r lordship and are even at the pains to fawn on me. And I have seen
it in the old ones also. They are all for by-ends, the whole clan of
them! It's this that makes me seem to misdoubt your lordship's liking.
Why would I think that you would like me? But ye told me yourself ye had
an interest!"

I stopped at this, confounded that I had run so far; he was observing me
with a unfathomable face.

"My lord, I ask your pardon," I resumed. "I have nothing in my chafts
but a rough country tongue. I think it would be only decent-like if I
would go to see my friend in her captivity; but I'm owing you my life,
I'll never forget that; and-if it's for your lordship's good, here I'll
stay. That's barely gratitude."

"This might have been reached in fewer words," says Prestongrange,
grimly. "It is easy, and it is at times gracious, to say a plain Scots
'ay'."

"Ah, but, my lord, I think ye take me not yet entirely!" cried I. "For
_your_ sake, for my life-safe, and the kindness that ye say ye bear to
me--for these, I'll consent; but not for any good that might be coming
to myself. If I stand aside when this young maid is in her trial, it's a
thing I will be noways advantaged by; I will lose by it, I will never
gain. I would rather make a shipwreck wholly than to build on that
foundation."

He was a minute serious, then smiled. "You mind me of the man with the
long nose," said he: "was you to look at the moon by a telescope, you
would see David Balfour there! But you shall have your way of it. I will
ask at you one service, and then set you free. 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."

"Perhaps not just entirely in the same direction though, my lord!" says
I.

"And you shall have the last word, too!" cries he gaily.

Indeed he had some cause for gaiety, having now found the means to gain
his purpose. To lessen the weight of the memorial, or to have a readier
answer at his hand, he desired I should appear publicly in the character
of his intimate. But if I were to appear with the same publicity as a
visitor to Catriona in her prison the world would scarce stint to draw
conclusions, and the true nature of J