CHAPTER II

I COME TO MY JOURNEY'S END

On the forenoon of the second day, coming to the top of a hill, I
saw all the country fall away before me down to the sea; and in
the midst of this descent, on a long ridge, the city of Edinburgh
smoking like a kiln. There was a flag upon the castle, and ships
moving or lying anchored in the firth; both of which, for as far
away as they were, I could distinguish clearly; and both brought
my country heart into my mouth.

Presently after, I came by a house where a shepherd lived, and
got a rough direction for the neighbourhood of Cramond; and so,
from one to another, worked my way to the westward of the capital
by Colinton, till I came out upon the Glasgow road. And there,
to my great pleasure and wonder, I beheld a regiment marching to
the fifes, every foot in time; an old red-faced general on a grey
horse at the one end, and at the other the company of Grenadiers,
with their Pope's-hats. The pride of life seemed to mount into
my brain at the sight of the red coats and the hearing of that
merry music.

A little farther on, and I was told I was in Cramond parish, and
began to substitute in my inquiries the name of the house of
Shaws. It was a word that seemed to surprise those of whom I
sought my way. At first I thought the plainness of my
appearance, in my country habit, and that all dusty from the
road, consorted ill with the greatness of the place to which I
was bound. But after two, or maybe three, had given me the same
look and the same answer, I began to take it in my head there was
something strange about the Shaws itself.

The better to set this fear at rest, I changed the form of my
inquiries; and spying an honest fellow coming along a lane on the
shaft of his cart, I asked him if he had ever heard tell of a
house they called the house of Shaws.

He stopped his cart and looked at me, like the others.

"Ay" said he. "What for?"

"It's a great house?" I asked.

"Doubtless," says he. "The house is a big, muckle house."

"Ay," said I, "but the folk that are in it?"

"Folk?" cried he. "Are ye daft? There's nae folk there -- to
call folk."

"What?" say I; "not Mr. Ebenezer?"

"Ou, ay" says the man; "there's the laird, to be sure, if it's
him you're wanting. What'll like be your business, mannie?"

"I was led to think that I would get a situation," I said,
looking as modest as I could.

"What?" cries the carter, in so sharp a note that his very horse
started; and then, "Well, mannie," he added, "it's nane of my
affairs; but ye seem a decent-spoken lad; and if ye'll take a
word from me, ye'll keep clear of the Shaws."

The next person I came across was a dapper little man in a
beautiful white wig, whom I saw to be a barber on his rounds; and
knowing well that barbers were great gossips, I asked him plainly
what sort of a man was Mr. Balfour of the Shaws.

"Hoot, hoot, hoot," said the barber, "nae kind of a man, nae kind
of a man at all;" and began to ask me very shrewdly what my
business was; but I was more than a match for him at that, and he
went on to his next customer no wiser than he came.

I cannot well describe the blow this dealt to my illusions. The
more indistinct the accusations were, the less I liked them, for
they left the wider field to fancy. What kind of a great house
was this, that all the parish should start and stare to be asked
the way to it? or what sort of a gentleman, that his ill-fame
should be thus current on the wayside? If an hour's walking would
have brought me back to Essendean, had left my adventure then and
there, and returned to Mr. Campbell's. But when I had come so
far a way already, mere shame would not suffer me to desist till
I had put the matter to the touch of proof; I was bound, out of
mere self-respect, to carry it through; and little as I liked the
sound of what I heard, and slow as I began to travel, I still
kept asking my way and still kept advancing.

It was drawing on to sundown when I met a stout, dark,
sour-looking woman coming trudging down a hill; and she, when I
had put my usual question, turned sharp about, accompanied me
back to the summit she had just left, and pointed to a great bulk
of building standing very bare upon a green in the bottom of the
next valley. The country was pleasant round about, running in
low hills, pleasantly watered and wooded, and the crops, to my
eyes, wonderfully good; but the house itself appeared to be a
kind of ruin; no road led up to it; no smoke arose from any of
the chimneys; nor was there any semblance of a garden. My heart
sank. "That!" I cried.

The woman's face lit up with a malignant anger. "That is the
house of Shaws!" she cried. "Blood built it; blood stopped the
building of it; blood shall bring it down. See here!" she cried
again -- "I spit upon the ground, and crack my thumb at it! Black
be its fall! If ye see the laird, tell him what ye hear; tell him
this makes the twelve hunner and nineteen time that Jennet
Clouston has called down the curse on him and his house, byre and
stable, man, guest, and master, wife, miss, or bairn -- black,
black be their fall!"

