David Balfour

  CHAPTER XXIV

  FULL STORY OF A COPY OF HEINECCIUS

  The place found was in the upper part of a house backed on a canal. Wehad two rooms, the second entering from the first; each had a chimneybuilt out into the floor in the Dutch manner; and being alongside, eachhad the same prospect from the window of the top of a tree below us in alittle court, of a piece of the canal, and of houses in the Hollandsarchitecture and a church spire upon the further side. A full set ofbells hung in that spire and made delightful music; and when there wasany sun at all, it shone direct in our two chambers. From a tavern hardby we had good meals sent in.

  The first night we were both pretty weary, and she extremely so. Therewas little talk between us, and I packed her off to her bed as soon asshe had eaten. The first thing in the morning I wrote word to Sprott tohave her mails sent on, together with a line to Alan at his chief's; andhad the same dispatched, and her breakfast ready, ere I waked her. I wasa little abashed when she came forth in her one habit, and the mud ofthe way upon her stockings. By what inquiries I had made, it seemed agood few days must pass before her mails could come to hand in Leyden,and it was plainly needful she must have a shift of things. She wasunwilling at first that I should go to that expense; but I reminded hershe was now a rich man's sister and must appear suitably in the part,and we had not got to the second merchant's before she was entirelycharmed into the spirit of the thing, and her eyes shining. It pleasedme to see her so innocent and thorough in this pleasure. What was moreextraordinary was the passion into which I fell on it myself; beingnever satisfied that I had bought her enough or fine enough, and neverweary of beholding her in different attires. Indeed, I began tounderstand some little of Miss Grant's immersion in that interest ofclothes; for the truth is, when you have the ground of a beautifulperson to adorn, the whole business becomes beautiful. The Dutchchintzes I should say were extraordinary cheap and fine; but I would beashamed to set down what I paid for stockings to her. Altogether I spentso great a sum upon this pleasuring (as I may call it) that I wasashamed for a great while to spend more; and by way of a set off, I leftour chambers pretty bare. If we had beds, if Catriona was a little braw,and I had light to see her by, we were richly enough lodged for me.

  By the end of this merchandising I was glad to leave her at the doorwith all our purchases, and go for a long walk alone in which to readmyself a lecture. Here had I taken under my roof, and as good as to mybosom, a young lass extremely beautiful, and whose innocence was herperil. My talk with the old Dutchman, and the lies to which I wasconstrained, had already given me a sense of how my conduct must appearto others; and now, after the strong admiration I had just experiencedand the immoderacy with which I had continued my vain purchases, I beganto think of it myself as very hasarded. I bethought me, if I had asister indeed, whether I would so expose her; then, judging the case tooproblematical, I varied my question into this, whether I would so trustCatriona in the hands of any other Christian being: the answer to whichmade my face to burn. The more cause, since I had been entrapped and hadentrapped the girl into an undue situation, that I should behave in itwith scrupulous nicety. She depended on me wholly for her bread andshelter; in case I should alarm her delicacy, she had no retreat.Besides, I was her host and her protector; and the more irregularly Ihad fallen in these positions, the less excuse for me if I should profitby the same to forward even the most honest suit; for with theopportunities that I enjoyed, and which no wise parent would havesuffered for a moment, even the most honest suit would be unfair. I sawI must be extremely hold-off in my relations; and yet not too much soneither; for if I had no right to appear at all in the character of asuitor, I must yet appear continually, and if possible agreeably, inthat of host. It was plain I should require a great deal of tact andconduct, perhaps more than my years afforded. But I had rushed in whereangels might have feared to tread, and there was no way out of thatposition, save by behaving right while I was in it. I made a set ofrules for my guidance; prayed for strength to be enabled to observethem, and as a more human aid to the same end purchased a study book inlaw. This being all that I could think of, I relaxed from these graveconsiderations; whereupon my mind bubbled at once into an effervescencyof pleasing spirits, and it was like one treading on air that I turnedhomeward. As I thought that name of home, and recalled the image of thatfigure awaiting me between four walls, my heart beat upon my bosom.

  My troubles began with my return. She ran to greet me with an obviousand affecting pleasure. She was clad, besides, entirely in the newclothes that I had bought for her; looked in them beyond expressionwell; and must walk about and drop me curtseys to display them and to beadmired. I am sure I did it with an ill grace, for I thought to havechoked upon the words.

  "Well," she said, "if you will not be caring for my pretty clothes, seewhat I have done with our two chambers." And she showed me the place allvery finely swept and the fires glowing in the two chimneys.

