I told him I was come to the Queen's Ferry on business, and taking heart of grace, asked him to direct me to the house of Mr. Rankeillor.
"Why," said he, "that is his house that I have just come out of; and, for a rather singular chance, I am that very man."
"Then, sir," said I, "I have to beg the favour of an interview."
"I do not know your name," said he, "nor yet your face."
"David Balfour?" he repeated, in rather a high tone, like one surprised. "And where have you come from, Mr. David Balfour?" he asked, looking me pretty drily in the face.
"I have come from a great many strange places, sir," said I; "but I think it would be as well to tell you where and how in a more private manner."
He seemed to muse a while, holding his lip in his hand, and looking now at me and now upon the causeway of the street.
"Yes," says he, "that will be the best, no doubt." And he led me back with him into his house, cried out to some one whom I could not see that he would be engaged all morning, and brought me into a little dusty chamber, full of books and documents. Here he sat down, and bade me be seated; though I thought he looked a little ruefully from his clean chair to my muddy rags. "And now," says he, "if you have any business, pray be brief and come swiftly to the point. _Nec gemino bellum Trojanum orditur ab ovo_--do you understand that?" says he, with a keen look.
"I will even do as Horace says, sir," I answered, smiling, "and carry you in _medias res_." He nodded as if he was well pleased, and indeed his scrap of Latin had been set to test me. For all that, and though I was somewhat encouraged, the blood came in my face when I added: "I have reason to believe myself some rights on the estate of Shaws."
He got a paper book out of a drawer and set it before him open. "Well?" said he.
But I had shot my bolt and sat speechless.
"Come, come, Mr. Balfour," said he, "you must continue. Where were you born?"
"In Essendean, sir," said I, "the year 1733, the 12th of March."
He seemed to follow this statement in his paper book; but what that meant I knew not. "Your father and mother?" said he.
"My father was Alexander Balfour, schoolmaster of that place," said I, "and my mother Grace Pitarrow; I think her people were from Angus."