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

Byfield I observed, because I had heard of him before, and seen his advertisements, not at all because I was disposed to feel interest in the man. He was dark and bilious and very silent; frigid in his manners, but burning internally with a great fire of excitement; and he was so good as to bestow a good deal of his company and conversation (such as it was) upon myself, who was not in the least grateful. If I had known how I was to be connected with him in the immediate future, I might have taken more pains.

In the hamlet of Cramond there is a hostelry of no very promising appearance, and here a room had been prepared for us, and we sat down to table.

“Here you will find no guttling or gormandising, no turtle or nightingales’ tongues,” said the extravagant, whose name, by the way, was Dalmahoy. “The device, sir, of the University of Cramond is Plain Living and High Drinking.”

Grace was said by the Professor of Divinity, in a macaronic Latin, which I could by no means follow, only I could hear it rhymed, and I guessed it to be more witty than reverent. After which the Senatus Academicus sat down to rough plenty in the shape of rizzar’d haddocks and mustard, a sheep’s head, a haggis, and other delicacies of Scotland. The dinner was washed down with brown stout in bottle, and as soon as the cloth was removed, glasses, boiling water, sugar, and whisky were set out for the manufacture of toddy. I played a good knife and fork, did not shun the bowl, and took part, so far as I was able, in the continual fire of pleasantry with which the meal was seasoned. Greatly daring, I ventured, before all these Scotsmen, to tell Sim’s Tale of Tweedie’s dog; and I was held to have done such extraordinary justice to the dialect, “for a Southron,” that I was immediately voted into the Chair of Scots, and became, from that moment, a full member of the University of Cramond. A little after, I found myself entertaining them with a song; and a little after – perhaps a little in consequence – it occurred to me that I had had enough, and would be very well inspired to take French leave. It was not difficult to manage, for it was nobody’s business to observe my movements, and conviviality had banished suspicion.

I got easily forth of the chamber, which reverberated with the voices of these merry and learned gentlemen, and breathed a long breath. I had passed an agreeable afternoon and evening, and I had apparently escaped scot-free. Alas! when I looked into the kitchen, there was my monkey, drunk as a lord, toppling on the edge of the dresser, and performing on the flageolet to an audience of the house lasses and some neighbouring ploughmen.

I routed him promptly from his perch, stuck his hat on, put his instrument in his pocket, and set off with him for Edinburgh.

His limbs were of paper, his mind quite in abeyance; I must uphold and guide him, prevent his frantic dives, and set him continually on his legs again. At first he sang wildly, with occasional outbursts of causeless laughter. Gradually an inarticulate melancholy succeeded; he wept gently at times; would stop in the middle of the road, say firmly, “No, no, no,” and then fall on his back; or else address me solemnly as “M’lord” and fall on his face by way of variety. I am afraid I was not always so gentle with the little pig as I might have been, but really the position was unbearable. We made no headway at all, and I suppose we were scarce gotten a mile away from Cramond, when the whole Senatus Academicus was heard hailing, and doubling the pace to overtake us.

Some of them were fairly presentable; and they were all Christian martyrs compared to Rowley; but they were in a frolicsome and rollicking humour that promised danger as we approached the town. They sang songs, they ran races, they fenced with their walking-sticks and umbrellas; and, in spite of this violent exercise, the fun grew only the more extravagant with the miles they traversed. Their drunkenness was deep-seated and permanent, like fire in a peat; or rather – to be quite just to them – it was not so much to be called drunkenness at all, as the effect of youth and high spirits – a fine night, and the night young, a good road under foot, and the world before you!

I had left them once somewhat unceremoniously; I could not attempt it a second time; and, burthened as I was with Mr. Rowley, I was really glad of assistance. But I saw the lamps of Edinburgh draw near on their hill-top with a good deal of uneasiness, which increased, after we had entered the lighted streets, to positive alarm. All the passers-by were addressed, some of them by name. A worthy man was stopped by Forbes. “Sir,” said he, “in the name of the Senatus of the University of Cramond, I confer upon you the degree of LL.D.,” and with the words he bonneted him. Conceive the predicament of St. Ives, committed to the society of these outrageous youths, in a town where the police and his cousin were both looking for him! So far we had pursued our way unmolested, although raising a clamour fit to wake the dead; but at last, in Abercromby Place, I believe – at least it was a crescent of highly respectable houses fronting on a garden – Byfield and I, having fallen somewhat in the rear with Rowley, came to a simultaneous halt. Our ruffians were beginning to wrench off bells and door-plates!

