‘Come, Mr Balfour,’ they cried, ‘come and see. She is the most beautiful creature! She hangs round the close-head these last days, always with some wretched-like gillies, and yet seems quite a lady.’
I had no need to look; neither did I look twice, or long. I was afraid she might have seen me there, looking down upon her from that chamber of music, and she without, and her father in the same house, perhaps begging for his life with tears, and myself come but newly from rejecting his petitions. But even that glance set me in a better conceit of myself, and much less awe of the young ladies. They were beautiful, that was beyond question, but Catriona was beautiful too, and had a kind of brightness in her like a coal of fire. As much as the others cast me down, she lifted me up. I remembered I had talked easily with her. If I could make no hand of it with these fine maids, it was perhaps something their own fault. My embarrassment began to be a little mingled and lightened with a sense of fun; and when the aunt smiled at me from her embroidery, and the three daughters unbent to me like a baby, all with ‘papa’s orders’ written on their faces, there were times when I could have found it in my heart to smile myself.
Presently papa returned, the same kind, happy-like, pleasant-spoken man.
‘Now, girls,’ said he, ‘I must take Mr Balfour away again; but I hope you have been able to persuade him to return where I shall be always gratified to find him.’
So they each made me a little farthing compliment, and I was led away.
If this visit to the family had been meant to soften my resistance, it was the worst of failures. I was no such ass but what I understood how poor a figure I had made, and that the girls would be yawning their jaws off as soon as my stiff back was turned, I felt I had shown how little I had in me of what was soft and graceful; and I longed for a chance to prove that I had something of the other stuff, the stern and dangerous.
Well, I was to be served to my desire, for the scene to which he was conducting me was of a different character.
THERE WAS A man waiting us in Prestongrange’s study, whom I distasted at the first look, as we distaste a ferret or an earwig. He was bitter ugly, but seemed very much of a gentleman; had still manners, but capable of sudden leaps and violences; and a small voice, which could ring out shrill and dangerous when he so desired.
The Advocate presented us in a familiar, friendly way.
‘Here, Fraser,’ said he, ‘here is Mr Balfour whom we talked about. Mr David, this is Mr Simon Fraser, whom we used to call by another title, but that is an old song. Mr Fraser has an errand to you.’
With that he stepped aside to his book-shelves, and made believe to consult a quarto volume in the far end.
I was thus left (in a sense) alone with perhaps the last person in the world I had expected. There was no doubt upon the terms of introduction; this could be no other than the forfeited Master of Lovat and chief of the great clan Fraser. I knew he had led his men in the Rebellion; I knew his father’s head—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 attainted. 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 currying favour with the Government even to the extent of acting Advocate-Depute in the Appin murder.
‘Well, Mr Balfour,’ said he, ‘what is all this I hear of ye?’
‘It would not become me to prejudge,’ 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 Appin case,’ he went on; ‘I am to appear under Prestongrange; and from my study of the precognitions I can assure you your opinions are erroneous. The guilt of Breck is manifest; and your testimony, in which you admit you saw him on the hill at the very moment, will certify 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 Balfour, 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: experto crede. I daresay you know something of my name and clan, and the damnable example and lamented end of my late father, to say nothing of my own errata. Well, I have made my peace with that good Duke; he has intervened for me with our friend Prestongrange; and here I am with my foot in the stirrup again and some of the responsibility shared into my hand of prosecuting King George’s enemies and avenging the late daring and barefaced insult to his Majesty.’
‘Doubtless a proud position for your father’s son,’ says I.
He wagged his bald eyebrows at me. ‘You are pleased to make experiments in the ironical, 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 shove in the beginning will do more than ten years’ drudgery. The shove 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 docility 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-mannered colt of a boy?’ he cried. ‘This has been made a test case, all who would prosper in the future must put a shoulder to the wheel. Look at me! Do you suppose it is for my pleasure that I put myself in the highly invidious position of prosecuting a man that I have drawn the sword alongside of? The choice is not left me.’
‘But I think, sir, that you forfeited 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. Prestongrange has been hitherto so civil (he tells me) as not to combat your allegations; 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 Mungo Campbell; your flight after the completion of the murder; your long course of secrecy— my good young man!’ said Mr Simon, ‘here is enough evidence to hang a bullock, let be a David Balfour! 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 waver, Mr David! You see the grave and the gallows nearer by than you had fancied.’
‘I own to a natural weakness,’ said Ι. ‘I think no shame for that. Shame …’ I was going on.
‘Shame waits for you on the gibbet,’ he broke in.
‘Where I shall but be even’d with my lord your father,’ said I.
‘Aha,