“And have no cause, my little friend!” cried I, and could have found it in my heart to weep.
“Where will you be taking me?” she said again. “Don’t leave me, at all events—never leave me.”
“Where am I taking you indeed?” says I, stopping, for I had been staving on ahead in mere blindness. “I must stop and think. But I’ll not leave you, Catriona; the Lord do so to me, and more also, if I should fail or fash you.”
She crept closer in to me by way of a reply.
“Here,” I said, “is the stillest place that we have hit on yet in this busy byke of a city. Let us sit down here under yon tree and consider of our course.”
That tree (which I am little like to forget) stood hard by the harbour-side. It was a black night, but lights were in the houses, and nearer hand in the quiet ships; there was a shining of the city on the one hand, and a buzz hung over it of many thousands walking and talking; on the other, it was dark, and the water bubbled on the sides. I spread my cloak upon a builder’s stone, and made her sit there; she would have kept her hold upon me, for she still shook with the late affronts; but I wanted to think clear, disengaged myself, and paced to and fro before her, in the manner of what we call a smuggler’s walk, belabouring my brains for any remedy. By the course of these scattering thoughts I was brought suddenly face to face with a remembrance that, in the heat and haste of our departure, I had left Captain Sang to pay the ordinary. At this I began to laugh out loud, for I thought the man well served; and at the same time, by an instinctive movement, carried my hand to the pocket where my money was. I suppose it was in the lane where the women jostled us; but there is only the one thing certain, that my purse was gone.
“You will have thought of something good,” said she, observing me to pause.
At the pinch we were in, my mind became suddenly clear as a perspective-glass, and I saw there was no choice of methods. I had not one doit of coin, but in my pocket-book I had still my letter on the Leyden merchant; and there was now but the one way to get to Leyden, and that was to walk on our two feet.
“Catriona,” said I, “I know you’re brave, and I believe you’re strong—do you think you could walk thirty miles on a plain road?” We found it, I believe, scarce the two-thirds of that, but such was my notion of the distance.
“David,” she said, “if you will just keep near, I will go anywhere and do anything. The courage of my heart, it is all broken. Do not be leaving me in this horrible country by myself, and I will do all else.”