Catriona

Page 108

"You can make no hand of this, Davie," thinks I. "To bed with you

like a wise lad, and try if you can sleep. To-morrow you may see

your way."

CHAPTER XXV--THE RETURN OF JAMES MORE

I was called on the morrow out of a late and troubled slumber by a

knocking on my door, ran to open it, and had almost swooned with

the contrariety of my feelings, mostly painful; for on the

threshold, in a rough wraprascal and an extraordinary big laced

hat, there stood James More.

I ought to have been glad perhaps without admixture, for there was

a sense in which the man came like an answer to prayer. I had been

saying till my head was weary that Catriona and I must separate,

and looking till my head ached for any possible means of

separation. Here were the means come to me upon two legs, and joy

was the hindmost of my thoughts. It is to be considered, however,

that even if the weight of the future were lifted off me by the

man's arrival, the present heaved up the more black and menacing;

so that, as I first stood before him in my shirt and breeches, I

believe I took a leaping step backward like a person shot.

"Ah," said he, "I have found you, Mr, Balfour." And offered me his

large, fine hand, the which (recovering at the same time my post in

the doorway, as if with some thought of resistance) I took him by

doubtfully. "It is a remarkable circumstance how our affairs

appear to intermingle," he continued. "I am owing you an apology

for an unfortunate intrusion upon yours, which I suffered myself to

be entrapped into by my confidence in that false-face,

Prestongrange; I think shame to own to you that I was ever trusting

to a lawyer." He shrugged his shoulders with a very French air.

"But indeed the man is very plausible," says he. "And now it seems

that you have busied yourself handsomely in the matter of my

daughter, for whose direction I was remitted to yourself."

"I think, sir," said I, with a very painful air, "that it will be

necessary we two should have an explanation."

"There is nothing amiss?" he asked. "My agent, Mr. Sprott--"

"For God's sake moderate your voice!" I cried. "She must not hear

till we have had an explanation."

"She is in this place?" cries he.

"That is her chamber door," said I.

"You are here with her alone?" he asked.

"And who else would I have got to stay with us?" cries I.

I will do him the justice to admit that he turned pale.

"This is very unusual," said he. "This is a very unusual

circumstance. You are right, we must hold an explanation."

So saying he passed me by, and I must own the tall old rogue

appeared at that moment extraordinary dignified. He had now, for

the first time, the view of my chamber, which I scanned (I may say)

with his eyes. A bit of morning sun glinted in by the window pane,

and showed it off; my bed, my mails, and washing dish, with some

disorder of my clothes, and the unlighted chimney, made the only

plenishing; no mistake but it looked bare and cold, and the most

unsuitable, beggarly place conceivable to harbour a young lady. At

the same time came in on my mind the recollection of the clothes

that I had bought for her; and I thought this contrast of poverty

and prodigality bore an ill appearance.

He looked all about the chamber for a seat, and finding nothing

else to his purpose except my bed, took a place upon the side of

it; where, after I had closed the door, I could not very well avoid

joining him. For however this extraordinary interview might end,

it must pass if possible without waking Catriona; and the one thing

needful was that we should sit close and talk low. But I can

scarce picture what a pair we made; he in his great coat which the

coldness of my chamber made extremely suitable; I shivering in my

shirt and breeks; he with very much the air of a judge; and I

(whatever I looked) with very much the feelings of a man who has

heard the last trumpet.

Robert Louis Stevenson
Classic Literature Library

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