“O, I say!” says Byfield, “this is too much of a good thing! Confound it, I’m a respectable man – a public character, by George! I can’t afford to get taken up by the police.”

“My own case exactly,” said I.

“Here, let’s bilk them,” said he.

And we turned back and took our way down hill again.

It was none too soon: voices and alarm bells sounded; watchmen here and there began to spring their rattles; it was plain the University of Cramond would soon be at blows with the police of Edinburgh! Byfield and I, running the semi-inanimate Rowley before us, made good despatch, and did not stop till we were several streets away, and the hubbub was already softened by distance.

“Well, sir,” said he, “we are well out of that! Did ever any one see such a pack of young barbarians?”

“We are properly punished, Mr. Byfield; we had no business there,” I replied.

“No, indeed, sir, you may well say that! Outrageous! And my ascension announced for Friday, you know!” cried the aëronaut. “A pretty scandal! Byfield the aëronaut at the police-court! Tut-tut! Will you be able to get your rascal home, sir? Allow me to offer you my card. I am staying at Walker and Poole’s Hotel, sir, where I should be pleased to see you.”

“The pleasure would be mutual, sir,” said I, but I must say my heart was not in my words, and as I watched Mr. Byfield departing I desired nothing less than to pursue the acquaintance.

One more ordeal remained for me to pass. I carried my senseless load upstairs to our lodging, and was admitted by the landlady in a tall white nightcap and with an expression singularly grim. She lighted us into the sitting-room; where, when I had seated Rowley in a chair, she dropped me a cast-iron curtsy. I smelt gunpowder on the woman. Her voice tottered with emotion.

“I give ye nottice, Mr. Ducie,” said she. “Dacent folks’ houses…”

And at that apparently temper cut off her utterance, and she took herself off without more words.

I looked about me at the room, the goggling Rowley, the extinguished fire; my mind reviewed the laughable incidents of the day and night; and I laughed out loud to myself – lonely and cheerless laughter!..

[At this point the Author’s MS. breaks off: what follows is the work of Mr. A.T. Quiller-Couch.]

CHAPTER XXXI

EVENTS OF THURSDAY: THE ASSEMBLY BALL

But I awoke to the chill reminder of dawn, and found myself no master even of cheerless mirth. I had supped with the Senatus Academicus of Cramond: so much my head informed me. It was Thursday, the day of the Assembly Ball. But the ball was fixed by the card for 8 P.M., and I had, therefore, twelve mortal hours to wear through as best I could. Doubtless it was this reflection which prompted me to leap out of bed instanter and ring for Mr. Rowley and my shaving water.

Mr. Rowley, it appeared, was in no such hurry. I tugged a second time at the bell-rope. A groan answered me: and there in the doorway stood, or rather titubated, my paragon of body-servants. He was collarless, unkempt; his face a tinted map of shame and bodily disorder. His hand shook on the hot-water can, and spilled its contents into his shoes. I opened on him with a tirade, but had no heart to continue. The fault, after all, was mine: and it argued something like heroism in the lad that he had fought his nausea down and come up to time.

“But not smiling,” I assured him.

“O, please, Mr. Anne. Go on, sir; I deserve it. But I’ll never do it again, strike me sky-blue scarlet!”

“In so far as that differed from your present colouring, I believe,” said I, “it would be an improvement.”

“Never again, Mr. Anne.”

“Certainly not, Rowley. Even to good men this may happen once: beyond that, carelessness shades off into depravity.”

“Yessir.”

“You gave a good deal of trouble last night. I have yet to meet Mrs. McRankine.”

“As for that, Mr. Anne,” said he, with an incongruous twinkle in his bloodshot eye, “she’ve been up with a tray: dry toast and a pot of tea. The old gal’s bark is worse than her bite, sir, begging your pardon, and meaning as she’s a decent one, she is.”

“I was fearing that might be just the trouble,” I answered.

One thing was certain. Rowley, that morning, should not be entrusted with a razor and the handling of my chin. I sent him back to his bed, with orders not to rise from it without permission; and went about my toilette deliberately. In spite of the lad, I did not enjoy the prospect of Mrs. McRankine.

I enjoyed it so little, indeed, that I fell to poking the sitting-room fire when she entered with the Mercury; and read the Mercury assiduously while she brought in breakfast. She set down the tray with a slam and stood beside it, her hands on her hips, her whole attitude breathing challenge.

