Robert Louis Stevenson

“ In precisely the same spirit as a man may debate a project to ascend the Matterhorn or to cross Africa, John considered Alan’s proposal, and, greatly daring, accepted it. As he walked home, the thoughts of this excursion out of the safe places of life into the wild and arduous, stirred and struggled in his imagination with the image of Flora Mackenzie—incongruous and yet kindred thoughts, for did not each imply unusual tightening of the pegs of resolution? ”

“ I was in two minds whether to run away; but anger got the upper hand, and I began instead to rain kicks and buffets on the door, and to shout out aloud for Mr. Balfour. I was in full career, when I heard the cough right overhead, and, jumping back and looking up, beheld a man’s head in a tall nightcap, and the bell mouth of a blunderbuss, at one of the first-story windows.
“It’s loaded,” said a voice.
“I have come here with a letter,” I said, “to Mr. Ebenezer Balfour of Shaws. Is he here?”
“From whom is it?” asked the man with the blunderbuss. ”

“ CHAPTER XXII THE FLIGHT IN THE HEATHER: THE MOOR Some seven hours’ incessant hard travelling brought us early in the morning to the end of a range of mountains. In front of us there lay a piece of low, broken, desert land, which we must now cross. The sun was not long up, and shone straight in our eyes; a little, thin mist went up from the face of the moorland like a smoke; so that (as Alan said) there might have been twenty squadron of dragoons there and we none the wiser. ”

“ But I have the King of France’s commission in my pocket, which would aye be some protection.”
“I misdoubt it much,” said I.
“I have doubts mysel’,” said Alan drily.
“And, good heaven, man,” cried I, “you that are a condemned rebel, and a deserter, and a man of the French King’s—what tempts ye back into this country? It’s a braving of Providence.”
“Tut!” says Alan, “I have been back every year since forty-six!”
“And what brings ye, man?” cried I.
“Well, ye see, I weary for my friends and country,” said he. “France is a braw place, nae doubt; but I weary for the heather and the deer. ”

“ CHAPTER VI WHAT BEFELL AT THE QUEEN’S FERRY As soon as we came to the inn, Ransome led us up the stair to a small room, with a bed in it, and heated like an oven by a great fire of coal. At a table hard by the chimney, a tall, dark, sober looking man sat writing. In spite of the heat of the room, he wore a thick sea-jacket, buttoned to the neck, and a tall hairy cap drawn down over his ears; yet I never saw any man, not even a judge upon the bench, look cooler, or more studious and self-possessed, than this ship-captain. ”

“ We slept in the cave, making our bed of heather bushes which we cut for that purpose, and covering ourselves with Alan’s great-coat. There was a low concealed place, in a turning of the glen, where we were so bold as to make fire: so that we could warm ourselves when the clouds set in, and cook hot porridge, and grill the little trouts that we caught with our hands under the stones and overhanging banks of the burn. ”

“ The wrestler dropped at last; and Alan, leaping back to get his distance, ran upon the others like a bull, roaring as he went. They broke before him like water, turning, and running, and falling one against another in their haste. The sword in his hands flashed like quicksilver into the huddle of our fleeing enemies; and at every flash there came the scream of a man hurt. I was still thinking we were lost, when lo! they were all gone, and Alan was driving them along the deck as a sheep-dog chases sheep. ”

“ Alan was in excellent good spirits, much refreshed by his sleep, very hungry, and looking pleasantly forward to a dram and a dish of hot collops, of which, it seems, the messenger had brought him word. For my part, it made me sick to hear of eating. I had been dead-heavy before, and now I felt a kind of dreadful lightness, which would not suffer me to walk. I drifted like a gossamer; the ground seemed to me a cloud, the hills a feather-weight, the air to have a current, like a running burn, which carried me to and fro. ”

“ I had no care of my life, neither past nor future, and I scarce remembered there was such a lad as David Balfour; I did not think of myself, but just of each fresh step, which I was sure would be my last, with despair—and of Alan, who was the cause of it, with hatred. Alan was in the right trade as a soldier; this is the officer’s part to make men continue to do things, they know not wherefore, and when, if the choice was offered, they would lie down where they were and be killed. ”

“ The woman’s face lit up with a malignant anger. “That is the house of Shaws!” she cried. “Blood built it; blood stopped the building of it; blood shall bring it down. See here!” she cried again—“I spit upon the ground, and crack my thumb at it! Black be its fall! If ye see the laird, tell him what ye hear; tell him this makes the twelve hunner and nineteen time that Jennet Clouston has called down the curse on him and his house, byre and stable, man, guest, and master, wife, miss, or bairn—black, black be their fall!” ”

