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Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated

Sir Walter Scott

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Title: Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated

Author: Sir Walter Scott

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*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROB ROY, COMPLETE, ILLUSTRATED ***

Produced by David Widger

ROB ROY

COMPLETE

BY SIR WALTER SCOTT

[Illustration: Frontispiece]

[Illustration: Titlepage]

For why? Because the good old rule

Sufficeth them; the simple plan,

That they should take who have the power,

And they should keep who can.

_Rob Roy's Grave_--Wordsworth

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ADVERTISEMENT TO THE FIRST EDITION

When the Editor of the following volumes published, about two years

since, the work called the "Antiquary," he announced that he was, for the

last time, intruding upon the public in his present capacity. He might

shelter himself under the plea that every anonymous writer is, like the

celebrated Junius, only a phantom, and that therefore, although an

apparition, of a more benign, as well as much meaner description, he

cannot be bound to plead to a charge of inconsistency. A better apology

may be found in the imitating the confession of honest Benedict, that,

when he said he would die a bachelor, he did not think he should live to

be married. The best of all would be, if, as has eminently happened in

the case of some distinguished contemporaries, the merit of the work

should, in the reader's estimation, form an excuse for the Author's

breach of promise. Without presuming to hope that this may prove the

case, it is only further necessary to mention, that his resolution, like

that of Benedict, fell a sacrifice, to temptation at least, if not to

stratagem.

It is now about six months since the Author, through the medium of his

respectable Publishers, received a parcel of Papers, containing the

Outlines of this narrative, with a permission, or rather with a request,

couched in highly flattering terms, that they might be given to the

Public, with such alterations as should be found suitable.*

* As it maybe necessary, in the present Edition(1829), to speak upon the

square, the Author thinks it proper to own, that the communication

alluded to is entirely imaginary.

These were of course so numerous, that, besides the suppression of names,

and of incidents approaching too much to reality, the work may in a great

measure be, said to be new written. Several anachronisms have probably

crept in during the course of these changes; and the mottoes for the

Chapters have been selected without any reference to the supposed date of

the incidents. For these, of course, the Editor is responsible. Some

others occurred in the original materials, but they are of little

consequence. In point of minute accuracy, it may be stated, that the

bridge over the Forth, or rather the Avondhu (or Black River), near the

hamlet of Aberfoil, had not an existence thirty years ago. It does not,

however, become the Editor to be the first to point out these errors; and

he takes this public opportunity to thank the unknown and nameless

correspondent, to whom the reader will owe the principal share of any

amusement which he may derive from the following pages.

1st December 1817.

INTRODUCTION---(1829)

When the author projected this further encroachment on the patience of an

indulgent public, he was at some loss for a title; a good name being very

nearly of as much consequence in literature as in life. The title of _Rob

ads:

Roy_ was suggested by the late Mr. Constable, whose sagacity and

experience foresaw the germ of popularity which it included.

No introduction can be more appropriate to the work than some account of

the singular character whose name is given to the title-page, and who,

through good report and bad report, has maintained a wonderful degree of

importance in popular recollection. This cannot be ascribed to the

distinction of his birth, which, though that of a gentleman, had in it

nothing of high destination, and gave him little right to command in his

clan. Neither, though he lived a busy, restless, and enterprising life,

were his feats equal to those of other freebooters, who have been less

distinguished. He owed his fame in a great measure to his residing on the

very verge of the Highlands, and playing such pranks in the beginning of

the 18th century, as are usually ascribed to Robin Hood in the middle

ages,--and that within forty miles of Glasgow, a great commercial city,

the seat of a learned university. Thus a character like his, blending the

wild virtues, the subtle policy, and unrestrained license of an American

Indian, was flourishing in Scotland during the Augustan age of Queen Anne

and George I. Addison, it is probable, or Pope, would have been

considerably surprised if they had known that there, existed in the same

island with them a personage of Rob Roy's peculiar habits and profession.

It is this strong contrast betwixt the civilised and cultivated mode of

life on the one side of the Highland line, and the wild and lawless

adventures which were habitually undertaken and achieved by one who dwelt

on the opposite side of that ideal boundary, which creates the interest

attached to his name. Hence it is that even yet,

Far and near, through vale and hill,

Are faces that attest the same,

And kindle like a fire new stirr'd,

At sound of Rob Roy's name.

There were several advantages which Rob Roy enjoyed for sustaining to

advantage the character which he assumed.

The most prominent of these was his descent from, and connection with,

the clan MacGregor, so famous for their misfortunes, and the indomitable

spirit with which they maintained themselves as a clan, linked and banded

together in spite of the most severe laws, executed with unheard-of

rigour against those who bore this forbidden surname. Their history was

that of several others of the original Highland clans, who were

suppressed by more powerful neighbours, and either extirpated, or forced

to secure themselves by renouncing their own family appellation, and

assuming that of the conquerors. The peculiarity in the story of the

MacGregors, is their retaining, with such tenacity, their separate

existence and union as a clan under circumstances of the utmost urgency.

The history of the tribe is briefly as follows--But we must premise that

the tale depends in some degree on tradition; therefore, excepting when

written documents are, quoted, it must be considered as in some degree

dubious.

The sept of MacGregor claimed a descent from Gregor, or Gregorius, third

son, it is said, of Alpin King of Scots, who flourished about 787. Hence

their original patronymic is MacAlpine, and they are usually termed the

Clan Alpine. An individual tribe of them retains the same name. They are

accounted one of the most ancient clans in the Highlands, and it is

certain they were a people of original Celtic descent, and occupied at

one period very extensive possessions in Perthshire and Argyleshire,

which they imprudently continued to hold by the _coir a glaive,_ that is,

the right of the sword. Their neighbours, the Earls of Argyle and

Breadalbane, in the meanwhile, managed to leave the lands occupied by the

MacGregors engrossed in those charters which they easily obtained from

the Crown; and thus constituted a legal right in their own favour,

without much regard to its justice. As opportunity occurred of annoying

or extirpating their neighbours, they gradually extended their own

domains, by usurping, under the pretext of such royal grants, those of

their more uncivilised neighbours. A Sir Duncan Campbell of Lochow, known

in the Highlands by the name of _Donacha Dhu nan Churraichd,_ that is,

Black Duncan with the Cowl, it being his pleasure to wear such a

head-gear, is said to have been peculiarly successful in those acts of

spoliation upon the clan MacGregor.

