And knowing what to keep

1727

Alexander Balfour stood at the top of the dale and took his last look at the house of Shaws before it vanished out of sight, and wondered whether or not he was acting rightly.

There it stood, high-walled and solid: the home of his childhood, the inheritance of his father and of many generations of fathers before him. But a place so old must always be developing as time passes over it, and now it was in a sadly uncertain state. On this side was the new garden which Alexander had meant to lay out, still only a vague outline of half-built walls and a first few straggling shrubs. At the corner was the old tower-house, relic of a time when Scottish gentlemen had been obliged to place other things than fashion or comfort first when planning and building their houses—which, superseded by his father’s proud and elegant modern construction, was beginning to fall to ruin, and which Alexander had felt he ought to repair and keep up in some way. Would Ebenezer build the tower back up again, or finish his garden? He hoped so; he hoped his brother would return his own generosity by caring for their family’s property now that it was entrusted to his keeping; but.... No; it were disloyal in him to doubt Ebenezer.

Another thing quietened his doubts also; for at the end of the road that lay ahead of him now, Grace Pitarrow waited for him. She had made it plain that she cared as little for house or lands or riches as she did for being tossed about between them by the two brothers who had courted her. She had made her own choice; and Alexander, in the final giddy relief and gladness of gaining his heart’s desire, knew himself well enough to know that she was strong where he was weak, and that at the end of their misunderstandings and quarrellings and impatiences was the foundation of that real companionship which turns love into the true, steady happiness of a lifetime, and so he was ready to take a step which, in his view, accorded very well with her wishes. Grace had said that he might very well give the house to Ebenezer, the silly man, if he thought it right—but she spoke with that gleaming eye in the midst of her exasperation that Alexander loved better than anything—and had gone on, in a different voice, that surely he knew she would like him just as well in the humblest cottage in Scotland as she would could he make her the grand lady of Shaws. Now she was waiting for him, in the little village in the Borders (humble enough, if it did not quite reach the extreme of her imagination) where he had found a place as dominie. He would go to her there, and they would live out the rest of their days in quiet contentment.

And one day, perhaps, if it pleased God so to bless them, their son would stand in this spot and see again the house and lands that were still to be his inheritance.

Alexander sighed, put his doubts from him and turned away from the clouds gathering dark above the house of Shaws, to begin on the journey to Essendean—that place, far from home and memory and old duty, where hope and love awaited him.

1755

‘Well, Mr David,’ said Mr Rankeillor, fixing his eye upon his guest across the dinner-table, ‘—or Mr Balfour, as I suppose I ought to name you now—we’re mightily glad to see you here again.’

Mrs Rankeillor added her firm agreement to this; and Mr David Balfour acknowledged the compliment with a bow of the head, combining real grace of manner with an imperfectly hidden blush of artless pleasure, and said that his hosts could not be more pleased than he was to be back again.

Excepting the first visit which Mr Rankeillor had paid at the Shaws earlier that week, it was four years since they had last met, though they had been in regular correspondence all that time; for David Balfour had spent most of the time since those very curious events which had first introduced him to Mr Rankeillor on the Continent, first completing his education at Leyden and then seeking that equally important education in the variety of scenery, manners and customs of the world which a young gentleman gains through travelling. Now the death of old Mr Ebenezer Balfour had brought him back to Scotland to claim the property which was now indisputably his. And a sorry state he had found it in, as he was now explaining to Mrs Rankeillor, who had not as yet seen the house.

‘I fear it will be some time before I can return your hospitality, madam,’ he said, a piece of the excellent baked salmon, studded with cloves, on which they were dining speared on his fork. ‘The fish might not be wanting, it’s true, for I’ve already made trial of the stream at Shaws and found it very good indeed; but the accommodations are quite inadequate. I am afraid I spent this morning clearing about fifty years’ worth of jackdaws’ nests out of the dining-room chimney.’

Mrs Rankeillor laughed merrily at this ruefully-made admission. ‘Oh, you’ve your work cut out for you, Mr Balfour,’ she said, ‘but there, many a man has that, when he starts out in life. Now, when Mr Rankeillor and I were first married, we lived in lodgings in Edinburgh...’ And her husband looked on, smiling, as she launched into an account of that lodging and its many memorable defects.

As the meal went on the lawyer observed his guest shrewdly. David Balfour at one-and-twenty was very much like what he had been at seventeen, and yet he was also unlike. He had, what he had not had then, that ease and assurance which the familiar knowledge of his high station in life gives a young man, and also the gravity of one who appreciates the responsibilities of that position; but there was something else new too—a sort of quietly considered reserve, a look of watching the world before he spoke. This, thought Mr Rankeillor, was not quite the guileless laddie who had once thoughtlessly blurted out the name of—well, a name which Mr Rankeillor had happily long since forgotten.

Presently Mrs Rankeillor left the two gentlemen to their port. Mr Rankeillor sat for a minute or two swirling the liquid round in his glass and admiring the effect of the candlelight on its colour; then he spoke.

‘So, Mr Balfour,’ he said, ‘and do you feel equal to this great task before you?’

‘I hardly dare to say that, sir,’ replied David with a smile.

‘Ah, you’ll do fine, I have no doubt,’ said Mr Rankeillor. ‘You are a sensible young man, and will take the advice of your lawyer on all points of importance, which I always say is the best way for any gentleman to assure himself of success and ease in life——’ Here he broke off to join in David’s laughter with a chuckle.

‘I certainly have no shortage of advisers to help me,’ said David presently. ‘When I was going round to visit the tenants last week, they all had no end of information to give me about how things were done in my father’s time, and my grandfather’s—quite a few of them are old enough to remember him—and all meaning, of course, that they expected me to set things on the same path again as soon as can be. They do seem to know a great deal more about it all than I do... And my neighbours are just as opinionated; Mrs Johnstone called yesterday and had much to say about the house.’

‘Ah, well,’ said Mr Rankeillor significantly, ‘Mrs Johnstone will have her own reasons for seeking your friendship; she has three grown-up daughters not yet married.—You haven’t taken a fancy to any of them, have you?’

‘Oh, no, certainly not,’ said David, evidently surprised at the suggestion.

‘Well, but you’re young, there’ll be plenty of time to think of such things later—and when you’ve got your house into a state fit to receive a lady!’

No, he had not imagined it; David looked definitely uncomfortable at that suggestion.

The lawyer set his glass down on the table and leaned forward, his hands clasped together. ‘Mr David,’ he began, ‘I hope you won’t think it a liberty in a man old enough to be your father to offer you some advice on a point rather outside the legal sphere?’

‘Not at all—pray, go on, sir.’

‘You have had an adventurous youth, Mr David—well, and many a man has that, although not so many of them have just the adventures you did to come into your property.’ (At this David smiled.) ‘What I mean is, that if there is anyone—perhaps someone you left behind on the Continent... the thought of whom makes the prospect of marriage distasteful to you, well, you would hardly be the only young gentleman in the world to have given his heart first where he cannot give aught else. It’s not a thing to blame anyone for; but if there is such a person—if; I don’t say there is—if there is such a person, I would advise you to endeavour to forget her.’ If there was a pause before this last pronoun, it was so slight as to be almost imperceptible. ‘And,’ he added, ‘I believe the business of the life ahead of you—its joys and cares—will make that easier than you think.’

