Adventure Books
03 - Kidnapped - Robert Louis Stevenson
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Plus, extra ways to save, like digital coupons worth over $600 each week, and up to $1 off per gallon at the pump with points, so you can get big flavors and big savings, king supers, fresh for everyone, fuel restrictions apply. Chapter 3. I make acquaintance of my uncle. Presently there came a great rattling of chains in bolts. The door was cautiously opened and shut too again, behind me, as soon as I had passed. "Go into the kitchen and touch Nathan," said the boys, and while the person of the house set himself to replacing the defenses of the door, I groped my way forward and entered the kitchen. The fire had burned up fairly bright and showed me the barest room I think I ever put my eyes on. Half a dozen dishes stood upon the shelves. The table was laid for supper with a bowl of porridge, a horn spoon, and a cup of small beer. Besides what I have named, there was not another thing in that great stone vaulted empty chamber, but locked fast chests arranged along the wall, and a corner cupboard with a padlock. As soon as the last chain was up, the man rejoined me. He was a mean, stooping, narrow-shouldered, lay-faced creature, and his age might have been anything between fifty and seventy. His nightcap was of flannel, and so was the nightgown that he wore, instead of coat and waistcoat over his ragged shirt. He was long unshaved, but what most distressed and even daunted me, he would neither take his eyes away from me nor look me fairly in the face. What he was, whether by trade or birth, was more than I could fathom. But he seemed most like an old, unprofitable serving man, who should have been left in charge of that big house upon board wages. "Are you a sharp set?" he asked, glancing at about the level of my knee. "You can eat that drop perich?" "I said I feared it was his own supper." "Oh," said he, "I can do fine wanting it. I'll take the ale, though, for it slockens my cough." He drank the cup about half out, still keeping an eye upon me as he drank, and then suddenly held out his hand. "I'd say the letter," said he. "I told him the letter was for Mr. Balfour, not for him." "And who do you think I am?" says he. "Give me Alexander's letter." "You know my father's name?" "It would be strange if I didn't." He returned, for he was my born brother, and little edgy seemed to like either me and my house or my good perich. I'm your born uncle, Davy my man, and you my born nephew. So give us the letter and sit down and feel your kite. "I've been some years younger, what with shame, weariness, and disappointment. I believe I had burst into tears. As it was I could find no words, neither black nor white, but handed him the letter and sat down to the porridge with as little appetite for me as ever a young man had. Meanwhile my uncle, stooping over the fire, turned the letter over and over in his hands. "Dear Ken, what's in it?" he asked, suddenly. "You see for yourself, sir," said I, "that the seal has not been broken." "I," said he, "but what brought you here?" "To give the letter," said I. "No," says he cunningly, "but you'll have some hopes, nadad." "I confess, sir," said I, "when I was told that I had Ken's folk well to do, I did indeed indulge the hope that they might help me in my life, but I am no beggar. I look for no favors at your hands, and I want none that are not freely given. For as poor as I appear I have friends of my own that will be blind to help me." "Boot-toot!" said Uncle Ebenezer, "then I fly up in the snuff at me. We'll agree fine yet. In Davie, my man, if you're done with that bit of parrotch, I could just tick us up of it myself." "Aye," he continued, as soon as he had ousted me from the stool and spoon, "there fine hails some food, their grand food, parrotch." He murmured a little grace to himself and fell, too. Your father was very fond of his meat, I mind. He was a hearty, if not a great eater, but as for me I could never do more in pike at food. He took a pull at the small beer which probably reminded him of hospitable duties for his next speech ran thus. "If you're dry you'll find water behind the door." To this I returned no answer, standing stiffly on my two feet, and looking down upon my uncle with a mighty angry heart. He, on his part, continued to eat like a man under some pressure of time, and to throw out little darting glances now at my shoes and now at my home-spun stockings. Once only, when he had ventured to look a little higher, aye's met, and no thief taken with a hand in a man's pocket could have shown more lively