  I was glad of a chance to seem a little more severe than I quite felt."Catriona," said I, "I am very much displeased with you, and you mustnever again lay a hand upon my room. One of us two must have the rulewhile we are here together; it is most fit it should be I who am boththe man and the elder; and I give you that for my command."

  She dropped me one of her curtseys which were extraordinary taking. "Ifyou will be cross," said she, "I must be making pretty manners at you,Davie. I will be very obedient, as I should be when every stitch uponall there is of me belongs to you. But you will not be very crosseither, because now I have not anyone else."

  This struck me hard, and I made haste, in a kind of penitence, to blotout all the good effect of my last speech. In this direction, progresswas more easy, being down hill; she led me forward, smiling; at thesight of her, in the brightness of the fire and with her pretty becksand looks, my heart was altogether melted. We made our meal withinfinite mirth and tenderness; and the two seemed to be commingled intoone, so that our very laughter sounded like a kindness.

  In the midst of which I awoke to better recollections, made a lame wordof excuse, and set myself boorishly to my studies. It was a substantial,instructive book that I had bought, by the late Dr. Heineccius, in whichI was to do a great deal of reading these next days, and often very gladthat I had no one to question me of what I read. Methought she bit herlip at me a little, and that cut me. Indeed it left her wholly solitary,the more as she was very little of a reader, and had never a book. Butwhat was I to do?

  So the rest of the evening flowed by almost without speech.

  I could have beat myself. I could not lie in my bed that night for rageand repentance, but walked to and fro on my bare feet till I was nearlyperished, for the chimney was gone out and the frost keen. The thoughtof her in the next room, the thought that she might even hear me as Iwalked, the remembrance of my churlishness and that I must continue topractise the same ungrateful course or be dishonoured, put me beside myreason. I stood like a man between Scylla and Charybdis: _What must shethink of me_? was my one thought that softened me continually intoweakness. _What is to become of us_? the other which steeled me again toresolution. This was my first night of wakefulness and divided counsels,of which I was now to pass many, pacing like a madman, sometimes weepinglike a childish boy, sometimes praying (I would fain hope) like aChristian.

  But prayer is not very difficult, and the hitch comes in practice. Inher presence, and above all if I allowed any beginning of familiarity, Ifound I had very little command of what should follow. But to sit allday in the same room with her, and feign to be engaged upon Heineccius,surpassed my strength. So that I fell instead upon the expedient ofabsenting myself so much as I was able; taking out classes and sittingthere regularly, often with small attention, the test of which I foundthe other day in a note-book of that period, where I had left off tofollow an edifying lecture and actually scribbled in my book some veryill verses, though the Latinity is rather better than I thought I couldever have compassed. The evil of this course was unhappily near as gre
atas its advantage. I had the less time of trial, but I believe, whilethat time lasted, I was tried the more extremely. For she being so muchleft to solitude, she came to greet my return with an increasing fervourthat came nigh to overmaster me. These friendly offers I mustbarbarously cast back; and my rejection sometimes wounded her so cruellythat I must unbend and seek to make it up to her in kindness. So thatour time passed in ups and downs, tiffs and disappointments, upon thewhich I could almost say (if it may be said with reverence) that I wascrucified.

  The base of my trouble was Catriona's extraordinary innocence, at whichI was not so much surprised as filled with pity and admiration. Sheseemed to have no thought of our position, no sense of my struggles;welcomed any mark of my weakness with responsive joy; and when I wasdrove again to my retrenchments, did not always dissemble her chagrin.There were times when I have thought to myself, 'If she were over headin love, and set her cap to catch me, she would scarce behave muchotherwise;' and then I would fall again into wonder at the simplicity ofwoman, from whom I felt (in these moments) that I was not worthy to bedescended.

  There was one point in particular on which our warfare turned, and ofall things, this was the question of her clothes. My baggage had soonfollowed me from Rotterdam, and hers from Helvoet. She had now, as itwere, two wardrobes; and it grew to be understood between us (I couldnever tell how) that when she was friendly she would wear my clothes,and when otherwise her own. It was meant for a buffet, and (as it were)the renunciation of her gratitude; and I felt it so in my bosom, but wasgenerally more wise than to appear to have observed the circumstance.