Certainly it was an interesting question how far David Balfour to-day was the same person he had been four years ago—a person whom Mr Rankeillor, a man of quick and shrewd perceptions, remembered very well indeed.

‘Thank you, sir,’ said David at last. ‘No, it’s not taking a liberty... I’ll remember your advice. You are very kind.’

Mr Rankeillor regarded the young laird for a few moments more; then he picked up his glass, drained it and said, ‘Well, that’s enough of sermonising for one day, I think! And Mrs Rankeillor must be missing our company by now; let us go and join her.’

David smiled once more, and agreed to this proposal; and they rose from the table and left the room.

1757

Captain William Hamley looked about him with some interest as he turned off the Queensferry road and passed between the gateposts. The life of an officer in the garrison of Edinburgh Castle was apt to be a dull one—dull, certainly, for a young man who had chosen his profession out of a sincere love for adventure and activity, and who would far rather now be fighting the French over in Flanders or, better yet, the Americas, than be confined to such monotonous but necessary home duties. Still, he reflected, to-day’s task might bring something of interest—its possible sequel, even more so.

By now he had almost reached the house, which presented a curious sight to his eyes. It was, to put it bluntly, half a ruin—though Captain Hamley understood that this was, as it were, a glass half full rather than one half empty, for before the arrival of the present laird two or three years ago it had been in a much worse state, and its current appearance was the result of a partially-progressed rebuilding. Still, the sight of the high tower with its walls all ivied over and its upper floors open to the elements afforded the officer some little, not malicious, amusement. He was met outside the house by a middle-aged, cheerful-looking manservant, who directed him to wait in the library and then said that he would go himself to stable the visitor’s horse, and then let Mr Balfour know he was there. Once alone the officer allowed himself another brief smile: evidently the domestic establishment was no more complete than the house itself. Captain Hamley came from an old and comfortable family of English squires; it was true that their rambling ancestral seat among the low wooded hills of Sussex was not nearly so grand or spacious as the house of Shaws, but still the captain was pleasantly amused by these examples of the quaint primitiveness of the Scots.

In a short time these musings were interrupted by the entrance of the laird. Captain Hamley rose from his seat and introduced himself. In personal appearance at least Mr Balfour did not resemble his house: his clothes, while not elaborate or showy, were well-cut, neat and showed a proper degree of attention to the fashion, and his manner balanced correctness and amiability, with perhaps a hint of a young man’s still-new pride in the station he held (however faintly absurd such pride might be).

‘May I ask to what I owe the pleasure of this visit, Captain?’ he said as they sat down. The chairs were new, Hamley noted, and quite as well-made as their owner’s clothes.

‘Certainly, sir,’ said Hamley. ‘I have been charged to investigate a report which has lately reached the Commander of a certain person having been seen in this neighbourhood in whom Government takes a lively interest—a man wanted for murder, to put it plainly, as well as desertion from the Army. Of course we shall make a proper search, but the Commander hoped you might also be able to assist us with some intelligence—whether you’ve seen this man yourself, or heard any local report of him, or whether you might question your tenants about him.’

‘Of course, sir,’ said Mr Balfour. He had folded his hands tightly on his knee in a business-like attitude.

‘His name is Alan Stewart,’ went on Hamley, ‘and I have his description here...’ He riffled through the pockets of his uniform coat, and it was perhaps fortunate that this search obliged him momentarily to lose sight of Mr Balfour’s face. ‘Ah, here it is.—“A man about forty years of age, height five feet two inches, hair fair, face very much marked with the small-pox, a little in-kneed; may be wearing a blue side-coat with silver buttons”—which is part of his French Army uniform, for he’s gone over to the enemy since deserting from our service! I daresay you’ve heard of him, sir; I’m told his name was all over the country after the murder of Campbell of Glenure, though that was before my time. But there you have it: have you seen such a man, or heard anything of him?’

Mr Balfour, who had been listening thoughtfully to Hamley’s recital of the description, now unclasped his hands and said slowly, ‘And there has been a report of such a man’s being seen near here?... Well, I believe I can shed some light upon that report, sir, but I fear there has been a mistake. A friend of mine, a Mr Thomson, was visiting me last week, and he fits that description pretty closely: he’s a small, fair man with a pock-marked face, and he has a blue coat like the one you mention—I suppose it might be mistaken for the French uniform. But Mr Thomson is a gentleman from Aberdeenshire. I do know who Alan Breck Stewart is—as you say, sir, I remember the outcry around Campbell of Glenure’s murder pretty well—and I suppose some person, recalling his description, and not knowing Mr Thomson——’

‘Put two and two together and made five,’ concluded Hamley, nodding. He gave a short laugh, endeavouring to make a joke of the dismay with which he saw his coveted adventure slipping away from him. ‘Oh dear; I’m afraid that does probably clear up the matter. Well, thank you very much, Mr Balfour. I’ll pass on what you’ve told me to my superiors, and I suppose that will be an end of it. This Mr Thomson isn’t still here, is he?’

‘No; he started back north on Thursday.’

‘Ah, that’s no matter; of course we can take your word for his identity,’ said Hamley. For a moment a wild idea flitted through his mind, of the murderer’s having imposed upon Mr Balfour with a false identity—but no, that hypothesis would not do; a gentleman like Mr Balfour surely knew who his friends were, so that no such deception could stand up. Thus Captain Hamley was obliged to give up his dream, at least for the present; he was a well-bred man, and concealed his disappointment behind a polite smile, and said, ‘Thank you for your assistance, Mr Balfour.’

‘Not at all... You’ll take some refreshment before you go, Captain Hamley?’

This courteous offer was accepted, and over a glass of surprisingly good Madeira and some pieces of short-bread they chatted about the house and its history, on the one hand, and the life of the Castle garrison on the other. The captain began to feel, a trifle guiltily, that perhaps he had been too quick to ridicule Mr Balfour, albeit all his joking had been confined to his private thoughts; the man was not ridiculous, after all.

At last Hamley rose to take his leave. ‘I suppose,’ he remarked as they shook hands, ‘that Alan Breck Stewart has the good sense to remain in France, well out of our reach. If I were him I certainly should never show my face this side of the water again.’

Mr Balfour agreed that this was most likely.

And as the captain rode away from the house of Shaws, still mourning the loss of his chance to track down and bring to justice a desperate murderer, David Balfour stood motionless at the library window and watched his retreat, an expression upon his face which Captain Hamley would have been sorely puzzled to interpret.

1760

‘There it is! Look—oh, it’s gone. Did you see, Uncle David?’

Thus Christina Pitarrow, who at the age of seven had both the patience and the interest to sit quiet and still on the bank of her relation’s duck-pond in quest of the newts which, he assured her, dwelt therein, but not quite the self-control to remain so still in the excitement of spotting one.

‘I think you’ve scared it away, Chrissy,’ said her uncle. ‘They are very shy creatures.’

