There were two circumstances that served me as ballast to so much sail. The first was the very difficult [pg 2]and deadly business I had still to handle; the second, the place that I was in. The tall, black city, and the numbers and movement and noise of so many folk, made a new world for me, after the moorland braes, the sea-sands, and the still country-sides that I had frequented up to then. The throng5 of the citizens in particular abashed6 me. Rankeillor's son was short and small in the girth; his clothes scarce held on me; and it was plain I was ill qualified7 to strut8 in the front of a bank-porter. It was plain, if I did so, I should but set folk laughing, and (what was worse in my case) set them asking questions. So that I behooved9 to come by some clothes of my own, and in the meanwhile to walk by the porter's side, and put my hand on his arm as though we were a pair of friends.
At a merchant's in the Luckenbooths, I had myself fitted out: none too fine, for I had no idea to appear like a beggar on horseback; but comely10 and responsible, so that servants should respect me. Thence to an armourer's, where I got a plain sword, to suit with my degree in life. I felt safer with the weapon, though (for one so ignorant of defence) it might be called an added danger. The porter, who was naturally a man of some experience, judged my accoutrement to be well chosen.
"Naething kenspeckle,"[1] said he, "plain, dacent claes. As for the rapier, nae doubt it sits wi' your [pg 3]degree; but an I had been you, I would hae waired my siller better-gates than that." And proposed I should buy winter-hosen from a wife in the Cowgate-back, that was a cousin of his own, and made them "extraordinar endurable."
But I had other matters on my hand more pressing. Here I was in this old, black city, which was for all the world like a rabbit-warren, not only by the number of its indwellers, but the complication of its passages and holes. It was indeed a place where no stranger had a chance to find a friend, let be another stranger. Suppose him even to hit on the right close, people dwelt so thronged11 in these tall houses, he might very well seek a day before he chanced on the right door. The ordinary course was to hire a lad they called a caddie, who was like a guide or pilot, led you where you had occasion, and (your errands being done) brought you again where you were lodging12. But these caddies, being always employed in the same sort of services, and having it for obligation to be well informed of every house and person in the city, had grown to form a brotherhood13 of spies; and I knew from tales of Mr. Campbell's how they communicated one with another, what a rage of curiosity they conceived as to their employer's business, and how they were like eyes and fingers to the police. It would be a piece of little wisdom, the way I was now placed, to tack14 such a ferret to my tails. I had three visits to make, all immediately needful: to my kinsman15 Mr. [pg 4]Balfour of Pilrig, to Stewart the Writer that was Appin's agent, and to William Grant Esquire of Prestongrange, Lord Advocate of Scotland. Mr. Balfour's was a non-committal visit; and besides (Pilrig being in the country) I made bold to find way to it myself, with the help of my two legs and a Scots tongue. But the rest were in a different case. Not only was the visit to Appin's agent, in the midst of the cry about the Appin murder, dangerous in itself, but it was highly inconsistent with the other. I was like to have a bad enough time of it with my Lord Advocate Grant, the best of ways; but to go to him hot-foot from Appin's agent, was little likely to mend my own affairs, and might prove the mere16 ruin of friend Alan's. The whole thing, besides, gave me a look of running with the hare and hunting with the hounds that was little to my fancy. I determined17, therefore, to be done at once with Mr. Stewart and the whole Jacobitical side of my business, and to profit for that purpose by the guidance of the porter at my side. But it chanced I had scarce given him the address, when there came a sprinkle of rain--nothing to hurt, only for my new clothes--and we took shelter under a pend at the head of a close or alley18.
Being strange to what I saw, I stepped a little farther in. The narrow paved way descended19 swiftly. Prodigious20 tall houses sprang upon each side and bulged21 out, one story beyond another, as they rose. At the top [pg 5]only a ribbon of sky showed in. By what I could spy in the windows, and by the respectable persons that passed out and in, I saw the houses to be very well occupied; and the whole appearance of the place interested me like a tale.
