e is no harm done," she
said, with a pretty accent, most like the English (but more agreeable).
"A cat may look at a king."

"I do not mean to offend," said I. "I have no skill of city manners; I
never before this day set foot inside the doors of Edinburgh. Take me
for a country lad--it's what I am; and I would rather I told you than
you found it out."

"Indeed, it will be a very unusual thing for strangers to be speaking to
each other on the causeway," she replied.

"But if you are landward[2] bred it will be different. I am as landward
as yourself; I am Highland, as you see, and think myself the farther
from my home."

"It is not yet a week since I passed the line," said I. "Less than a
week ago I was on the braes of Balquhidder."

"Balwhither?" she cries. "Come ye from Balwhither? The name of it makes
all there is of me rejoice. You will not have been long there, and not
known some of our friends or family?"

"I lived with a very honest, kind man called Duncan Dhu Maclaren," I
replied.

"Well, I know Duncan, and you give him the true name!" she said; "and if
he is an honest man, his wife is honest indeed."

"Ay," said I, "they are fine people, and the place is a bonny place."

"Where in the great world is such another?" she cries; "I am loving the
smell of that place and the roots that grow there."

I was infinitely taken with the spirit of the maid. "I could be wishing
I had brought you a spray of that heather," says I. "And though I did
ill to speak with you at the first, now it seems we have common
acquaintance, I make it my petition you will not forget me. David
Balfour is the name I am known by. This is my lucky day, when I have
just come into a landed estate, and am not very long out of a deadly
peril, I wish you would keep my name in mind for the sake of
Balquhidder," said I, "and I will yours for the sake of my lucky day."

"My name is not spoken," she replied, with a great deal of haughtiness.
"More than a hundred years it has not gone upon men's tongues, save for
a blink. I am nameless, like the Folk of Peace.[3] Catriona Drummond is
the one I use."

Now indeed I knew where I was standing. In all broad Scotland there was
but the one name proscribed, and that was the name of the Macgregors.
Yet so far from fleeing this undesirable acquaintancy, I plunged the
deeper in.

"I have been sitting with one who was in the same case with yourself,"
said I, "and I think he will be one of your friends.