  Once, indeed, I was betrayed into a childishness greater than her own;it fell in this way. On my return from classes, thinking upon herdevoutly with a great deal of love and a good deal of annoyance in thebargain, the annoyance began to fade away out of my mind; and spying ina window one of those forced flowers, of which the Hollanders are soskilled in the artifice, I gave way to an impulse and bought it forCatriona. I do not know the name of that flower, but it was of the pinkcolour, and I thought she would admire the same, and carried it home toher with a wonderful soft heart. I had left her in my clothes, and whenI returned to find her all changed and a face to match, I cast but theone look at her from head to foot, ground my teeth together, flung thewindow open, and my flower into the court, and then (between rage andprudence) myself out of that room again, of which I slammed the door asI went out.

  On the steep stair I came near falling, and this brought me to myself,so that I began at once to see the folly of my conduct. I went, not intothe street as I had purposed, but to the house court, which was always asolitary place, and where I saw my flower (that had cost me vastly morethan it was worth) hanging in the leafless tree. I stood by the side ofthe canal, and looked upon the ice. Country people went by on theirskates, and I envied them. I could see no way out of the pickle I wasin: no way so much as to return to the room I had just left. No doubtwas in my mind but I had now betrayed the secret of my feelings; and tomake things worse, I had shown at the same time (and that with wretchedboyishness) incivility to my helpless guest.

  I suppose she must have seen me from the open window. It did not seem tome that I had stood there very long before I heard the crunching offootsteps on the frozen snow, and turning somewhat angrily (for I was inno spirit to be interrupted) saw Catriona drawing near. She was allchanged again, to the clocked stockings.

  "Are we not to have our walk to-day?" said she.

  I was looking at her in a maze. "Where is your brooch?" says I.

  She carried her hand to her bosom and coloured high. "I will haveforgotten it," said she. "I will run upstairs for it quick, and thensurely we'll can have our walk?"

  There was a note of pleading in that last that staggered me; I hadneither words nor voice to utter them; I could do no more than nod byway of answer; and the moment she had left me, climbed into the tree andrecovered my flower, which on her return I offered her.

  "I bought it for you, Catriona," said I.

  She fixed it in the midst of her bosom with the brooch, I could havethought tenderly.

  "It is none the better of my handling," said I again, and blushed.

  "I will be liking it none the worse, you may be sure of that," said she.

  We did not speak so much that day, she seemed a thought on the reservethough not unkindly. As for me, all the time of our walking, and afterwe came home, and I had seen her put my flower into a pot of water, Iwas thinking to myself what puzzles women were. I was thinking, the onemoment, it was the most stupid thing on earth she should not haveperceived my love; and the next, that she had certainly perceived itlong ago, and (being a wise girl with the fine female instinct ofpropriety) concealed her knowledge.

  We had our walk daily. Out in the streets I felt more safe; I relaxed alittle in my guardedness; and for one thing, there was no Heineccius.This made these periods not only a relief to myself, but a particularpleasure to my poor child. When I came back about the hour appointed, Iwould generally find her ready dressed and glowing with anticipation.She would prolong their duration to the extreme, seeming to dread (as Idid myself) the hour of the return; and there is scarce a field orwaterside near Leyden, scarce a street or lane there, where we have notlingered. Outside of these, I bade her confine herself entirely to ourlodgings; this in the fear of her encountering any acquaintance, whichwould have rendered our position very difficult. From the sameapprehension I would never suffer her to attend church, nor even gomyself; but made some kind of shift to hold worship privately in our ownchamber--I hope with an honest, but I am quite sure with a very muchdivided mind. Indeed, there was scarce anything that more affected me,than thus to kneel down alone with her before God like man and wife.

  One day it was snowing downright hard. I had thought it not possiblethat we should venture forth, and was surprised to find her waiting forme ready dressed.

  "I will not be doing without my walk," she cried. "You are never a goodboy, Davie, in the house; I will never be caring for you only in theopen air. I think we two will better turn Egyptian and dwell by theroadside."

  That was the best walk yet of all of them; she clung near to me in thefalling snow; it beat about and melted on us, and the drops stood uponher bright cheeks like tears and ran into her smiling mouth. Strengthseemed to come upon me with the sight like a giant's; I thought I couldhave caught her up and run with her into the uttermost places in theearth; and we spoke together all that time beyond belief for freedom andsweetness.

  It was the dark night when we came to the house door. She pressed my armupon her bosom. "Thank you kindly for these same good hours," said she,on a deep note of her voice.

