days, and see if you are so bold as to be laughing at papa and mamma. It is true we were not so wise as we might have been, and made a great deal of sorrow out of nothing; but you will find as you grow up that even the artful Miss Barbara, and even the valiant Mr. Alan, will be not so very much wiser than their parents. For the life of man upon this world of ours is a funny business. They talk of the angels weeping; but I think they must more often be holding their sides, as they look on; and there was one thing I determined to do when I began this long story, and that was to tell out everything as it befell.