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Meanwhile, I had opened Miss Grant's, and could not withhold an exclamation. "Catriona," I cried, forgetting, the first time since her father was arrived, to address her by a handle, "I am come into my kingdom fairly, I am the laird of Shaws indeed my uncle is dead at last." She clapped her hands together leaping from her seat.
A good name it is, and one it would ill become my father's son to lightly. But I begin to grue at the sound of it." "My name is called Balfour," said I, "David Balfour of Shaws. As for him that sent me, I will let his token speak." And I showed the silver button. "Put it in your pocket, sir!" cries he. "Ye need name no names. The deevil's buckie, I ken the button of him! And deil hae't!
The most casual reader recognizes a whole department of Stevenson's work as competing in a general way with Walter Scott. Kidnapped is a romantic fragment whose original is to be found in the Scotch scenes of the Waverley Novels. An incident near the beginning of it, the curse of Jennet Clouston upon the House of Shaws, is transferred from Guy Mannering almost literally.
Across the Downs' shoulder there was Desdemona; and he was free, save for the ties of affection stronger these than any dog-chain which bound him to the Nuthill folk. And as for Desdemona; owing to what many fanciers would have regarded as the reprehensible eccentricity of the owner of Shaws, Desdemona was almost as free as Finn.
"Has Ebenezer gotten a son?" "No, ma'am," said I. "I am a son of Alexander's. It's I that am the Laird of Shaws." "Ye'll find your work cut out for ye to establish that," quoth she. "I perceive you know my uncle," said I; "and I daresay you may be the better pleased to hear that business is arranged." "And what brings ye here after Miss Drummond?" she pursued.
When at last the officer lowered his telescope, Adrian came forward and saluted him with a slight bow, all unconsciously as unlike the average Jack Tar's scrape to his superior as can be well imagined: "Am I not," he asked, "addressing in you, sir, one of the Cochranes of the Shaws?" The question and the tone from a common sailor were, of course, enough to astonish the young man.
There is something of it in the great saga of Robin Hood, and long after the fens were drained women hushed their babies with snatches about the Crane and the Falcon, and fairy tales of a certain John of the Shaws, who became one with Jack the Giant-killer and all the nursery heroes.
"The Master of Lovat'll be a braw Whig," says I, "and a grand Presbyterian." "I ken naething by him," said he. "I hae nae trokings wi' Lovats." "No, it'll be Prestongrange that you'll be dealing with," said I. "Ah, but I'll no' tell ye that," said Andie. "Little need when I ken," was my retort. "There's just the ae thing ye can be fairly sure of, Shaws," says Andie.
I was never warm; my teeth chattered in my head; I was troubled with a very sore throat, such as I had on the isle; I had a painful stitch in my side, which never left me; and when I slept in my wet bed, with the rain beating above and the mud oozing below me, it was to live over again in fancy the worst part of my adventures to see the tower of Shaws lit by lightning, Ransome carried below on the men's backs, Shuan dying on the round-house floor, or Colin Campbell grasping at the bosom of his coat.
"Has Ebenezer gotten a son?" "No, ma'am," said I. "I am a son of Alexander's. It's I that am the Laird of Shaws." "Ye'll find your work cut out for ye to establish that," quoth she. "I perceive you know my uncle," said I; "and I daresay you may be the better pleased to hear that business is arranged." "And what brings ye here after Miss Drummond?" she pursued.
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