"That I do, Mr. David, and will never tell," said she.
"Why that?" I asked.
"Well," she said, "I am a good friend, as you will soon discover;
and the chief of those that I am friend to is my papa. I assure
you, you will never heat nor melt me out of that, so you may spare
me your sheep's eyes; and adieu to your David-Balfourship for the
now."
"But there is yet one thing more," I cried. "There is one thing
that must be stopped, being mere ruin to herself, and to me too."
"Well," she said, "be brief; I have spent half the day on you
already."
"My Lady Allardyce believes," I began--"she supposes--she thinks
that I abducted her."
The colour came into Miss Grant's face, so that at first I was
quite abashed to find her ear so delicate, till I bethought me she
was struggling rather with mirth, a notion in which I was
altogether confirmed by the shaking of her voice as she replied -
"I will take up the defence of your reputation," she said. "You
may leave it in my hands."
And with that she withdrew out of the library.
CHAPTER XX--I CONTINUE TO MOVE IN GOOD SOCIETY
For about exactly two months I remained a guest in Prestongrange's
family, where I bettered my acquaintance with the bench, the bar,
and the flower of Edinburgh company. You are not to suppose my
education was neglected; on the contrary, I was kept extremely
busy. I studied the French, so as to be more prepared to go to
Leyden; I set myself to the fencing, and wrought hard, sometimes
three hours in the day, with notable advancement; at the suggestion
of my cousin, Pilrig, who was an apt musician, I was put to a
singing class; and by the orders of my Miss Grant, to one for the
dancing, at which I must say I proved far from ornamental.
However, all were good enough to say it gave me an address a little
more genteel; and there is no question but I learned to manage my
coat skirts and sword with more dexterity, and to stand in a room
as though the same belonged to me. My clothes themselves were all
earnestly re-ordered; and the most trifling circumstance, such as
where I should tie my hair, or the colour of my ribbon, debated
among the three misses like a thing of weight. One way with
another, no doubt I was a good deal improved to look at, and
acquired a bit of modest air that would have surprised the good
folks at Essendean.
The two younger misses were very willing to discuss a point of my
habiliment, because that was in the line of their chief thoughts.
I cannot say that they appeared any other way conscious of my
presence; and though always more than civil, with a kind of
heartless cordiality, could not hide how much I wearied them. As
for the aunt, she was a wonderful still woman; and I think she gave
me much the same attention as she gave the rest of the family,
which was little enough. The eldest daughter and the Advocate
himself were thus my principal friends, and our familiarity was
much increased by a pleasure that we took in common. Before the
court met we spent a day or two at the house of Grange, living very
nobly with an open table, and here it was that we three began to
ride out together in the fields, a practice afterwards maintained
in Edinburgh, so far as the Advocate's continual affairs permitted.
When we were put in a good frame by the briskness of the exercise,
the difficulties of the way, or the accidents of bad weather, my
shyness wore entirely off; we forgot that we were strangers, and
speech not being required, it flowed the more naturally on. Then
it was that they had my story from me, bit by bit, from the time
that I left Essendean, with my voyage and battle in the Covenant,
wanderings in the heather, etc.; and from the interest they found
in my adventures sprung the circumstance of a jaunt we made a
little later on, on a day when the courts were not sitting, and of
which I will tell a trifle more at length.