I was still gazing, when there came a sudden brisk tramp of feet in time and clash of steel behind me. Turning quickly, I was aware of a party of armed soldiers, and, in their midst, a tall man in a great-coat. He walked with a stoop that was like a piece of courtesy, genteel and insinuating22: he waved his hands plausibly23 as he went, and his face was sly and handsome. I thought his eye took me in, but could not meet it. This procession went by to a door in the close, which a serving-man in a fine livery set open; and two of the soldier-lads carried the prisoner within, the rest lingering with their firelocks by the door.
There can nothing pass in the streets of a city without some following of idle folk and children. It was so now; but the more part melted away incontinent until but three were left. One was a girl; she was dressed like a lady, and had a screen of the Drummond colours on her head; but her comrades or (I should say) followers24 were ragged25 gillies, such as I had seen the matches of by the dozen in my Highland26 journey. They all spoke27 together earnestly in Gaelic, the sound of which was pleasant in my ears for the sake of Alan; and though the rain was by again, and my porter [pg 6]plucked at me to be going, I even drew nearer where they were, to listen. The lady scolded sharply, the others making apologies and cringeing before her, so that I made sure she was come of a chief's house. All the while the three of them sought in their pockets, and by what I could make out, they had the matter of half a farthing among the party; which made me smile a little to see all Highland folk alike for fine obeisances28 and empty sporrans.
It chanced the girl turned suddenly about, so that I saw her face for the first time. There is no greater wonder than the way the face of a young woman fits in a man's mind, and stays there, and he could never tell you why; it just seems it was the thing he wanted. She had wonderful bright eyes like stars, and I daresay the eyes had a part in it; but what I remember the most clearly was the way her lips were a trifle open as she turned. And whatever was the cause, I stood there staring like a fool. On her side, as she had not known there was anyone so near, she looked at me a little longer, and perhaps with more surprise, than was entirely29 civil.
It went through my country head she might be wondering at my new clothes; with that, I blushed to my hair, and at the sight of my colouring it's to be supposed she drew her own conclusions, for she moved her gillies farther down the close, and they fell again to this dispute where I could hear no more of it.
[pg 7]I had often admired a lassie before then, if scarce so sudden and strong; and it was rather my disposition30 to withdraw than to come forward, for I was much in fear of mockery from the womenkind. You would have thought I had now all the more reason to pursue my common practice, since I had met this young lady in the city street, seemingly following a prisoner, and accompanied with two very ragged, indecent-like Highlandmen. But there was here a different ingredient; it was plain the girl thought I had been prying31 in her secrets; and with my new clothes and sword, and at the top of my new fortunes, this was more than I could swallow. The beggar on horseback could not bear to be thrust down so low, or at the least of it, not by this young lady.
I followed, accordingly, and took off my new hat to her, the best that I was able.
"Madam," said I, "I think it only fair to myself to let you understand I have no Gaelic. It is true I was listening, for I have friends of my own across the Highland line, and the sound of that tongue comes friendly; but for your private affairs, if you had spoken Greek, I might have had more guess at them."
She made me a little, distant curtsey. "There is no harm done," said she, with a pretty accent, most like the English (but more agreeable). "A cat may look at a king."
"I do not mean to offend," said I. "I have no skill of city manners; I never before this day set foot inside the doors of Edinburgh. Take me for a country lad--it's what I am; and I would rather I told you than you found it out."
"Indeed, it will be a very unusual thing for strangers to be speaking to each other on the causeway," she replied. "But if you are landward[2] bred it will be different. I am as landward as yourself; I am Highland as you see, and think myself the farther from my home."
"It is not yet a week since I passed the line," said I. "Less than a week ago I was on the Braes of Balwhidder."
"Balwhither?" she cries; "come ye from Balwhither? The name of it makes all there is of me rejoice. You will not have been long there, and not known some of our friends or family?"
"I lived with a very honest, kind man called Duncan Dhu Maclaren," I replied.
"Well I know Duncan, and you give him the true name!" she said; "and if he is an honest man, his wife is honest indeed."
"Ay," said I, "they are fine people, and the place is a bonny place."
"Where in the great world is such another?" she cries; "I am loving the smell of that place and the roots that grew there."