Christina nodded, understanding, and settled back down upon the bank. ‘I’ll wait for it again,’ she said philosophically, tucking a stray lock of fair hair back behind her ear. ‘Do they mind us talking?’

‘I shouldn’t think so—not if we speak softly.’

‘Grandmamma told me there are bats in the tower. May we go and see them?—May I climb up the tower?’ Her eyes, as she spoke, remained intent on the water.

‘Certainly not,’ said her uncle, smiling. ‘It’s not safe. But we can go there this evening to look for the bats, if your grandmamma says you may stay up so late.’

‘Why isn’t it safe?’ she inquired.

‘Why, because I haven’t finished putting the new stairs in! There would be nothing for you to walk on, once you got up to the top floors, and you might fall.’

‘I wouldn’t fall, Uncle David,’ she said, with the complacent scepticism of seven years old.

‘It’s terribly easy. I once nearly had a very bad fall from the top of that tower.’

‘Really? What happened?’ Christina raised her head and looked at him, wide-eyed.

‘I’ll tell you the whole story,’ said he, ‘another time—for you’ve something else to see now.’ And slowly he pointed below the water.

‘Oh—the newt!’

She returned her gaze to the pond, and for some minutes they sat there together in silence, while the newt went about its business among the dense green weeds and the constantly-moving clouds of tiny water-fleas. At last it vanished beneath a stone. Christina watched for long enough to see whether it would re-emerge, then, accepting that it was gone, rose to her feet.

Her uncle was also standing, and he had his watch in his hand. ‘I think we’d better be going in, Chrissy,’ he said; ‘it’s almost dinner-time, and we mustn’t keep Robert and your grandmamma waiting.’

Christina nodded. She was content to leave the duck-pond, having seen the elusive newt; besides, she could always come back to-morrow and see it again. There was another week of their visit left: many newt-spotting expeditions could be fitted into that time.

‘Uncle David,’ she said as they returned along the path to the house, ‘why aren’t you married? Most of the grown-up people I know are married,’ she continued, in explanation of the inquiry; ‘even Grandmamma used to be, but Grandpapa is away in Heaven now, with Mamma and Papa.’

He considered the question for a moment. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I suppose I never met any lady I should like to marry. Some people don’t, you know.’

This statement accorded with Christina’s own sense of things, and she nodded. ‘I think you’re very wise,’ she said. ‘I will never marry anyone, I think.’

At this point they were interrupted by the appearance of Christina’s brother Robert, coming round the side of the house ahead of them. She took off running to meet him.

‘Robbie, Robbie, we saw the newt! Oh, it was beautiful.’

‘Did you?’ he said. ‘Well, I’m glad I didn’t have to sit there for an age waiting for it.—But I’m sure it is,’ he added, clasping her hand.

Robert was twelve, just the age to regard a five-years-younger sister as the silliest, most contemptible thing in the world—but he did no such thing, for his boyish spirits were tempered by a good deal of steadiness and affection, and he always treated Christina kindly, letting her join in his games and explaining pieces of his Latin and mathematics lessons to her when she asked about them. But—though they sometimes went out bird’s-nesting together, Robert teaching his sister to be careful and take only one egg from each nest—his sympathy with her passionate interest in natural history had its limits.

‘It was dark green, and all spotted,’ she related now, ‘and I’m going to catch one and keep it in a jar, like my tadpoles.’

By now the children’s uncle—actually their first cousin once removed, for their father, an Angus minister, had been the nephew of Grace Pitarrow, David’s mother—had caught up with them. He exchanged familiar greetings with Robert, lifted Christina into his arms—remarking that she was getting too big to be carried for very long—and the three of them went on into the house together. They went, not towards the big dining-room which was used for what Christina thought of as ‘grown-up dinners’ on special occasions, but into a small parlour whose windows looked out over a view made up of a little neatly laid-out flower-garden, the duck-pond and the patch of ground beyond it which, not yet turned over to any particular purpose, was a sort of miniature wasteland of straggling grass, moss, dandelions and daisies—perfect for kicking a ball about in, or hunting for ladybirds. This parlour was one of the first rooms which David had made habitable when he came to live at the house of Shaws; for some time it and the kitchen had formed pretty much the entirety of his dwelling, and he was still inclined to treat it as a sort of miscellaneous room for all purposes. Its various furniture included a small table with four chairs set round it, and it was here that David ate his meals when alone or with small parties of family visitors with whom there was no need to be the grand laird.

On the opposite side stood a high-backed oak settle with a woollen plaid flung over it, and on this sat an elderly woman reading a book, who rose to her feet as Robert ran into the parlour ahead of his uncle and sister.

‘Just in time for your dinner, I see,’ she said, smiling. ‘Have you both had a good morning?’

‘I’ve been in the stables,’ said Robert. ‘Lamb says he can teach me to ride the pony, if Uncle David will let me. And Chrissy has been finding newts.’

‘Newts, and the pony!’ Janet Pitarrow replaced her book in the low bookcase which stood beside the settle and came forward. ‘Well, that certainly sounds an exciting time. You must tell me all about it... Sit down, now.’

Her grandson did so, pulling out his chair and taking his seat on it with careful precision, and Christina scrambled down from her uncle’s arms to take her own place at the table.

‘You’re so good with the bairns, Davie,’ said Janet in an aside to her cousin as he too went to sit down. ‘You’ll be a good father to your own one day, I’ve no doubt... I hope my two haven’t been tiring you out too greatly this morning.’

‘Not at all; Chrissy and I are great friends,’ he said with a smile. ‘Ah, here’s Peggy with the dinner.’

Janet, being a widow and not in excellent health, had not an easy time of it keeping her two orphan grandchildren on the very limited income which her husband had left her. The dinner which the children were eagerly tucking into now was a better meal than they often got at home. So she was grateful to her more fortunate young cousin for inviting them on these long visits, which the children so enjoyed; and she hoped that she and they were not the only gainers, for it was a big house for a man to live all alone in, and, although the exuberant spirits which Robert and Christina (perhaps especially the latter) possessed sometimes overtaxed her own strength, their presence here must enliven the place.

The meal proceeded, to the accompaniment of merry chatter about newts, the pony and—once Christina, her own narrations done with, remembered the promise her uncle had made her earlier—the thrilling and spiritedly-narrated story of how Uncle David had once almost fallen to his death from the top of the tower in the middle of a lightning storm.

1762

The great stone building, its main body rather more than a hundred years old and parts of it older than that, in which the people of Cramond went to worship the Lord was, as such places often are, inclined to be chilly. In winter it could be downright uncomfortable; but on this July morning, with the sun shining powerfully outside, its chilliness was become a virtue, and it was pleasantly cool. Perhaps this was why Mr Gilbert Hamilton, the minister, had to-day, much to his gratification, a larger congregation than usual assembled before him; or perhaps, he mused to himself as he closed the great Bible on the pulpit, it was the news of the recent great victory over the French at Wilhelmsthal which had brought the people here in thanksgiving. Many a household in Cramond had its son who had gone for a soldier or a sailor, after all. The word going about now was that the defeat, having put a final end to the ambitions of the French to conquer the King’s possessions in Hanover, was likely to mean an end to the whole war before very much longer, and so those soldiers and sailors, so dear, remembered with so much anxiety and perhaps not seen for years, might soon come home again. Mr Hamilton, who himself had kin among the officers serving in the Duke of Brunswick’s Allied army, surveyed the crowd of faces before him, and despite the typical variety of moods they expressed—attention, fervour, abstraction or sometimes, he feared, boredom—he believed he did sense among them a greater anxiety and thankfulness; and so he was moved to add to his address an extempore prayer giving thanks to God for the victory, and praying that all those dear friends and relations who had been in the battle, or anywhere else in the war, might soon return.

