So fill up
here with good advice. Do not be too blate, {25} and for God's
sake do not try to be too forward; nothing acts you worse. I am
"Your affectionate friend and governess,
"BARBARA GRANT."
I wrote a word of answer and compliment on a leaf out of my
pocketbook, put it in with another scratch from Catriona, sealed
the whole with my new signet of the Balfour arms, and despatched it
by the hand of Prestongrange's servant that still waited in my
boat.
Then we had time to look upon each other more at leisure, which we
had not done for a piece of a minute before (upon a common impulse)
we shook hands again.
"Catriona?" said I. It seemed that was the first and last word of
my eloquence.
"You will be glad to see me again?" says she.
"And I think that is an idle word," said I. "We are too deep
friends to make speech upon such trifles."
"Is she not the girl of all the world?" she cried again. "I was
never knowing such a girl so honest and so beautiful."
"And yet she cared no more for Alpin than what she did for a kale-
stock," said I.
"Ah, she will say so indeed!" cries Catriona. "Yet it was for the
name and the gentle kind blood that she took me up and was so good
to me."
"Well, I will tell you why it was," said I. "There are all sorts
of people's faces in this world. There is Barbara's face, that
everyone must look at and admire, and think her a fine, brave,
merry girl. And then there is your face, which is quite different-
-I never knew how different till to-day. You cannot see yourself,
and that is why you do not understand; but it was for the love of
your face that she took you up and was so good to you. And
everybody in the world would do the same."
"Everybody?" says she.
"Every living soul?" said I.
"Ah, then, that will be why the soldiers at the castle took me up!"
she cried,
"Barbara has been teaching you to catch me," said I.
"She will have taught me more than that at all events. She will
have taught me a great deal about Mr. David--all the ill of him,
and a little that was not so ill either, now and then," she said,
smiling. "She will have told me all there was of Mr. David, only
just that he would sail upon this very same ship. And why it is
you go?"
I told her.
"Ah, well," said she, "we will be some days in company and then (I
suppose) good-bye for altogether! I go to meet my father at a
place of the name of Helvoetsluys, and from there to France, to be
exiles by the side of our chieftain."
I could say no more than just "O!" the name of James More always
drying up my very voice.
She was quick to perceive it, and to guess some portion of my
thought.
"There is one thing I must be saying first of all, Mr. David," said
she. "I think two of my kinsfolk have not behaved to you
altogether very well. And the one of them two is James More, my
father, and the other is the Laird of Prestongrange. Prestongrange
will have spoken by himself, or his daughter in the place of him.
But for James More, my father, I have this much to say: he lay
shackled in a prison; he is a plain honest soldier and a plain
Highland gentleman; what they would be after he would never be
guessing; but if he had understood it was to be some prejudice to a
young gentleman like yourself, he would have died first. And for
the sake of all your friendships, I will be asking you to pardon my
father and family for that same mistake."
"Catriona," said I, "what that mistake was I do not care to know.
I know but the one thing--that you went to Prestongrange and begged
my life upon your knees. O, I ken well enough it was for your
father that you went, but when you were there you pleaded for me
also. It is a thing I cannot speak of. There are two things I
cannot think of into myself: and the one is your good words when
you called yourself my little friend, and the other that you
pleaded for my life.