“ My uncle made no answer, but shifted uneasily on his seat.
“Come, sir,” cried Alan. “I would have ye to ken that I am a gentleman; I bear a king’s name; I am nae rider to kick my shanks at your hall-door. Either give me an answer in civility, and that out of hand; or, by the top of Glencoe, I will ram three feet of iron through your vitals.”
“Eh, man,” cried my uncle, scrambling to his feet, “give me a meenit! What’s like wrong with ye? I’m just a plain man and nae dancing-master; and I’m trying to be as ceevil as it’s morally possible. ”

“ I had a painful stitch in my side, which never left me; and when I slept in my wet bed, with the rain beating above and the mud oozing below me, it was to live over again in fancy the worst part of my adventures—to see the tower of Shaws lit by lightning, Ransome carried below on the men’s backs, Shuan dying on the round-house floor, or Colin Campbell grasping at the bosom of his coat. From such broken slumbers I would be aroused in the gloaming, to sit up in the same puddle where I had slept, and sup cold drammach; the rain driving sharp in my face or running down my back in icy trickles ”

“ Well, after all, it was only on a man’s own family that he could count: blood was thicker than water, he remembered; and the net result of this encounter was to bring him to the doorstep of his father’s house with tenderer and softer feelings.
The night had come; the fanlight over the door shone bright; the two windows of the dining-room where the cloth was being laid, and the three windows of the drawing-room where Maria would be waiting dinner, glowed softer through yellow blinds. ”

“ I cried. “I’m a Whig, or little better; but I call it noble.”
“Ay,” said he, “ye’re a Whig, but ye’re a gentleman; and that’s what does it. Now, if ye were one of the cursed race of Campbell, ye would gnash your teeth to hear tell of it. If ye were the Red Fox”.... And at that name his teeth shut together, and he ceased speaking. I have seen many a grim face, but never a grimmer than Alan’s when he had named the Red Fox.
“And who is the Red Fox?” I asked, daunted, but still curious.
“Who is he?” cried Alan. “Well, and I’ll tell you that. ”

“ What it was I had no guess, which for the time increased my fear of it; but I now know it must have been the roost or tide race, which had carried me away so fast and tumbled me about so cruelly, and at last, as if tired of that play, had flung out me and the spare yard upon its landward margin.
I now lay quite becalmed, and began to feel that a man can die of cold as well as of drowning. The shores of Earraid were close in; I could see in the moonlight the dots of heather and the sparkling of the mica in the rocks. ”

“ Riach, crying out as if upon a sudden thought:
“Couldn’t we wile him out of the round-house?”
“He’s better where he is,” returned Hoseason; “he hasn’t room to use his sword.”
“Well, that’s true,” said Riach; “but he’s hard to come at.”
“Hut!” said Hoseason. “We can get the man in talk, one upon each side, and pin him by the two arms; or, if that’ll not hold, sir, we can make a run by both the doors and get him under hand before he has the time to draw.”
At this hearing I was seized with both fear and anger at these treacherous, greedy, bloody men that I sailed with. ”

“ Presently after, I came by a house where a shepherd lived, and got a rough direction for the neighbourhood of Cramond; and so, from one to another, worked my way to the westward of the capital by Colinton, till I came out upon the Glasgow road. And there, to my great pleasure and wonder, I beheld a regiment marching to the fifes, every foot in time; an old red-faced general on a grey horse at the one end, and at the other the company of grenadiers, with their Pope’s-hats. The pride of life seemed to mount into my brain at the sight of the red coats and the hearing of that merry music. ”

“ No, no,” said Alan, “it’s no’ you that’s to blame, it’s me.”
I asked him why.
“Why,” said he, “I have proved myself a gomeril this night. For first of all I take a wrong road, and that in my own country of Appin; so that the day has caught us where we should never have been; and, thanks to that, we lie here in some danger and mair discomfort. And next (which is the worst of the two, for a man that has been so much among the heather as myself) I have come wanting a water-bottle, and here we lie for a long summer’s day with naething but neat spirit. ”

“ And the kindly folk of that country must all pack and tramp, every father’s son out of his father’s house, and out of the place where he was bred and fed, and played when he was a callant. And who are to succeed them? Bare-leggit beggars! King George is to whistle for his rents; he maun dow with less; he can spread his butter thinner: what cares Red Colin? If he can hurt Ardshiel, he has his wish; if he can pluck the meat from my chieftain’s table, and the bit toys out of his children’s hands, he will gang hame singing to Glenure! ”

“ I’ll stand by you.”
“Why, then,” said he, “what’s your name?”
“David Balfour,” said I; and then, thinking that a man with so fine a coat must like fine people, I added for the first time, “of Shaws.”
It never occurred to him to doubt me, for a Highlander is used to see great gentle-folk in great poverty; but as he had no estate of his own, my words nettled a very childish vanity he had.
“My name is Stewart,” he said, drawing himself up. “Alan Breck, they call me. A king’s name is good enough for me, though I bear it plain and have the name of no farm-midden to clap to the hind-end of it.” ”

