In the end of April John led Flora--or, let us say, as more descriptive, Flora led John--to the altar, if altar that may be called which was indeed the drawing-room mantelpiece in Mr. Nicholson's house, the Reverend Dr. Durie posted on the hearthrug in the guise of Hymen's priest.
The last I saw of them, on a recent visit to the north, was at a dinner-party in the house of my old friend Gellatly Macbride; and after we had, in classic phrase, "rejoined the ladies," I had an opportunity to overhear Flora conversing with another married woman on the much canvassed matter of a husband's tobacco.
"O yes!" said she; "I only allow Mr. Nicholson four cigars a day. Three he smokes at fixed times--after a meal, you know, my dear; and the fourth he can take when he likes with any friend."
"Bravo!" thought I to myself; "this is the wife for my friend John!"
BEING MEMOIRS OF THE ADVENTURES OF DAVID BALFOUR
IN THE YEAR 1751 HOW HE WAS KIDNAPPED AND CAST AWAY: HIS SUFFERINGS IN A DESERT ISLE: HIS JOURNEY IN THE WILD HIGHLANDS: HIS ACQUAINTANCE WITH ALAN BRECK STEWART AND OTHER NOTORIOUS HIGHLAND JACOBITES: WITH ALL THAT HE SUFFERED AT THE HANDS OF HIS UNCLE EBENEZER BALFOUR OF SHAWS, FALSELY SO-CALLED: WRITTEN BY HIMSELF, AND NOW SET FORTH BY ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
_If you ever read this tale, you will likely ask yourself more questions than I should care to answer: as, for instance, how the Appin murder has come to fall in the year 1751, how the Torran rocks have crept so near to Earraid, or why the printed trial is silent as to all that touches David Balfour. These are nuts beyond my ability to crack. But if you tried me on the point of Alan's guilt or innocence, I think I could defend the reading of the text. To this day you will find the tradition of Appin clear in Alan's favour. If you inquire, you may even hear that the descendants of "the other man" who fired the shot are in the country to this day. But that other man's name, inquire as you please, you shall not hear; for the Highlander values a secret for itself and for the congenial exercise of keeping it. I might go on for long to justify one point and own another indefensible; it is more honest to confess at once how little I am touched by the desire of accuracy. This is no furniture for the scholar's library, but a book for the winter evening school-room when the tasks are over, and the hour for bed draws near; and honest Alan, who was a grim old fire-eater in his day, has in this new avatar no more desperate purpose than to steal some young gentleman's attention from his "Ovid," carry him a while into the Highlands and the last century, and pack him to bed with some engaging images to mingle with his dreams._