01 I Journey to the House of Shaws (Kidnapped)

01CHAPTER I.

02I SET OFF UPON MY JOURNEY TO THE HOUSE OF SHAW'S.

03I will begin the story of my adventures with a certain morning early in the month of June, the year of Grace, 1751, when I took the key for the last time out of the door of my father's house.

04The sun began to shine upon the summit of the hills as I went down the road, and by the time I had come as far as the manse, the black birds were whistling in the garden lilacs, and the mist that hung around the valley in the time of the dawn was beginning to arise and die away.

05Mr.

06Campbell, the minister of Essendene, was waiting for me by the garden gate, good man.

07He asked me if I had breakfasted, and hearing that I lacked for nothing, he took my hand in both of his and clapped it kindly under his arm.

08Well, Davy Lad, said he, I will go with you as far as the ford to set you on the way, and we began to walk forward in silence.

09Are you sorry to leave Essendene?

10said he, after a while.

11Why, sir, said I, if I knew where I was going, or what was likely to become of me, I would tell you candidly.

12Essendene is a good place, indeed, and I have been very happy there, but then I have never been anywhere else.

13My father and mother, since they are both dead, I shall be no nearer to in Essendene than in the kingdom of Hungary, and, to speak truth, if I thought I had a chance to better myself where I was going, I would go with a good will.

14I?

15said Mr.

16Campbell.

17Very well, Davy.

18Then it behooves me to tell your fortune, or so far as I may.

19When your mother was gone, and your father, the worthy Christian man, began to sicken for his end, he gave me in charge a certain letter, which he said was your inheritance.

20So soon, says he, as I am gone, and the house is red up and the gear disposed of, all which Davy hath been done, give my boy this letter into his hand, and start him off to the house of Shaw's, not far from Cremond.

21That is the place I came from, he said, and it's where it befits that my boy should return.

22He is a steady lad, your father said, and a canny goer, and I doubt not he will come safe and be well liked where he goes.

23The house of Shaw's!

24I cried.

25What had my poor father to do with the house of Shaw's?

26Nay!

27said Mr.

28Campbell.

29Who can tell that for a surety?

30But the name of that family, Davy boy, is the name you bear.

31Balfour's of Shaw's!

32An ancient, honest, reputable house, peradventure in these latter days, decayed.

33Your father, too, was a man of learning as befitted his position.

34No man more plausibly conducted school, nor had he the manner or the speech of a common domine.

35But, as ye will yourself remember, I took aye a pleasure to have him to the manse to meet the gentry, and those of my own house, Campbell of Kilrennet, Campbell of Dunswire, Campbell of Minch, and others, all well-kened gentlemen, had pleasure in his society.

36Lastly, to put all the elements of this affair before you, here is the testamentary letter itself, superscribed by the own hand of our departed brother.

37He gave me the letter which was addressed in these words.

38To the hands of Ebenezer Balfour, Esquire, of Shaw's, in his house of Shaw's, these will be delivered by my son, David Balfour.

39My heart was beating hard at this great prospect, now suddenly opening before a lad of seventeen years of age, the son of a poor country domine in the forest of Ettrick.

40Mr.

41Campbell, I stammered, and if you were in my shoes, would you go?

42Of a surety, said the minister, that would I, and without pause.

43A pretty lad like you should get to Craymond, which is near in by Edinburgh, in two days of walk.

44If the worst come to the worst, and your high relations, as I cannot but suppose them to be somewhat of your blood, should put you to the door, you can but walk the two days back again, and risk at the man's door.

45But I would rather hope that you shall be well received, as your poor father forecast for you, and for anything that I can, come to be a great man in time.

46And here, Davy Laddy, he resumed, it lies near upon my conscience to improve this parting, and set you on the right guard against the dangers of the world.

47Here he cast about for a comfortable seat, lighted on a big boulder under a birch by the trackside, sat down upon it with a very long, serious upper lip, and, the sun now shining in upon us between two peaks, put his pocket-handkerchief over his cocked hat to shelter him.

48There, then, with uplifted forefinger, he first put me on my guard against a considerable number of heresies, to which I had no temptation, and urged upon me to be instant in my prayers and reading of the Bible.

49That done, he drew a picture of the great house that I was bound to, and how I should conduct myself with its inhabitants.

50Be soople, Davy, in things immaterial, said he.

51Bear ye this in mind, that though gentle-born, ye have a country rearing.

52Dina shame us, Davy, dina shame us.

53In yon great muckle house, with all these domestics, upper and under, show yourself as nice, as circumspect, as quick at the conception, and as slow of speech as any.

54As for the laird, remember, he's the laird.

55I say no more.

56Honour to whom honour?

57It's a pleasure to obey a laird.

58Or should be, to the young.

59Well, sir, said I, it may be, and I'll promise you I'll try to make it so.

60Why, very well said, replied Mr.

61Campbell heartily.

62And now to come to the material, or to make a quibble, to the immaterial, I have here a little packet which contains four things.

63He tugged it as he spoke, and with some great difficulty, from the skirt pocket of his coat.

64Of these four things, the first is your legal due, the little pickle money for your father's books and plenishing, which I have bought, as I explained from the first, in the design of reselling at a profit to the incoming domine.

65The other three are gifties that Mrs.

66Campbell and myself will be blithe of your acceptance.

67The first, which is round, will likely please your best at the first off-go.

68But, O Davy, laddie, it's but a drop of water in the sea.

69It'll help you but a step, and vanish like the morning.

70The second, which is flat and square, and written upon, will stand by you through life, like a good staff for the road, and a good pillow to your head in sickness.

71And as for the last, which is cubicle, that'll see you, it's my prayerful wish, into a better land.

72With that he got upon his feet, took off his hat, and prayed a little while aloud, and in affecting terms, for a young man setting out into the world, then suddenly took me in his arms, and embraced me very hard, then held me at arm's length, looking at me with his face all working with sorrow, and then whipped about, and crying good-bye to me, set off backward by the way that we had come at a sort of jogging run.

73It might have been laughable to another, but I was in no mind to laugh.

74I watched him as long as he was in sight, and he never stopped hurrying, nor once looked back.

75Then it came in upon my mind that this was all his sorrow at my departure, and my conscience smote me hard and fast, because I, for my part, was overjoyed to get out of that quiet countryside, and go to a great busy house among rich and respected gentlefolk of my own name and blood.

76Davy, Davy, I thought, was ever seen such black ingratitude.

77Can you forget old favours and old friends at the mere whistle of a name?

78Fie, fie, think shame!

79And I sat down on the boulder the good man had just left, and opened the parcel to see the nature of my gifts.

80That which he had called cubicle I had never had much doubt of.

81Sure enough, it was a little Bible to carry in a plaid nook.

82That which he had called round I found to be a shilling piece.

83And the third, which was to help me so wonderfully both in health and sickness all the days of my life, was a little piece of coarse yellow paper, written upon thus in red ink.

84To make Lily of the Valley water.

85Take the flowers of Lily of the Valley and distill them in sack, and drink a spoonful or two as there is occasion.

86It restores speech to those that have the dumb palsy.

87It is good against the gout.

88It comforts the heart and strengthens the memory.

89And the flowers put into a glass, close stopped, and set into a hill of ants for a month, then take it out, and you will find a liquor which comes from the flowers, which keep in a vial.

90It is good, ill or well, and whether man or woman.

91And then in the minister's own hand was added, Likewise for sprains, rub it in, and for the colic, a great spoonful in the hour.

92To be sure, I laughed over this, but it was rather tremulous laughter, and I was glad to get my bundle on my staff's end and set out over the ford and up the hill upon the farther side, till, just as I came on the green drove-road running wide through the heather, I took my last look of Kirk Essendine, the trees about the manse, and the big rowans in the kirkyard, where my father and my mother lay.

93End of chapter End of chapter