I was infinitely32 taken with the spirit of the maid. "I could be wishing I had brought you a spray of that heather," says I. "And though I did ill to speak with you at the first, now it seems we have common acquaintance, I make it my petition you will not forget me. David Balfour is the name I am known by. This is my lucky day when I have just come into a landed estate and am not very long out of a deadly peril33. I wish you would keep my name in mind for the sake of Balquidder," said I, "and I will yours for the sake of my lucky day."
"My name is not spoken," she replied, with a great deal of haughtiness34. "More than a hundred years it has not gone upon men's tongues, save for a blink. I am nameless like the Folk of Peace.[3] Catriona Drummond is the one I use."
Now indeed I knew where I was standing35. In all broad Scotland there was but the one name proscribed36, and that was the name of the Macgregors. Yet so far from fleeing this undesirable37 acquaintancy, I plunged38 the deeper in.
"I have been sitting with one who was in the same case with yourself," said I, "and I think he will be one of your friends. They called him Robin39 Oig."
"Did ye so?" cries she. "Ye met Rob?"
"I passed the night with him," said I.
"There was a set of pipes there," I went on, "so you may judge if the time passed."
"You should be no enemy, at all events," said she. "That was his brother there a moment since, with the red soldiers round him. It is him that I call father."
"Is it so?" cried I. "Are you a daughter of James More's?"
"All the daughter that he has," says she: "the daughter of a prisoner; that I should forget it so, even for one hour, to talk with strangers!"
Here one of the gillies addressed her in what he had of English, to know what "she" (meaning by that himself) was to do about "ta sneeshin." I took some note of him for a short, bandy-legged, red-haired, big-headed man, that I was to know more of to my cost.
"There can be none the day, Neil," she replied. "How will you get 'sneeshin,' wanting siller? It will teach you another time to be more careful; and I think James More will not be very well pleased with Neil of the Tom."
"Miss Drummond," I said, "I told you I was in my lucky day. Here I am, and a bank-porter at my tail. And remember I have had the hospitality of your own country of Balwhidder."
"It was not one of my people gave it," said she.
"Ah, well," said I, "but I am owing your uncle at least for some springs upon the pipes. Besides which, I have offered myself to be your friend, and you have been so forgetful that you did not refuse me in the proper time."
"If it had been a great sum, it might have done you honour," said she. "But I will tell you what this is. James More lies shackled41 in prison; but this time past, they will be bringing him down here daily to the Advocate's..."
"The Advocate's?" I cried. "Is that . . . ?"
"It is the house of the Lord Advocate, Grant of Prestongrange," said she. "There they bring my father one time and another, for what purpose I have no thought in my mind; but it seems there is some hope dawned for him. All this same time they will not let me be seeing him, nor yet him write; and we wait upon the King's street to catch him; and now we give him his snuff as he goes by, and now something else. And here is this son of trouble, Neil, son of Duncan, has lost my fourpenny-piece that was to buy that snuff, and James More must go wanting, and will think his daughter has forgotten him."
I took sixpence from my pocket, gave it to Neil, and bade him go about his errand. Then to her, "That sixpence came with me by Balwhidder," said I.
"Ah!" she said, "you are a friend to the Gregara!"
"I would not like to deceive you either," said I. "I know very little of the Gregara and less of James More and his doings; but since the while I have been standing in this close, I seem to know something of yourself; and if you will just say 'a friend to Miss Catriona' I will see you are the less cheated."
"The one cannot be without the other," said she.
"I will even try," said I.
"And what will you be thinking of myself?" she cried, "to be holding my hand to the first stranger!"
"I am thinking nothing but that you are a good daughter," said I.
"I must not be without repaying it," she said; "where is it you stop?"
"To tell the truth, I am stopping nowhere yet," said I, "being not full three hours in the city; but if you will give me your direction, I will be so bold as come seeking my sixpence for myself."
"Will I can trust you for that?" she asked.
"You have little fear," said I.
"James More could not bear it else," said she. "I stop beyond the village of Dean, on the north side of the water, with Mrs. Drummond-Ogilvy of Allardyce, who is my near friend and will be glad to thank you."
"You are to see me then, so soon as what I have to do permits," said I; and the remembrance of Alan rolling in again upon my mind, I made haste to say farewell.