‘And for strength and courage,’ he concluded, ‘should it be Thy will that any of them do not return, that we may bear the affliction with patient submission, and perfect trust in Thee. We ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord.’

And as the congregation echoed his ‘Amen’, Mr Hamilton looked over them again, and found his gaze drawn to one figure among the many. It was the laird of Shaws, who sat alone in the great box-pew, near the front of the kirk, that belonged to that house—or, rather, before Mr Hamilton began his prayer he had been sitting there, looking rather solemn; now he was kneeling, his elbows resting on the edge of the pew and his hands clasped together, so tightly that the knuckles showed white, above his bent head. The minister gazed on him with compassion; he, too, was surely thinking of some friend or relation far away.

He did not move from that position until the final psalm was being sung, and during that time he remained in the forefront of Mr Hamilton’s thoughts. He liked the young laird, who was a conscientious churchgoer and took the duties and responsibilities of his position seriously; and besides that, the sight of suffering in any of the people of his flock always gave the kind minister much pain.

So, when he stood in the kirk porch after the service, greeting the congregation as they filtered past him into the dazzling sunlight, the minister made sure to wait for Mr Balfour—whose usual habit it was to be at the back of the crowd leaving the kirk, and who was rather later than his usual time to-day—and say a few words to him, and shake his hand especially warmly.

‘Thank you, sir,’ said Mr Balfour, ‘and thank you also for your prayer upon the late battle, which I... I thought ’twas very well expressed.’ The smile would not stay on his face, which was pale as he squinted out into the sunshine.

Yes, surely there was some special anxiety... Mr Hamilton looked at him carefully, thinking to add some encouraging words—how the battle had been a great victory, and that, whoever was in his thoughts to-day, it was more than likely that he had survived and would soon be on his way home—but something stayed him; he could not have said what. Perhaps it was simply the knowledge that even a great victory does not come but at a price.

In any case, he invited Mr Balfour to come and dine at the manse upon the morrow, and bade him a good day, and managed to imbue the plain, commonplace words with warmth and significance—an ability which Mr Hamilton possessed in an unusual degree, and which served him well in his profession, in the reading of prayers and passages of Scripture. The laird smiled again as he accepted the invitation; and then he turned away down the kirkyard path, and thence on his way back to the house of Shaws.

1766

The primroses were in bloom beneath the hedgerows, and an early bumblebee buzzed experimentally among them; from somewhere within the tangle of blackthorns, their bare branches a glory of white blossom, a wren sang its energetic song; the morning sunlight held a warmth still rare and precious, and Peggy Smith, kitchenmaid at the Shaws, felt as she went along such an answering warmth and gladness in her own heart that she could fairly have skipped down the lane instead of walking. But it was still too muddy underfoot for that to be very wise, and so Peggy contented herself with stooping to pick a few primroses, gathering them up in her apron and continuing on her way. Presently she turned off the lane into a path which led up towards a great house—one not so great as the house of Shaws, but newer of construction and in much better condition. Coming near the house she went round to the back, threaded her way between the little crowd of low, business-like buildings always found at the back of a great house, and emerged into a stable-yard where a young man was performing some complicated operation on a piece of tack.

The man looked up. ‘Peggy!’ he said, and his face broke out into a slow smile. ‘Now, what brings you here?’

‘I thought I’d surprise you,’ she said, beaming, and then added, ‘Of course I know you’re busy, but can you come out and walk a little way?’

The young man’s eyes gleamed through his frown. ‘Well, we are busy,’ he said, making a show of pretending to hesitate, ‘but I do have an errand in Cramond village, so if you were walking over that way...’

‘I suppose I might be,’ said Peggy happily. ‘Oh—I brought you these.’ She held out the bunch of primroses.

Her sweetheart—his name was Sam Colvin, and he was employed as a groom by Mr Johnstone, Mr Balfour’s neighbour—regarded the flowers. ‘Well, I’ll put these in water before I go,’ he decided.

This important task done, they set off together towards Cramond village, walking arm-in-arm. ‘So how is it you’re free to-day, Peggy?’ asked Sam presently—for he knew it was not her usual day off.

‘Mrs Alston said I might go,’ she said. ‘She’s in a good mood to-day, I think—and then it’s very quiet just now, of course, with only young Master Robert at home.’

‘Oh? How’s that?—Has Mr Balfour gone away?’

‘Ay—last week, and very quietly, like he usually does. Mr Lamb says he’ll be away a month or two. So with him gone, and Miss Christina at school—and she makes the place lively enough when she’s here!—and no visitors, and Master Robert dining out to-day, there’s not so much for us to do, so here I am.’

‘Here you are,’ agreed Sam, squeezing her arm; and for a few minutes their conversation continued on topics of more interest to the two of them than to the reader, while a wren—perhaps the same one Peggy had heard earlier—started up its song again from the hedgerow.

‘I know that Master Robert is dining out, in any case,’ remarked Sam presently, ‘for he’s coming over to join the party at Mr Johnstone’s—it’s not a quiet day for us! Where is it Mr Balfour has gone, do you know?’ he added.

‘Not a clue,’ said Peggy, shrugging. But the question jogged her memory, and after a few moments’ thought she said, ‘No, I remember. I overheard—perhaps I shouldn’t repeat what I wasn’t meant to hear, but I can’t see that it matters very much... I overheard Mr Lamb and him saying something about going on board ship, and France. That’s where he must have gone.’

‘He’s been making these journeys quite regular for the last few years—since the war ended, in fact,’ mused Sam, who had perhaps more of a gossip’s curiosity about other people’s affairs than had his sweetheart. ‘So it would make sense if it was France.’

‘That’s true... But I don’t know what he can have to do there. Business of some kind, I suppose.’

Peggy could not, in truth, bring herself to take a very great interest in where Mr Balfour’s mysterious journeys might be taking him. He was a good master, kind and not over-exacting; and Mrs Alston, the cook whose temperament was such a great influence on the circumstances and happiness of Peggy’s life, was indulgent and rather lenient towards her, not assuming the as it were remedial harshness which some upper servants under kind but inattentive masters do; and Robert Pitarrow-Balfour, who was left in charge of the house at the moment, was if anything even more careful and precise in his goodness than the uncle who had adopted him and his sister three years since. Altogether, Peggy knew her luck in having such a place; and between a complacent temperament and her real affection for her employer, she felt that as far as she was concerned Mr Balfour might make as many unexplained journeys to France or anywhere else as he liked, and she would have nothing to complain of.