  The concern in which I fell instantly on this address, put me with thesame swiftness on my guard; and we were no sooner in the chamber, andthe light made, than she beheld the old, dour, stubborn countenance ofthe student of Heineccius. Doubtless she was more than usually hurt; andI know for myself, I found it more than usually difficult to maintain mystrangeness. Even at the meal, I durst scarce unbuckle and scarce liftmy eyes to her; and it was no sooner over than I fell again to mycivilian, with more seeming abstraction and less understanding thanbefore. Methought, as I-read, I could hear my heart strike like aneight-day clock. Hard as I feigned to study, there was still some of myeyesight that spilled beyond the book upon Catriona. She sat on thefloor by the side of my great mail, and the chimney lighted her up, andshone and blinked upon her, and made her glow and darken through awonder of fine hues. Now she would be gazing in the fire, and then againat me; and at that I would be plunged in a terror of myself, and turnthe pages of Heineccius like a man looking for the text in church.

  Suddenly she called out aloud, "O, why does not my father come?" shecried, and fell at once into a storm of tears.

  I leaped up, flung Heineccius fairly into the fire, ran to her side, andcast an arm around her sobbing body.

  She put me from her sharply. "You do not love your friend," says she. "Icould be so happy to
o, if you would let me!" And then, "O, what will Ihave done that you should hate me so?"

  "Hate you!" cries I, and held her firm. "You blind lass, can you not seea little in my wretched heart? Do you think when I set there, reading inthat fool-book that I have just burned and be damned to it, I take everthe least thought of any stricken thing but just yourself? Night afternight I could have grat to see you sitting there your lone. And what wasI to do? You are here under my honour; would you punish me for that? Isit for that that you would spurn a loving servant?"

  At the word, with a small, sudden motion, she clung near to me. I raisedher face to mine, I kissed it, and she bowed her brow upon my bosom,clasping me tight. I sat in a mere whirl like a man drunken. Then Iheard her voice sound very small and muffled in my clothes.

  "Did you kiss her truly?" she asked.

  There went through me so great a heave of surprise that I was all shookwith it.

  "Miss Grant!" I cried, all in a disorder. "Yes, I asked her to kiss megood-bye, the which she did."

  "Ah, well!" said she, "you have kissed me too, at all events."

  At the strangeness and sweetness of that word, I saw where we hadfallen; rose, and set her on her feet.

  "This will never do," said I. "This will never, never do. O Catrine,Catrine!" Then there came a pause in which I was debarred from anyspeaking. And then, "Go away to your bed," said I. "Go away to your bedand leave me."

  She turned to obey me like a little child, and the next I knew of it,had stopped in the very doorway.

  "Good night, Davie!" said she.

  "And O, good night, my love!" I cried, with a great outbreak of my soul,and caught her to me again, so that it seemed I must have broken her.The next moment I had thrust her from the room, shut to the door evenwith violence, and stood alone.

  The milk was spilt now, the word was out and the truth told. I had creptlike an untrusty man into the poor maid's affections; she was in my handlike any frail, innocent thing to make or mar; and what weapon ofdefence was left me? It seemed like a symbol that Heinoccius, my oldprotection, was now burned. I repented, yet could not find it in myheart to blame myself for that great failure. It seemed not possible tohave resisted the boldness of her innocence or that last temptation ofher weeping. And all that I had to excuse me did but make my sin appearthe greater--it was upon a nature so defenceless, and with suchadvantages of the position, that I seemed to have practised.

  What was to become of us now? It seemed we could no longer dwell in theone place. But where was I to go? or where she? Without either choice orfault of ours, life had conspired to wall us together in that narrowplace. I had a wild thought of marrying out of hand; and the next momentput it from me with revolt. She was a child, she could not tell her ownheart; I had surprised her weakness, I must never go on to build on thatsurprisal; I must keep her not only clear of reproach, but free as shehad come to me.

  Down I sat before the fire, and reflected, and repented, and beat mybrains in vain for any means of escape. About two of the morning, therewere three red embers left and the house and all the city was asleep,when I was aware of a small sound of weeping in the next room. Shethought that I slept, the poor soul; she regretted her weakness--andwhat perhaps (God help her!) she called her forwardness--and in the deadof the night solaced herself with tears. Tender and bitter feelings,love and penitence and pity struggled in my soul; it seemed I was underbond to heal that weeping.

  "O, try to forgive me!" I cried out, "try, try to forgive me. Let usforget it all, let us try if we'll no can forget it!"

  There came no answer, but the sobbing ceased. I stood a long while withmy hands still clasped as I had spoken; then the cold of the night laidhold upon me with a shudder, and I think my reason reawakened.

  "You can make no hand of this, Davie," thinks I. "To bed with you like awise lad, and try if you can sleep. To-morrow you may see your way."

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