Not that I do not wish you to have a good pride and a
nice female delicacy; they become you well; but here you show them
to excess."
"Well, then, have you done?" said she.
"I have done," said I.
"A very good thing," said she, and we went on again, but now in
silence.
It was an eerie employment to walk in the gross night, beholding
only shadows and hearing nought but our own steps. At first, I
believe our hearts burned against each other with a deal of enmity;
but the darkness and the cold, and the silence, which only the
cocks sometimes interrupted, or sometimes the farmyard dogs, had
pretty soon brought down our pride to the dust; and for my own
particular, I would have jumped at any decent opening for speech.
Before the day peeped, came on a warmish rain, and the frost was
all wiped away from among our feet. I took my cloak to her and
sought to hap her in the same; she bade me, rather impatiently, to
keep it.
"Indeed and I will do no such thing," said I. "Here am I, a great,
ugly lad that has seen all kinds of weather, and here are you a
tender, pretty maid! My dear, you would not put me to a shame?"
Without more words she let me cover her; which as I was doing in
the darkness, I let my hand rest a moment on her shoulder, almost
like an embrace.
"You must try to be more patient of your friend," said I.
I thought she seemed to lean the least thing in the world against
my bosom, or perhaps it was but fancy.
"There will be no end to your goodness," said she.
And we went on again in silence; but now all was changed; and the
happiness that was in my heart was like a fire in a great chimney.
The rain passed ere day; it was but a sloppy morning as we came
into the town of Delft. The red gabled houses made a handsome show
on either hand of a canal; the servant lassies were out slestering
and scrubbing at the very stones upon the public highway; smoke
rose from a hundred kitchens; and it came in upon me strongly it
was time to break our fasts.
"Catriona," said I, "I believe you have yet a shilling and three
baubees?"
"Are you wanting it?" said she, and passed me her purse. "I am
wishing it was five pounds! What will you want it for?"
"And what have we been walking for all night, like a pair of waif
Egyptians!" says I. "Just because I was robbed of my purse and all
I possessed in that unchancy town of Rotterdam. I will tell you of
it now, because I think the worst is over, but we have still a good
tramp before us till we get to where my money is, and if you would
not buy me a piece of bread, I were like to go fasting."
She looked at me with open eyes. By the light of the new day she
was all black and pale for weariness, so that my heart smote me for
her. But as for her, she broke out laughing.
"My torture! are we beggars then!" she cried. "You too? O, I
could have wished for this same thing! And I am glad to buy your
breakfast to you. But it would be pleisand if I would have had to
dance to get a meal to you! For I believe they are not very well
acquainted with our manner of dancing over here, and might be
paying for the curiosity of that sight."
I could have kissed her for that word, not with a lover's mind, but
in a heat of admiration. For it always warms a man to see a woman
brave.
We got a drink of milk from a country wife but new come to the
town, and in a baker's, a piece of excellent, hot, sweet-smelling
bread, which we ate upon the road as we went on. That road from
Delft to the Hague is just five miles of a fine avenue shaded with
trees, a canal on the one hand, on the other excellent pastures of
cattle. It was pleasant here indeed.
"And now, Davie," said she, "what will you do with me at all
events?"
"It is what we have to speak of," said I, "and the sooner yet the
better. I can come by money in Leyden; that will be all well.