Catriona quotes

It chanced the girl turned suddenly about, so that I saw her face for the first time.

There is no greater wonder than the way the face of a young woman fits in a man’s mind, and stays there, and he could never tell you why; it just seems it was the thing he wanted.

She had wonderful bright eyes like stars, and I daresay the eyes had a part in it; but what I remember the most clearly was the way her lips were a trifle open as she turned.

She made me a little, distant curtsey. “There is no harm done,” said she, with a pretty accent, most like the English (but more agreeable). “

A cat may look at a king.

”

“No, mother,” said I, “I see far enough the way I am.

It’s an unco thing to see too far in front.

”

“I am a man nursing with both hands the interests of this country,” he replied, “and I press on you a political necessity.

Patriotism is not always moral in the formal sense.

You might be glad of it, I think: it is your own protection; the facts are heavy against you;

“Well,” said he, “good night to you.

May you sleep well, for I think it is more than I am like to do.

”

Ye’ll have to win over that, lad; ye’ll have to soople your backbone, and think a wee pickle less of your dainty self; and ye’ll have to try to find out that womenfolk are nae grenadiers. But that can never be.

To your last day you’ll ken no more of womenfolk than what I do of sow-gelding.

”

I had yet to learn, and know, and prove myself a man; and I had so much sense as blush that I should be already tempted with these further-on and holier delights and duties. My education spoke home to me sharply;

I was never brought up on sugar biscuits, but on the hard food of the truth.

I knew that he was quite unfit to be a husband who was not prepared to be a father also; and for a boy like me to play the father was a mere derision.

“Will you not believe the tears upon my face?” she cried. “It is the world I am thinking of you, Mr. David Balfour. Let them hang you; I will never forget, I will grow old and still remember you.

I think it is great to die so; I will envy you that gallows.

”

and though I was presented to all of them in very good words, it seemed I was by all immediately forgotten.

Young folk in a company are like to savage animals: they fall upon or scorn a stranger without civility, or I may say, humanity; and I am sure, if I had been among baboons, they would have shown me quite as much of both.

Some of the advocates set up to be wits, and some of the soldiers to be rattles; and I could not tell which of these extremes annoyed me most.

“O yes, Mr. David,” said she, “that is what I think of you.

The heart goes with the lips.

”

how I had prated of the two lives I carried, and had thus forced her to enjeopardy her father’s; and how I was here exposing them again, it seemed in wantonness.

A good conscience is eight parts of courage.

No sooner had I lost conceit of my behaviour, than I seemed to stand disarmed amidst a throng of terrors. Of a sudden I sat up.

“And I can see the marks of it upon ye constantly,” said Alan. “

But that’s the strange thing about you folk of the college learning: ye’re ignorant, and ye cannae see ’t.

Wae’s me for my Greek and Hebrew; but, man, I ken that I dinnae ken them—there’s the differ of it. Now, here’s you.

“What do ye want?” says he. “

A man should aye put his best foot forrit with the womenkind; he should aye give them a bit of a story to divert them, the poor lambs!

It’s what ye should learn to attend to, David; ye should get the principles, it’s like a trade. Now, if this had been a young lassie, or onyways bonnie, she would never have heard tell of my stomach, Davie.

“

He that will to Cupar, maun to Cupar

,” said he, and swashing in deeper than his waist, was hauled into the skiff, which was immediately directed for the ship.

“Ay, it’s a peety about that,” said he. “

But ye see in this warld, the way God made it, we cannae just get a’thing that we want.

”

and I would wake again with a start to darkness of spirit and distress of body. I thought Andie seemed to observe me, but I paid him little heed.

Verily, my bread was bitter to me, and my days a burden.

Early the next morning (Friday, 22nd) a boat came with provisions, and Andie placed a packet in my hand. The cover was without address but sealed with a Government seal. It enclosed two notes. “Mr.

and the minister himself seemed quite discountenanced by the flutter in the church and sudden stir and whispering. His voice changed, he plainly faltered, nor did he again recover the easy conviction and full tones of his delivery.

It would be a puzzle to him till his dying day, why a sermon that had gone with triumph through four parts, should thus miscarry in the fifth.

As for me, I continued to sit there, very wet and weary, and a good deal anxious as to what should happen next, but greatly exulting in my success.

Then up and spak the Duke, and flyted on his cook, I regaird it as a sensible aspersion, That I would sup ava’, an’ satiate my maw, With the bluid of ony clan of my aversion.

James was as fairly murdered as though the Duke had got a fowling-piece and stalked him.

So much of course I knew: but others knew not so much, and were more affected by the items of scandal that came to light in the progress of the cause. One of the chief was certainly this sally of the justice’s.

