Catriona, Robert Louis Stevenson [the gingerbread man read aloud txt] 📗

is one thing; but it would be quite another, and I think I would look very like a fool, to commit myself.”

“You can speak out of your mouth, I see,” said the old lady. “Praise God, and so can I! I was fool enough to take charge of this rogue’s daughter: a fine charge I have gotten; but it’s mine, and I’ll carry it the way I want to. Do ye mean to tell me, Mr. Balfour of Shaws, that you would marry James More’s daughter, and him hanged? Well, then, where there’s no possible marriage there shall be no manner of carryings on, and take that for said. Lasses are bruckle things,” she added, with a nod; “and though ye would never think it by my wrunkled chafts, I was a lassie mysel’, and a bonny one.”

“Lady Allardyce,” said I, “for that I suppose to be your name, you seem to do the two sides of the talking, which is a very poor manner to come to an agreement. You give me rather a home thrust when you ask if I would marry, at the gallows’ foot, a young lady whom I have seen but the once. I have told you already I would never be so untenty as to commit myself. And yet I’ll go some way with you. If I continue to like the lass as well as I have reason to expect, it will be something more than her father, or the gallows either, that keeps the two of us apart. As for my family, I found it by the wayside like a lost bawbee! I owe less than nothing to my uncle; and if ever I marry, it will be to please one person: that’s myself.”

“I have heard this kind of talk before ye were born,” said Mrs. Ogilvy, “which is perhaps the reason that I think of it so little. There’s much to be considered. This James More is a kinsman of mine, to my shame be it spoken. But the better the family, the mair men hanged or heided, that’s always been poor Scotland’s story. And if it was just the hanging! For my part, I think I would be best pleased with James upon the gallows, which would be at least an end to him. Catrine’s a good lass enough, and a good-hearted, and lets herself be deaved all day with a runt of an auld wife like me. But, ye see, there’s the weak bit. She’s daft about that long, false, fleeching beggar of a father of hers, and red-mad about the Gregara, and proscribed names, and King James, and a wheen blethers. And you might think ye could guide her, ye would find yourself sore mista’en. Ye say ye’ve seen her but the once⁠ ⁠…”

“Spoke with her but the once, I should have said,” I interrupted. “I saw her again this morning from a window at Prestongrange’s.”

This I daresay I put in because it sounded well; but I was properly paid for my ostentation on the return.

“What’s this of it?” cries the old lady, with a sudden pucker of her face. “I think it was at the Advocate’s door-cheek that ye met her first.”

I told her that was so.

“H’m,” she said; and then suddenly, upon rather a scolding tone, “I have your bare word for it,” she cries, “as to who and what you are. By your way of it, you’re Balfour of the Shaws; but for what I ken you may be Balfour of the Deevil’s oxter. It’s possible ye may come here for what ye say, and it’s equally possible ye may come here for deil care what! I’m good enough whig to sit quiet, and to have keepit all my men-folk’s heads upon their shoulders. But I’m not just a good enough whig to be made a fool of neither. And I tell you fairly, there’s too much Advocate’s door and Advocate’s window here for a man that comes taigling after a Macgregor’s daughter. Ye can tell that to the Advocate that sent ye, with my fond love. And I kiss my loof to ye, Mr. Balfour,” says she, suiting the action to the word, “and a braw journey to ye back to where ye cam frae.”

“If you think me a spy,” I broke out, and speech stuck in my throat. I stood and looked murder at the old lady for a space, then bowed and turned away.

“Here! Hoots! The callant’s in a creel!” she cried. “Think ye a spy? what else would I think ye⁠—me that kens naething by ye? But I see that I was wrong; and as I cannot fight, I’ll have to apologise. A bonny figure I would be with a broadsword. Ay! ay!” she went on, “you’re none such a bad lad in your way; I think ye’ll have some redeeming vices. But, oh, Davit Balfour, ye’re damned countryfeed. Ye’ll have to win over that, lad; ye’ll have to soople your backbone, and think a wee pickle less of your dainty self; and ye’ll have to try to find out that women-folk are nae grenadiers. But that can never be. To your last day you’ll ken no more of women-folk than what I do of sow-gelding.”

I had never been used with such expressions from a lady’s tongue, the only two ladies I had known, Mrs. Campbell and my mother, being most devout and most particular women; and I suppose my amazement must have been depicted in my countenance, for Mrs. Ogilvy burst forth suddenly in a fit of laughter.

“Keep me!” she cried, struggling with her mirth, “you have the finest timber face⁠—and you to marry the daughter of a Hieland cateran! Davie, my dear, I think we’ll have to make a match of it⁠—if it was just to see the weans. And now,” she went on, “there’s no manner of service in your daidling here, for the young woman is from home, and it’s my fear that the old woman is no suitable companion for your father’s son.