Latest / Adventure Books Library / 01 - Kidnapped - Robert Louis Stevenson
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- Chapter one, I set off upon my journey to the house of Shaws. I will begin the story of my adventures with a certain morning, early in the month of June, the year of Grace, seventeen fifty one, when I took the key for the last time out of the door of my father's house. The sun began to shine upon the summit of the hills as I went down the road, and by the time I had come as far as the manse, the blackbirds were whistling in the garden lilacs, and the mist that hung around the valley in the time of the dawn was beginning to arise and die away. Mister Campbell, the Minister of Essendean, was waiting for me by the garden gate. Good man, he asked me if I had breakfasted, and, hearing that I lacked for nothing, he took my hand in both of his and clapt it kindly under his arm. Well, davy lad said he, I will go with you as far as the ford set you. On the way, we began to walk forward in silence. Are you sorry to leave Essendean, said he after a while, Why, Sir, said I If I knew where I was going, or what was likely to become of me. I would tell you candidly. Essendean is a good place, indeed, and I have been very happy there. But then I have never been anywhere else my father and mother, since they are both dead, I shall be no nearer to in Essendean than in the Kingdom of Hungary. And to speak truth, if I thought I had a chance to better myself where I was going, I would go with a good will, I said, mister Campbell. Very well, Davy, then it behooves me to tell your fortune, or so far as I may. When your mother was gone and your father, the worthy Christian man began to sicken for his end, he gave me in charge a certain letter, which he said was your inheritance. So soon, says he, as I am gone, and house is read up, and the gear disposed of all which Davy hath been done, give my boy this letter into his hand, and start him off to the house of Shaws, not far from Krement. That is the place I came from, he said, And it's where it befits that my boy should return. He is a steady lad, your father said, and a canny goer. And I doubt not he will come safe and be well liked where he goes the house of Shaw's. I cried, what had my poor father to do with the house of Shaws. Nay, said mister Campbell, who can tell that for a surety? But the name of that family, Davy boy, is the name you bear. Balfours of Shaw's, an ancient, honest, reputable house peradventure in these latter days decayed. Your father too was a man of learning, as befitted his position. No man more plausibly conducted school, nor had he the man a roar of the speech of a common domini. But as ye will you say self, remember, I took eye a pleasure to have him to the mats to meet the gentry, and those of my own house. Campbell of Kilrennett, Gampbell of Dunswire, Gampbell of Minch, and others, all well kenned gentlemen, had pleasure in his society. Lastly, to put all the elements of this affair before you, here is the testamentary letter itself superscribed by the own hand of our departed brother. He gave me the letter which was addressed in these words to the hands of Ebenezer Balfour, esquire of Shaws, in his house of Shaws. These will be delivered by my son David Balfour. My heart was beating hard at this great prospect now suddenly opening before a lad of seventeen years of age, the son of a poor country Dominie in the forest of Etrich. Mister Campbell, I stammered, and if you were in my shoes, would you go? Of a surety? Said the minister, that would I? And without pause, a pretty lad like you should get the Cramond, which is near in by Edinburgh, in two days of walk. If the worst come to the worst, and your high relations, as I cannot but suppose them to be somewhat of your blood, should put you to the door, you can but walk the two days back again and risp at the man's door. But I would rather hope that ye should be well received as your poor father forecast for you, and for anything that I can come to be a great man in time. And here davy Laddie, he resumed, it lies near upon my conscience to improve this parting and set you on the right guard against the dangers of the world. Here he cast about for a comfortable seat, lighted on a big boulder under a birch by the track side, sat down upon it with a very long, serious upper lip, and the sun now shining in upon us between two peaks, put his pocket handkerchief over his cocktail to shelter him there. Then, with uplifted forefinger, he first put me on my guard against a considerable number of heresies to which I had no temptation, and urged upon me to be instant in my prayers and reading of the Bible. That done, he drew a picture of the great house that I was bound to, and how I should conduct myself with its inhabitants. Be suple davy in things immaterial. Said he bear ye this in mind, that though gentle born, ye have a country rearing den a sham us davy, den a sham us in yon great muckle house, with all these domestics upper and under, show yourself as nice as circumspect, as quick at the conception, and as slow of speech as any asked for the laird. Remember he's the laird. I say no more honor to whom honor it's a pleasure to obey allard, or should be to the young well sir, said I it may be, and I'll promise you I'll try to make it so. Why very well, said replied mister Campbell heartily. And now to come to the material, or to make a quibble to the immaterial, I have here a little packet which contains four things. He tugged it as he spoke and with some great difficulty, from the skirt pocket of his coat. Of these four things, the first is your legal do the little pickle money for your father's books implenishing, which I have bought, as I explained from the first, in the design of reselling at a profit to the incoming dominie. The other three are gifties that missus Campbell and myself would be blithe of your acceptance. The first, which is round, will likely please your best at the first off, go but o davy laddie. It's but a drop of water in the sea. It'll help you but a step and vanish like the morning. The second, which is flat in square and written upon, will stand by you through life like a good staff for the road, and a good pillow to your head in sickness. And as for the last, which is cubicle, that'll see you. It's my prayerful wish into a better lad. With that, he got upon his feet, took off his hat, and prayed a little while aloud and in affecting terms for a young man setting out into the world. Then suddenly took me in his arms and embraced me very hard, then help me at arm's length, looking at me with his face all working with sorrow, and then whipped about and crying good bye to me, set off backward by the way that we had come, at a sort of jogging run. It might have been laughable to another, but I was in no mind to laugh. I watched him as long as he was in sight, and he never stopped hurrying, nor once looked back. Then it came in upon my mind that this was all his sorrow at my departure, and my conscience smote me hard and fast, because I, for my part, was overjoyed to get out of that quiet countryside and go to a great busy house among rich and respected gentlefolk of my own name and blood. Davy, Davy, I thought was ever seen such black ingratitude? Can you forget old favors and old friends at the mere whistle of a name? By by think shame? And I sat down on the boulder. The good man had just left and opened the parcel to see the nature of my gifts. That which he had called cubicle I had never had much doubt of. Sure enough, it was a little bible to carry in a plaidnuc. That which he had called round I found to be a shilling piece. And the third, which was to help me so wonderfully, both in health and sickness all the days of my life, was a little piece of coarse yellow paper written upon thus in red ink, to make lily of the valley water. Take the flowers of lily of the valley and distill them in sack, and drink a spoonful or two, as there is occasion. It restores speech to those that have the dumb palsy. It is good against the gout. It comforts the heart and strengthens the memory. And the flowers put into a glass, close, stopped, and set into a hill of ants for a month. Then take it out and you will find a liquor which comes from the flowers, which keep in a vial. It is good ill or well, and whether man or woman. And then in the minister's own hand was added likewise for sprains, rub it in and for the colck, a great spoonful in the hour. To be sure, I laughed over this, but it was rather tremulous laughter, and I was glad to get my bundle on my staff's end, and set out over the ford and up the hill upon the farther side, till just as I came on the green drove road, running wide through the heather, I took my last look of kirk Essendean, the trees about the manse, and the big rowans in the kirkyard where my father and my mother lay. End of chapter