The devoted sept, ever finding themselves iniquitously driven from their

possessions, defended themselves by force, and occasionally gained

advantages, which they used cruelly enough. This conduct, though natural,

considering the country and time, was studiously represented at the

capital as arising from an untameable and innate ferocity, which nothing,

it was said, could remedy, save cutting off the tribe of MacGregor root

and branch.

In an act of Privy Council at Stirling, 22d September 1563, in the reign

of Queen Mary, commission is granted to the most powerful nobles, and

chiefs of the clans, to pursue the clan Gregor with fire and sword. A

similar warrant in 1563, not only grants the like powers to Sir John

Campbell of Glenorchy, the descendant of Duncan with the Cowl, but

discharges the lieges to receive or assist any of the clan Gregor, or

afford them, under any colour whatever, meat, drink, or clothes.

An atrocity which the clan Gregor committed in 1589, by the murder of

John Drummond of Drummond-ernoch, a forester of the royal forest of

Glenartney, is elsewhere given, with all its horrid circumstances. The

clan swore upon the severed head of the murdered man, that they would

make common cause in avowing the deed. This led to an act of the Privy

Council, directing another crusade against the "wicked clan Gregor, so

long continuing in blood, slaughter, theft, and robbery," in which

letters of fire and sword are denounced against them for the space of

three years. The reader will find this particular fact illustrated in the

Introduction to the Legend of Montrose in the present edition of these

Novels.

Other occasions frequently occurred, in which the MacGregors testified

contempt for the laws, from which they had often experienced severity,

but never protection. Though they were gradually deprived of their

possessions, and of all ordinary means of procuring subsistence, they

could not, nevertheless, be supposed likely to starve for famine, while

they had the means of taking from strangers what they considered as

rightfully their own. Hence they became versed in predatory forays, and

accustomed to bloodshed. Their passions were eager, and, with a little

management on the part of some of their most powerful neighbours, they

could easily be _hounded out,_ to use an expressive Scottish phrase, to

commit violence, of which the wily instigators took the advantage, and

left the ignorant MacGregors an undivided portion of blame and

punishment. This policy of pushing on the fierce clans of the Highlands

and Borders to break the peace of the country, is accounted by the

historian one of the most dangerous practices of his own period, in which

the MacGregors were considered as ready agents.

Notwithstanding these severe denunciations,---which were acted upon in

the same spirit in which they were conceived, some of the clan still

possessed property, and the chief of the name in 1592 is designed

Allaster MacGregor of Glenstrae. He is said to have been a brave and

active man; but, from the tenor of his confession at his death, appears

to have been engaged in many and desperate feuds, one of which finally

proved fatal to himself and many of his followers. This was the

celebrated conflict at Glenfruin, near the southwestern extremity of Loch

Lomond, in the vicinity of which the MacGregors continued to exercise

much authority by the _coir a glaive,_ or right of the strongest, which

we have already mentioned.

There had been a long and bloody feud betwixt the MacGregors and the

Laird of Luss, head of the family of Colquhoun, a powerful race on the

lower part of Loch Lomond. The MacGregors' tradition affirms that the

quarrel began on a very trifling subject. Two of the MacGregors being

benighted, asked shelter in a house belonging to a dependant of the

Colquhouns, and were refused. They then retreated to an out-house, took a

wedder from the fold, killed it, and supped off the carcass, for which

(it is said) they offered payment to the proprietor. The Laird of Luss

seized on the offenders, and, by the summary process which feudal barons

had at their command, had them both condemned and executed. The

MacGregors verify this account of the feud by appealing to a proverb

current amongst them, execrating the hour _(Mult dhu an Carbail ghil)_

that the black wedder with the white tail was ever lambed. To avenge this

quarrel, the Laird of MacGregor assembled his clan, to the number of

three or four hundred men, and marched towards Luss from the banks of

Loch Long, by a pass called _Raid na Gael,_ or the Highlandman's Pass.

Sir Humphrey Colquhoun received early notice of this incursion, and

collected a strong force, more than twice the number of that of the

invaders. He had with him the gentlemen of the name of Buchanan, with the

Grahams, and other gentry of the Lennox, and a party of the citizens of

Dumbarton, under command of Tobias Smollett, a magistrate, or bailie, of

that town, and ancestor of the celebrated author.