But for my patronage, it is not given, nor (to be exact) is it yet offered.” He paused a bit. “And I warn you, you do not know yourself,” he added. “

Youth is a hasty season; you will think better of all this before a year.

”

My clerks are overdriven; be so good as copy me these few pages,” says he, visibly swithering among some huge rolls of manuscripts, “and when that is done, I shall bid you God speed!

I would never charge myself with Mr. David’s conscience; and if you could cast some part of it (as you went by) in a moss hag, you would find yourself to ride much easier without it.

”

and during these hours of my employment Catriona was privately got rid of. I think shame to write of this man that loaded me with so many goodnesses.

He was kind to me as any father, yet I ever thought him as false as a cracked bell.

I will never betray the secrets of my sex, Mr. Davie; I will never tell you the way she turned me round her thumb, because it is the same she will use to twist yourself. Ay, it is a fine lass!

She is as clean as hill well water.

”

“

I think you have the largest feet in all broad Scotland,

” says she.

She shall know you came to her straight upon the news of her imprisonment; she shall know you would not pause to eat; and of your conversation she shall hear just so much as I think convenient for a maid of her age and inexperience.

Believe me, you will be in that way much better served than you could serve yourself, for I will keep the big feet out of the platter.

”

So there was the final upshot of my politics!

Innocent men have perished before James, and are like to keep on perishing (in spite of all our wisdom) till the end of time.

And till the end of time, young folk (who are not yet used with the duplicity of life and men) will struggle as I did, and make heroical resolves, and take long risks;

“You inimitable bairn!” she cried. “Did you think that I would let us part like strangers? Because I can never keep my gravity at you five minutes on end, you must not dream I do not love you very well;

I am all love and laughter, every time I cast an eye on you!

And now I will give you an advice to conclude your education, which you will have need of before its very long. Never ask womenfolk. They’re bound to answer ‘No’; God never made the lass that could resist the temptation.

I am all love and laughter, every time I cast an eye on you! And now I will give you an advice to conclude your education, which you will have need of before its very long.

Never ask womenfolk. They’re bound to answer ‘No’; God never made the lass that could resist the temptation.

It’s supposed by divines to be the curse of Eve; because she did not say it when the devil offered her the apple, her daughters can say nothing else.”

and what was in my own, I was afraid to consider. I need make no secret of it now, either to myself or to the reader: I was fallen totally in love.

She came between me and the sun.

She had grown suddenly taller, as I say, but with a wholesome growth; she seemed all health, and lightness, and brave spirits; and I thought she walked like a young deer, and stood like a birch upon the mountains.

I was fallen totally in love. She came between me and the sun. She had grown suddenly taller, as I say, but with a wholesome growth; she seemed all health, and lightness, and brave spirits; and

I thought she walked like a young deer, and stood like a birch upon the mountains.

It was enough for me to sit near by her on the deck;

She told them very pretty, and they were pretty enough childish tales; but the pleasure to myself was in the sound of her voice, and the thought that she was telling and I listening.

Whiles, again, we would sit entirely silent, not communicating even with a look, and tasting pleasure enough in the sweetness of that neighbourhood.

I speak here only for myself. Of what was in the maid’s mind, I am not very sure that ever I asked myself; and what was in my own, I was afraid to consider.

and wrote me two-three times by the carrier; and then he found new friends, and I might write till I was tired, he took no notice. Eh, Catriona, it took me a long while to forgive the world.

There is not anything more bitter than to lose a fancied friend.

”

“

I think it is sometimes the friendship that was fancied!

” I cried. “What kind of justice do you call this, to blame me for some words that a tomfool of a madcap lass has written down upon a piece of paper? You know yourself with what respect I have behaved—and would do always.”

If I had kissed her indeed (I thought), perhaps she would have taken it pretty well; and only because it had been written down, and with a spice of jocularity, up she must fuff in this ridiculous passion.

It seemed to me there was a want of penetration in the female sex, to make angels weep over the case of the poor men.

We were side by side again at supper, and what a change was there! She was like curdled milk to me; her face was like a wooden doll’s;

Ye see what way I stand with it; and it’s clear I’m no very likely to meddle up with the young leddy, as ye ca’ her. She cannae stop here, that’s ae thing certain sure.

Dod, sir, I’m a lone man! If I was to tak her in, its highly possible the hellicat would try and gar me marry her when he turned up.

”

“A very good thing,” said she, and we went on again, but now in silence.

It was an eerie employment to walk in the gross night, beholding only shadows and hearing nought but our own steps.

At first, I believe our hearts burned against each other with a deal of enmity; but the darkness and the cold, and the silence, which only the cocks sometimes interrupted, or sometimes the farmyard dogs, had pretty soon brought down our pride to the dust;

“There will be no end to your goodness,” said she.