“ That one good Scots word, “birstle,” was indeed the most of the story of the day that we had now to pass. You are to remember that we lay on the bare top of a rock, like scones upon a girdle; the sun beat upon us cruelly; the rock grew so heated, a man could scarce endure the touch of it; and the little patch of earth and fern, which kept cooler, was only large enough for one at a time. We took turn about to lie on the naked rock, which was indeed like the position of that saint that was martyred on a gridiron ”

“ The thought of a separation ran always the stronger in my mind; and the more I approved of it, the more ashamed I grew of my approval. It would be a fine, handsome, generous thing, indeed, for Alan to turn round and say to me: “Go; I am in the most danger, and my company only 252 increases yours.” But for me to turn to the friend who certainly loved me, and say to him: “You are in great danger, I am in but little; your friendship is a burden; go, take your risks and bear your hardships alone——” no, that was impossible; and even to think of it privily to myself made my cheeks to burn. ”

“ The one man took the lady, the other the estate. Now, Mr. David, they talk a great deal of 290 charity and generosity; but in this disputable state of life I often think the happiest consequences seem to flow when a gentleman consults his lawyer, and takes all the law allows him. Anyhow, this piece of Quixotry on your father’s part, as it was unjust in itself, has brought forth a monstrous family of injustices. Your father and mother lived and died poor folk; you were poorly reared; and in the meanwhile, what a time it has been for the tenants on the estate of Shaws! ”

“ Whatever I do, you can see for yourself it must be hard upon a man of any pride.”
“It’s rather hard on me too, Mr. Balfour,” said Cluny, “and ye give me very much the look of a man that has entrapped poor people to their hurt. I wouldna have my friends come to any house of mine to accept affronts; no,” he cried, with a sudden heat of anger, “nor yet to give them!”
“And so you see, sir,” said I, “there is something to be said upon my side; and this gambling is a very poor employ for gentle-folks. But I am still waiting your opinion.”
I am sure if ever Cluny hated any man it was David Balfour. ”

“ I cried.
“Look to your window!” said Alan; and as I turned back to my place, I saw him pass his sword through the mate’s body.
It was none too soon for me to look to my own part; for my head was scarce back at the window, before five men, carrying a spare yard for a battering-ram, ran past me and took post to drive the door in. I had never fired with a pistol in my life, and not often with a gun; far less against a fellow-creature. But it was now or never; and just as they swang the yard, I cried out, “Take that!” and shot into their midst. ”

“ In all the books I have read of people cast away, they had either their pockets full of tools, or a chest of things would be thrown upon the beach along with them, as if on purpose. My case was very different. I had nothing in my pockets but money and Alan’s silver button; and, being inland bred, I was as much short of knowledge as of means.
I knew indeed that shell-fish were counted good to eat; and among the rocks of the isle I found a great plenty of limpets, which at first I could scarcely strike from their places, not knowing quickness to be needful. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He got to his feet at once, and, coming forward, offered his large hand to Ebenezer. “I am proud to see you, Mr. Balfour,” said he, in a fine deep voice, “and glad that ye are here in time. The wind’s fair, and the tide upon the turn; we’ll see the old coal-bucket burning on the Isle of May before to-night.”
“Captain Hoseason,” returned my uncle, “you keep your room unco hot.”
“It’s a habit I have, Mr. Balfour,” said the skipper. “I’m a coldrife man by my nature; I have a cold blood, sir. There’s neither fur nor flannel—no, sir, nor hot rum, will warm up what they call the temperature. ”

“ As soon, however, as the sun came out, I lay down on the top of that rock to dry myself. The comfort of the sunshine is a thing I cannot tell. It set me thinking hopefully of my deliverance, of which I had begun to despair; and I scanned the sea and the Ross with a fresh interest. On the south of my rock, a part of the island jutted out and hid the open ocean, so that a boat could thus come quite near me upon that side, and I be none the wiser.
Well, all of a sudden, a coble with a brown sail and a pair of fishers aboard of it, came flying round that corner of the isle, bound for Iona. ”

“ It’s no good place, David; and I’m free to say, it’s worse by daylight than by dark.”
“Alan,” said I, “hear my way of it. Appin’s death for us; we have none too much money, nor yet meal; the longer they seek, the nearer they may guess where we are; it’s all a risk; and I give my word to go ahead until we drop.”
Alan was delighted. “There are whiles,” said he, “when ye are altogether too canny and Whiggish to be company for a gentleman like me; but there come other whiles when ye show yersel’ a mettle spark; and it’s then, David, that I love ye like a brother.” ”

“ Looking out between the trees we could see a great side of mountain, running down exceeding steep into the waters of the loch. It was a rough part, all hanging stone, and heather, and bit scrogs of birchwood; and away at the far end towards Balachulish, little wee red soldiers were dipping up and down over hill and howe, and growing smaller every minute. ”