The parties met in the valley of Glenfruin, which signifies the Glen of

Sorrow---a name that seemed to anticipate the event of the day, which,

fatal to the conquered party, was at least equally so to the victors, the

"babe unborn" of Clan Alpine having reason to repent it. The MacGregors,

somewhat discouraged by the appearance of a force much superior to their

own, were cheered on to the attack by a Seer, or second-sighted person,

who professed that he saw the shrouds of the dead wrapt around their

principal opponents. The clan charged with great fury on the front of the

enemy, while John MacGregor, with a strong party, made an unexpected

attack on the flank. A great part of the Colquhouns' force consisted in

cavalry, which could not act in the boggy ground. They were said to have

disputed the field manfully, but were at length completely routed, and a

merciless slaughter was exercised on the fugitives, of whom betwixt two

and three hundred fell on the field and in the pursuit. If the MacGregors

lost, as is averred, only two men slain in the action, they had slight

provocation for an indiscriminate massacre. It is said that their fury

extended itself to a party of students for clerical orders, who had

imprudently come to see the battle. Some doubt is thrown on this fact,

from the indictment against the chief of the clan Gregor being silent on

the subject, as is the historian Johnston, and a Professor Ross, who

wrote an account of the battle twenty-nine years after it was fought. It

is, however, constantly averred by the tradition of the country, and a

stone where the deed was done is called _Leck-a-Mhinisteir,_ the Minister

or Clerk's Flagstone. The MacGregors, by a tradition which is now found

to be inaccurate, impute this cruel action to the ferocity of a single

man of their tribe, renowned for size and strength, called Dugald, _Ciar

Mhor,_ or the great Mouse-coloured Man. He was MacGregor's

foster-brother, and the chief committed the youths to his charge, with

directions to keep them safely till the affray was over. Whether fearful

of their escape, or incensed by some sarcasms which they threw on his

tribe, or whether out of mere thirst of blood, this savage, while the

other MacGregors were engaged in the pursuit, poniarded his helpless and

defenceless prisoners. When the chieftain, on his return, demanded where

the youths were, the _Ciar_ (pronounced Kiar) _Mhor_ drew out his bloody

dirk, saying in Gaelic, "Ask that, and God save me!" The latter words

allude to the exclamation which his victims used when he was murdering

them. It would seem, therefore, that this horrible part of the story is

founded on fact, though the number of the youths so slain is probably

exaggerated in the Lowland accounts. The common people say that the blood

of the Ciar Mhor's victims can never be washed off the stone. When

MacGregor learnt their fate, he expressed the utmost horror at the deed,

and upbraided his foster-brother with having done that which would

occasion the destruction of him and his clan. This supposed homicide was

the ancestor of Rob Roy, and the tribe from which he was descended. He

lies buried at the church of Fortingal, where his sepulchre, covered with

a large stone,* is still shown, and where his great strength and courage

are the theme of many traditions.*

* Note A. The Grey Stone of MacGregor.

** Note B. Dugald Ciar Mhor.

MacGregor's brother was one of the very few of the tribe who was slain.

He was buried near the field of battle, and the place is marked by a rude

stone, called the Grey Stone of MacGregor.

Sir Humphrey Colquhoun, being well mounted, escaped for the time to the

castle of Banochar, or Benechra. It proved no sure defence, however, for

he was shortly after murdered in a vault of the castle,---the family

annals say by the MacGregors, though other accounts charge the deed upon

the MacFarlanes.

This battle of Glenfruin, and the severity which the victors exercised in

the pursuit, was reported to King James VI. in a manner the most

unfavourable to the clan Gregor, whose general character, being that of

lawless though brave men, could not much avail them in such a case. That

James might fully understand the extent of the slaughter, the widows of

the slain, to the number of eleven score, in deep mourning, riding upon

white palfreys, and each bearing her husband's bloody shirt on a spear,

appeared at Stirling, in presence of a monarch peculiarly accessible to

such sights of fear and sorrow, to demand vengeance for the death of

their husbands, upon those by whom they had been made desolate.

The remedy resorted to was at least as severe as the cruelties which it

was designed to punish. By an Act of the Privy Council, dated 3d April

1603, the name of MacGregor was expressly abolished, and those who had

hitherto borne it were commanded to change it for other surnames, the

pain of death being denounced against those who should call themselves

Gregor or MacGregor, the names of their fathers. Under the same penalty,

all who had been at the conflict of Glenfruin, or accessory to other

marauding parties charged in the act, were prohibited from carrying

weapons, except a pointless knife to eat their victuals. By a subsequent

act of Council, 24th June 1613, death was denounced against any persons

of the tribe formerly called MacGregor, who should presume to assemble in

greater numbers than four. Again, by an Act of Parliament, 1617, chap.

26, these laws were continued, and extended to the rising generation, in

respect that great numbers of the children of those against whom the acts

of Privy Council had been directed, were stated to be then approaching to

maturity, who, if permitted to resume the name of their parents, would

render the clan as strong as it was before.

The execution of those severe acts was chiefly intrusted in the west to

the Earl of Argyle and the powerful clan of Campbell, and to the Earl of

Athole and his followers in the more eastern Highlands of Perthshire. The

MacGregors failed not to resist with the most determined courage; and

many a valley in the West and North Highlands retains memory of the

severe conflicts, in which the proscribed clan sometimes obtained

transient advantages, and always sold their lives dearly. At length the

pride of Allaster MacGregor, the chief of the clan, was so much lowered

by the sufferings of his people, that he resolved to surrender himself to

the Earl of Argyle, with his principal followers, on condition that they

should be sent out of Scotland. If the unfortunate chief's own account be

true, he had more reasons than one for expecting some favour from the

Earl, who had in secret advised and encouraged him to many of the

desperate actions for which he was now called to so severe a reckoning.

But Argyle, as old Birrell expresses himself, kept a Highlandman's

promise with them, fulfilling it to the ear, and breaking it to the

sense. MacGregor was sent under a strong guard to the frontier of

England, and being thus, in the literal sense, sent out of Scotland,

Argyle was judged to have kept faith with him, though the same party

which took him there brought him back to Edinburgh in custody.

MacGregor of Glenstrae was tried before the Court of Justiciary, 20th

January 1604, and found guilty. He appears to have been instantly

conveyed from the bar to the gallows; for Birrell, of the same date,

reports that he was hanged at the Cross, and, for distinction sake, was

suspended higher by his own height than two of his kindred and friends.

On the 18th of February following, more men of the MacGregors were

executed, after a long imprisonment, and several others in the beginning

of March.

The Earl of Argyle's service, in conducting to the surrender of the

insolent and wicked race and name of MacGregor, notorious common

malefactors, and in the in-bringing of MacGregor, with a great many of

the leading men of the clan, worthily executed to death for their

offences, is thankfully acknowledged by an Act of Parliament, 1607, chap.

16, and rewarded with a grant of twenty chalders of victual out of the

lands of Kintire.

The MacGregors, notwithstanding the letters of fire and sword, and orders

for military execution repeatedly directed against them by the Scottish

legislature, who apparently lost all the calmness of conscious dignity

and security, and could not even name the outlawed clan without

vituperation, showed no inclination to be blotted out of the roll of

clanship. They submitted to the law, indeed, so far as to take the names

of the neighbouring families amongst whom they happened to live,

nominally becoming, as the case might render it most convenient,

Drummonds, Campbells, Grahams, Buchanans, Stewarts, and the like; but to

all intents and purposes of combination and mutual attachment, they

remained the clan Gregor, united together for right or wrong, and

menacing with the general vengeance of their race, all who committed

aggressions against any individual of their number.

They continued to take and give offence with as little hesitation as

before the legislative dispersion which had been attempted, as appears

from the preamble to statute 1633, chapter 30, setting forth, that the

clan Gregor, which had been suppressed and reduced to quietness by the

great care of the late King James of eternal memory, had nevertheless

broken out again, in the counties of Perth, Stirling, Clackmannan,

Monteith, Lennox, Angus, and Mearns; for which reason the statute

re-establishes the disabilities attached to the clan, and, grants a new

commission for enforcing the laws against that wicked and rebellious

race.