And the woman, whose voice had risen to a kind of eldritch
sing-song, turned with a skip, and was gone. I stood where she
left me, with my hair on end. In those days folk still believed
in witches and trembled at a curse; and this one, falling so pat,
like a wayside omen, to arrest me ere I carried out my purpose,
took the pith out of my legs.

I sat me down and stared at the house of Shaws. The more I
looked, the pleasanter that country-side appeared; being all set
with hawthorn bushes full of flowers; the fields dotted with
sheep; a fine flight of rooks in the sky; and every sign of a
kind soil and climate; and yet the barrack in the midst of it
went sore against my fancy.

Country folk went by from the fields as I sat there on the side
of the ditch, but I lacked the spirit to give them a good-e'en.
At last the sun went down, and then, right up against the yellow
sky, I saw a scroll of smoke go mounting, not much thicker, as it
seemed to me, than the smoke of a candle; but still there it was,
and meant a fire, and warmth, and cookery, and some living
inhabitant that must have lit it; and this comforted my heart.

So I set forward by a little faint track in the grass that led in
my direction. It was very faint indeed to be the only way to a
place of habitation; yet I saw no other. Presently it brought me
to stone uprights, with an unroofed lodge beside them, and coats
of arms upon the top. A main entrance it was plainly meant to
be, but never finished; instead of gates of wrought iron, a pair
of hurdles were tied across with a straw rope; and as there were
no park walls, nor any sign of avenue, the track that I was
following passed on the right hand of the pillars, and went
wandering on toward the house.

The nearer I got to that, the drearier it appeared. It seemed
like the one wing of a house that had never been finished. What
should have been the inner end stood open on the upper floors,
and showed against the sky with steps and stairs of uncompleted
masonry. Many of the windows were unglazed, and bats flew in and
out like doves out of a dove-cote.

The night had begun to fall as I got close; and in three of the
lower windows, which were very high up and narrow, and well
barred, the changing light of a little fire began to glimmer.
Was this the palace I had been coming to? Was it within these
walls that I was to seek new friends and begin great fortunes?
Why, in my father's house on Essen-Waterside, the fire and the
bright lights would show a mile away, and the door open to a
beggar's knock!

I came forward cautiously, and giving ear as I came, heard some
one rattling with dishes, and a little dry, eager cough that came
in fits; but there was no sound of speech, and not a dog barked.

The door, as well as I could see it in the dim light, was a great
piece of wood all studded with nails; and I lifted my hand with a
faint heart under my jacket, and knocked once. Then I stood and
waited. The house had fallen into a dead silence; a whole minute
passed away, and nothing stirred but the bats overhead. I
knocked again, and hearkened again. By this time my ears had
grown so accustomed to the quiet, that I could hear the ticking
of the clock inside as it slowly counted out the seconds; but
whoever was in that house kept deadly still, and must have held
his breath.

I was in two minds whether to run away; but anger got the upper
hand, and I began instead to rain kicks and buffets on the door,
and to shout out aloud for Mr. Balfour. I was in full career,
when I heard the cough right overhead, and jumping back and
looking up, beheld a man's head in a tall nightcap, and the bell
mouth of a blunderbuss, at one of the first-storey windows.

"It's loaded," said a voice.

"I have come here with a letter," I said, "to Mr. Ebenezer
Balfour of Shaws. Is he here?"

"From whom is it?" asked the man with the blunderbuss.

"That is neither here nor there," said I, for I was growing very
wroth.

"Well," was the reply, "ye can put it down upon the doorstep, and
be off with ye."

"I will do no such thing," I cried. "I will deliver it into Mr.
Balfour's hands, as it was meant I should. It is a letter of
introduction."

"A what?" cried the voice, sharply.

I repeated what I had said.

"Who are ye, yourself?" was the next question, after a
considerable pause.

"I am not ashamed of my name," said I. "They call me David
Balfour."

At that, I made sure the man started, for I heard the blunderbuss
rattle on the window-sill; and it was after quite a long pause,
and with a curious change of voice, that the next question
followed:

"Is your father dead?"

I was so much surprised at this, that I could find no voice to
answer, but stood staring.

"Ay" the man resumed, "he'll be dead, no doubt; and that'll be
what brings ye chapping to my door." Another pause, and then
defiantly, "Well, man," he said, "I'll let ye in;" and he
disappeared from the window.

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