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

trying the same still, and only vexed that I can do no better. It is a strange thing to me that you can take any pleasure to be hard to me.”

“I am not thinking of you,” she said, “I am thinking of that man, my father.”

“Well, and that way, too!” said I. “I can be of use to you that way, too; I will have to be. It is very needful, my dear, that we should consult about your father; for the way this talk has gone, an angry man will be James More.”

She stopped again. “It is because I am disgraced?” she asked.

“That is what he is thinking,” I replied, “but I have told you already to make nought of it.”

“It will be all one to me,” she cried. “I prefer to be disgraced!”

I did not know very well what to answer, and stood silent.

There seemed to be something working in her bosom after that last cry; presently she broke out, “And what is the meaning of all this? Why is all this shame loundered on my head? How could you dare it, David Balfour?”

“My dear,” said I, “what else was I to do?”

“I am not your dear,” she said, “and I defy you to be calling me these words.”

“I am not thinking of my words,” said I. “My heart bleeds for you, Miss Drummond. Whatever I may say, be sure you have my pity in your difficult position. But there is just the one thing that I wish you would bear in view, if it was only long enough to discuss it quietly; for there is going to be a collieshangie when we two get home. Take my word for it, it will need the two of us to make this matter end in peace.”

“Ay,” said she. There sprang a patch of red in either of her cheeks. “Was he for fighting you?” said she.

“Well, he was that,” said I.

She gave a dreadful kind of laugh. “At all events, it is complete!” she cried. And then turning on me: “My father and I are a fine pair,” she said, “but I am thanking the good God there will be somebody worse than what we are. I am thanking the good God that he has let me see you so. There will never be the girl made that would not scorn you.”

I had borne a good deal pretty patiently, but this was over the mark.

“You have no right to speak to me like that,” said I. “What have I done but to be good to you, or try to? And here is my repayment! O, it is too much.”

She kept looking at me with a hateful smile. “Coward!” said she.

“The word in your throat and in your father’s!” I cried. “I have dared him this day already in your interest. I will dare him again, the nasty polecat; little I care which of us should fall! Come,” said I, “back to the house with us; let us be done with it, let me be done with the whole Hieland crew of you! You will see what you think when I am dead.”

She shook her head at me with that same smile I could have struck her for.

“O, smile away!” I cried. “I have seen your bonny father smile on the wrong side this day. Not that I mean he was afraid, of course,” I added hastily, “but he preferred the other way of it.”

“What is this?” she asked.

“When I offered to draw with him,” said I.

“You offered to draw upon James More?” she cried.

“And I did so,” said I, “and found him backward enough, or how would we be here?”

“There is a meaning upon this,” said she. “What is it you are meaning?”

“He was to make you take me,” I replied, “and I would not have it. I said you should be free, and I must speak with you alone; little I supposed it would be such a speaking! ‘And what if I refuse?’ says he.⁠—’Then it must come to the throat cutting,’ says I, ‘for I will no more have a husband forced on that young lady than what I would have a wife forced upon myself.’ These were my words, they were a friend’s words; bonnily have I been paid for them! Now you have refused me of your own clear free will, and there lives no father in the Highlands, or out of them, that can force on this marriage. I will see that your wishes are respected; I will make the same my business, as I have all through. But I think you might have that decency as to affect some gratitude. ’Deed, and I thought you knew me better! I have not behaved quite well to you, but that was weakness. And to think me a coward and such a coward as that⁠—O, my lass, there was a stab for the last of it!”

“Davie, how would I guess?” she cried. “O, this is a dreadful business! Me and mine,”⁠—she gave a kind of wretched cry at the word⁠—“me and mine are not fit to speak to you. O, I could be kneeling down to you in the street, I could be kissing your hands for your forgiveness!”

“I will keep the kisses I have got from you already,” cried I. “I will keep the ones I wanted and that were something worth; I will not be kissed in penitence.”

“What can you be thinking of this miserable girl?” says she.

“What I am trying to tell you all this while!” said I, “that you had best leave me alone, whom you can make no more unhappy if you tried, and turn your attention to James More, your father, with whom you are like to have a queer pirn to wind.”

“O, that I must be going out into the world alone with such a man!” she cried, and seemed to catch herself in with a great effort. “But trouble yourself no more for that,” said she. “He does