signals of distress. This set me in a muse, whether his timidity arose from too long a disuse of any human company, or whether perhaps upon a little trial it might pass off, and my uncle changed into an altogether different man. From this I was awakened by his sharp voice. "Your father's been long dead?" he asked. "Three weeks, sir," said I. "He was a secret man, Alexander, a secret silent man." He continued. "He never said muckle when he was young. He never have spoke a muckle of me. I never knew, sir, till you told it me yourself that he had any brother. "Dear me, dear me," said Ebenezer, "nor yet of shaw's, I dare say. Not so much as the name, sir," said I. "To think of that," said he, a strange nature of a man. For all that he seemed singularly satisfied, but whether with himself or me or with this conduct of my father's was more than I could read. Certainly, however, he seemed to be outgrowing that distaste, or ill will, that he had conceived at first against my person. For presently he jumped up, came across the room behind me, and hit me a smack upon the shoulder. "We'll agree fine yet," he cried. "I am just as glad I let you in, and now come away to your bed." To my surprise he lit no lamp or candle, but set forth into the dark passage, groped his way, breathing deeply up a flight of steps, and paused before a door, which he unlocked. I was close upon his heels, having stumbled after him as best I might, and then he bade me go in, for that was my chamber. I did as he bid, but paused after a few steps, and begged a light to go to bed with. "Ooh, toot," said Uncle Ebenezer, "there's a fine moon." "Other moon or star, sir, and pit-merk," said I, "I cannot see the bed." "Hoot-hoot-hoot-hoot," said he, "lights in a house as a thing I did not agree with. I monk off here to fires, good night to you, David, my man." And before I had time to add a further protest, he pulled the door to, and I heard him lock me in from the outside. I did not know whether to laugh or cry. The room was as cold as so well, and the bed, when I had found my way to it, is damp as a peat-hag, but by good fortune I had caught up my bundle in my plaid and rolling myself in the ladder. I lay down upon the floor under the knee of the big bed-stead and fell speedily asleep. With the first peep of day I opened my eyes, to find myself in a great chamber, hung with snapped leather, furnished with fine embroidered furniture, and lit by three fair windows. Ten years ago, or perhaps twenty, it must have been as pleasant a room to lie down or to awaken as a man could wish; but damp, dirt, disuse, and the mice and spiders had done their worst since then. Many of the window-pains besides were broken, and indeed this was so common a feature in that house, that I believed my uncle must at some time have stood a siege from his indignant neighbors, perhaps with Janet Cluston at their head. Meanwhile the sun was shining outside, and being very cold in that miserable room, I knocked and shouted, till my jailer came and let me out. He carried me to the back of the house, where there was a draw well, and told me to wash my face there, if I wanted. And when that was done, I made the best of my own way back to the kitchen, where he had lit the fire and was making the porridge. Table was laid with two bowls and two horn-spoons, but the same single measure of small beer. Perhaps my eye rested on this particular with some surprise, and perhaps my uncle observed it, for he spoke up as if an answer to my thought, asking me if I would like to drink ale, for so he called it. I told him such was my habit but not to put himself about; nah, nah, said he, I'll deny you nothing in reason. He fetched another cup from the shelf, and then to my great surprise, instead of drawing more beer, he poured an accurate half from one cup to the other. There was a kind of nobleness in this that took my breath away, if my uncle was certainly a miser, he was one of that thorough-breed that goes near to make the vice respectable. When we had made an end of our meal, my uncle Ebenezer unlocked a drawer and drew out of it a clay pipe and a lump of tobacco, from which he cut one fill before he locked it up again. Then he sat down in the sun at one of the windows and silently smoked. From time to time his eyes came coasting round to me, and he shot me out one of his questions. Once it was, "And your mother?" and when I had told him that she too was dead, "Ah, she was a bonny lassi." Then after another long pause, "Where were these friends of yours?" I told him they were different gentlemen of the name of Campbell, though indeed there was only