‘There, that’s enough of that,’ she said, jogging Sam’s arm. ‘Tell me about what you’re to do in the village, or about all your visitors.’

‘Well,’ he began, ‘Mr Erskine and his daughter arrived this morning...’

And there followed a full account of the party of visitors currently assembled at Mr Johnstone’s house, about whom Sam was able to furnish many interesting details; and the couple wandered on together, making rather slow progress towards Cramond village, but perfectly happy.

1770

The light was beginning to fail, as it did discouragingly soon this late in the summer and under clouds thick enough that only a very small part of them, surrounding a gap over to the west, was touched with the colour of sunset; looking at it, Iain Beg Maclaren, who had been walking all day and had spent each day of the last week in much the same manner, was suddenly overpoweringly weary.

Up ahead an old stone bridge bore the road along which he was walking across a small river. Reaching this, Iain leant upon the parapet, took off his shoes to rub his aching feet and began to consider what he would do next. Probably he would find a haystack or a barn to sleep in, as he had been doing since he entered the Lowlands. But before that he hoped to come to a change-house where he might get some supper; and having misjudged the distance between villages earlier in the day, he was not quite sure where he now was, or how far away the nearest change-house was likely to be.

A small, neatly-dressed woman was coming along the road behind him, a basket on her arm. Hastily Iain put his shoes back on and, as she reached the bridge, asked her in his serviceable but not perfectly fluent English if she could tell him where the next village was.

‘Why, that would be Cramond, laddie,’ she said, ‘—this is Cramond Brig. Just turn left on the far side.’

‘Cramond!’ cried Iain. For that name, unlike most of the names of these parts, was familiar to him. His cousin Mairi, the last time he saw her before starting on his journey, had mentioned an old friend of hers who lived near Cramond—had said, in fact, that if he passed that way he was to ‘remember Duncan and me to David Balfour of Shaws, won’t you, Iain?’ So now Iain eagerly asked of his guide which was the way to the house of Shaws.

‘Oh, you’re going to the Shaws, are you?’ said the woman, her face lighting up. ‘I know it well, for I was kitchenmaid there before I married. It’s not far at all.’ And she gave Iain exact directions, which he was soon following.

The turning off the main road to which she directed him led between hay-meadows shorn of their summer’s growth and hedgerows on which the haws were ripening; but it did not as yet bring him within sight of any house, and so when he met someone coming the other way—a tall man between youth and middle age, and a gentleman, to judge by his clothes—Iain asked again if this were the way to Mr Balfour’s house.

‘Mr Balfour?’ said the gentleman, looking faintly surprised. ‘Why, yes; I am he.’

Iain gave an exclamation of surprise, and then began upon a hasty account of how he came to ask: that he was a traveller from Balquhidder in the Highlands, benighted on his road to Edinburgh, and a cousin of Mairi’s.

Understanding dawned in Mr Balfour’s face. ‘Oh, yes; I remember your cousin and her man very well. I’m pleased to hear from them again,’ he said, and looked as though he really meant it. ‘But, Mr Maclaren, there are another five miles to go to Edinburgh, and I’m thinking you could do with some supper and a bed for the night before you walk there. Will you give me the pleasure of taking them at my house?’

And Iain had gratefully accepted the offer before his conscious mind registered the very surprising fact that these last words were addressed to him in his own language.

Mr Balfour smiled and gestured to Iain to accompany him back along the path, and as he did so Iain ventured to inquire how it was that he—for he was certainly a Lowlander—had the Gaelic?

‘Well, I have only a little,’ admitted Mr Balfour, and then returning to his own tongue, ‘I have travelled in the Highlands, and I daresay I picked up a few words in your cousin’s house—for she and Duncan Dhu very generously gave me shelter when I was ill. Since then I’ve learnt a little more from another Highland friend of mine... But tell me more about your journey, Mr Maclaren!’

So Iain did so, while the distant clouds deepened from red gold to deep purple above their homeward way—telling how he was going to Edinburgh, in the romantic phrase, to seek his fortune, or to give the more prosaic particulars to take up a place as assistant to his cousin Lachlan who was a shoemaker, and who had recommended the city as a destination for an ambitious lad. He found in Mr Balfour a willing listener, asking various questions—about Iain’s own plans, and about how Mairi and Duncan Dhu were faring back in Balquhidder—and taking a real interest in the answers. And Iain, as he gave those answers, felt easier and less embarrassed about his English, for the very imperfect Gaelic in which Mr Balfour ventured a few more phrases, besides showing a consideration which Iain certainly had not expected to find here, seemed to place them on a footing of more equality.

They rounded a corner into an orchard where the apples were ripening on the trees, and here Mr Balfour, inspecting a specimen convenient to his eye, remarked that he thought the first fruits were just ready; he picked half a dozen, saying to Iain with a smile, ‘We shall have them with our supper.’

When they reached the house Mr Balfour led him into a small parlour of homely and pleasantly-cluttered appearance: a bright fire burned in the hearth, and before it two girls of sixteen or so were seated upon a settle, their heads—one fair and one dark—bent close together over a book.

They looked up as Mr Balfour and Iain entered; Mr Balfour announced that they had a guest to supper, and the young ladies rose and came forward as he introduced them all to each other. The fair-haired girl, who was very tall and bore a distinct family resemblance to Mr Balfour, was Miss Pitarrow-Balfour, his niece and ward; her companion, of middle height and slightly foreign-looking features, was Miss Maitland, her school friend, here on a visit; and they both bade Iain welcome with a ready warmth of manner which perhaps suggested that unexpected guests were no very unusual thing in this house.

Presently the final member of the family, Miss Pitarrow-Balfour’s elder brother, arrived, and they sat down to supper: hot buttered drop-scones, cheese and Mr Balfour’s fresh apples, which were produced to laughter from the young people. The conversation was lively and various; they were all eager to hear about Iain’s adventures on his travels and—once Mr Balfour’s connection with Iain’s family was explained to the others—also to hear the story of his stay in Mairi and Duncan’s house years ago, which he told now at greater length. Altogether—thought Iain to himself as, a couple of hours later, he laid his head upon the pillow of a guest bedchamber upstairs—he was fortunate indeed to have found such a welcome, and he slept with a heart full of cheer and courage for the road ahead of him.

1773

‘Chris,’ said Elizabeth Maitland, pressing her friend’s arm, ‘what’s the matter with you to-day? Something is the matter,’ she added, smiling, ‘for you look as though you could just go and run up to the top of Corstorphine Hill.’

Christina laughed. Indeed she looked especially keen, and—thought Elizabeth—especially beautiful to-day: the frost of the January morning added colour to her cheeks and vigour to her movements, besides whatever it was that was making her look so lively, and step so quickly on the walk which the two girls were taking together round the garden, as had become their daily habit through several years’ worth of long visits. But there was to be no mystery about it. ‘I’ve a scheme preparing, Bessy,’ she said, with a conspiratorial air.

Elizabeth raised her eyebrows. ‘A scheme?’

‘Ay.’ But now Christina seemed suddenly to drop the jest; she became almost shy, which was not at all a usual thing with her. ‘You remember last week, when I was so mournful at the thought of you leaving us soon, and... having to go back to your aunt?’

