Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (Illustrated)

by Robert Louis Stevenson

  “Faith,” said he, “the best I could! Whiles I played at the knucklebones. I’m an extraordinar good hand at the knucklebones, but it’s a poor piece of business playing with naebody to admire ye. And whiles I would make songs.”

  “What were they about?” says I.

  “O, about the deer and the heather,” says he, “and about the ancient old chiefs that are all by with it lang syne, and just about what songs are about in general. And then whiles I would make believe I had a set of pipes and I was playing. I played some grand springs, and I thought I played them awful bonny; I vow whiles that I could hear the squeal of them! But the great affair is that it’s done with.”

  With that he carried me again to my adventures, which he heard all over again with more particularity, and extraordinary approval, swearing at intervals that I was “a queer character of a callant.”

  “So ye were frich’ened of Sim Fraser?” he asked once.

  “In troth was I!” cried I.

  “So would I have been, Davie,” said he. “And that is indeed a driedful man. But it is only proper to give the deil his due: and I can tell you he is a most respectable person on the field of war.”

  “Is he so brave?” I asked.

  “Brave!” said he. “He is as brave as my steel sword.”

  The story of my duel set him beside himself.

  “To think of that!” he cried. “I showed ye the trick in Corrynakiegh too. And three times - three times disarmed! It’s a disgrace upon my character that learned ye! Here, stand up, out with your airn; ye shall walk no step beyond this place upon the road till ye can do yoursel’ and me mair credit.”

  “Alan,” said I, “this is midsummer madness. Here is no time for fencing lessons.”

  “I cannae well say no to that,” he admitted. “But three times, man! And you standing there like a straw bogle and rinning to fetch your ain sword like a doggie with a pocket-napkin! David, this man Duncansby must be something altogether by-ordinar! He maun be extraordinar skilly. If I had the time, I would gang straight back and try a turn at him mysel’. The man must be a provost.”

  “You silly fellow,” said I, “you forget it was just me.”

  “Na,” said he, “but three times!”

  “When ye ken yourself that I am fair incompetent,” I cried.

  “Well, I never heard tell the equal of it,” said he.

  “I promise you the one thing, Alan,” said I. “The next time that we forgather, I’ll be better learned. You shall not continue to bear the disgrace of a friend that cannot strike.”

  “Ay, the next time!” says he. “And when will that be, I would like to ken?”

  “Well, Alan, I have had some thoughts of that, too,” said I; “and my plan is this. It’s my opinion to be called an advocate.”

  “That’s but a weary trade, Davie,” says Alan, “and rather a blagyard one forby. Ye would be better in a king’s coat than that.”

  “And no doubt that would be the way to have us meet,” cried I. “But as you’ll be in King Lewie’s coat, and I’ll be in King Geordie’s, we’ll have a dainty meeting of it.”

  “There’s some sense in that,” he admitted

  “An advocate, then, it’ll have to be,” I continued, “and I think it a more suitable trade for a gentleman that was three times disarmed. But the beauty of the thing is this: that one of the best colleges for that kind of learning - and the one where my kinsman, Pilrig, made his studies - is the college of Leyden in Holland. Now, what say you, Alan? Could not a cadet of Royal Ecossais get a furlough, slip over the marches, and call in upon a Leyden student?”

  “Well, and I would think he could!” cried he. “Ye see, I stand well in with my colonel, Count Drummond-Melfort; and, what’s mair to the purpose I have a cousin of mine lieutenant-colonel in a regiment of the Scots-Dutch. Naething could be mair proper than what I would get a leave to see Lieutenant-Colonel Stewart of Halkett’s. And Lord Melfort, who is a very scienteefic kind of a man, and writes books like Caesar, would be doubtless very pleased to have the advantage of my observes.”

  “Is Lord Meloort an author, then?” I asked, for much as Alan thought of soldiers, I thought more of the gentry that write books.

  “The very same, Davie,” said he. “One would think a colonel would have something better to attend to. But what can I say that make songs?”

  “Well, then,” said I, “it only remains you should give me an address to write you at in France; and as soon as I am got to Leyden I will send you mine.”