Notwithstanding the extreme severities of King James I. and Charles I.

against this unfortunate people, who were rendered furious by

proscription, and then punished for yielding to the passions which had

been wilfully irritated, the MacGregors to a man attached themselves

during the civil war to the cause of the latter monarch. Their bards have

ascribed this to the native respect of the MacGregors for the crown of

Scotland, which their ancestors once wore, and have appealed to their

armorial bearings, which display a pine-tree crossed saltire wise with a

naked sword, the point of which supports a royal crown. But, without

denying that such motives may have had their weight, we are disposed to

think, that a war which opened the low country to the raids of the clan

Gregor would have more charms for them than any inducement to espouse the

cause of the Covenanters, which would have brought them into contact with

Highlanders as fierce as themselves, and having as little to lose.

Patrick MacGregor, their leader, was the son of a distinguished chief,

named Duncan Abbarach, to whom Montrose wrote letters as to his trusty

and special friend, expressing his reliance on his devoted loyalty, with

an assurance, that when once his Majesty's affairs were placed upon a

permanent footing, the grievances of the clan MacGregor should be

redressed.

At a subsequent period of these melancholy times, we find the clan Gregor

claiming the immunities of other tribes, when summoned by the Scottish

Parliament to resist the invasion of the Commonwealth's army, in 1651. On

the last day of March in that year, a supplication to the King and

Parliament, from Calum MacCondachie Vich Euen, and Euen MacCondachie

Euen, in their own name, and that of the whole name of MacGregor, set

forth, that while, in obedience to the orders of Parliament, enjoining

all clans to come out in the present service under their chieftains, for

the defence of religion, king, and kingdoms, the petitioners were drawing

their men to guard the passes at the head of the river Forth, they were

interfered with by the Earl of Athole and the Laird of Buchanan, who had

required the attendance of many of the clan Gregor upon their arrays.

This interference was, doubtless, owing to the change of name, which

seems to have given rise to the claim of the Earl of Athole and the Laird

of Buchanan to muster the MacGregors under their banners, as Murrays or

Buchanans. It does not appear that the petition of the MacGregors, to be

permitted to come out in a body, as other clans, received any answer. But

upon the Restoration, King Charles, in the first Scottish Parliament of

his reign (statute 1661, chap. 195), annulled the various acts against

the clan Gregor, and restored them to the full use of their family name,

and the other privileges of liege subjects, setting forth, as a reason

for this lenity, that those who were formerly designed MacGregors had,

during the late troubles, conducted themselves with such loyalty and

affection to his Majesty, as might justly wipe off all memory of former

miscarriages, and take away all marks of reproach for the same.

It is singular enough, that it seems to have aggravated the feelings of

the non-conforming Presbyterians, when the penalties which were most

unjustly imposed upon themselves were relaxed towards the poor

MacGregors;--so little are the best men, any more than the worst, able to

judge with impartiality of the same measures, as applied to themselves,

or to others. Upon the Restoration, an influence inimical to this

unfortunate clan, said to be the same with that which afterwards dictated

the massacre of Glencoe, occasioned the re-enaction of the penal statutes

against the MacGregors. There are no reasons given why these highly penal

acts should have been renewed; nor is it alleged that the clan had been

guilty of late irregularities. Indeed, there is some reason to think that

the clause was formed of set purpose, in a shape which should elude

observation; for, though containing conclusions fatal to the rights of so

many Scottish subjects, it is neither mentioned in the title nor the

rubric of the Act of Parliament in which it occurs, and is thrown briefly

in at the close of the statute 1693, chap. 61, entitled, an Act for the

Justiciary in the Highlands.

It does not, however, appear that after the Revolution the acts against

the clan were severely enforced; and in the latter half of the eighteenth

century, they were not enforced at all. Commissioners of supply were

named in Parliament by the proscribed title of MacGregor, and decrees of

courts of justice were pronounced, and legal deeds entered into, under

the same appellative. The MacGregors, however, while the laws continued

in the statute-book, still suffered under the deprivation of the name

which was their birthright, and some attempts were made for the purpose

of adopting another, MacAlpine or Grant being proposed as the title of

the whole clan in future. No agreement, however, could be entered into;

and the evil was submitted to as a matter of necessity, until full

redress was obtained from the British Parliament, by an act abolishing

for ever the penal statutes which had been so long imposed upon this

ancient race. This statute, well merited by the services of many a

gentleman of the clan in behalf of their King and country, was passed,

and the clan proceeded to act upon it with the same spirit of ancient

times, which had made them suffer severely under a deprivation that would

have been deemed of little consequence by a great part of their

fellow-subjects.

They entered into a deed recognising John Murray of Lanrick, Esq.

(afterwards Sir John MacGregor, Baronet), representative of the family of

Glencarnock, as lawfully descended from the ancient stock and blood of

the Lairds and Lords of MacGregor, and therefore acknowledged him as

their chief on all lawful occasions and causes whatsoever. The deed was

subscribed by eight hundred and twenty-six persons of the name of

MacGregor, capable of bearing arms. A great many of the clan during the

last war formed themselves into what was called the Clan Alpine Regiment,

raised in 1799, under the command of their Chief and his brother Colonel

MacGregor.

Having briefly noticed the history of this clan, which presents a rare

and interesting example of the indelible character of the patriarchal

system, the author must now offer some notices of the individual who

gives name to these volumes.

In giving an account of a Highlander, his pedigree is first to be

considered. That of Rob Roy was deduced from Ciar Mhor, the great

mouse-coloured man, who is accused by tradition of having slain the young

students at the battle of Glenfruin.

Without puzzling ourselves and our readers with the intricacies of

Highland genealogy, it is enough to say, that after the death of Allaster

MacGregor of Glenstrae, the clan, discouraged by the unremitting

persecution of their enemies, seem not to have had the means of placing

themselves under the command of a single chief. According to their places

of residence and immediate descent, the several families were led and

directed by _Chieftains,_ which, in the Highland acceptation, signifies

the head of a particular branch of a tribe, in opposition to _Chief,_ who

is the leader and commander of the whole name.

