Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson (best historical fiction books of all time .txt) 📗

a fine, handsome, generous thing, indeed, for Alan to turn round and say to me: “Go, I am in the most danger, and my company only increases yours.” But for me to turn to the friend who certainly loved me, and say to him: “You are in great danger, I am in but little; your friendship is a burden; go, take your risks and bear your hardships alone——” no, that was impossible; and even to think of it privily to myself, made my cheeks to burn.

And yet Alan had behaved like a child, and (what is worse) a treacherous child. Wheedling my money from me while I lay half-conscious was scarce better than theft; and yet here he was trudging by my side, without a penny to his name, and by what I could see, quite blithe to sponge upon the money he had driven me to beg. True, I was ready to share it with him; but it made me rage to see him count upon my readiness.

These were the two things uppermost in my mind; and I could open my mouth upon neither without black ungenerosity. So I did the next worst, and said nothing, nor so much as looked once at my companion, save with the tail of my eye.

At last, upon the other side of Loch Errocht, going over a smooth, rushy place, where the walking was easy, he could bear it no longer, and came close to me.

“David,” says he, “this is no way for two friends to take a small accident. I have to say that I’m sorry; and so that’s said. And now if you have anything, ye’d better say it.”

“O,” says I, “I have nothing.”

He seemed disconcerted; at which I was meanly pleased.

“No,” said he, with rather a trembling voice, “but when I say I was to blame?”

“Why, of course, ye were to blame,” said I, coolly; “and you will bear me out that I have never reproached you.”

“Never,” says he; “but ye ken very well that ye’ve done worse. Are we to part? Ye said so once before. Are ye to say it again? There’s hills and heather enough between here and the two seas, David; and I will own I’m no very keen to stay where I’m no wanted.”

This pierced me like a sword, and seemed to lay bare my private disloyalty.

“Alan Breck!” I cried; and then: “Do you think I am one to turn my back on you in your chief need? You dursn’t say it to my face. My whole conduct’s there to give the lie to it. It’s true, I fell asleep upon the muir; but that was from weariness, and you do wrong to cast it up to me——”

“Which is what I never did,” said Alan.

“But aside from that,” I continued, “what have I done that you should even me to dogs by such a supposition? I never yet failed a friend, and it’s not likely I’ll begin with you. There are things between us that I can never forget, even if you can.”

“I will only say this to ye, David,” said Alan, very quietly, “that I have long been owing ye my life, and now I owe ye money. Ye should try to make that burden light for me.”

This ought to have touched me, and in a manner it did, but the wrong manner. I felt I was behaving badly; and was now not only angry with Alan, but angry with myself in the bargain; and it made me the more cruel.

“You asked me to speak,” said I. “Well, then, I will. You own yourself that you have done me a disservice; I have had to swallow an affront: I have never reproached you, I never named the thing till you did. And now you blame me,” cried I, “because I cannae laugh and sing as if I was glad to be affronted. The next thing will be that I’m to go down upon my knees and thank you for it! Ye should think more of others, Alan Breck. If ye thought more of others, ye would perhaps speak less about yourself; and when a friend that likes you very well has passed over an offence without a word, you would be blithe to let it lie, instead of making it a stick to break his back with. By your own way of it, it was you that was to blame; then it shouldnae be you to seek the quarrel.”

“Aweel,” said Alan, “say nae mair.”

And we fell back into our former silence; and came to our journey’s end, and supped, and lay down to sleep, without another word.

The gillie put us across Loch Rannoch in the dusk of the next day, and gave us his opinion as to our best route. This was to get us up at once into the tops of the mountains: to go round by a circuit, turning the heads of Glen Lyon, Glen Lochay, and Glen Dochart, and come down upon the lowlands by Kippen and the upper waters of the Forth. Alan was little pleased with a route which led us through the country of his blood-foes, the Glenorchy Campbells. He objected that by turning to the east, we should come almost at once among the Athole Stewarts, a race of his own name and lineage, although following a different chief, and come besides by a far easier and swifter way to the place whither we were bound. But the gillie, who was indeed the chief man of Cluny’s scouts, had good reasons to give him on all hands, naming the force of troops in every district, and alleging finally (as well as I could understand) that we should nowhere be so little troubled as in a country of the Campbells.

Alan gave way at last, but with only half a heart. “It’s one of the dowiest countries in Scotland,” said he. “There’s naething there that I ken, but heath, and crows, and Campbells. But I see that ye’re a man of some penetration; and be it as ye please!”

We set forth accordingly by this itinerary; and for the best part of three nights travelled on eerie mountains and among the well-heads of wild rivers; often buried in mist, almost continually blown and rained upon, and not once cheered by any glimpse of sunshine. By day, we lay and slept in the drenching heather; by night, incessantly clambered upon break-neck hills and among rude crags. We often wandered; we were often so involved in fog, that we must lie quiet till it lightened. A fire was never to be thought of. Our only food was drammach and a portion of cold meat that we had carried from the Cage; and as for drink, Heaven knows we had no want of water.

This was a dreadful time, rendered the more dreadful by the gloom of the weather and the country. I was never warm; my teeth chattered in my head; I was troubled with a very sore throat, such as I had on the isle; I had a painful stitch in my side, which never left me; and when I slept in my wet bed, with the rain beating above and the mud oozing below me, it was to live over again in fancy the worst part of my adventures—to see the tower of Shaws lit by lightning, Ransome carried below on the men’s backs, Shuan dying on the round-house floor, or Colin Campbell grasping at the bosom of his coat. From such broken slumbers, I would be aroused in the gloaming, to sit up in the same puddle where I had slept, and sup cold drammach; the rain driving