‘You weren’t the only one mourning it, Chris,’ said Elizabeth gently. ‘Yes, I remember.’

‘Well, you needn’t mourn any more.’ Here again was something more like her usual animation. ‘That’s my scheme: that you do not leave us at all, but stay here, for good—as my companion.’

‘Stay—stay with you!’ Elizabeth dropped her friend’s arm and turned to face her, where they stood by the corner of a yew hedge. Christina’s elation was well explained now; and she herself was astonished, so much so that for a few moments she could say nothing more. Then she faltered, ‘Oh, Chris...’ and found Christina’s hand again and gripped it hard. But the world reasserted itself too soon. ‘No, I couldn’t... how can I? Your uncle has been very kind, but I couldn’t ask that of him.’

‘Well, it’s a good thing I have already spoken to him, then,’ said Christina triumphantly, her self-assurance quite restored. ‘Come, Bessy, dear, I wouldn’t propose a scheme if I did not think it practicable, would I? Oh, I didn’t like to say anything to you until I knew it would be, but—— Well, Uncle Davie says he’d be very happy for you to come and live here, and he thinks it an excellent plan. Besides,’ she remarked, ‘you gave me the idea in the first place, if I recollect.’

‘You...’ If Elizabeth had been astonished before, she was now filled with a mixture of amazement, embarrassment, disbelief and, asserting itself as it were over the heads of these more explicable feelings, an incredible, incredulous joy at the prospect of what Christina was proposing.

Elizabeth Maitland’s father was a writer in the East India Company, and had made himself as much at home in that country as many a British gentleman did in those days. Upon the death of her native mother nine or ten years ago he had sent his daughter back to Scotland to get a lady’s education and—in proper time, and if she could—a husband and a good position in life; for he blended an awareness of the sad practicalities of a natural daughter with a good deal of real affection for the child and a desire to see her well settled. In the holidays, and now since leaving school, she lived with an aunt, who was loyal to her brother and not unkind to his child but who made it clear enough that her first thoughts must be for her own family. Though the prospects for one of her birth and station were not brilliant, it was possible—indeed, Elizabeth sometimes guiltily decided that it was so—that the task of finding that good position in life would have been easier for a girl who had more inclination for matrimony. She had none—no more, in fact, than had Christina Pitarrow-Balfour; and the romantic schoolgirl declarations, commonplace enough, to which Christina had just obliquely referred—that they two would never marry but live all their days with each other—were underlain by a seriousness not quite so commonplace, of which they were both aware; all the more so since what had happened during their last term at school together a year or so ago... But Elizabeth had given up such fancies as not possible of realisation. She would resign herself to marriage, or else sink into the precarious life of a poor relation (and one too poor, certainly, to be a fitting friend to the Pitarrow-Balfours of Shaws). Now she saw her jealously borrowed time suddenly stretching out into the vast future, and was confounded by happiness.

But the practical questions added more confusion than she felt able to bear just then. Christina had some money of her own, she knew, for Mr Balfour had, since adopting her and her brother, treated her just as if she had been his own daughter; but still the household was his, and while Elizabeth liked Mr Balfour well she was also a little in awe of him. She looked away, to the top of the yew hedge where the low sunlight was making its steady way over the frost.

‘I think we may be quite easy, Bessy,’ said Christina more gently—suiting her tone once more to her friend’s mood and to the gravity of her own words. ‘I will tell you just what Uncle Davie said... I spoke to him yesterday evening after supper, you know.’

Elizabeth looked back at her. ‘I thought you looked a trifle momentous,’ she said, and the corner of her mouth drew upwards, in spite of her uncertainties.

‘There, you’re smiling...’ An answering look was already in Christina’s eyes, and she squeezed Elizabeth’s hand again. ‘Well, Uncle Davie said that he thinks very well of you, and that you’re good for me—he thinks you keep me steady, I suppose!... and that there’s certainly plenty of room for you in this great old place.’ She waved her hand, indicating vaguely the entire bulk of the house of Shaws behind them. ‘We’ve more room than ever, in fact, since the tower-house is finished. And he’d hardly objected to Rob’s engagement to Miss Erskine, after all, for we’re his family, and——’ She drew her light eyebrows together in a distinctive gesture, not quite a frown, and went on, ‘And then he said something very curious. I will be twenty in March, you know; well, he said he knew his own mind well enough when he was younger than I am now, and didn’t see why I should not—or you either, from what he knows of you.’ She bit her lip and looked away for a moment. ‘He and I have always got on well, and understood each other. I think he does understand me—and us—very well. Oh, go and speak to him, Bessy—I’ll come too, if you like—and see what you say.’

Elizabeth looked round the garden; the sight of Christina’s intent brown eyes was getting too much to bear, and she must try to take all this in. The frost was all over twigs and leaves; it had whitened the grey cushions of the moss atop the garden wall, and made the gravel beneath their feet sparkle as they walked; a flight of finches went overhead, the bright flashes of the goldfinches’ wings truly golden in the winter sunlight, and settled in the trees at the edge of the wood; old Lamb was just rounding the corner of the stables carrying a stack of horse-blankets, and waved cheerfully to the girls with his free arm when he saw them. Elizabeth waved back, and then looked up again at the old tower, where the newly-installed windows of its top storey were brilliant in the light. This place was so much her home already; from the refuge of school holidays it had become, by imperceptible degrees, the rest and the joy of her heart; and the sense of kinship and belonging which had grown in her had, perhaps, its explanation.

She decided to say the most important thing first, and no matter that it was also by far the most obvious one.

‘Of course I’ll stay here with you, Chris, if you really want me to.’

Christina’s exuberance had been held in check too long. Now she flung her arms round her friend and kept her there for about a minute, not speaking.

They had resumed their slow progress along the walk when Elizabeth said musingly, ‘Those long journeys Mr Balfour goes on to France—do you think...?’

‘There’s a story there, surely, if ever he wants to tell it to us,’ said Christina.

More time passed. They left the garden and went along the path between the wood and the orchard, where the apple trees were standing bare and gnarled and lichen-covered. But the solemn silence of their first decision did not persist for very long; they had too much happiness to contemplate, and they were soon deep in discussion of the future that had opened itself before them.

‘I don’t mean to be idle all my life, in any case, you know,’ declared Christina.

‘No more do I!’ said Elizabeth. Security and comfort have a way of spurring the mind to action, and she was already feeling the effect of it. ‘We shall go on with our studies, of course’ (for they were tackling the classics together, currently deep in the Aeneid) ‘—we might open a school one day.’

Christina laughed. ‘We might: Uncle Davie’s father was a village dominie, you know, so ’tis in the family.’

‘Or we could go travelling, and write books about the places we visit?’

‘Just what I thought! I should write the books, and your clever paintbrush, Bessy dear, should illustrate them.’

These laughing possibilities—the foundations, so it was to prove, of a far more seriously joyful after life—entirely took up the rest of a very long morning’s walk, and by the time the two girls returned to the house they were sadly late for their dinner.