The family and descendants of Dugald Ciar Mhor lived chiefly in the

mountains between Loch Lomond and Loch Katrine, and occupied a good deal

of property there--whether by sufferance, by the right of the sword,

which it was never safe to dispute with them, or by legal titles of

various kinds, it would be useless to inquire and unnecessary to detail.

Enough;--there they certainly were--a people whom their most powerful

neighbours were desirous to conciliate, their friendship in peace being

very necessary to the quiet of the vicinage, and their assistance in war

equally prompt and effectual.

Rob Roy MacGregor Campbell, which last name he bore in consequence of the

Acts of Parliament abolishing his own, was the younger son of Donald

MacGregor of Glengyle, said to have been a Lieutenant-Colonel (probably

in the service of James II.), by his wife, a daughter of Campbell of

Glenfalloch. Rob's own designation was of Inversnaid; but he appears to

have acquired a right of some kind or other to the property or possession

of Craig Royston, a domain of rock and forest, lying on the east side of

Loch Lomond, where that beautiful lake stretches into the dusky mountains

of Glenfalloch.

The time of his birth is uncertain. But he is said to have been active in

the scenes of war and plunder which succeeded the Revolution; and

tradition affirms him to have been the leader in a predatory incursion

into the parish of Kippen, in the Lennox, which took place in the year

1691. It was of almost a bloodless character, only one person losing his

life; but from the extent of the depredation, it was long distinguished

by the name of the Her'-ship, or devastation, of Kippen.* The time of his

death is also uncertain, but as he is said to have survived the year

1733, and died an aged man, it is probable he may have been twenty-five

about the time of the Her'-ship of Kippen, which would assign his birth

to the middle of the 17th century.

* See _Statistcal Account of Scotland,_ 1st edition, vol. xviii. p. 332.

Parish of * Kippen.

In the more quiet times which succeeded the Revolution, Rob Roy, or Red

Robert, seems to have exerted his active talents, which were of no mean

order, as a drover, or trader in cattle, to a great extent. It may well

be supposed that in those days no Lowland, much less English drovers,

ventured to enter the Highlands. The cattle, which were the staple

commodity of the mountains, were escorted down to fairs, on the borders

of the Lowlands, by a party of Highlanders, with their arms rattling

around them; and who dealt, however, in all honour and good faith with

their Southern customers. A fray, indeed, would sometimes arise, when the

Lowlandmen, chiefly Borderers, who had to supply the English market, used

to dip their bonnets in the next brook, and wrapping them round their

hands, oppose their cudgels to the naked broadswords, which had not

always the superiority. I have heard from aged persons who had been

engaged in such affrays, that the Highlanders used remarkably fair play,

never using the point of the sword, far less their pistols or daggers; so

that

With many a stiff thwack and many a bang,

Hard crabtree and cold iron rang.

A slash or two, or a broken head, was easily accommodated, and as the

trade was of benefit to both parties, trifling skirmishes were not

allowed to interrupt its harmony. Indeed it was of vital interest to the

Highlanders, whose income, so far as derived from their estates, depended

entirely on the sale of black cattle; and a sagacious and experienced

dealer benefited not only himself, but his friends and neighbours, by his

speculations. Those of Rob Roy were for several years so successful as to

inspire general confidence, and raise him in the estimation of the

country in which he resided.

His importance was increased by the death of his father, in consequence

of which he succeeded to the management of his nephew Gregor MacGregor of

Glengyle's property, and, as his tutor, to such influence with the clan

and following as was due to the representative of Dugald Ciar. Such

influence was the more uncontrolled, that this family of the MacGregors

seemed to have refused adherence to MacGregor of Glencarnock, the

ancestor of the present Sir Ewan MacGregor, and asserted a kind of

independence.

It was at this time that Rob Roy acquired an interest by purchase,

wadset, or otherwise, to the property of Craig Royston already mentioned.

He was in particular favour, during this prosperous period of his life,

with his nearest and most powerful neighbour, James, first Duke of

Montrose, from whom he received many marks of regard. His Grace consented

to give his nephew and himself a right of property on the estates of

Glengyle and Inversnaid, which they had till then only held as kindly

tenants. The Duke also, with a view to the interest of the country and

his own estate, supported our adventurer by loans of money to a

considerable amount, to enable him to carry on his speculations in the

cattle trade.

Unfortunately that species of commerce was and is liable to sudden

fluctuations; and Rob Roy was, by a sudden depression of markets, and, as

a friendly tradition adds, by the bad faith of a partner named MacDonald,

whom he had imprudently received into his confidence, and intrusted with

a considerable sum of money, rendered totally insolvent. He absconded, of

course--not empty-handed, if it be true, as stated in an advertisement

for his apprehension, that he had in his possession sums to the amount of

L1000 sterling, obtained from several noblemen and gentlemen under

pretence of purchasing cows for them in the Highlands. This advertisement

appeared in June 1712, and was several times repeated. It fixes the

period when Rob Roy exchanged his commercial adventures for speculations

of a very different complexion.*

* See Appendix, No. I.

He appears at this period first to have removed from his ordinary

dwelling at Inversnaid, ten or twelve Scots miles (which is double the

number of English) farther into the Highlands, and commenced the lawless

sort of life which he afterwards followed. The Duke of Montrose, who

conceived himself deceived and cheated by MacGregor's conduct, employed

legal means to recover the money lent to him. Rob Roy's landed property

was attached by the regular form of legal procedure, and his stock and

furniture made the subject of arrest and sale.

It is said that this diligence of the law, as it is called in Scotland,

which the English more bluntly term distress, was used in this case with

uncommon severity, and that the legal satellites, not usually the

gentlest persons in the world, had insulted MacGregor's wife, in a manner

which would have aroused a milder man than he to thoughts of unbounded

vengeance. She was a woman of fierce and haughty temper, and is not

unlikely to have disturbed the officers in the execution of their duty,

and thus to have incurred ill treatment, though, for the sake of

humanity, it is to be hoped that the story sometimes told is a popular

exaggeration. It is certain that she felt extreme anguish at being

expelled from the banks of Loch Lomond, and gave vent to her feelings in

a fine piece of pipe-music, still well known to amateurs by the name of

"Rob Roy's Lament."

