I hate the very look of injustice. Not that I do
not wish you to have a good pride and a nice female delicacy; they
become you well; but here you show them to excess."

"Well, then, have you done?" said she.

"I have done," said I.

"A very good thing," said she, and we went on again, but now in silence.

It was an eerie employment to walk in the gross night, beholding only
shadows, and hearing nought but our own steps. At first, I believe our
hearts burned against each other with a deal of enmity; but the darkness
and the cold, and the silence, which only the cocks sometimes
interrupted, or sometimes the farmyard dogs, had pretty soon brought
down our pride to the dust; and for my own particular, I would have
jumped at any decent opening for speech.

Before the day peeped, came on a warmish rain, and the frost was all
wiped away from among our feet. I took my cloak to her and sought to hap
her in the same; she bade me, rather impatiently, to keep it.

"Indeed and I will do no such thing," said I. "Here am I, a great, ugly
lad that has seen all kinds of weather, and here are you, a tender,
pretty maid! My dear, you would not put me to a shame?"

Without more words she let me cover her; which as I was doing in the
darkness, I let my hand rest a moment on her shoulder, almost like an
embrace.

"You must try to be more patient of your friend," said I.

I thought she seemed to lean the least thing in the world against my
bosom, or perhaps it was but fancy.

"There will be no end to your goodness," said she.

And we went on again in silence; but now all was changed; and the
happiness that was in my heart was like a fire in a great chimney.

The rain passed ere day; it was but a sloppy morning as we came into the
town of Delft. The red-gabled houses made a handsome show on either hand
of a canal; the servant lasses were out slaistering and scrubbing at
the very stones upon the public highway; smoke rose from a hundred
kitchens; and it came in upon me strongly it was time to break our
fasts.

"Catriona," said I. "I believe you have yet a shilling and three
bawbees?"

"Are you wanting it?" said she, and passed me her purse. "I am wishing
it was five pounds! What will you want it for?"

"And what have we been walking for all night, like a pair of waif
Egyptians?" says I. "Just because I was robbed of my purse and all I
possessed in that unchancy town of Rotterdam. I will tell you of it now,
because I think the