I told her.

“Ah, well,” said she, “we will be some days in company and then (I suppose) good-bye for altogether!  I go to meet my father at a place of the name of Helvoetsluys, and from there to France, to be exiles by the side of our chieftain.”

I could say no more than just “O!” the name of James More always drying up my very voice.

She was quick to perceive it, and to guess some portion of my thought.

“There is one thing I must be saying first of all, Mr. David,” said she.  “I think two of my kinsfolk have not behaved to you altogether very well.  And the one of them two is James More, my father, and the other is the Laird of Prestongrange.  Prestongrange will have spoken by himself, or his daughter in the place of him.  But for James More, my father, I have this much to say:  he lay shackled in a prison; he is a plain honest soldier and a plain Highland gentleman; what they would be after, he never would be guessing; but if he had understood it was to be some prejudice to a young gentleman like yourself, he would have died first.  And for the sake of all your friendships, I will be asking you to pardon my father and family for that same mistake.”

“Catriona,” said I, “what that mistake was I do not care to know.  I know but the one thing, that you went to Prestongrange and begged my life upon your knees.  O, I ken well it was for your father that you went, but when you were there you pleaded for me also.  It is a thing I cannot speak of.  There are two things I cannot think of in to myself; and the one is your good words when you called yourself my little friend, and the other that you pleaded for my life.  Let us never speak more, we two, of pardon or offence.”

We stood after that silent, Catriona looking on the deck and I on her; and before there was more speech, a little wind having sprung up, in the nor’-west, they began to shake out the sails and heave in upon the anchor.

There were six passengers besides our two selves, which made of it a full cabin.  Three were solid merchants out of Leith, Kirkaldy, and Dundee, all engaged in the same adventure into High Germany; one was a Hollander returning; the rest worthy merchants’ wives, to the charge of one of whom Catriona was recommended.  Mrs. Grebbie (for that was her name) was by great good fortune heavily incommoded by the sea, and lay day and night on the broad of her back.  We were besides the only creatures at all young on board the Rose, except a white-faced boy that did my old duty to attend upon the table; and it came about that Catriona and I were left almost entirely to ourselves.  We had the next seats together at the table, where I waited on her with extraordinary pleasure.  On deck, I made her a soft place with my cloak; and the weather being singularly fine for that season, with bright frosty days and nights, a steady, gentle wind, and scarce a sheet started all the way through the North Sea, we sat there (only now and again walking