  “The best will be to write me in the care of my chieftain,” said he, “Charles Stewart, of Ardsheil, Esquire, at the town of Melons, in the Isle of France. It might take long, or it might take short, but it would aye get to my hands at the last of it.”

  We had a haddock to our breakfast in Musselburgh, where it amused me vastly to hear Alan. His great-coat and boot-hose were extremely remarkable this warm morning, and perhaps some hint of an explanation had been wise; but Alan went into that matter like a business, or I should rather say, like a diversion. He engaged the goodwife of the house with some compliments upon the rizzoring of our haddocks; and the whole of the rest of our stay held her in talk about a cold he had taken on his stomach, gravely relating all manner of symptoms and sufferings, and hearing with a vast show of interest all the old wives’ remedies she could supply him with in return.

  We left Musselburgh before the first ninepenny coach was due from Edinburgh for (as Alan said) that was a rencounter we might very well avoid. The wind although still high, was very mild, the sun shone strong, and Alan began to suffer in proportion. From Prestonpans he had me aside to the field of Gladsmuir, where he exerted himself a great deal more than needful to describe the stages of the battle. Thence, at his old round pace, we travelled to Cockenzie. Though they were building herring-busses there at Mrs. Cadell’s, it seemed a desert-like, back-going town, about half full of ruined houses; but the ale-house was clean, and Alan, who was now in a glowing heat, must indulge himself with a bottle of ale, and carry on to the new luckie with the old story of the cold upon his stomach, only now the symptoms were all different.

  I sat listening; and it came in my mind that I had scarce ever heard him address three serious words to any woman, but he was always drolling and fleering and making a private mock of them, and yet brought to that business a remarkable degree of energy and interest. Something to this effect I remarked to him, when the good-wife (as chanced) was called away.

  “What do ye want?” says he. “A man should aye put his best foot forrit with the womankind; he should aye give them a bit of a story to divert them, the poor lambs! It’s what ye should learn to attend to, David; ye should get the principles, it’s like a trade. Now, if this had been a young lassie, or onyways bonnie, she would never have heard tell of my stomach, Davie. But aince they’re too old to be seeking joes, they a’ set up to be apotecaries. Why? What do I ken? They’ll be just the way God made them, I suppose. But I think a man would be a gomeral that didnae give his attention to the same.”

  And here, the luckie coming back, he turned from me as if with impatience to renew their former conversation. The lady had branched some while before from Alan’s stomach to the case of a goodbrother of her own in Aberlady, whose last sickness and demise she was describing at extraordinary length. Sometimes it was merely dull, sometimes both dull and awful, for she talked with unction. The upshot was that I fell in a deep muse, looking forth of the window on the road, and scarce marking what I saw. Presently had any been looking they might have seen me to start.

  “We pit a fomentation to his feet,” the good-wife was saying, “and a het stane to his wame, and we gied him hyssop and water of pennyroyal, and fine, clean balsam of sulphur for the hoast. . . “

  “Sir,” says I, cutting very quietly in, “there’s a friend of mine gone by the house.”

  “Is that e’en sae?” replies Alan, as though it were a thing of small account. And then, “Ye were saying, mem?” says he;
and the wearyful wife went on.

  Presently, however, he paid her with a half-crown piece, and she must go forth after the change.

  “Was it him with the red head?” asked Alan.

  “Ye have it,” said I.

  “What did I tell you in the wood?” he cried. “And yet it’s strange he should be here too! Was he his lane?”

  “His lee-lane for what I could see,” said I.

  “Did he gang by?” he asked.

  “Straight by,” said I, “and looked neither to the right nor left.”

  “And that’s queerer yet,” said Alan. “It sticks in my mind, Davie, that we should be stirring. But where to? - deil hae’t! This is like old days fairly,” cries he.

  “There is one big differ, though,” said I, “that now we have money in our pockets.”

  “And another big differ, Mr. Balfour,” says he, “that now we have dogs at our tail. They’re on the scent; they’re in full cry, David. It’s a bad business and be damned to it.” And he sat thinking hard with a look of his that I knew well.

