Robert Stevenson - The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson – Swanston Edition. Volume 20

It is my belief that the benevolent fiend sat up all night to balk me. She was at my bedside with a candle long ere day, roused me, laid out for me a damnable misfit of clothes, and bade me pack my own (which were wholly unsuited to the journey) in a bundle. Sore grudging, I arrayed myself in a suit of some country fabric, as delicate as sackcloth and about as becoming as a shroud; and, on coming forth, found the dragon had prepared for me a hearty breakfast. She took the head of the table, poured out the tea, and entertained me as I ate with a great deal of good sense and a conspicuous lack of charm. How often did I not regret the change! – how often compare her, and condemn her in the comparison, with her charming niece! But if my entertainer was not beautiful, she had certainly been busy in my interest. Already she was in communication with my destined fellow-travellers; and the device on which she had struck appeared entirely suitable. I was a young Englishman who had outrun the constable; warrants were out against me in Scotland, and it had become needful I should pass the border without loss of time, and privately.

“I have given a very good account of you,” said she, “which I hope you may justify. I told them there was nothing against you beyond the fact that you were put to the horn (if that is the right word) for debt.”

“I pray God you have the expression incorrectly, ma’am,” said I. “I do not give myself out for a person easily alarmed; but you must admit there is something barbarous and mediæval in the sound well qualified to startle a poor foreigner.”

“It is the name of a process in Scots Law, and need alarm no honest man,” said she. “But you are a very idle-minded young gentleman; you must still have your joke, I see: I only hope you will have no cause to regret it.”

“I pray you not to suppose, because I speak lightly, that I do not feel deeply,” said I. “Your kindness has quite conquered me; I lay myself at your disposition, I beg you to believe, with real tenderness; I pray you to consider me from henceforth as the most devoted of your friends.”

“Well, well,” she said, “here comes your devoted friend the drover. I’m thinking he will be eager for the road; and I will not be easy myself till I see you well off the premises, and the dishes washed, before my servant-woman wakes. Praise God, we have gotten one that is a treasure at the sleeping!”

The morning was already beginning to be blue in the trees of the garden, and to put to shame the candle by which I had breakfasted. The lady rose from table, and I had no choice but to follow her example. All the time I was beating my brains for any means by which I should be able to get a word apart with Flora, or find the time to write her a billet. The windows had been opened while I breakfasted, I suppose to ventilate the room from any traces of my passage there; and, Master Ronald appearing on the front lawn, my ogre leaned forth to address him.

“Ronald,” she said, “wasn’t that Sim that went by the wall?”

I snatched my advantage. Right at her back there was pen, ink, and paper laid out. I wrote: “I love you”; and before I had time to write more, or so much as to blot what I had written, I was again under the guns of the gold eye-glasses.

“It’s time,” she began; and then, as she observed my occupation, “Umph!” she broke off. “Ye have something to write?” she demanded.

“Some notes, madam,” said I, bowing with alacrity.

“Notes,” she said; “or a note?”

“There is doubtless some finesse of the English language that I do not comprehend,” said I.

“I’ll contrive, however, to make my meaning very plain to ye, Mosha le Viscount,” she continued. “I suppose you desire to be considered a gentleman?”

“Can you doubt it, madam?” said I.

“I doubt very much, at least, whether you go the right way about it,” she said. “You have come here to me, I cannot very well say how; I think you will admit you owe me some thanks, if it was only for the breakfast I made ye. But what are you to me? A waif young man, not so far to seek for looks and manners, with some English notes in your pocket and a price upon your head. I am a lady; I have been your hostess, with however little will; and I desire that this random acquaintance of yours with my family will cease and determine.”

I believe I must have coloured. “Madam,” said I, “the notes are of no importance; and your least pleasure ought certainly to be my law. You have felt, and you have been pleased to express, a doubt of me. I tear them up.” Which you may be sure I did thoroughly.

“There’s a good lad!” said the dragon, and immediately led the way to the front lawn.

The brother and sister were both waiting us here, and, as well as I could make out in the imperfect light, bore every appearance of having passed through a rather cruel experience. Ronald seemed ashamed to so much as catch my eye in the presence of his aunt, and was the picture of embarrassment. As for Flora, she had scarce the time to cast me one look before the dragon took her by the arm, and began to march across the garden in the extreme first glimmer of the dawn without exchanging speech. Ronald and I followed in equal silence.

There was a door in that same high wall on the top of which I had sat perched no longer gone than yesterday morning. This the old lady set open with a key; and on the other side we were aware of a rough-looking, thick-set man, leaning with his arms (through which was passed a formidable staff) on a dry-stone dyke. Him the old lady immediately addressed.

“Sim,” said she, “this is the young gentleman.”

Sim replied with an inarticulate grumble of sound, and a movement of one arm and his head, which did duty for a salutation.

“Now, Mr. St. Ives,” said the old lady, “it’s high time for you to be taking the road. But first of all let me give the change of your five-guinea bill. Here are four pounds of it in British Linen notes, and the balance in small silver, less sixpence. Some charge a shilling, I believe, but I have given you the benefit of the doubt. See and guide it with all the sense that you possess.”

“And here, Mr. St. Ives,” said Flora, speaking for the first time, “is a plaid which you will find quite necessary on so rough a journey. I hope you will take it from the hands of a Scots friend,” she added, and her voice trembled.

“Genuine holly: I cut it myself,” said Ronald, and gave me as good a cudgel as a man could wish for in a row.

The formality of these gifts, and the waiting figure of the drover, told me loudly that I must be gone. I dropped on one knee and bade farewell to the aunt, kissing her hand. I did the like – but with how different a passion! – to her niece; as for the boy, I took him to my arms and embraced him with a cordiality that seemed to strike him speechless. “Farewell!” and “Farewell!” I said. “I shall never forget my friends. Keep me sometimes in memory. Farewell!” With that I turned my back and began to walk away; and had scarce done so, when I heard the door in the high wall close behind me. Of course this was the aunt’s doing; and of course, if I know anything of human character, she would not let me go without some tart expressions. I declare, even if I had heard them, I should not have minded in the least, for I was quite persuaded that, whatever admirers I might be leaving behind me in Swanston Cottage, the aunt was not the least sincere.

It took me a little effort to come abreast of my new companion; for though he walked with an ugly roll and no great appearance of speed, he could cover the ground at a good rate when he wanted to. Each looked at the other: I with natural curiosity, he with a great appearance of distaste. I have heard since that his heart was entirely set against me; he had seen me kneel to the ladies, and diagnosed me for a “gesterin’ eediot.”