The fugitive is thought to have found his first place of refuge in Glen

Dochart, under the Earl of Breadalbane's protection; for, though that

family had been active agents in the destruction of the MacGregors in

former times, they had of late years sheltered a great many of the name

in their old possessions. The Duke of Argyle was also one of Rob Roy's

protectors, so far as to afford him, according to the Highland phrase,

wood and water--the shelter, namely, that is afforded by the forests and

lakes of an inaccessible country.

The great men of the Highlands in that time, besides being anxiously

ambitious to keep up what was called their Following, or military

retainers, were also desirous to have at their disposal men of resolute

character, to whom the world and the world's law were no friends, and who

might at times ravage the lands or destroy the tenants of a feudal enemy,

without bringing responsibility on their patrons. The strife between the

names of Campbell and Graham, during the civil wars of the seventeenth

century, had been stamped with mutual loss and inveterate enmity. The

death of the great Marquis of Montrose on the one side, the defeat at

Inverlochy, and cruel plundering of Lorn, on the other, were reciprocal

injuries not likely to be forgotten. Rob Roy was, therefore, sure of

refuge in the country of the Campbells, both as having assumed their

name, as connected by his mother with the family of Glenfalloch, and as

an enemy to the rival house of Montrose. The extent of Argyle's

possessions, and the power of retreating thither in any emergency, gave

great encouragement to the bold schemes of revenge which he had adopted.

This was nothing short of the maintenance of a predatory war against the

Duke of Montrose, whom he considered as the author of his exclusion from

civil society, and of the outlawry to which he had been sentenced by

letters of horning and caption (legal writs so called), as well as the

seizure of his goods, and adjudication of his landed property. Against

his Grace, therefore, his tenants, friends, allies, and relatives, he

disposed himself to employ every means of annoyance in his power; and

though this was a circle sufficiently extensive for active depredation,

Rob, who professed himself a Jacobite, took the liberty of extending his

sphere of operations against all whom he chose to consider as friendly to

the revolutionary government, or to that most obnoxious of measures--the

Union of the Kingdoms. Under one or other of these pretexts, all his

neighbours of the Lowlands who had anything to lose, or were unwilling to

compound for security by paying him an annual sum for protection or

forbearance, were exposed to his ravages.

The country in which this private warfare, or system of depredation, was

to be carried on, was, until opened up by roads, in the highest degree

favourable for his purpose. It was broken up into narrow valleys, the

habitable part of which bore no proportion to the huge wildernesses of

forest, rocks, and precipices by which they were encircled, and which

was, moreover, full of inextricable passes, morasses, and natural

strengths, unknown to any but the inhabitants themselves, where a few men

acquainted with the ground were capable, with ordinary address, of

baffling the pursuit of numbers.

The opinions and habits of the nearest neighbours to the Highland line

were also highly favourable to Rob Roy's purpose. A large proportion of

them were of his own clan of MacGregor, who claimed the property of

Balquhidder, and other Highland districts, as having been part of the

ancient possessions of their tribe; though the harsh laws, under the

severity of which they had suffered so deeply, had assigned the ownership

to other families. The civil wars of the seventeenth century had

accustomed these men to the use of arms, and they were peculiarly brave

and fierce from remembrance of their sufferings. The vicinity of a

comparatively rich Lowland district gave also great temptations to

incursion. Many belonging to other clans, habituated to contempt of

industry, and to the use of arms, drew towards an unprotected frontier

which promised facility of plunder; and the state of the country, now so

peaceable and quiet, verified at that time the opinion which Dr. Johnson

heard with doubt and suspicion, that the most disorderly and lawless

districts of the Highlands were those which lay nearest to the Lowland

line. There was, therefore, no difficulty in Rob Roy, descended of a

tribe which was widely dispersed in the country we have described,

collecting any number of followers whom he might be able to keep in

action, and to maintain by his proposed operations.

He himself appears to have been singularly adapted for the profession

which he proposed to exercise. His stature was not of the tallest, but

his person was uncommonly strong and compact. The greatest peculiarities

of his frame were the breadth of his shoulders, and the great and almost

disproportionate length of his arms; so remarkable, indeed, that it was

said he could, without stooping, tie the garters of his Highland hose,

which are placed two inches below the knee. His countenance was open,

manly, stern at periods of danger, but frank and cheerful in his hours of

festivity. His hair was dark red, thick, and frizzled, and curled short

around the face. His fashion of dress showed, of course, the knees and

upper part of the leg, which was described to me, as resembling that of a

Highland bull, hirsute, with red hair, and evincing muscular strength

similar to that animal. To these personal qualifications must be added a

masterly use of the Highland sword, in which his length of arm gave him

great advantage--and a perfect and intimate knowledge of all the recesses

of the wild country in which he harboured, and the character of the

various individuals, whether friendly or hostile, with whom he might come

in contact.

His mental qualities seem to have been no less adapted to the

circumstances in which he was placed. Though the descendant of the

blood-thirsty Ciar Mhor, he inherited none of his ancestor's ferocity. On

the contrary, Rob Roy avoided every appearance of cruelty, and it is not

averred that he was ever the means of unnecessary bloodshed, or the actor

in any deed which could lead the way to it. His schemes of plunder were

contrived and executed with equal boldness and sagacity, and were almost

universally successful, from the skill with which they were laid, and the

secrecy and rapidity with which they were executed. Like Robin Hood of

England, he was a kind and gentle robber,--and, while he took from the

rich, was liberal in relieving the poor. This might in part be policy;

but the universal tradition of the country speaks it to have arisen from

a better motive. All whom I have conversed with, and I have in my youth

seen some who knew Rob Roy personally, give him the character of a

benevolent and humane man "in his way."

His ideas of morality were those of an Arab chief, being such as

naturally arose out of his wild education. Supposing Rob Roy to have

argued on the tendency of the life which he pursued, whether from choice

or from necessity, he would doubtless have assumed to himself the

character of a brave man, who, deprived of his natural rights by the

partiality of laws, endeavoured to assert them by the strong hand of

natural power; and he is most felicitously described as reasoning thus,

in the high-toned poetry of my gifted friend Wordsworth:

Say, then, that he was wise as brave,

As wise in thought as bold in deed;

For in the principles of things

_He_ sought his moral creed.

