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Updated: June 4, 2025
It was not to be supposed that Neil was sent alone upon his errand, but perhaps he was the only man belonging to James More; in which case, I should have done all I could to hang Catriona's father, and nothing the least material to help myself. To tell the truth, I fancied neither one of these ideas.
The well of the close was all in clear shadow where a man could see distinctly, the walls very black and dingy; and there from the barred loophole I saw two faces smiling across at me Miss Grant's and Catriona's. "There!" says Miss Grant, "I wanted her to see you in your braws, like the lass of Limekilns. I wanted her to see what I could make of you, when I buckled to the job in earnest!"
There were times when I was tempted to stop his mouth with some small change; but whether it was from shame or pride whether it was for my own sake or Catriona's whether it was because I thought him no fit father for his daughter, or because I resented that grossness of immediate falsity that clung about the man himself the thing was clean beyond me.
"The strange thing is that ye seem to have a kind of a fancy for her too!" said Alan. "The biggest kind, Alan," said I, "and I think I'll take it to my grave with me." "Well, ye beat me, whatever!" he would conclude. I showed him the letter with Catriona's postcript. "And here again!" he cried. "Impossible to deny a kind of decency to this Catriona, and sense forby!
Whereupon, I arranged with him that he was to communicate with me, as to his whereabouts and Catriona's welfare, in consideration of which I was to serve him a small stipend. He heard the business out with a great deal of eagerness; and when it was done, "My dear fellow, my dear son," he cried out, "this is more like yourself than any of it yet! I will serve you with a soldier's faithfulness "
"Maister Dauvit Balfour is informed a friend was speiring for him, and her eyes were of the grey," it ran and seemed so extraordinary a piece to come to my hands at such a moment and under cover of a Government seal, that I stood stupid. Catriona's grey eyes shone in my remembrance. I thought, with a bound of pleasure, she must be the friend.
At last the matchmaker had a better device, which was to leave the pair of us alone. When my suspicions are anyway roused it is sometimes a little the wrong side of easy to allay them. But though I knew what breed she was of, and that was a breed of thieves, I could never look in Catriona's face and disbelieve her. "I must not ask?" says she, eagerly, the same moment we were left alone.
There were times when I was tempted to stop his mouth with some small change; but whether it was from shame or pride whether it was for my own sake or Catriona's whether it was because I thought him no fit father for his daughter, or because I resented that grossness of immediate falsity that clung about the man himself the thing was clean beyond me.
Now, in this bundle that I gave her there were packed together not only all the letters of my false friend, but one or two of Mr. Campbell's when he was in town at the Assembly, and to make a complete roll of all that ever was written to me, Catriona's little word, and the two I had received from Miss Grant, one when I was on the Bass, and one on board that ship.
An older brother, a day laborer, paid the rent and provided food for all of them. Every other family expense was met by Catriona's three dollars and a half, so that she was in the habit of spending only five cents for her own lunch, and, on the nights of overtime, five cents for her own dinner, in order to take home the extra thirty cents; and every day she looked whiter and older.
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