I could not but think, even as I did so, that we had made extraordinary free upon short acquaintance, and that a really wise young lady would have shown herself [pg 13]more backward. I think it was the bank-porter that put me from this ungallant train of thought.
"I thoucht ye had been a lad of some kind o' sense," he began, shooting out his lips. "Ye're no likely to gang far this gate. A fule and his siller's shune parted. Eh, but ye're a green callant!" he cried, "an' a veecious, tae! Cleikin' up wi' baubee-joes!"
"If you dare to speak of the young lady ..." I began.
"Leddy!" he cried. "Haud us and safe us, whatten leddy? Ca' thon a leddy? The toun's fu' o' them. Leddies! Man, it's weel seen ye're no very acquant in Embro'!"
A clap of anger took me.
He did not wholly obey me, for though he no more addressed me directly, he sang at me as he went in a very impudent43 manner of innuendo44, and with an exceedingly ill voice and ear--
"As Mally Lee cam doun the street, her capuchin did flee.
She cuist a look ahint her to see her negligee,
And we're a' gaun east and wast, we're a' gaun ajee,
We're a' gaun east and wast courtin' Mally Lee."
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
forth
|
|
| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
linen
|
|
| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
condemned
|
|
| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
traitor
|
|
| n.叛徒，卖国贼 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
throng
|
|
| n.人群，群众；v.拥挤，群集 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
abashed
|
|
| adj.窘迫的，尴尬的v.使羞愧，使局促，使窘迫( abash的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
qualified
|
|
| adj.合格的，有资格的，胜任的，有限制的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
strut
|
|
| v.肿胀，鼓起；大摇大摆地走；炫耀；支撑；撑开；n.高视阔步；支柱，撑杆 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
behooved
|
|
| v.适宜( behoove的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
comely
|
|
| adj.漂亮的，合宜的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
thronged
|
|
| v.成群，挤满( throng的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
lodging
|
|
| n.寄宿，住所；(大学生的)校外宿舍 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
brotherhood
|
|
| n.兄弟般的关系，手中情谊 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
tack
|
|
| n.大头钉；假缝，粗缝 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
kinsman
|
|
| n.男亲属 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
mere
|
|
| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
determined
|
|
| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
alley
|
|
| n.小巷，胡同；小径，小路 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
descended
|
|
| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
prodigious
|
|
| adj.惊人的，奇妙的；异常的；巨大的；庞大的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
bulged
|
|
| 凸出( bulge的过去式和过去分词 )； 充满； 塞满（某物） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
insinuating
|
|
| adj.曲意巴结的，暗示的v.暗示( insinuate的现在分词 )；巧妙或迂回地潜入；（使）缓慢进入；慢慢伸入 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
plausibly
|
|
| 似真地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
followers
|
|
| 追随者( follower的名词复数 )； 用户； 契据的附面； 从动件 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
ragged
|
|
| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
highland
|
|
| n.(pl.)高地，山地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
spoke
|
|
| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
obeisances
|
|
| n.敬礼，行礼( obeisance的名词复数 )；敬意 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
entirely
|
|
| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
disposition
|
|
| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
prying
|
|
| adj.爱打听的v.打听，刺探（他人的私事）( pry的现在分词 )；撬开 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
infinitely
|
|
| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
peril
|
|
| n.(严重的)危险；危险的事物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
haughtiness
|
|
| n.傲慢；傲气 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
standing
|
|
| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
proscribed
|
|
| v.正式宣布（某事物）有危险或被禁止( proscribe的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
undesirable
|
|
| adj.不受欢迎的，不良的，不合意的，讨厌的；n.不受欢迎的人，不良分子 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
plunged
|
|
| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
robin
|
|
| n.知更鸟，红襟鸟 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
fowl
|
|
| n.家禽，鸡，禽肉 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
shackled
|
|
| 给（某人）带上手铐或脚镣( shackle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
foul
|
|
| adj.污秽的；邪恶的；v.弄脏；妨害；犯规；n.犯规 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
impudent
|
|
| adj.鲁莽的，卑鄙的，厚颜无耻的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
innuendo
|
|
| n.暗指，讽刺 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |