then!”
I beat their blades down twice. I was knocked reeling against the wall; I was back again betwixt them. They took no heed of me, thrusting at each other like two furies. I can never think how I avoided being stabbed myself or stabbing one of these two Rodomonts, and the whole business turned about me like a piece of a dream; in the midst of which I heard a great cry from the stair, and Catriona sprang before her father. In the same moment the point of my sword encountered some thing yielding. It came back to me reddened. I saw the blood flow on the girl’s kerchief, and stood sick.
“Will you be killing him before my eyes, and me his daughter after all!” she cried.
“My dear, I have done with him,” said Alan, and went, and sat on a table, with his arms crossed and the sword naked in his hand.
Awhile she stood before the man, panting, with big eyes, then swung suddenly about and faced him.
“Begone!” was her word, “take your shame out of my sight; leave me with clean folk. I am a daughter of Alpin! Shame of the sons of Alpin, begone!”
It was said with so much passion as awoke me from the horror of my own bloodied sword. The two stood facing, she with the red stain on her kerchief, he white as a rag. I knew him well enough - I knew it must have pierced him in the quick place of his soul; but he betook himself to a bravado air.
“Why,” says he, sheathing his sword, though still with a bright eye on Alan, “if this brawl is over I will but get my portmanteau - ”
“There goes no pockmantie out of this place except with me,” says Alan.
“Sir!” cries James.
“James More,” says Alan, “this lady daughter of yours is to marry my friend Davie, upon the which account I let you pack with a hale carcase. But take you my advice of it and get that carcase out of harm’s way or ower late. Little as you suppose it, there are leemits to my temper.”
“Be damned, sir, but my money’s there!” said James.
“I’m vexed about that, too,” says Alan, with his funny face, “but now, ye see, it’s mines.” And then with more gravity, “Be you advised, James More, you leave this house.”
James seemed to cast about for a moment in his mind; but it’s to be thought he had enough of Alan’s swordsmanship, for he suddenly put off his hat to us and (with a face like one of the damned) bade us farewell in a series. With which he was gone.
At the same time a spell was lifted from me.
“Catriona,” I cried, “it was me - it was my sword. O, are you much hurt?”
“I know it, Davie, I am loving you for the pain of it; it was done defending that bad man, my father. See!” she said, and showed me a bleeding scratch, “see, you have made a man of me now. I will carry a wound like an old soldier.”
Joy that she should be so little hurt, and the love of her brave nature, supported me. I embraced her, I kissed the wound.
“And am I to be out of the kissing, me that never lost a chance?” says Alan; and putting me aside and taking Catriona by either shoulder, “My dear,” he said, “you’re a true daughter of Alpin. By all accounts, he was a very fine man, and he may weel be proud of you. If ever I was to get married, it’s the marrow of you I would be seeking for a mother to my sons. And I bear’s a king’s name and speak the truth.”
He said it with a serious heat of admiration that was honey to the girl, and through her, to me. It seemed to wipe us clean of all James More’s disgraces. And the next moment he was just himself again.
“And now by your leave, my dawties,” said he, “this is a’ very bonny; but Alan Breck’ll be a wee thing nearer to the gallows than he’s caring for; and Dod! I think this is a grand place to be leaving.”
The word recalled us to some wisdom. Alan ran upstairs and returned with our saddle-bags and James More’s portmanteau; I picked up Catriona’s bundle where she had dropped it on the stair; and we were setting forth out of that dangerous house, when Bazin stopped the way with cries and gesticulations. He had whipped under a table when the swords were drawn, but now he was as bold as a lion. There was his bill to be settled, there was a chair broken, Alan had sat among his dinner things, James More had fled.
“Here,” I cried, “pay yourself,” and flung him down some Lewie d’ors; for I thought it was no time to be accounting.
He sprang upon that money, and we passed him by, and ran forth into the open. Upon three sides of the house were seamen hasting and closing in; a little nearer to us James More waved his hat as if to hurry them; and right behind him, like some foolish person holding up his hands, were the sails of the windmill turning.
Alan gave but one glance, and laid himself down to run. He carried a great weight in James More’s portmanteau; but I think he would as soon have lost his life as cast away that booty which was his revenge; and he ran so that I was distressed to follow him, and marvelled and exulted to see the girl bounding at my side.
As soon as we appeared, they cast off all disguise upon the other side; and the seamen pursued us with shouts and view-hullohs. We had a start of some two hundred yards, and they were but bandy-legged tarpaulins after all, that could not hope to better us at such an exercise. I suppose they were armed, but did not care to use their pistols on French ground. And as soon as I perceived that we not only held our advantage but drew a little away, I began to feel quite easy of the issue. For all which, it was a hot, brisk bit of work, so long as it lasted; Dunkirk was still far off; and when we popped over a knowe, and found a company of the garrison marching on the other side on some manoeuvre, I could very well understand the word that Alan had.
He stopped running at once; and mopping at his brow, “They’re a real bonny folk, the French nation,” says he.
Conclusion
No sooner were we safe within the walls of Dunkirk than we held a very necessary council-of-war on our position. We had taken a daughter from her father at the sword’s point; any judge would give her back to him at once, and by all likelihood clap me and Alan into jail; and though we had an argument upon our side in Captain Palliser’s letter, neither Catriona nor I were very keen to be using it in public. Upon all accounts it seemed the most prudent to carry the girl to Paris to the hands of her own chieftain, Macgregor of Bohaldie, who would be very willing to help his kinswoman, on the one hand, and not at all anxious to dishonour James upon other.
We made but a slow journey of it up, for Catriona was not so good at the riding as the running, and had scarce sat in the saddle since the ‘Forty-five. But we made it out at last, reached Paris early of a Sabbath morning, and made all speed, under Alan’s guidance, to find Bohaldie. He was finely lodged, and lived in a good style, having a pension on the Scots Fund, as well as private means; greeted Catriona like one of his own house, and seemed altogether very civil and discreet, but not particularly open. We asked of the news of James More. “Poor James!” said he, and shook his head and smiled, so that I thought he knew further than he meant to tell. Then we showed him Palliser’s letter, and he drew a long face at that.
“Poor James!” said he again. “Well, there are worse folk than James More, too. But this is dreadful bad. Tut, tut, he must have forgot himself entirely! This is a most undesirable letter. But, for all that, gentlemen, I cannot see what we would want to make it public for. It’s an ill bird that fouls his own nest, and we are all Scots folk and all Hieland.”
Upon this we all agreed, save perhaps Alan; and still more upon the question of our marriage, which Bohaldie took in his own hands, as though there had been no such person as James More, and gave Catriona away with very pretty manners and agreeable compliments in French. It was not till all was over, and our healths drunk, that he told us James was in that city, whither he had preceded us some days, and where he now lay sick, and like to die. I thought I saw by my wife’s face what way her inclination pointed.
“And let us go see him, then,” said I.
“If it is your pleasure,” said Catriona. These were early days.
He was lodged in the same quarter of the city with his chief, in a great house upon a corner; and we were guided up to the garret where he lay by the sound of Highland piping. It seemed he had just borrowed a set of them from Bohaldie to amuse his sickness; though he was no such hand as was his brother Rob, he made good music of the kind; and it was strange to observe the French folk crowding on the stairs, and some of them laughing. He lay
