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02 - Kidnapped - Robert Louis Stevenson · Thrilling Adventures - Daily

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  Speaker 1: Chapter two. I come to my journey's end on the
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  Speaker 1: forenoon of the second day. Coming to the top of
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  Speaker 1: a hill, I saw all the country fall away before
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  Speaker 1: me down to the sea, and in the midst of
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  Speaker 1: this descent, on a long ridge the city of Edinburgh
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  Speaker 1: smoking like a kiln. There was a flag upon the castle,
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  Speaker 1: and ships moving or lying anchored in the firth, both
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  Speaker 1: of which, for as far away as they were, I
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  Speaker 1: could distinguish clearly, and both brought my country heart into
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  Speaker 1: my mouth. Presently after I came by a house where
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  Speaker 1: a shepherd lived and got a rough direction for the
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  Speaker 1: neighborhood of Cramond, and so from one to another worked
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  Speaker 1: my way to the westward of the capital by Colinton
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  Speaker 1: till I came out upon the Glasgow Road, and there,
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  Speaker 1: to my great pleasure and wonder, I beheld a regiment
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  Speaker 1: marching to the fifes every foot in time, an old
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  Speaker 1: red faced general on a gray horse at the one end,
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  Speaker 1: and at the other the cup of grenadier's were their
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  Speaker 1: pope's hats. The pride of life seemed to mount into
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  Speaker 1: my brain at the sight of the red coats and
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  Speaker 1: the hearing of that merry music. A little further on,
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  Speaker 1: and I was told I was in creman of parish,
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  Speaker 1: and began to substitute in my inquiries the name of
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  Speaker 1: the House of Shaws. It was a word that seemed
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  Speaker 1: to surprise those of whom I sought my way. At first,
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  Speaker 1: I thought the plainness of my appearance in my country habit,
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  Speaker 1: and that all dusty from the road consorted ill with
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  Speaker 1: the greatness of the place to which I was bound.
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  Speaker 1: But after two or maybe three had given me the
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  Speaker 1: same look and the same answer, I began to take
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  Speaker 1: it in my head that there was something strange about
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  Speaker 1: the Shaws itself. The better to set the sphere at rest.
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  Speaker 1: I changed the form of my inquiries, and, spying an
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  Speaker 1: honest fellow coming along a lane on the shaft of
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  Speaker 1: his cart, I asked him if he had ever heard
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  Speaker 1: tell of a house they called the House of Shaws.
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  Speaker 1: He stopped his card and looked at me like the others,
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  Speaker 1: I said, he what for it's a great house, I asked, doubtless,
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  Speaker 1: says he. The house is a big muckle house, I said, I.
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  Speaker 1: But the folk that are in it, folk cried, he
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  Speaker 1: are ye daft? Then they're folks there to call folk?
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  Speaker 1: What say I? Not mister Ebenezer, Oh, I says the man.
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  Speaker 1: There's the laird, to be sure, if it's him you're wanting,
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  Speaker 1: what'll like be your business? Mannie? I was led to
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  Speaker 1: think that I would get a situation, I said, looking
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  Speaker 1: as modest as I could, What cries the carter in
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  Speaker 1: so sharp a note that his very horse started? And
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  Speaker 1: then well, Mannie, he added, it's none of my affairs,
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  Speaker 1: but you seem a decent spoken lad, and if you'll
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  Speaker 1: take a word from me, you'll keep clear of the shaws.
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  Speaker 1: The next person I came across was a dapper little
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  Speaker 1: man in a beautiful white wig, whom I saw to
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  Speaker 1: be a barber on his rounds, and, knowing well that
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  Speaker 1: barbers were great gossips, I asked him plainly, what sort
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  Speaker 1: of a man was mister Balfour of the shaws? Hoot? Hoot, hoot?
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  Speaker 1: Said the barber nat kind of a man, na kind
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  Speaker 1: of a man at all, and began to ask me,
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  Speaker 1: very shrewdly what my business was. But I was more
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  Speaker 1: than a match for him at that, and he went
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  Speaker 1: on to his next customer, no wiser than he came.
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  Speaker 1: I cannot well describe the blow this dealt to my illusions.
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  Speaker 1: The more indistinct the accusations were, the less I liked them,
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  Speaker 1: for they left the wider field to fancy. What kind
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  Speaker 1: of a great house was this, that all the parish
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  Speaker 1: should start and stare to be asked the way to it?