Said generous Rob, "What need of Books?

Burn all the statutes and their shelves!

They stir us up against our kind,

And worse, against ourselves.

"We have a passion, make a law,

Too false to guide us or control;

And for the law itself we fight

In bitterness of soul.

"And puzzled, blinded, then we lose

Distinctions that are plain and few;

These find I graven on my heart,

That tells me what to do.

"The creatures see of flood and field,

And those that travel on the wind

With them no strife can last; they live

In peace, and peace of mind.

"For why? Because the good old rule

Sufficeth them; the simple plan,

That they should take who have the power,

And they should keep who can.

"A lesson which is quickly learn'd,

A signal through which all can see;

Thus, nothing here provokes the strong

To wanton cruelty.

"And freakishness of mind is check'd,

He tamed who foolishly aspires,

While to the measure of his might

Each fashions his desires.

"All kinds and creatures stand and fall

By strength of prowess or of wit;

'Tis God's appointment who must sway,

And who is to submit.

"Since then," said Robin, "right is plain,

And longest life is but a day,

To have my ends, maintain my rights,

I'll take the shortest way."

And thus among these rocks he lived,

Through summer's heat and winter's snow

The eagle, he was lord above,

And Rob was lord below.

We are not, however, to suppose the character of this distinguished

outlaw to be that of an actual hero, acting uniformly and consistently on

such moral principles as the illustrious bard who, standing by his grave,

has vindicated his fame. On the contrary, as is common with barbarous

chiefs, Rob Roy appears to have mixed his professions of principle with a

large alloy of craft and dissimulation, of which his conduct during the

civil war is sufficient proof. It is also said, and truly, that although

his courtesy was one of his strongest characteristics, yet sometimes he

assumed an arrogance of manner which was not easily endured by the

high-spirited men to whom it was addressed, and drew the daring outlaw

into frequent disputes, from which he did not always come off with

credit. From this it has been inferred, that Rob Roy w as more of a bully

than a hero, or at least that he had, according to the common phrase, his

fighting days. Some aged men who knew him well, have described him also

as better at a _taich-tulzie,_ or scuffle within doors, than in mortal

combat. The tenor of his life may be quoted to repel this charge; while,

at the same time, it must be allowed, that the situation in which he was

placed rendered him prudently averse to maintaining quarrels, where

nothing was to be had save blows, and where success would have raised up

against him new and powerful enemies, in a country where revenge was

still considered as a duty rather than a crime. The power of commanding

his passions on such occasions, far from being inconsistent with the part

which MacGregor had to perform, was essentially necessary, at the period

when he lived, to prevent his career from being cut short.

I may here mention one or two occasions on which Rob Roy appears to have

given way in the manner alluded to. My late venerable friend, John Ramsay

of Ochtertyre, alike eminent as a classical scholar and as an authentic

that on occasion of a public meeting at a bonfire in the town of Doune,

Rob Roy gave some offence to James Edmondstone of Newton, the same

gentleman who was unfortunately concerned in the slaughter of Lord Rollo

(see Maclaurin's Criminal Trials, No. IX.), when Edmondstone compelled

MacGregor to quit the town on pain of being thrown by him into the

bonfire. "I broke one off your ribs on a former occasion," said he, "and

now, Rob, if you provoke me farther, I will break your neck." But it must

be remembered that Edmondstone was a man of consequence in the Jacobite

party, as he carried the royal standard of James VII. at the battle of

Sheriffmuir, and also, that he was near the door of his own

mansion-house, and probably surrounded by his friends and adherents. Rob

Roy, however, suffered in reputation for retiring under such a threat.

Another well-vouched case is that of Cunningham of Boquhan.

Henry Cunningham, Esq. of Boquhan, was a gentleman of Stirlingshire, who,

like many _exquisites_ of our own time, united a natural high spirit and

daring character with an affectation of delicacy of address and manners

amounting to foppery.*

* His courage and affectation of foppery were united, which is less

frequently the case, with a spirit of innate modesty. He is thus

described in Lord Binning's satirical verses, entitled "Argyle's Levee:"

"Six times had Harry bowed unseen,

Before he dared advance;

The Duke then, turning round well pleased,

Said, 'Sure you've been in France!

A more polite and jaunty man

I never saw before:'

Then Harry bowed, and blushed, and bowed,

And strutted to the door."

See a Collection of original Poems, by Scotch Gentlemen, vol. ii. p. 125.

He chanced to be in company with Rob Roy, who, either in contempt of

Boquhan's supposed effeminacy, or because he thought him a safe person to

fix a quarrel on (a point which Rob's enemies alleged he was wont to

consider), insulted him so grossly that a challenge passed between them.

The goodwife of the clachan had hidden Cunningham's sword, and while he

rummaged the house in quest of his own or some other, Rob Roy went to the

Shieling Hill, the appointed place of combat, and paraded there with

great majesty, waiting for his antagonist. In the meantime, Cunningham

had rummaged out an old sword, and, entering the ground of contest in all

haste, rushed on the outlaw with such unexpected fury that he fairly

drove him off the field, nor did he show himself in the village again for

some time. Mr. MacGregor Stirling has a softened account of this anecdote

in his new edition of Nimmo's Stirlingshire; still he records Rob Roy's

discomfiture.

Occasionally Rob Roy suffered disasters, and incurred great personal

danger. On one remarkable occasion he was saved by the coolness of his

lieutenant, Macanaleister or Fletcher, the _Little John_ of his band--a

fine active fellow, of course, and celebrated as a marksman. It happened

that MacGregor and his party had been surprised and dispersed by a

superior force of horse and foot, and the word was given to "split and

squander." Each shifted for himself, but a bold dragoon attached himself

to pursuit of Rob, and overtaking him, struck at him with his broadsword.

A plate of iron in his bonnet saved the MacGregor from being cut down to

the teeth; but the blow was heavy enough to bear him to the ground,

crying as he fell, "Oh, Macanaleister, is there naething in her?" (_i.e._

in the gun). The trooper, at the same time, exclaiming, "D--n ye, your

mother never wrought your night-cap!" had his arm raised for a second

blow, when Macanaleister fired, and the ball pierced the dragoon's heart.

