good--and you a
boy not much older than myself? And because you said a word too much in
a friend's ear, that would die ere she betrayed you--to make such a
matter! It is one thing that we must both forget."

"Catriona," said I, looking at her, hang-dog, "is this true of it? Would
ye trust me yet?"

"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 maybe all this while I am but a child frighted with bogles," said
I. "Maybe they but make a mock of me."

"It is what I must know," she said. "I must hear the whole. The harm is
done, at all events, and I must hear the whole."

I had sat down on the wayside, where she took a place beside me, and I
told her all that matter much as I have written it, my thoughts about
her father's dealing being alone omitted.

"Well," she said, when I had finished, "you are a hero, surely, and I
never would have thought that same! And I think you are in peril, too.
O, Simon Fraser! to think upon that man! For his life and the dirty
money, to be dealing in such traffic!" And just then she called out
aloud with a queer word that was common with her, and belongs, I
believe, to her own language. "My torture!" says she, "look at the sun!"

Indeed, it was already dipping towards the mountains.

She bid me come again soon, gave me her hand, and left me in a turmoil
of glad spirits. I delayed to go home to my lodging, for I had a terror
of immediate arrest; but got some supper at a change-house, and the
better part of that night walked by myself in the barley-fields, and had
such a sense of Catriona's presence that I seemed to bear her in my
arms.

FOOTNOTE:

[12] Now Princes Street.

CHAPTER VIII

THE BRAVO

The next day, August 29th, I kept my appointment at the Advocate's in a
coat that I had made to my own measure, and was but newly ready.

"Aha," says Prestongrange, "you are very fine to-day; my misses are to
have a fine cavalier. Come, I take that kind of you. I take that kind of
you, Mr. David. O, we shall do very well yet, and I believe your
troubles are nearly at an end."

"You have news for me?" cried I.

"Beyond anticipation," he replied. "Your testimony is after all to be
received; and you may go, if you will, in my company to the trial, which
is