And we went on again in silence; but now all was changed; and the happiness that was in my heart was like a fire in a great chimney.

The rain passed ere day; it was but a sloppy morning as we came into the town of Delft. The red gabled houses made a handsome show on either hand of a canal;

I could have kissed her for that word, not with a lover’s mind, but in a heat of admiration.

For it always warms a man to see a woman brave.

We got a drink of milk from a country wife but new come to the town, and in a baker’s, a piece of excellent, hot, sweet-smelling bread, which we ate upon the road as we went on.

“I will have no choice left,” said she. “My father James More has not used me very well, and it is not the first time.

I am cast upon your hands like a sack of barley meal, and have nothing else to think of but your pleasure.

If you will have me, good and well. If you will not”—she turned and touched her hand upon my arm—“David, I am afraid,” said she.

you are one of those from whom a gentleman can take a favour and no more words about it. I am an old soldier,” he went on, looking rather disgusted-like around my chamber, “and you need not fear I shall prove burdensome.

I have ate too often at a dyke-side, drank of the ditch, and had no roof but the rain.

”

And in the meanwhile I would be alone some other place, and reading myself (whenever I was tempted to be angry) lessons upon human frailty and female delicacy.

And altogether I suppose there were never two poor fools made themselves more unhappy in a greater misconception.

As for James, he paid not so much heed to us, or to anything in nature but his pocket, and his belly, and his own prating talk. Before twelve hours were gone he had raised a small loan of me;

Before twelve hours were gone he had raised a small loan of me; before thirty, he had asked for a second and been refused.

Money and refusal he took with the same kind of high good-nature.

Indeed, he had an outside air of magnanimity that was very well fitted to impose upon a daughter; and the light in which he was constantly presented in his talk, and the man’s fine presence and great ways went together pretty harmoniously.

“So that this is to be the way of it,” I concluded. “

I will marry Miss Drummond, and that blythely, if she is entirely willing. But if there be the least unwillingness, as I have reason to fear⁠—marry her will I never.

”

We took one of our old ways, where we had gone often together, and been more happy than I can tell of in the past. I came a half a step behind, so that I could watch her unobserved.

The knocking of her little shoes upon the way sounded extraordinary pretty and sad; and I thought it a strange moment that I should be so near both ends of it at once, and walk in the midst between two destinies

, and could not tell whether I was hearing these steps for the last time, or whether the sound of them was to go in and out with me till death should part us.

And then turning on me: “My father and I are a fine pair,” she said, “but I am thanking the good God there will be somebody worse than what we are. I am thanking the good God that he has let me see you so.

There will never be the girl made that would not scorn you.

”

Some little while I raged about the streets, and told myself I was the worst used lad in Christendom.

Anger choked me; it was all very well for me to breathe deep; it seemed there was not air enough about Leyden to supply me, and I thought I would have burst like a man at the bottom of the sea.

I stopped and laughed at myself at a street corner a minute together, laughing out loud, so that a passenger looked at me, which brought me to myself.

“Well,” I thought, “

I have been a gull and a ninny and a soft Tommy long enough.

Time it was done. Here is a good lesson to have nothing to do with that accursed sex, that was the ruin of the man in the beginning and will be so to the end.

This was to England and to see Lord Holderness; and it has always been a bitter thought that my good money helped to pay the charges of the same.

But he has need of a long spoon who sups with the deil, or James More either.

During this absence, the time was to fall due for another letter; and as the letter was the condition of his stipend, he had been so careful as prepare it beforehand and leave it with Catriona to be despatched.

The weemenfolk have got no kind of reason to them. Either they like the man, and then a’ goes fine; or else they just detest him, and ye may spare your breath—ye can do naething.

There’s just the two sets of them⁠—them that would sell their coats for ye, and them that never look the road ye’re on.

That’s a’ that there is to women; and you seem to be such a gomeral that ye cannae tell the tane frae the tither.”

“Well, well,” says Alan, holding her hand in his and viewing her, “and so this is the young lady at the last of it! David, you’re an awful poor hand of a description.”

I do not know that ever I heard him speak so straight to people’s hearts; the sound of his voice was like song.

“What? will he have been describing me?” she cried.

and whatever he cares for, I’ve got to care for too—and by the holy airn! they’ve got to care for me! So now you can see what way you stand with Alan Breck, and ye’ll find ye’ll hardly lose on the transaction.

He’s no very bonnie, my dear, but he’s leal to them he loves.

”

Next Alan came, and I went among soldier-men to their big dinners; and still I had the same thought. And it was the same before, when I had her there beside me.

Catriona, do you see this napkin at my throat? You cut a corner from it once and then cast it from you. They’re your colours now; I wear them in my heart. My dear, I cannot want you. O, try to put up with me!

”