  “I’m saying, Luckie,” says he, when the goodwife returned, “have ye a back road out of this change house?”

  She told him there was and where it led to.

  “Then, sir,” says he to me, “I think that will be the shortest road for us. And here’s good-bye to ye, my braw woman; and I’ll no forget thon of the cinnamon water.”

  We went out by way of the woman’s kale yard, and up a lane among fields. Alan looked sharply to all sides, and seeing we were in a little hollow place of the country, out of view of men, sat down.

  “Now for a council of war, Davie,” said he. “But first of all, a bit lesson to ye. Suppose that I had been like you, what would yon old wife have minded of the pair of us! Just that we had gone out by the back gate. And what does she mind now? A fine, canty, friendly, cracky man, that suffered with the stomach, poor body! and was real ta’en up about the goodbrother. O man, David, try and learn to have some kind of intelligence!”

  “I’ll try, Alan,” said I.

  “And now for him of the red head,” says he; “was he gaun fast or slow?”

  “Betwixt and between,” said I.

  “No kind of a hurry about the man?” he asked.

  “Never a sign of it,” said I.

  “Nhm!” said Alan, “it looks queer. We saw nothing of them this morning on the Whins; he’s passed us by, he doesnae seem to be looking, and yet here he is on our road! Dod, Davie, I begin to take a notion. I think it’s no you they’re seeking, I think it’s me; and I think they ken fine where they’re gaun.”

  “They ken?” I asked.

  “I think Andie Scougal’s sold me - him or his mate wha kent some part of the affair - or else Charlie’s clerk callant, which would be a pity too,” says Alan; “and if you askit me for just my inward private conviction, I think there’ll be heads cracked on Gillane sands.”

  “Alan,” I cried, “if you’re at all right there’ll be folk there and to spare. It’ll be small service to crack heads.”

  “It would aye be a satisfaction though,” says Alan. But bide a bit; bide a bit; I’m thinking - and thanks to this bonny westland wind, I believe I’ve still a chance of it. It’s this way, Davie. I’m no trysted with this man Scougal till the gloaming comes. But,” says he, “if I can get a bit of a wind out of the west I’ll be there long or that,” he says, “and lie-to for ye behind the Isle of Fidra. Now if your gentry kens the place, they ken the time forbye. Do ye see me coming, Davie? Thanks to Johnnie Cope and other red-coat gomerals, I should ken this country like the back of my hand; and if ye’re ready for another bit run with Alan Breck, we’ll can cast back inshore, and come to the seaside again by Dirleton. If the ship’s there, we’ll try and get on board of her. If she’s no there, I’ll just have to get back to my weary haystack. But either way of it, I think we will leave your gentry whistling on their thumbs.”

  “I believe there’s some chance in it,” said I. “Have on with ye, Alan!”

  CHAPTER XIII - GILLANE SANDS

  I did not profit by Alan’s pilotage as he had done by his marchings under General Cope; for I can scarce tell what way we went. It is my excuse that we travelled exceeding fast. Some part we ran, some trotted, and the rest walked at a vengeance of a pace. Twice, while we were at top speed, we ran against country-folk; but though we plumped into the first from round a corner, Alan was as ready as a loaded musket.

  “Has ye seen my horse?” he gasped.

  “Na, man, I haenae seen nae horse the day,” replied the countryman.

  And Alan spared the time to explain to him that we were travelling “ride and tie”; that our charger had escaped, and it was feared he had gone home to Linton. Not only that, but he expended some breath (of which he had not very much left) to curse his own misfortune and my stupidity which was said to be its cause.

  “Them that cannae tell the truth,” he observed to myself as we went on again, “should be aye mindful to leave an honest, handy lee behind them. If folk dinnae ken what ye’re doing, Davie, they’re terrible taken up with it; but if they think they ken, they care nae mair for it than what I do for pease porridge.”

