extend to innocent members of my
family. These are greatly engaged to see more of you, and I cannot
consent to have my young women-folk disappointed. To-morrow they will be
going to Hope Park, where I think it very proper you should make your
bow. Call for me first, when I may possibly have something for your
private hearing; then you shall be turned abroad again under the conduct
of my misses; and until that time repeat to me your promise of secrecy."

I had done better to have instantly refused, but in truth I was beside
the power of reasoning; did as I was bid; took my leave I know not how;
and when I was forth again in the close, and the door had shut behind
me, was glad to lean on a house-wall and wipe my face. That horrid
apparition (as I may call it) of Mr. Simon rang in my memory, as a
sudden noise rings after it is over in the ear. Tales of the man's
father, of his falseness, of his manifold perpetual treacheries, rose
before me from all that I had heard and read, and joined on with what I
had just experienced of himself. Each time it occurred to me, the
ingenious foulness of that calumny he had proposed to nail upon my
character startled me afresh. The case of the man upon the gibbet by
Leith Walk appeared scarce distinguishable from that I was now to
consider as my own. To rob a child of so little more than nothing was
certainly a paltry enterprise for two grown men; but my own tale, as it
was to be represented in a court by Simon Fraser, appeared a fair second
in every possible point of view of sordidness and cowardice.

The voices of two of Prestongrange's liveried men upon his doorstep
recalled me to myself.

"Hae," said the one; "this billet as fast as ye can link to the
captain."

"Is that for the cateran back again?" asked the other.

"It would seem sae," returned the first. "Him and Simon are seeking
him."

"I think Prestongrange is gane gyte," says the second. "He'll have James
More in bed with him next."

"Weel, it's neither your affair nor mine's," says the first.

And they parted, the one upon his errand, and the other back into the
house.

This looked as ill as possible. I was scarce gone and they were sending
already for James More, to whom I thought Mr. Simon must have pointed
when he spoke of men in prison and ready to redeem their lives by all
extremities. My scalp curdled among my hair, and the next moment the
blood leaped in me to remember Catriona. Poor lass! her father stood to