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  Speaker 1: Or what sort of a gentleman that his ill fame
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  Speaker 1: should be thus current on the wayside. If an hour's
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  Speaker 1: walking would have brought me back to Essendean, I would
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  Speaker 1: have left my adventure then and there and returned to
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  Speaker 1: mister Campbell's. But when I had come so far away already,
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  Speaker 1: mere shame would not suffer me to desist till I
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  Speaker 1: had put the matter to the touch of proof. I
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  Speaker 1: was bound out of mere self respect to carry it through.
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  Speaker 1: And little as I liked the sound of what I heard,
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  Speaker 1: and slow as I began to travel, I still kept
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  Speaker 1: asking my way, and still kept advancing. I was drawing
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  Speaker 1: on to sundown when I met a stout, dark, sour
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  Speaker 1: looking woman coming trudging down a hill, And she, when
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  Speaker 1: I had put my usual question, turned sharp about, accompanied
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  Speaker 1: me back to the summit she had just left, and
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  Speaker 1: pointed to a great bulk of buildings standing very bare
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  Speaker 1: upon a green in the bottom of the next valley.
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  Speaker 1: The country was pleasant round about, running in low hills,
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  Speaker 1: pleasantly watered and wooded, and the crops, to my eyes
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  Speaker 1: wonderfully good. But the house itself seemed to be a
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  Speaker 1: kind of room. No road led up to it, no
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  Speaker 1: smoke arose from any of the chimneys, nor was there
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  Speaker 1: any semblance of a garden. My heart sank that I cried.
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  Speaker 1: The woman's face lit up with a malignant anger. That
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  Speaker 1: is the house of Shaws, She cried, Blood built it,
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  Speaker 1: Blood stopped the building of it. Blood shall bring it down.
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  Speaker 1: See here, she cried again. I spit upon the ground
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  Speaker 1: and crack my thumb at it. Black be its fall.
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  Speaker 1: If you see the laird, tell him what you hear,
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  Speaker 1: tell him. This makes the twelve hundred and nineteen times
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  Speaker 1: that Jennak Gluston has called down the curse on him
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  Speaker 1: and his house byre and stable man, Guest and master
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  Speaker 1: wife miss or Bairn. Black, black be their fall. And
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  Speaker 1: the woman, whose voice had ridden to a kind of
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  Speaker 1: eldritch sing song, turned with a skip and was gone.
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  Speaker 1: Stood where she left me with my hair on end.
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  Speaker 1: In those days, folk still believed in witches and trembled
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  Speaker 1: at a curse, and this one falling so pat like
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  Speaker 1: a wayside omen to arrest me. Ere I carried out
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  Speaker 1: my purpose, took the pith out of my legs. I
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  Speaker 1: sat me down and stared at the house of shaws.
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  Speaker 1: The more I looked, the pleasanterer that countryside appeared, being
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  Speaker 1: all set with hawthorn bushes full of flowers, the fields
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  Speaker 1: dotted with sheep, a fine flight of rooks in the sky,
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  Speaker 1: and every sign of a kind soil and climate. And
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  Speaker 1: yet the barrack in the midst of it went sore
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  Speaker 1: against my fancy. Country Folk went by from the fields
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  Speaker 1: as I sat there on the side of the ditch,
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  Speaker 1: but I lacked the spirit to give them a good inn.
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  Speaker 1: At last the sun went down, and then right up
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  Speaker 1: against the yellow sky, I saw a scroll of smoke
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  Speaker 1: go mounting, not much thicker, as it seemed to me,
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  Speaker 1: than the smoke of a candle, but still there it was,
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  Speaker 1: and meant a fire and warmth and cookery, and some
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  Speaker 1: living inhabitant that must have lit it. And this comforted
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  Speaker 1: my heart. So I set forward by a little faint
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  Speaker 1: track in the grass that led in my direction. It
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  Speaker 1: was very faint, indeed, to be the only way to
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  Speaker 1: a place of habitation, yet I saw no other. Presently.
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  Speaker 1: It brought me to stone uprights, with an unroofed lodge
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  Speaker 1: beside them, and coats of arms upon the top. A
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  Speaker 1: main entrance it was plainly meant to be, but never finished.
