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

then leave you, if you will, forever. I came this day in the hopes of a kind word that I am sore in want of. I know that what I said must hurt you, and I knew it then. It would have been easy to have spoken smooth, easy to lie to you; can you not think how I was tempted to the same? Cannot you see the truth of my heart shine out?”

“I think here is a great deal of work, Mr. Balfour,” said she. “I think we will have met but the once, and will can part like gentlefolk.”

“O, let me have one to believe in me!” I pleaded, “I cannae bear it else. The whole world is clanned against me. How am I to go through with my dreadful fate? If there’s to be none to believe in me I cannot do it. The man must just die, for I cannot do it.”

She had still looked straight in front of her, head in air; but at my words or the tone of my voice she came to a stop. “What is this you say?” she asked. “What are you talking of?”

“It is my testimony which may save an innocent life,” said I, “and they will not suffer me to bear it. What would you do yourself? You know what this is, whose father lies in danger. Would you desert the poor soul? They have tried all ways with me. They have sought to bribe me; they offered me hills and valleys. And today that sleuthhound told me how I stood, and to what a length he would go to butcher and disgrace me. I am to be brought in a party to the murder; I am to have held Glenure in talk for money and old clothes; I am to be killed and shamed. If this is the way I am to fall, and me scarce a man⁠—if this is the story to be told of me in all Scotland⁠—if you are to believe it too, and my name is to be nothing but a byword⁠—Catriona, how can I go through with it? The thing’s not possible; it’s more than a man has in his heart.”

I poured my words out in a whirl, one upon the other; and when I stopped I found her gazing on me with a startled face.

“Glenure! It is the Appin murder,” she said softly, but with a very deep surprise.

I had turned back to bear her company, and we were now come near the head of the brae above Dean village. At this word I stepped in front of her like one suddenly distracted.

“For God’s sake!” I cried, “for God’s sake, what is this that I have done?” and carried my fists to my temples. “What made me do it? Sure, I am bewitched to say these things!”

“In the name of heaven, what ails you now?” she cried.

“I gave my honour,” I groaned, “I gave my honour and now I have broke it. O, Catriona!”

“I am asking you what it is,” she said; “was it these things you should not have spoken? And do you think I have no honour, then? or that I am one that would betray a friend? I hold up my right hand to you and swear.”

“O, I knew you would be true!” said I. “It’s me⁠—it’s here. I that stood but this morning and outfaced them, that risked rather to die disgraced upon the gallows than do wrong⁠—and a few hours after I throw my honour away by the roadside in common talk! ‘There is one thing clear upon our interview,’ says he, ‘that I can rely on your pledged word.’ Where is my word now? Who could believe me now? You could not believe me. I am clean fallen down; I had best die!” All this I said with a weeping voice, but I had no tears in my body.

“My heart is sore for you,” said she, “but be sure you are too nice. I would not believe you, do you say? I would trust you with anything. And these men? I would not be thinking of them! Men who go about to entrap and to destroy you! Fy! this is no time to crouch. Look up! Do you not think I will be admiring you like a great hero of the good⁠—and you a boy not much older than myself? And because you said a word too much in a friend’s ear, that would die ere she betrayed you⁠—to make such a matter! It is one thing that we must both forget.”

“Catriona,” said I, looking at her, hangdog, “is this true of it? Would ye trust me yet?”

“Will you not believe the tears upon my face?” she cried. “It is the world I am thinking of you, Mr. David Balfour. Let them hang you; I will never forget, I will grow old and still remember you. I think it is great to die so; I will envy you that gallows.”

“And maybe all this while I am but a child frighted with bogles,” said I. “Maybe they but make a mock of me.”

“It is what I must know,” she said. “I must hear the whole. The harm is done at all events, and I must hear the whole.”

I had sat down on the wayside, where she took a place beside me, and I told her all that matter much as I have written it, my thoughts about her father’s dealing being alone omitted.

“Well,” she said, when I had finished, “you are a hero, surely, and I never would have thought that same! And I think you are in peril, too. O, Symon Fraser! to think upon that man! For his life and the dirty money, to be dealing in such traffic!” And just then she called out aloud with a queer word that was common with her, and belongs, I believe, to her own language. “My torture!” says she, “look at the sun!”

Indeed, it was already dipping towards