“Well, Mrs. McRankine?” I began, upturning a hypocritical eye from the newspaper.

“’Well,’ is it? Nhm!”

I lifted the breakfast cover, and saw before me a damnatory red herring.

“Rowley was very foolish last night,” I remarked, with a discriminating stress on the name.

“’The ass knoweth his master’s crib.’” She pointed to the herring. “It’s all ye’ll get, Mr. – Ducie, if that’s your name.”

“Madam” – I held out the fish at the end of my fork – “you drag it across the track of an apology.” I set it back on the dish and replaced the cover. “It is clear that you wish us gone. Well and good: grant Rowley a day for recovery, and to-morrow you shall be quit of us.” I reached for my hat.

“Whaur are ye gaun?”

“To seek other lodgings.”

“I’ll no say – Man, man! have a care! And me beat to close an eye the nicht!” She dropped into a chair. “Nay, Mr. Ducie, ye daurna! Think o’ that innocent lamb!”

“That little pig.”

“He’s ower young to die,” sobbed my landlady.

“In the abstract I agree with you: but I am not aware that Rowley’s death is required. Say rather that he is ower young to turn King’s evidence.” I stepped back from the door. “Mrs. McRankine,” I said, “I believe you to be soft-hearted. I know you to be curious. You will be pleased to sit perfectly still and listen to me.”

And, resuming my seat, I leaned across the corner of the table and put my case before her without suppression or extenuation. Her breathing tightened over my sketch of the duel with Goguelat; and again more sharply as I told of my descent of the rock. Of Alain she said, “I ken his sort,” and of Flora twice, “I’m wonderin’ will I have seen her?” For the rest she heard me out in silence, and rose and walked to the door without a word. There she turned. “It’s a verra queer tale. If McRankine had told me the like, I’d have gien him the lie to his face.”

Two minutes later I heard the vials of her speech unsealed abovestairs, with detonations that shook the house. I had touched off my rocket, and the stick descended – on the prostrate Rowley.

And now I must face the inert hours. I sat down, and read my way through the Mercury. “The escaped French soldier, Champdivers, who is wanted in connection with the recent horrid murder at the Castle, remains at large – ” the rest but repeated the advertisement of Tuesday. “At large!” I set down the paper and turned to my landlady’s library. It consisted of Derham’s “Physico- and Astro-Theology,” “The Scripture Doctrine of Original Sin,” by one Taylor, D.D., “The Ready Reckoner or Tradesman’s Sure Guide,” and “The Path to the Pit delineated, with Twelve Engravings on Copper-plate.” For distraction I fell to pacing the room, and rehearsing those remembered tags of Latin verse concerning which M. de Culemberg had long ago assured me, “My son, we know not when, but some day they will come back to you with solace if not with charm.” Good man! My feet trod the carpet to Horace’s Alcaics. Virtus recludensim meritis mori Coelum– h’m, h’m —raro—

raro antecedentem scelestumdeseruit pede Poena claudo.

I paused by the window. In this there was no indiscretion; for a cold drizzle washed the panes, and the warmth of the apartment dimmed their inner surface.

“Pede Poena claudo,” my finger traced the words on the damp glass.

A sudden clamour of the street-door bell sent me skipping back to the fire-place with my heart in my mouth. Interminable minutes followed, and at length Mrs. McRankine entered with my ball suit from the tailor’s. I carried it into the next room, and disposed it on the bed – olive-green coat with gilt buttons and facings of watered silk, olive-green pantaloons, white waistcoat sprigged with blue and green forget-me-nots. The survey carried me on to midday and the midday meal.

The ministry of meal-time is twice blest: for prisoners and men without appetite it punctuates and makes time of eternity. I dawdled over my chop and pint of brown stout until Mrs. McRankine, after twice entering to clear away, with the face of a Cumæan sibyl, so far relaxed the tension of unnatural calm as to inquire if I meant to be all night about it.

The afternoon wore into dusk; and with dusk she re-appeared with a tea-tray. At six I retired to dress.

Behold me now issuing from my chamber, conscious of a well-fitting coat and a shapely pair of legs: the dignified simplicity of my tournure (simplicity so proper to the scion of an exiled house) relieved by a dandiacal hint of shirt-frill, and corrected into tenderness by the virgin waistcoat sprigged with forget-me-nots (for constancy), and buttoned with pink coral (for hope). Satisfied of the effect, I sought the apartment of Mr. Rowley of the Rueful Countenance, and found him less yellow, but still contrite, and listening to Mrs. McRankine, who sat with open book by his bedside, and plied him with pertinent dehortations from the Book of Proverbs.

