Fiction > Book editions > Leipzig, 1888 - Kidnapped

1 6 KIDNAPPED.
seemed to surprise those of whom I sought my way.
At first I thought the plainness of my appearance, in
my country habit, and that all dusty from the road,
consorted ill with the greatness of the place to which I
was bound. But after two, or maybe three, had given
me the same look and the same answer, I began to
take it in my head there was something strange about
the Shaws itself.
The better to set this fear at rest, I changed the
form of my inquiries; and spying an honest fellow
coming along a lane on the shaft of his cart, I asked
him if he had ever heard tell of a house they called
the house of Shaws.
He stopped his cart and looked at me, like the others.
"Ay," said he. "What for?"
"It's a great house?" I asked.
"Doubtless," says he. "The house is a big, muckle
house."
"Ay," said I, "but the folk that are in it?"
"Folk?" cried he. "Are ye daft? There's nae folk
there — to call folk."
"What?" says I; "not Mr. Ebenezer?"
"Oh, ay," says the man, "there's the laird, to be
sure, if it's him you're wanting. What'U like be your
business, mannie?"
"I was led to think that I would get a situation," I
said, looking as modest as I could.
"What?" cries the carter, in so sharp a note that
his very horse started; and then, "Well, mannie," he
added, "it's nane of my affairs; but ye seem a decent-
spoken lad; and if ye'll take a word from me, ye'U
keep clear of the Shaws."