CHAPTER II
I COME TO MY JOURNEY'S END
On the forenoon of the second day, coming to the top of a hill, I sawall the country fall away before me down to the sea; and in the midstof this descent, on a long ridge, the city of Edinburgh smoking likea kiln. There was a flag upon the castle, and ships moving or lyinganchored in the firth; both of which, for as far away as they were, Icould distinguish clearly; and both brought my country heart into mymouth.
Presently after, I came by a house where a shepherd lived, and got arough direction for the neighbourhood of Cramond; and so, from one toanother, worked my way to the westward of the capital by Colinton, tillI came out upon the Glasgow road. And there, to my great pleasure andwonder, I beheld a regiment marching to the fifes, every foot in time;an old red-faced general on a grey horse at the one end, and at theother the company of Grenadiers, with their Pope's-hats. The pride oflife seemed to mount into my brain at the sight of the red coats and thehearing of that merry music.
A little farther on, and I was told I was in Cramond parish, and beganto substitute in my inquiries the name of the house of Shaws. It was aword that seemed to surprise those of whom I sought my way. At first Ithought the plainness of my appearance, in my country habit, and thatall dusty from the road, consorted ill with the greatness of the placeto which I was bound. But after two, or maybe three, had given me thesame look and the same answer, I began to take it in my head there wassomething strange about the Shaws itself.
The better to set this fear at rest, I changed the form of my inquiries;and spying an honest fellow coming along a lane on the shaft of hiscart, I asked him if he had ever heard tell of a house they called thehouse of Shaws.
He stopped his cart and looked at me, like the others.
"Ay" said he. "What for?"
"It's a great house?" I asked.
"Doubtless," says he. "The house is a big, muckle house."
"Ay," said I, "but the folk that are in it?"
"Folk?" cried he. "Are ye daft? There's nae folk there--to call folk."
"What?" say I; "not Mr. Ebenezer?"
"Ou, ay" says the man; "there's the laird, to be sure, if it's himyou're wanting. What'll like be your business, mannie?"
"I was led to think that I would get a situation," I said, looking asmodest as I could.
"What?" cries the carter, in so sharp a note that his very horsestarted; and then, "Well, mannie," he added, "it's nane of my affairs;but ye seem a decent-spoken lad; and if ye'll take a word from me, ye'llkeep clear of the Shaws."
The next person I came across was a dapper little man in a beautifulwhite wig, whom I saw to be a barber on his rounds; and knowing wellthat barbers were great gossips, I asked him plainly what sort of a manwas Mr. Balfour of the Shaws.
"Hoot, hoot, hoot," said the barber, "nae kind of a man, nae kind of aman at all;" and began to ask me very shrewdly what my business was;but I was more than a match for him at that, and he went on to his nextcustomer no wiser than he came.
I cannot well describe the blow this dealt to my illusions. The moreindistinct the accusations were, the less I liked them, for they leftthe wider field to fancy. What kind of a great house was this, that allthe parish should start and stare to be asked the way to it? or whatsort of a gentleman, that his ill-fame should be thus current on thewayside? If an hour's walking would have brought me back to Essendean, Ihad left my adventure then and there, and returned to Mr. Campbell's.But when I had come so far a way already, mere shame would not suffer meto desist till I had put the matter to the touch of proof; I was bound,out of mere self-respect, to carry it through; and little as I likedthe sound of what I heard, and slow as I began to travel, I still keptasking my way and still kept advancing.
It was drawing on to sundown when I met a stout, dark, sour-lookingwoman coming trudging down a hill; and she, when I had put my usualquestion, turned sharp about, accompanied me back to the summit she hadjust left, and pointed to a great bulk of building standing very bareupon a green in the bottom of the next valley. The country was pleasantround about, running in low hills, pleasantly watered and wooded, andthe crops, to my eyes, wonderfully good; but the house itself appearedto be a kind of ruin; no road led up to it; no smoke arose from any ofthe chimneys; nor was there any semblance of a garden. My heart sank."That!" I cried.
The woman's face lit up with a malignant anger. "That is the house ofShaws!" she cried. "Blood built it; blood stopped the building of it;blood shall bring it down. See here!" she cried again--"I spit uponthe ground, and crack my thumb at it! Black be its fall! If ye see thelaird, tell him what ye hear; tell him this makes the twelve hunner andnineteen time that Jennet Clouston has called down the curse on himand his house, byre and stable, man, guest, and master, wife, miss, orbairn--black, black be their fall!"