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  Speaker 1: Instead of gates of wrought iron, a pair of hurdles
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  Speaker 1: were tied across with a straw rope. And as there
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  Speaker 1: were no park walls nor any sign of avenue, the
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  Speaker 1: track that I was following passed on the right hand
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  Speaker 1: of the pillars, and went wandering on toward the house.
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  Speaker 1: The nearer I got to that, the drearier it appeared.
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  Speaker 1: It seemed like the one wing of a house that
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  Speaker 1: had never been finished. What should have been the inner
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  Speaker 1: end stood open on the upper floors, and showed against
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  Speaker 1: the sky with steps and stairs of uncompleted masonry. Many
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  Speaker 1: of the windows were unglazed, and bats flew in and
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  Speaker 1: out like doves out of a dove cote. The night
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  Speaker 1: had begun to fall as I got close, and in
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  Speaker 1: three of the lower windows, which were very high up
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  Speaker 1: and narrow and well barred, the changing light of a
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  Speaker 1: little fire began to glimmer. Was this the palace I
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  Speaker 1: had been coming to. Was it within these walls that
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  Speaker 1: I was to seek new friends and begin great fortunes?
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  Speaker 1: Why in my father's house on essen water side, the
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  Speaker 1: fire and the bright lights would show a mile away,
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  Speaker 1: and the door opened to a beggar's knock. I came forward,
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  Speaker 1: cautiously and giving ear as I came, heard some one
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  Speaker 1: rattling with dishes, a little dry, eager cough that came
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  Speaker 1: in fits, But there was no sound of speech, and
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  Speaker 1: not a dog barked. The door, As well as I
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  Speaker 1: could see it in the dim light was a great
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  Speaker 1: piece of wood, all studded with nails. And I lifted
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  Speaker 1: my hand, with a faint heart under my jacket, and
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  Speaker 1: knocked once. Then I stood and waited. The house had
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  Speaker 1: fallen into a dead silence. A whole minute passed away,
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  Speaker 1: and nothing stirred but the bats overhead. I knocked again,
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  Speaker 1: and hearkened again. By this time my ears had grown
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  Speaker 1: so accustomed to the quiet that I could hear the
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  Speaker 1: ticking of the clock inside as it slowly counted out
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  Speaker 1: the seconds. But whoever was in that house kept deadly still,
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  Speaker 1: and must have held his breath. I was in two
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  Speaker 1: minds whether to run away, but anger got the upper hand,
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  Speaker 1: and I began instead to rain kicks and buffets on
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  Speaker 1: the door and to shout aloud for mister Balfourt. I
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  Speaker 1: was in full career when I heard the cough right overhead,
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  Speaker 1: and jumping back and looking up, beheld a man's head
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  Speaker 1: in a tall nightcap and the bell mouth of a
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  Speaker 1: blunderbuss at one of the first story windows. It's loaded,
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  Speaker 1: said a voice. I have come here with a letter,
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  Speaker 1: I said, said to mister Ebenezer Balfour of Shaws. Is
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  Speaker 1: he here? From whom is it? Asked the man with
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  Speaker 1: the blunderbuss. That is neither here nor there, said I,
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  Speaker 1: for I was growing very wroth. Well was the reply.
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  Speaker 1: YE can put it down upon the door step and
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  Speaker 1: be off with ye. I will do no such thing,
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  Speaker 1: I cried. I will deliver it into mister Balfour's hands,
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  Speaker 1: as it was meant I should. It is a letter
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  Speaker 1: of introduction. A what cried the voice sharply, I repeated
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  Speaker 1: what I had said. Who are ye yoself? Was the
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  Speaker 1: next question, after a considerable pause. I am not ashamed
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  Speaker 1: of my name, said I. They call me David Balfour.
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  Speaker 1: At that I made sure the man started, for I
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  Speaker 1: heard the blunderbuss rattle on the window sill. And it
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  Speaker 1: was after quite a long pause, and with a curious
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  Speaker 1: change of voice, that the next question followed, Is your
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  Speaker 1: father dead? I was so much surprised at this that
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  Speaker 1: I could find no voice to answer, but stood staring Aye,
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  Speaker 1: the man resumed, He'll be dead, no doubt. An that'll
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  Speaker 1: be what brings ye chappin' to my door. Another paused,
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  Speaker 1: and then defiantly, well man, he said, I'll let ye in,
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  Speaker 1: and he disappeared from the window. End of chapter