one, and that the minister that had ever taken the least note of me, but I began to think my uncle made too light of my position, and finding myself all alone with him, I did not wish him to suppose me helpless. He seemed to turn this over in his mind, and then, "David, my man," said he, "you've come to the right bit when you come to your uncle Ebenezer. I have a great notion of the family, and I mean to do the right by you. But why I am taking a bit of think to myself of what's the best thing to put you to, whether the law or the ministry or maybe the army? Wilk is what boys are fondest of. I wouldn't have liked the belfers to be humbled before a ween-hailing campbells, and I'll ask you to keep your tongue within your teeth, near letters, near messages, no kind of work to anybody or else there's my door." "Uncle Ebenezer," said I, "I have no matter of reason to suppose you mean anything but well by me. For all that I would have you to know that I have a pride of my own. It was by no will of mine that I came seeking you, and if you show me your door again I'll take you at the word." He seemed grievously put out, "Poot-toot!" said he, "Cacani-man, cacani, by the day or two. I know warlock, to find a fortune for you in the bottom of a parrot's bowl, but just you give me a day or two, say nothing to nobody, and I'm assured as sure I'll do the right by you." "Very well," said I, "enough said. But you want to help me, there's no doubt, but I'll be glad of it, and none but I'll be grateful." "It seemed to me too soon, I daresay, that I was getting the upper hand of my uncle, and I began next to say that I must have the bed and bedclothes aired and put to sun-dry, for nothing would make me sleep in such a pickle." "Is this my house, or yours?" said he, and his keen voice, and then all of a sudden broke off. "Nah, nah," said he, "I didn't mean that. What's mine is yours, David my man, and what's yours is mine? Blood's thicker than water, and there's nobody but you and me that ought the name." Then on he rambled about the family and its ancient greatness, and his father that began to enlarge the house, and himself that stopped the building as a sinful waste, and this put it in my head to give him Jenna Cluston's message. "The limmer," he cried, "twelve hundred and fifteen! That's every day since I had the limmer roped it! Love, David, I'll have a roasted on red pizza before I'm by with it, a witch, a proclaimed witch! I'll often see the session-clark." With that he opened a chest, and got out a very old and well-preserved blue coat and waistcoat, and a good enough beaver hat, both without lace. These he threw on anyway, and taking a staff from the cupboard, locked all up again, and was for setting out, when a thought arrested him. "I cannot leave you by yourself in the house," said he, "I have to lock you out." The blood came to my face. "If you lock me out," I said, "it'll be the last you'll see of me and friendship." He turned very pale and sucked his mouth in. "This is another way," he said, looking wickedly at a corner of the floor. "This is another way to win my favor, David." "Sir," says I, "with a proper reverence for your age and our common blood, I do not value your favor at a bottle's purchase. I was brought up to have a good conceit of myself, and if you were all the uncle and all the family out in the world ten times over, I wouldn't buy your liking at such prices." Uncle Ebenezer went and looked out of the window for a while. I could see him all trembling and twitching like a man with palsy, but when he turned round he had a smile upon his face. "Well, well," said he, "we must bear and forbear. I'll no go. That's all to be said of it." Uncle Ebenezer, I said, "I can make nothing out of this. You use me like a thief. You hate to have me in this house. You let me see it every word in every minute. It's not possible that you can like me. And as for me, I've spoken to you as I've never thought to speak to any man. Why do you seek to keep me then? Let me gang back. Let me gang back to the friends I have, and that like me." "Nah, nah, nah, nah," he said very earnestly, "I like you fine. We'll agree fine yet, and for the honor of the house I couldn't let you leave the way you came." "Bide here quiet, there's a good lad. Just you bite here quiet, pity, and you'll find that we agree." "Well, sir," said I, after I'd thought the matter out in silence, "I'll stay a while. It's more just I should be helped by my own blood than strangers, and if we don't agree, I'll do my best it shall be through no fault of mine." 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