Kidnapped, Robert Louis Stevenson [ebook reader with internet browser .TXT] 📗

way as soon as the ebb set, and expressed his gladness to be out of a port where there were no taverns and fiddlers; but all with such horrifying oaths, that I made haste to get away from him.

This threw me back on Ransome, who seemed the least wicked of that gang, and who soon came out of the inn and ran to me, crying for a bowl of punch. I told him I would give him no such thing, for neither he nor I was of an age for such indulgences. “But a glass of ale you may have, and welcome,” said I. He mopped and mowed at me, and called me names; but he was glad to get the ale, for all that; and presently we were set down at a table in the front room of the inn, and both eating and drinking with a good appetite.

Here it occurred to me that, as the landlord was a man of that county, I might do well to make a friend of him. I offered him a share, as was much the custom in those days; but he was far too great a man to sit with such poor customers as Ransome and myself, and he was leaving the room, when I called him back to ask if he knew Mr. Rankeillor.

“Hoot, ay,” says he, “and a very honest man. And, O, by the by,” says he, “was it you that came in with Ebenezer?” And when I had told him yes, “Ye’ll be no friend of his?” he asked, meaning, in the Scottish way, that I would be no relative.

I told him no, none.

“I thought not,” said he, “and yet ye have a kind of gliff6 of Mr. Alexander.”

I said it seemed that Ebenezer was ill-seen in the country.

“Nae doubt,” said the landlord. “He’s a wicked auld man, and there’s many would like to see him girning in the tow.7 Jennet Clouston and mony mair that he has harried out of house and hame. And yet he was ance a fine young fellow, too. But that was before the sough8 gaed abroad about Mr. Alexander, that was like the death of him.”

“And what was it?” I asked.

“Ou, just that he had killed him,” said the landlord. “Did ye never hear that?”

“And what would he kill him for?” said I.

“And what for, but just to get the place,” said he.

“The place?” said I. “The Shaws?”

“Nae other place that I ken,” said he.

“Ay, man?” said I. “Is that so? Was my⁠—was Alexander the eldest son?”

“ ’Deed was he,” said the landlord. “What else would he have killed him for?”

And with that he went away, as he had been impatient to do from the beginning.

Of course, I had guessed it a long while ago; but it is one thing to guess, another to know; and I sat stunned with my good fortune, and could scarce grow to believe that the same poor lad who had trudged in the dust from Ettrick Forest not two days ago, was now one of the rich of the earth, and had a house and broad lands, and might mount his horse tomorrow. All these pleasant things, and a thousand others, crowded into my mind, as I sat staring before me out of the inn window, and paying no heed to what I saw; only I remember that my eye lighted on Captain Hoseason down on the pier among his seamen, and speaking with some authority. And presently he came marching back towards the house, with no mark of a sailor’s clumsiness, but carrying his fine, tall figure with a manly bearing, and still with the same sober, grave expression on his face. I wondered if it was possible that Ransome’s stories could be true, and half disbelieved them; they fitted so ill with the man’s looks. But indeed, he was neither so good as I supposed him, nor quite so bad as Ransome did; for, in fact, he was two men, and left the better one behind as soon as he set foot on board his vessel.

The next thing, I heard my uncle calling me, and found the pair in the road together. It was the captain who addressed me, and that with an air (very flattering to a young lad) of grave equality.

“Sir,” said he, “Mr. Balfour tells me great things of you; and for my own part, I like your looks. I wish I was for longer here, that we might make the better friends; but we’ll make the most of what we have. Ye shall come on board my brig for half an hour, till the ebb sets, and drink a bowl with me.”

Now, I longed to see the inside of a ship more than words can tell; but I was not going to put myself in jeopardy, and I told him my uncle and I had an appointment with a lawyer.

“Ay, ay,” said he, “he passed me word of that. But, ye see, the boat’ll set ye ashore at the town pier, and that’s but a penny stonecast from Rankeillor’s house.” And here he suddenly leaned down and whispered in my ear: “Take care of the old tod;9 he means mischief. Come aboard till I can get a word with ye.” And then, passing his arm through mine, he continued aloud, as he set off towards his boat: “But, come, what can I bring ye from the Carolinas? Any friend of Mr. Balfour’s can command. A roll of tobacco? Indian feather-work? a skin of a wild beast? a stone pipe? the mockingbird that mews for all the world like a cat? the cardinal bird that is as red as blood?⁠—take your pick and say your pleasure.”

By this time we were at the boat-side, and he was handing me in. I did not dream of hanging back; I thought (the poor fool!) that I had found a good friend and helper, and I was rejoiced to