  As we had first made inland, so our road came in the end to lie very near due north; the old Kirk of Aberlady for a landmark on the left; on the right, the top of the Berwick Law; and it was thus we struck the shore again, not far from Dirleton. From north Berwick west to Gillane Ness there runs a string of four small islets, Craiglieth, the Lamb, Fidra, and Eyebrough, notable by their diversity of size and shape. Fidra is the most particular, being a strange grey islet of two humps, made the more conspicuous by a piece of ruin; and I mind that (as we drew closer to it) by some door or window of these ruins the sea peeped through like a man’s eye. Under the lee of Fidra there is a good anchorage in westerly winds, and there, from a far way off, we could see the Thistle riding.

  The shore in face of these islets is altogether waste. Here is no dwelling of man, and scarce any passage, or at most of vagabond children running at their play. Gillane is a small place on the far side of the Ness, the folk of Dirleton go to their business in the inland fields, and those of North Berwick straight to the sea-fishing from their haven; so that few parts of the coast are lonelier. But I mind, as we crawled upon our bellies into that multiplicity of heights and hollows, keeping a bright eye upon all sides, and our hearts hammering at our ribs, there was such a shining of the sun and the sea, such a stir of the wind in the bent grass, and such a bustle of down-popping rabbits and up-flying gulls, that the desert seemed to me, like a place alive. No doubt it was in all ways well chosen for a secret embarcation, if the secret had been kept; and even now that it was out, and the place watched, we were able to creep unperceived to the front of the sandhills, where they look down immediately on the beach and sea.

  But here Alan came to a full stop.

  “Davie,” said he, “this is a kittle passage! As long as we lie here we’re safe; but I’m nane sae muckle nearer to my ship or the coast of France. And as soon as we stand up and signal the brig, it’s another matter. For where will your gentry be, think ye?”

  “Maybe they’re no come yet,” said I. “And even if they are, there’s one clear matter in our favour. They’ll be all arranged to take us, that’s true. But they’ll have arranged for our coming from the east and here we are upon their west.”

  “Ay,” says Alan, “I wish we were in some force, and this was a battle, we would have bonnily out-manoeuvred them! But it isnae, Davit; and the way it is, is a wee thing less inspiring to Alan Breck. I swither, Davie.”

  “Time flies, Alan,” said I.

  “I ken that,” said Alan. “I ken naething else, as the French folk say. But this is a dreidful case of heids or tails. O! if I could but ken where your gentry were!”

  “Alan,” said I, “this is no like you. It’s got to be now or never.”

  “This is no me, quo’ he,”

  sang Alan, with a queer face
betwixt shame and drollery.

  “Neither you nor me, quo’ he, neither you nor me.

  Wow, na, Johnnie man! neither you nor me.”

  And then of a sudden he stood straight up where he was, and with a handkerchief flying in his right hand, marched down upon the beach. I stood up myself, but lingered behind him, scanning the sand-hills to the east. His appearance was at first unremarked: Scougal not expecting him so early, and my gentry watching on the other side. Then they awoke on board the Thistle, and it seemed they had all in readiness, for there was scarce a second’s bustle on the deck before we saw a skiff put round her stern and begin to pull lively for the coast. Almost at the same moment of time, and perhaps half a mile away towards Gillane Ness, the figure of a man appeared for a blink upon a sandhill, waving with his arms; and though he was gone again in the same flash, the gulls in that part continued a little longer to fly wild.

  Alan had not seen this, looking straight to seaward at the ship and skiff.

  “It maun be as it will!” said he, when I had told him, “Weel may yon boatie row, or my craig’ll have to thole a raxing.”

  That part of the beach was long and flat, and excellent walking when the tide was down; a little cressy burn flowed over it in one place to the sea; and the sandhills ran along the head of it like the rampart of a town. No eye of ours could spy what was passing behind there in the bents, no hurry of ours could mend the speed of the boat’s coming: time stood still with us through that uncanny period of waiting.

  “There is one thing I would like to ken,” say Alan. “I would like to ken these gentry’s orders. We’re worth four hunner pound the pair of us: how if they took the guns to us, Davie! They would get a bonny shot from the top of that lang sandy bank.”

  “Morally impossible,” said I. “The point is that they can have no guns. This thing has been gone about too secret; pistols they may have, but never guns.”

  “I believe ye’ll be in the right,” says Alan. “For all which I am wearing a good deal for yon boat.”