y of it. I will
ask at you one service, and then set you free. My clerks are
over-driven; be so good as copy me these few pages," says he, visibly
swithering among some huge rolls of manuscripts, "and when that is done,
I shall bid you God-speed! I would never charge myself with Mr. David's
conscience; and if you could cast some part of it (as you went by) in a
moss-hag, you would find yourself to ride much easier without it."

"Perhaps not just entirely in the same direction though, my lord!" says
I.

"And you shall have the last word too!" cries he gaily.

Indeed he had some cause for gaiety, having now found the means to gain
his purpose. To lessen the weight of the memorial, or to have a readier
answer at his hand, he desired I should appear publicly in the character
of his intimate. But if I were to appear with the same publicity as a
visitor to Catriona in her prison the world would scarce stint to draw
conclusions, and the true nature of James More's escape must become
evident to all. This was the little problem I had set him of a sudden,
and to which he had so briskly found an answer. I was to be tethered in
Glasgow by that job of copying, which in mere outward decency I could
not well refuse; and during these hours of my employment Catriona was to
be privately got rid of. I think shame to write of this man that loaded
me with so many goodnesses. He was kind to me as any father, yet I ever
thought him as false as a cracked bell.

FOOTNOTES:

[14] A ball placed upon a little mound for convenience of striking.

[15] Patched shoes.

[16] Shoemaker.

CHAPTER XIX

I AM MUCH IN THE HANDS OF THE LADIES

The copying was a weary business, the more so as I perceived very early
there was no sort of urgency in the matters treated, and began very
early to consider my employment a pretext. I had no sooner finished than
I got to horse, used what remained of daylight to the best purpose, and
being at last fairly benighted, slept in a house by Almond Waterside. I
was in the saddle again before the day, and the Edinburgh booths were
just opening when I clattered in by the West Bow, and drew up a smoking
horse at my Lord Advocate's door. I had a written word for Doig, my
lord's private hand that was thought to be in all his secrets--a worthy,
little plain man, all fat and snuff and self-sufficiency. Him I found
already at his desk, and already bedabbled with maccabaw, in the same
anteroom where I renco