Kidnapped, Robert Louis Stevenson [best e book reader android .TXT] 📗
- Author: Robert Louis Stevenson
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“For kidnapping David,” says Alan.
“It’s a lee, it’s a black lee!” cried my uncle. “He was never kidnapped. He leed in his throat that tauld ye that. Kidnapped? He never was!”
“That’s no fault of mine nor yet of yours,” said Alan; “nor yet of Hoseason’s, if he’s a man that can be trusted.”
“What do ye mean?” cried Ebenezer. “Did Hoseason tell ye?”
“Why, ye donnered auld runt, how else would I ken?” cried Alan. “Hoseason and me are partners; we gang shares; so ye can see for yoursel’ what good ye can do leeing. And I must plainly say ye drove a fool’s bargain when ye let a man like the sailor-man so far forward in your private matters. But that’s past praying for; and ye must lie on your bed the way ye made it. And the point in hand is just this: what did ye pay him?”
“Has he tauld ye himsel’?” asked my uncle.
“That’s my concern,” said Alan.
“Weel,” said my uncle, “I dinnae care what he said, he leed, and the solemn God’s truth is this, that I gave him twenty pound. But I’ll be perfec’ly honest with ye: forby that, he was to have the selling of the lad in Caroliny, whilk would be as muckle mair, but no from my pocket, ye see.”
“Thank you, Mr. Thomson. That will do excellently well,” said the lawyer, stepping forward; and then mighty civilly, “Good-evening, Mr. Balfour,” said he.
And, “Good-evening, Uncle Ebenezer,” said I.
And, “It’s a braw nicht, Mr. Balfour,” added Torrance.
Never a word said my uncle, neither black nor white; but just sat where he was on the top door-step and stared upon us like a man turned to stone. Alan filched away his blunderbuss; and the lawyer, taking him by the arm, plucked him up from the doorstep, led him into the kitchen, whither we all followed, and set him down in a chair beside the hearth, where the fire was out and only a rush-light burning.
There we all looked upon him for a while, exulting greatly in our success, but yet with a sort of pity for the man’s shame.
“Come, come, Mr. Ebenezer,” said the lawyer, “you must not be down-hearted, for I promise you we shall make easy terms. In the meanwhile give us the cellar key, and Torrance shall draw us a bottle of your father’s wine in honour of the event.” Then, turning to me and taking me by the hand, “Mr. David,” says he, “I wish you all joy in your good fortune, which I believe to be deserved.” And then to Alan, with a spice of drollery, “Mr. Thomson, I pay you my compliment; it was most artfully conducted; but in one point you somewhat outran my comprehension. Do I understand your name to be James? or Charles? or is it George, perhaps?”
“And why should it be any of the three, sir?” quoth Alan, drawing himself up, like one who smelt an offence.
“Only, sir, that you mentioned a king’s name,” replied Rankeillor; “and as there has never yet been a King Thomson, or his fame at least has never come my way, I judged you must refer to that you had in baptism.”
This was just the stab that Alan would feel keenest, and I am free to confess he took it very ill. Not a word would he answer, but stepped off to the far end of the kitchen, and sat down and sulked; and it was not till I stepped after him, and gave him my hand, and thanked him by title as the chief spring of my success, that he began to smile a bit, and was at last prevailed upon to join our party.
By that time we had the fire lighted, and a bottle of wine uncorked; a good supper came out of the basket, to which Torrance and I and Alan set ourselves down; while the lawyer and my uncle passed into the next chamber to consult. They stayed there closeted about an hour; at the end of which period they had come to a good understanding, and my uncle and I set our hands to the agreement in a formal manner. By the terms of this, my uncle bound himself to satisfy Rankeillor as to his intromissions, and to pay me two clear thirds of the yearly income of Shaws.
So the beggar in the ballad had come home; and when I lay down that night on the kitchen chests, I was a man of means and had a name in the country. Alan and Torrance and Rankeillor slept and snored on their hard beds; but for me who had lain out under heaven and upon dirt and stones, so many days and nights, and often with an empty belly, and in fear of death, this good change in my case unmanned me more than any of the former evil ones; and I lay till dawn, looking at the fire on the roof and planning the future.
CHAPTER XXX
GOOD-BYE
o far as I was concerned myself, I had come to port; but I had still Alan, to whom I was so much beholden, on my hands; and I felt besides a heavy charge in the matter of the murder and James of the Glens. On both these heads I unbosomed to Rankeillor the next morning, walking to and fro about six of the clock before the house of Shaws, and with nothing in view but the fields and woods that had been my ancestors’ and were now mine. Even as I spoke on these grave subjects, my eye would take a glad bit of a run over the prospect, and my heart jump with pride.
About my clear duty to my friend, the lawyer had no doubt. I must help him out of the county at whatever risk; but in the case of James, he was of a different mind.
“Mr. Thomson,” says he, “is one thing, Mr. Thomson’s kinsman quite another. I know little of the facts, but I gather that a great noble (whom we will call, if you like, the D. of A.)* has some concern and is even supposed to feel some animosity in the matter. The D. of A. is doubtless an excellent nobleman; but, Mr. David, timeo qui nocuere deos. If you interfere to balk his vengeance, you should remember there is one way to shut your testimony out; and that is to put you in the dock. There, you would be in the same pickle as Mr. Thomson’s kinsman. You will object that you are innocent; well, but so is he. And to be tried for your life before a Highland jury, on a Highland quarrel and with a Highland Judge upon the bench, would be a brief transition to the gallows.”
* The Duke of Argyle.Now I had made all these
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