1777

It was one of those days, occurring at the marginal times of the year when summer and winter dance wildly round each other before one of them leaves the dance for the season, when the air is cold and yet the sun is warm; but the latter had the upper hand just now, shining generously golden over the yellowing leaves of the apple trees and on the warmer brown of the oak-wood beyond. It was this beauty, short-lived as it was likely to prove, which had tempted the family party outside this afternoon.

‘Come here, then!’ cried Christina, holding out her arms. ‘That’s right; aren’t you clever?’—as her nephew tottered uncertainly but courageously towards her. She caught him up and whirled him about, to squeals of delighted laughter. ‘Now, can you go back to your daddy?’

Robert, from watching with a father’s quietly pleased pride, hastily made his own preparations to receive the small peregrinator. The child made another brave effort, stumbled—Robert restrained himself from going at once to help, and with a rush of fond affection saw that Agnes, seated on the grass behind Christina, was doing the same—picked himself up again and finally reached his goal, to exclamations from his mother and aunties. This done, however, he suddenly found that he had reached the limits of his endurance, and buried his face in his father’s shoulder with a sob.

‘Oh, poor wee pet, he’s tired out,’ said Christina, laughing, as Robert did his best to soothe the overtired child, and Agnes rose and came to help him. For the next few minutes both parents were occupied in this task, and Robert did not notice his uncle’s arrival until, having carefully transferred the child to Agnes’s arms, he looked up and saw David speaking to Elizabeth and Christina (who were apparently showing him some mushrooms growing beneath one of the apple-trees).

‘There, now,’ said Agnes, ‘let’s get you indoors for a rest. Oh, he’s done so well, hasn’t he, Robbie?’ This last was spoken with a look up at her husband.

Agnes Erskine was a distant cousin of their neighbours the Johnstones, and Robert had first met her more than ten years ago, when he, having been left alone at Shaws for a little while by his uncle’s travelling, was invited to dine with them and join a party of guests of which Agnes was one. It was a good thing for them that her visits to her cousins had continued for several years, for he and she had both been slow to love, or rather slow to recognise it. The understanding had grown between them; and at last he had asked her, with unaffected, quiet sincerity, to become his wife, and she, in like mood, had accepted.

‘Ay, he’s done well,’ said Robert now, squeezing her shoulder. ‘I’ll see you later, love—Uncle Davie wants to speak to me, I see.’

So the party broke up, Agnes taking the child back into the house, Christina and Elizabeth slipping off together into the oak-wood, and Robert following his uncle along the path that led down through the kitchen-garden. For a minute or two they did not speak—David crouched down beside the path to inspect the neat rows of onions and the pleasingly straggly rosemary-bush—and then he stood up and began to address some remarks and questions to Robert upon his little boy’s progress.

‘He’s a fine, strong lad—and a happy one, too, I make no doubt,’ he concluded with a smile. ‘And I’m the more glad to see him doing so well, that this’—he glanced around at the house and garden—‘will be his some day.’

Robert bowed his head in acknowledgement.

‘And,’ added David, ‘’twill be yours sooner than that; so I must say too that you have done very well, and I’m glad of it.’

Robert, perhaps naturally, had not quite caught how peculiar was the reflective mood of his uncle’s remarks, having more of a mind to the particulars. ‘I hope I’ve always tried to make the most of the chances you’ve given me, uncle,’ he said, gravely but not coldly; ‘and, of course,’ he added in a less grave tone, ‘I’m lucky indeed to have Agnes. She’s a woman in a thousand.’

David laughed quietly. ‘She’s a good mistress for the place, certainly,’ he said. ‘I think you’ll all get on very well here when I am gone, and it is yours.’

At this more explicit statement Robert did register the tone which he had missed. He stopped walking and turned to face his uncle, surprised. ‘Why, you talk as though that was to be quite soon,’ he said. ‘You’re not an old man, uncle. I hope we’ll have you with us here for many a year yet.’ And at something in the silence with which David—who could not be more than five-and-forty, and who had always seemed to keep in tolerable health—met this, he added, ‘You’re... not ill, I hope?’

‘No, Rob, I’m quite well,’ said David, who had not intended to inspire this anxiety; ‘you may rest easy on that point, never fear... Still, it may be sooner than you suppose that you are laird of Shaws.’ He looked at Robert for a moment with rather an air of having realised how much he had said, and deciding that perhaps it were better to say all the rest at once. ‘I ought to tell you more of my plans, Robert. Perhaps I should have done so sooner—but then, they are more definite now, after some news I’ve lately had from France.’ He stared at the rosemary-bush, frowning, thinking how to begin.

‘I see,’ said Robert slowly. ‘Well, anything you think proper to tell me, uncle...’ He did not see, not all at once, but at this last reference to France his surprise began to give way to some dim idea of what he was about to hear. Robert had never inquired into the reasons for his uncle’s regular visits to that country, being assured that it was nothing to touch him, and content to leave private matters alone—but now, perhaps, it was.

‘It’s getting cold,’ said David, pulling himself up with a smile; it was a more natural and familiar look, and reassured Robert greatly. ‘Come into the study, Rob, and we’ll talk it over there.’

He was right; the sun was sinking fast, so that the path where they stood was now cast into shadow by the garden wall, and with this loss of sunlight the sharp air of approaching winter was reasserting itself. So Robert agreed; and the laird of Shaws and his heir turned and went together into the house, to talk of the future.

1778

David Balfour stood at the top of the dale and took his last look at the house of Shaws before it vanished out of sight. It was a long look; the hour was very early, and there was time enough to linger a little before the tide that would carry his ship away.

The first rays of the sun, just slanting over the low rising ground, shone upon the roofs and glinted on the attic windows of a very different house from that which David had first seen twenty-seven years ago. He leant against a hawthorn tree on which the blossom was still blowing, the cool air upon his face and the song of the blackbirds and thrushes in his ears, and allowed himself to contemplate the work of those years with what was perhaps a not undeserved pride. There were the gardens neatly set out round the house, at the height of their varied colour at this time of year; the orchard, restored from its former wild, overgrown state, where in a few months’ time the apples would be plentiful again; beyond that were the tenants’ farms spread out over the dale, hay-meadows and barley-fields all in their different stages of growth, and all prospering, it seemed, especially well this year.—God willing, it would be a good harvest and an easy winter. But most of all he was proud of the house itself—the house which now lay still half-asleep, for only faithful old Lamb had been up to see David off, and the rest of the servants would only now be rising from their beds. There were Robert and Agnes, who would keep house and estate in perfect order, he had no doubt; and Christina and Elizabeth would play their part too, for as long as they chose to stay there; and in the nursery whose window David could just see slept the child who was an assurance of the place’s future.

In their different ways the house of Shaws had given them all a home.

And now, just when the years of steady labour had reached their fulfilment, when all was as David had once seen it in his mind’s eye, he was leaving it; for the happy life here was, as he had known for a long time now, not enough for him. The arrangements were made for the independence and comfort of his family; it had been a sorrowful leave-taking yesterday evening, but they needed him no more, and he was free to go. And what a joyful meeting awaited him at his journey’s end...

