Catriona

Page 106

I was thinking, the one moment, it was the most stupid thing

on earth she should not have perceived my love; and the next, that

she had certainly perceived it long ago, and (being a wise girl

with the fine female instinct of propriety) concealed her

knowledge.

We had our walk daily. Out in the streets I felt more safe; I

relaxed a little in my guardedness; and for one thing, there was no

Heineccius. This made these periods not only a relief to myself,

but a particular pleasure to my poor child. When I came back about

the hour appointed, I would generally find her ready dressed, and

glowing with anticipation. She would prolong their duration to the

extreme, seeming to dread (as I did myself) the hour of the return;

and there is scarce a field or waterside near Leyden, scarce a

street or lane there, where we have not lingered. Outside of

these, I bade her confine herself entirely to our lodgings; this in

the fear of her encountering any acquaintance, which would have

rendered our position very difficult. From the same apprehension I

would never suffer her to attend church, nor even go myself; but

made some kind of shift to hold worship privately in our own

chamber--I hope with an honest, but I am quite sure with a very

much divided 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

possible that we should venture forth, and was surprised to find

her waiting for me ready dressed.

"I will not be doing without my walk," she cried. "You are never a

good boy, Davie, in the house; I will never be caring for you only

in the open air. I think we two will better turn Egyptian and

dwell by the roadside."

That was the best walk yet of all of them; she clung near to me in

the falling snow; it beat about and melted on us, and the drops

stood upon her bright cheeks like tears and ran into her smiling

mouth. Strength seemed to come upon me with the sight like a

giant's; I thought I could have caught her up and run with her into

the uttermost places in the earth; and we spoke together all that

time beyond belief for freedom and sweetness.

It was the dark night when we came to the house door. She pressed

my arm upon 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

the same swiftness on my guard; and we were no sooner in the

chamber, and the light made, than she beheld the old, dour,

stubborn countenance of the student of Heineccius. Doubtless she

was more than usually hurt; and I know for myself, I found it more

than usually difficult to maintain any strangeness. Even at the

meal, I durst scarce unbuckle and scarce lift my eyes to her; and

it was no sooner over than I fell again to my civilian, with more

seeming abstraction and less understanding than before. Methought,

as I read, I could hear my heart strike like an eight-day clock.

Hard as I feigned to study, there was still some of my eyesight

that spilled beyond the book upon Catriona. She sat on the floor

by the side of my great mail, and the chimney lighted her up, and

shone and blinked upon her, and made her glow and darken through a

wonder of fine hues. Now she would be gazing in the fire, and then

again at me; and at that I would be plunged in a terror of myself,

and turn the pages of Heineccius like a man looking for the text in

church.

Suddenly she called out aloud. "O, why does not my father come?"

she cried, and fell at once into a storm of tears.

I leaped up, flung Heineccius fairly in the fire, ran to her side,

and cast an arm around her sobbing body.

She put me from her sharply, "You do not love your friend," says

she. "I could be so happy too, if you would let me!" And then,

"O, what will I have done that you should hate me so?"

"Hate you!" cries I, and held her firm.

Robert Louis Stevenson
Classic Literature Library

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