Then
it was that they had my story from me, bit by bit, from the time
that I left Essendean, with my voyage and battle in the Covenant,
wanderings in the heather, etc.; and from the interest they found
in my adventures sprung the circumstance of a jaunt we made a
little later on, on a day when the courts were not sitting, and of
which I will tell a trifle more at length.
We took horse early, and passed first by the house of Shaws, where
it stood smokeless in a great field of white frost, for it was yet
early in the day. Here Prestongrange alighted down, gave me his
horse, an proceeded alone to visit my uncle. My heart, I remember,
swelled up bitter within me at the sight of that bare house and the
thought of the old miser sitting chittering within in the cold
kitchen!
"There is my home," said I; "and my family."
"Poor David Balfour!" said Miss Grant.
What passed during the visit I have never heard; but it would
doubtless not be very agreeable to Ebenezer, for when the Advocate
came forth again his face was dark.
"I think you will soon be the laird indeed, Mr.
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