He brightened.

“My heye, Mr. Hann, if that ain’t up to the knocker!”

Mrs. McRankine closed the book, and conned me with austerer approval.

“Ye carry it well, I will say.”

“It fits, I think.”

I turned myself complacently about.

“The drink, I am meaning. I kenned McRankine.”

“Shall we talk of business, madam? In the first place, the quittance for our board and lodging.”

“I mak’ it out on Saturdays.”

“Do so; and deduct it out of this.” I handed twenty-five of my guineas into her keeping; this left me with five and a crown piece in my pocket. “The balance, while it lasts, will serve for Rowley’s keep and current expenses. Before long I hope he may lift the money which lies in the bank at his service, as he knows.”

“But you’ll come back, Mr. Anne?” cried the lad.

“I’m afraid it’s a toss-up, my boy. Discipline, remember!” – for he was preparing to leap out of bed there and then – “You can serve me better in Edinburgh. All you have to do is to wait for a clear coast, and seek and present yourself in private before Mr. T. Robbie of Castle Street, or Miss Flora Gilchrist of Swanston Cottage. From either or both of these you will take your instructions. Here are the addresses.”

“If that’s a’ your need for the lad,” said Mrs. McRankine, “he’ll be eating his head off: no’ to say drinking.” Rowley winced. “I’ll tak’ him on mysel’.”

“My dear woman – ”

“He’ll be a brand frae the burnin’: and he’ll do to clean the knives.”

She would hear no denial. I committed the lad to her in this double capacity; and equipped with a pair of goloshes from the wardrobe of the late McRankine, sallied forth upon the rain-swept street.

The card of admission directed me to Buccleuch Place, a little off George Square; and here I found a wet rag of a crowd gathered about a couple of lanterns and a striped awning. Beneath the awning a panel of light fell on the plashy pavement. Already the guests were arriving. I whipped in briskly, presented my card, and passed up a staircase decorated with flags, evergreens, and national emblems. A venerable flunkey waited for me at the summit. “Cloak lobby to the left, sir.” I obeyed, and exchanged my overcoat and goloshes for a circular metal ticket. “What name, sir?” he purred over my card, as I lingered in the vestibule for a moment to scan the ball-room and my field of action: then, having cleared his throat, bawled suddenly, “Mr. Ducie!”

It might have been a stage direction. “A tucket sounds. Enter the Vicomte, disguised.” To tell the truth, this entry was a daunting business. A dance had just come to an end; and the musicians in the gallery had fallen to tuning their violins. The chairs arrayed along the walls were thinly occupied, and as yet the social temperature scarce rose to thawing-point. In fact, the second-rate people had arrived, and from the far end of the room were nervously watching the door for notables. Consequently my entrance drew a disquieting fire of observation. The mirrors, reflectors, and girandoles had eyes for me; and as I advanced up the perspective of waxed floor, the very boards winked detection. A little Master of Ceremonies, as round as the rosette on his lapel, detached himself from the nearest group, and approached with something of a skater’s motion and an insinuating smile.

“Mr. – a-Ducie, if I heard aright? A stranger, I believe, to our northern capital, and I hope a dancer?” I bowed. “Grant me the pleasure, Mr. Ducie, of finding you a partner.”

“If,” said I, “you would present me to the young lady yonder, beneath the musicians’ gallery – ” For I recognised Master Ronald’s flame, the girl in pink of Mr. Robbie’s party, to-night gowned in apple-green.

“Miss McBean – Miss Camilla McBean? With pleasure. Great discrimination you show, sir. Be so good as to follow me.”

I was led forward and presented. Miss McBean responded to my bow with great play of shoulders; and in turn presented me to her mother, a moustachioed lady in stiff black silk, surmounted with a black cap and coquelicot trimmings.

“Any friend of Mr. Robbie’s, I’m sure,” murmured Mrs. McBean, affably inclining. “Look, Camilla dear – Sir William and Lady Frazer – in laylock sarsnet – how well that diamond bandeau becomes her! They are early to-night. As I was saying, Mr. – ”

“Ducie.”

“To be sure. As I was saying, any friend of Mr. Robbie – one of my oldest acquaintance. If you can manage now to break him of his bachelor habits? You are making a long stay in Edinburgh?”

“I fear, madam, that I must leave it to-morrow.”

