ames More's escape must become
evident to all. This was the little problem I had set him of a sudden,
and to which he had so briskly found an answer. I was to be tethered in
Glasgow by that job of copying, which in mere outward decency I could
not well refuse; 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.

* * * * *

CHAPTER XIX

I AM MUCH IN THE HANDS OF THE LADIES

The copying was a weary business, the more so as I perceived very early
there was no sort of urgency in the matters treated, and began very
early to consider my employment a pretext. I had no sooner finished,
than I got to horse, used what remained of daylight to the best purpose,
and being at last fairly benighted, slept in a house by Almond-Water
side. I was in the saddle again before the day, and the Edinburgh booths
were just opening when I clattered in by the West Bow and drew up a
smoking horse at my lord Advocate's door. I had a written word for Doig,
my lord's private hand that was thought to be in all his secrets, a
worthy, little plain man, all fat and snuff and self-sufficiency. Him I
found already at his desk and already bedabbled with maccabaw, in the
same anteroom where I rencountered with James More. He read the note
scrupulously through like a chapter in his Bible.

"H'm," says he, "ye come a wee thing ahint-hand, Mr. Balfour. The bird's
flaen, we hae letten her out."

"Miss Drummond is set free?" I cried.

"Achy!" said he. "What would we keep her for, ye ken? To hae made a
steer about the bairn would hae pleased naebody."

"And where'll she be now?" says I.

"Gude kens!" says Doig, with a shrug.

"She'll have gone home to Lady Allardyce, I'm thinking," said I.

"That'll be it," said he.

"Then I'll gang there straight," says I.

"But ye'll be for a bite or ye go?" said he.

"Neither bite nor sup," said I. "I had a good waucht of milk in by
Ratho."

"Aweel, aweel," says Doig. "But ye'll can leave your horse here and your
bags, for it seems we're to have your up-put."

"Na, na," said I. "Tamson's mear[17] would never be the thing for me,
this day of all days."

Doig speaking somewhat broad, I had been led by imitation into an accent
much more countrified than I was usually careful to affect, a good