He raised himself from the hawthorn and slung his bag securely on his back. He was travelling light. Over the years he had amassed quite a collection of interesting, beautiful and useful possessions: old furniture restored from its dilapidation, and other things newly-made; antiquities unearthed on the estate and in the neighbourhood of Cramond, of which there were a great variety; a fine collection of books to add the middle eighteenth century’s fashions, views and concerns to the old library. A few of the books, and some particular favourite antiques, he would have sent on to him presently; for the rest, it was better that they should stay with the house.

David lingered by the hawthorn tree for one last backward glance; then he turned and went on his way, his face towards the future.

1817

In a comfortably-furnished panelled drawing-room, whose new sash windows overlooked a fine expanse of green Selkirkshire countryside, two gentleman and two ladies—all four of them middle-aged and all, to judge from their easy, comfortable talk, old friends—sat drinking coffee. There was a lull in the conversation; the elder of the two gentlemen leaned back in his corner of the sofa and sipped his coffee contentedly.

‘I can see,’ he said presently, ‘that we must do more to court your favour, Scott! It is a really fine place you have here, and it was a very fine dinner. Well worth the journey down—do not you say so, Lucy?’ With the last words he nudged the arm of his wife, who sat beside him. She gave him a look in which real agreement was mixed with indulgent fondness.

The other gentleman laughed. ‘We would invite you for your conversation, if it were not unnecessary—for you know such good friends as you are always welcome here,’ he said. ‘You tell such interesting stories, you know.’

‘Oh, now, I can hardly compete with you in that sphere, Scott,’ said the first gentleman, with a twinkle.

Mr Scott—he would not be Sir Walter for another three years—laughed again and said nothing.

Here Lucy leaned forward and said in a half-conspiratorial tone, ‘Mr Scott, I don’t suppose I may venture to ask whether you have anything in that line in contemplation now?... That is to say, whether the author of “Waverley” has anything,’ she added—for officially there was no connection between that person and the gentleman she now addressed; but the real authorship of the novel which had thrilled Britain’s reading public three years earlier was in reality something of an open secret, at least amongst his friends. ‘This one was so very keen on “Waverley”, you know—for he loves to hear all about the romance of the Young Pretender.’ And she returned her husband’s nudge.

‘The Jacobites?’ Mr Scott scratched his chin thoughtfully. ‘Well, madam, perhaps I shall be able to oblige you... for the author of “Waverley” is, as it happens, contemplating another story upon a similar subject.’

Lucy and her husband were delighted. ‘Oh, we must hear all about it!’ she said. ‘Tell me more, Charlotte—for, Mr Scott, Charlotte will tell me all, if you will be secretive, I know.’

The mistress of the house smiled, and said that she really knew very little—‘for the story is still at a very early stage, I believe.’ And Lucy was beginning playfully to upbraid her for her conjugal loyalty, when Mr Scott’s friend sat up with the air of suddenly having remembered something.

‘Perhaps,’ he said, ‘perhaps, if there is a story about the Jacobites in question, you would be interested to hear of something that happened to me in France, years ago—a very curious incident. I do not think I can have told you of it before, Scott—it has only this moment come back to me.’

‘Pray, go on,’ said Mr Scott, and the ladies added their encouragement. ‘I think I should like to hear this.’

The gentleman took another sip of his coffee, leaned his head to one side in an attitude of careful reminiscence, and began. ‘It was when I lived at Paris—nearly thirty years ago, before the Revolution. Some procession was passing through the streets, and an acquaintance of mine, a Benedictine priest, invited me to watch it from his rooms, which afforded an especially good view. Well, I saw the procession, which was very fine—but I met there two other Scotsmen who had also come to watch it, and that meeting really interested me much more.

‘One was an old man, small and spare—a little grim in the face, but with light glittering eyes, and very fine in his dress—with hair that had once been fair, and face strongly marked with the small-pox. He was an old soldier, and quite decorated; I believe it was the petit croix of St Louis which he wore. He spoke with a strong Highland accent, and was very eager to reminisce with me about our shared country. Now, who do you suppose this was?’

Mr Scott made a show of mentally sorting through his knowledge of old Jacobite exiles, and finally said, ‘I could not guess.’

‘He was Alan Breck Stewart, and none other,’ said the storyteller in some triumph.

‘Alan Breck Stewart,’ repeated Mr Scott and Lucy at the same time, and he went on, ‘The murderer of Campbell of Glenure, living quiet and safe in France not thirty years ago!’ He shook his head. ‘That certainly is a remarkable story.’

‘Now, that,’ said the other man, ‘is what he has always been supposed to be—the murderer of Campbell of Glenure, I mean. But he maintained, for we spoke of the matter, that he had had no hand in the affair—and his friend backed him up.’

‘His friend—yes, you said there were two men,’ said Mr Scott. ‘Who was the other?’

‘He was nobody you have heard of. I think his name was Balfour, or something of that sort—a Lowlander, a very tall man, and rather younger than his friend; with a sort of twinkling gravity of manner, but very earnest in his arguments. Apparently he had actually been with Mr Stewart on the day of the murder, and could vouch for his entire innocence. He said he had some papers—a little account of the affair, I believe—which might, he hoped, be published some time after his death, and which would make the whole truth of the matter quite plain.’

‘And he was sharing Alan Breck’s exile,’ put in Lucy, who had been listening with interest throughout the narrative (for her husband was not the only person in the world who had been very keen on “Waverley”, or on the general history of the unfortunate followers of the House of Stuart). Mr Scott, glancing at her, nodded. ‘For what reason?’

‘For none that I could gather,’ said the storyteller, looking from one to the other of his listeners; ‘—for he was no Jacobite himself, nor ever had been, he said—save that of his friend’s company. I learned something about their present life in our conversation, and a little more afterwards from my Benedictine friend. It seems they lived together in a little house some way outside Paris, in a quiet, decent way, on Mr Stewart’s army pension and a small share of the income from a Scottish estate which Mr Balfour had owned, and transferred to his heir before he left for France.’ He paused to drain his cup of coffee and concluded, ‘They were happy enough, I believe—strange an ending as it may seem.’

Lucy was the first to break the silence which succeeded this. ‘Well, my dear, to think you never told me this before!’ she said. ‘You are an endless well of surprises.’ She squeezed his arm.

Mr Scott was still leaning forward, his chin resting on his hand; and his wife, who had been listening quietly to the story, was now watching him with an equal perceptiveness. At last he said, ‘You have my sincere thanks for telling me this—I declare it is the most curious thing I have heard yet about the Jacobites!... I shall certainly mention it in my book, somehow or other.’ And then, growing less grave, he added, ‘Well, by that you have certainly repaid me for inviting you here! You’ll take some more coffee?’

The coffee was accepted, and a general conversation resumed, in which much was said upon Jacobites and novel-writing and the excellent combination they made. Some time later the company broke up and retired from the room; a little while after that a pair of footmen entered, snuffed the candles and carried away the coffee-cups on a tray; and then they too went out, and the room was left dark and silent and empty—unless it were, perhaps, for the glimmer of a light, the whisper of a sound, or a hint of the lingering presence of the strange ghosts conjured up out of those long-vanished days of the Jacobites.