“You have seen all our lions, I suppose? The Castle, now? Ah, the attractions of London! – now don’t shake your head, Mr. Ducie. I hope I know a Londoner when I see one. And yet ’twould surprise you how fast we are advancing in Edinburgh. Camilla dear, that Miss Scrymgeour has edged her China crape with the very ribbon trimmings – black satin with pearl edge – we saw in that new shop in Princes Street yesterday: sixpenny width at the bottom, and three-three-farthings round the bodice. Perhaps you can tell me, Mr. Ducie, if it’s really true that ribbon trimmings are the height in London and Bath this year?”

But the band struck up, and I swept the unresisting Camilla towards the set. After the dance, the ladies (who were kind enough to compliment me on my performance) suffered themselves to be led to the tea-room. By this time the arrivals were following each other thick and fast; and, standing by the tea-table, I heard name after name vociferated at the ball-room door, but never the name my nerves were on the strain to echo. Surely Flora would come: surely none of her guardians, natural or officious, would expect to find me at the ball. But the minutes passed, and I must convey Mrs. and Miss McBean back to their seats beneath the gallery.

“Miss Gilchrist – Miss Flora Gilchrist – Mr. Ronald Gilchrist! Mr. Robbie! Major Arthur Chevenix!”

The first name plumped like a shot across my bows, and brought me up standing – for a second only. Before the catalogue was out I had dropped the McBeans at their moorings, and was heading down on my enemies’ line of battle. Their faces were a picture. Flora’s cheek flushed, and her lips parted in the prettiest cry of wonder. Mr. Robbie took snuff. Ronald went red in the face, and Major Chevenix white. The intrepid Miss Gilchrist turned not a hair.

“What will be the meaning of this?” she demanded, drawing to a stand, and surveying me through her gold-rimmed eye-glass.

“Madam,” said I, with a glance at Chevenix, “you may call it a cutting-out expedition.”

“Miss Gilchrist,” he began, “you will surely not – ”

But I was too quick for him.

“Madam, since when has the gallant Major superseded Mr. Robbie as your family adviser?”

“H’mph!” said Miss Gilchrist; which in itself was not reassuring. But she turned to the lawyer.

“My dear lady,” he answered her look, “this very imprudent young man seems to have burnt his boats, and no doubt recks very little if, in that heroical conflagration, he burns our fingers. Speaking, however, as your family adviser” – and he laid enough stress on it to convince me that there was no love lost between him and the interloping Chevenix – “I suggest that we gain nothing by protracting this scene in the face of a crowded assembly. Are you for the card-room, madam?”

She took his proffered arm, and they swept from us, leaving Master Ronald red and glum, and the Major pale but nonplussed.

“Four from six leaves two,” said I; and promptly engaged Flora’s arm, and towed her away from the silenced batteries.

“And now, my dear,” I added, as we found two isolated chairs, “you will kindly demean yourself as if we were met for the first or second time in our lives. Open your fan – so. Now listen: my cousin, Alain, is in Edinburgh, at Dumbreck’s Hotel. No, don’t lower it.”

She held up her fan, though her small wrist trembled.

“There is worse to come. He has brought Bow Street with him, and likely enough at this moment the runners are ransacking the city hot-foot for my lodgings.”

“And you linger and show yourself here! – here of all places! O, it is mad! Anne, why will you be so rash?”

“For the simple reason that I have been a fool, my dear. I banked the balance of my money in George Street, and the bank is watched. I must have money to win my way south. Therefore I must find you and reclaim the notes you were kind enough to keep for me. I go to Swanston and find you under surveillance of Chevenix, supported by an animal called Towzer. I may have killed Towzer, by the way. If so, transported to an equal sky, he may shortly have the faithful Chevenix to bear him company. I grow tired of Chevenix.”

But the fan dropped: her arms lay limp in her lap; and she was staring up at me piteously, with a world of self-reproach in her beautiful eyes.

“And I locked up the notes at home to-night – when I dressed for the ball – the first time they have left my heart! O, false! – false of trust that I am!”

“Why, dearest, that is not fatal, I hope. You reach home to-night – you slip them into some hiding – say in the corner of the wall below the garden – ”

“Stop: let me think.” She picked up her fan again, and behind it her eyes darkened while I watched and she considered. “You know the hill we pass before we reach Swanston? – it has no name, I believe, but Ronald and I have called it the Fish-back since we were children: it has a clump of firs above it like a fin. There is a quarry on the east slope. If you will be there at eight – I can manage it, I think, and bring the money.”