Fiction > Book editions > London, 1893 - Catriona

CHAPTER III.
I GO TO PILRIG.
The next morning, I was no sooner awake in my
new lodging than I was up and into my new clothes ;
and no sooner the breakfast swallowed, than I was
forth on my adventures. Alan, I could hope, was
fended for; James was like to be a more difficult
affair, and I could not but think that enterprise
might cost me dear, even as everj^body said to whom
I had opened my opinion. It seemed I was come to
the top of the mountain only to cast myself down ;
that I had clambered up, through so many and hard
trials, to be rich, to be recognised, to wear city clothes
and a sword to my side, all to commit mere suicide
at the last end of it, and the worst kind of suicide
besides, which is to get hanged at the King's charges.
What was I doing it for ? I asked, as I Avent down
the High Street and out north by Leith Wynd. First
I said it was to save James Stewart ; and no doubt
the memory of his distress, and his wife's cries, and a
word or so I had let drop on that occasion worked
upon me strongly. At the same time I reflected that
it was (or ought to be) the most indifferent matter to
my father's son, whether James died in his bed or
from a scaffold. He was Alan's cousin, to be sure ;
but so far as regarded Alan, the best thing would be