And the woman, whose voice had risen to a kind of eldritch sing-song,turned with a skip, and was gone. I stood where she left me, with myhair on end. In those days folk still believed in witches and trembledat a curse; and this one, falling so pat, like a wayside omen, to arrestme ere I carried out my purpose, took the pith out of my legs.
I sat me down and stared at the house of Shaws. The more I looked,the pleasanter that country-side appeared; being all set with hawthornbushes full of flowers; the fields dotted with sheep; a fine flight ofrooks in the sky; and every sign of a kind soil and climate; and yet thebarrack in the midst of it went sore against my fancy.
Country folk went by from the fields as I sat there on the side of theditch, but I lacked the spirit to give them a good-e'en. At last the sunwent down, and then, right up against the yellow sky, I saw a scroll ofsmoke go mounting, not much thicker, as it seemed to me, than the smokeof a candle; but still there it was, and meant a fire, and warmth, andcookery, and some living inhabitant that must have lit it; and thiscomforted my heart.
So I set forward by a little faint track in the grass that led in mydirection. It was very faint indeed to be the only way to a placeof habitation; yet I saw no other. Presently it brought me to stoneuprights, with an unroofed lodge beside them, and coats of arms uponthe top. A main entrance it was plainly meant to be, but never finished;instead of gates of wrought iron, a pair of hurdles were tied acrosswith a straw rope; and as there were no park walls, nor any sign ofavenue, the track that I was following passed on the right hand of thepillars, and went wandering on toward the house.
The nearer I got to that, the drearier it appeared. It seemed like theone wing of a house that had never been finished. What should have beenthe inner end stood open on the upper floors, and showed against the skywith steps and stairs of uncompleted masonry. Many of the windows wereunglazed, and bats flew in and out like doves out of a dove-cote.
The night had begun to fall as I got close; and in three of the lowerwindows, which were very high up and narrow, and well barred, thechanging light of a little fire began to glimmer. Was this the palaceI had been coming to? Was it within these walls that I was to seeknew friends and begin great fortunes? Why, in my father's house onEssen-Waterside, the fire and the bright lights would show a mile away,and the door open to a beggar's knock!
I came forward cautiously, and giving ear as I came, heard some onerattling with dishes, and a little dry, eager cough that came in fits;but there was no sound of speech, and not a dog barked.
The door, as well as I could see it in the dim light, was a great pieceof wood all studded with nails; and I lifted my hand with a faint heartunder my jacket, and knocked once. Then I stood and waited. The househad fallen into a dead silence; a whole minute passed away, and nothingstirred but the bats overhead. I knocked again, and hearkened again.By this time my ears had grown so accustomed to the quiet, that Icould hear the ticking of the clock inside as it slowly counted out theseconds; but whoever was in that house kept deadly still, and must haveheld his breath.
I was in two minds whether to run away; but anger got the upper hand,and I began instead to rain kicks and buffets on the door, and to shoutout aloud for Mr.
Balfour. I was in full career, when I heard the coughright overhead, and jumping back and looking up, beheld a man's headin a tall nightcap, and the bell mouth of a blunderbuss, at one of thefirst-storey windows.
"It's loaded," said a voice.
"I have come here with a letter," I said, "to Mr. Ebenezer Balfour ofShaws. Is he here?"
"From whom is it?" asked the man with the blunderbuss.
"That is neither here nor there," said I, for I was growing very wroth.
"Well," was the reply, "ye can put it down upon the doorstep, and be offwith ye."
"I will do no such thing," I cried. "I will deliver it into Mr.Balfour's hands, as it was meant I should. It is a letter ofintroduction."
"A what?" cried the voice, sharply.
I repeated what I had said.
"Who are ye, yourself?" was the next question, after a considerablepause.
"I am not ashamed of my name," said I. "They call me David Balfour."
At that, I made sure the man started, for I heard the blunderbuss rattleon the window-sill; and it was after quite a long pause, and with acurious change of voice, that the next question followed:
"Is your father dead?"
I was so much surprised at this, that I could find no voice to answer,but stood staring.
"Ay," the man resumed, "he'll be dead, no doubt; and that'll be whatbrings ye chapping to my door." Another pause, and then defiantly,"Well, man," he said, "I'll let ye in;" and he disappeared from thewindow.