Such as he was, Rob Roy's progress in his occupation is thus described by

a gentleman of sense and talent, who resided within the circle of his

predatory wars, had probably felt their effects, and speaks of them, as

might be expected, with little of the forbearance with which, from their

peculiar and romantic character, they are now regarded.

"This man (Rob Roy MacGregor) was a person of sagacity, and neither

wanted stratagem nor address; and having abandoned himself to all

licentiousness, set himself at the head of all the loose, vagrant, and

desperate people of that clan, in the west end of Perth and Stirling

shires, and infested those whole countries with thefts, robberies, and

depredations. Very few who lived within his reach (that is, within the

distance of a nocturnal expedition) could promise to themselves security,

either for their persons or effects, without subjecting themselves to pay

him a heavy and shameful tax of _black-mail._ He at last proceeded to

such a degree of audaciousness that he committed robberies, raised

contributions, and resented quarrels, at the head of a very considerable

body of armed men, in open day, and in the face of the government."*

* Mr. Grahame of Gartmore's Causes of the Disturbances in the Highlands.

See Jamieson's edition of Burt's Letters from the North of Scotland,

Appendix, vol. ii. p. 348.

The extent and success of these depredations cannot be surprising, when

we consider that the scene of them was laid in a country where the

general law was neither enforced nor respected.

Having recorded that the general habit of cattle-stealing had blinded

even those of the better classes to the infamy of the practice, and that

as men's property consisted entirely in herds, it was rendered in the

highest degree precarious, Mr. Grahame adds--

"On these accounts there is no culture of ground, no improvement of

pastures, and from the same reasons, no manufactures, no trade; in short,

no industry. The people are extremely prolific, and therefore so

numerous, that there is not business in that country, according to its

present order and economy, for the one-half of them. Every place is full

of idle people, accustomed to arms, and lazy in everything but rapines

and depredations. As _buddel_ or _aquavitae_ houses are to be found

everywhere through the country, so in these they saunter away their time,

and frequently consume there the returns of their illegal purchases. Here

the laws have never been executed, nor the authority of the magistrate

ever established. Here the officer of the law neither dare nor can

execute his duty, and several places are about thirty miles from lawful

persons. In short, here is no order, no authority, no government."

The period of the rebellion, 1715, approached soon after Rob Roy had

attained celebrity. His Jacobite partialities were now placed in

opposition to his sense of the obligations which he owed to the indirect

protection of the Duke of Argyle. But the desire of "drowning his

sounding steps amid the din of general war" induced him to join the

forces of the Earl of Mar, although his patron the Duke of Argyle was at

the head of the army opposed to the Highland insurgents.

The MacGregors, a large sept of them at least, that of Ciar Mhor, on this

occasion were not commanded by Rob Roy, but by his nephew already

mentioned, Gregor MacGregor, otherwise called James Grahame of Glengyle,

and still better remembered by the Gaelic epithet of _Ghlune Dhu, i.e._

Black Knee, from a black spot on one of his knees, which his Highland

garb rendered visible. There can be no question, however, that being then

very young, Glengyle must have acted on most occasions by the advice and

direction of so experienced a leader as his uncle.

The MacGregors assembled in numbers at that period, and began even to

threaten the Lowlands towards the lower extremity of Loch Lomond. They

suddenly seized all the boats which were upon the lake, and, probably

with a view to some enterprise of their own, drew them overland to

Inversnaid, in order to intercept the progress of a large body of

west-country whigs who were in arms for the government, and moving in

that direction.

The whigs made an excursion for the recovery of the boats. Their forces

consisted of volunteers from Paisley, Kilpatrick, and elsewhere, who,

with the assistance of a body of seamen, were towed up the river Leven in

long-boats belonging to the ships of war then lying in the Clyde. At Luss

they were joined by the forces of Sir Humphrey Colquhoun, and James

Grant, his son-in-law, with their followers, attired in the Highland

dress of the period, which is picturesquely described.* The whole party

crossed to Craig-Royston, but the MacGregors did not offer combat.

* "At night they arrived at Luss, where they were joined by Sir Humphrey

Colquhoun of Luss, and James Grant of Plascander, his son-in-law,

followed by forty or fifty stately fellows in their short hose and belted

plaids, armed each of them with a well-fixed gun on his shoulder, a

strong handsome target, with a sharp-pointed steel of above half an ell

in length screwed into the navel of it, on his left arm, a sturdy

claymore by his side, and a pistol or two, with a dirk and knife, in his

belt."--_Rae's History of the Rebellion,_ 4to, p. 287.

If we are to believe the account of the expedition given by the historian

Rae, they leapt on shore at Craig-Royston with the utmost intrepidity, no

enemy appearing to oppose them, and by the noise of their drums, which

they beat incessantly, and the discharge of their artillery and small

arms, terrified the MacGregors, whom they appear never to have seen, out

of their fastnesses, and caused them to fly in a panic to the general

camp of the Highlanders at Strath-Fillan.* The low-country men succeeded

in getting possession of the boats at a great expenditure of noise and

courage, and little risk of danger.

* Note C. The Loch Lomond Expedition.

After this temporary removal from his old haunts, Rob Roy was sent by the

Earl of Mar to Aberdeen, to raise, it is believed, a part of the clan

Gregor, which is settled in that country. These men were of his own

family (the race of the Ciar Mhor). They were the descendants of about

three hundred MacGregors whom the Earl of Murray, about the year 1624,

transported from his estates in Menteith to oppose against his enemies

the MacIntoshes, a race as hardy and restless as they were themselves.

But while in the city of Aberdeen, Rob Roy met a relation of a very

different class and character from those whom he was sent to summon to

arms. This was Dr. James Gregory (by descent a MacGregor), the patriarch

of a dynasty of professors distinguished for literary and scientific

talent, and the grandfather of the late eminent physician and

accomplished scholar, Professor Gregory of Edinburgh. This gentleman was

at the time Professor of Medicine in King's College, Aberdeen, and son of

Dr. James Gregory, distinguished in science as the inventor of the

reflecting telescope. With such a family it may seem our friend Rob could

have had little communion. But civil war is a species of misery which

introduces men to strange bed-fellows. Dr. Gregory thought it a point of

prudence to claim kindred, at so critical a period, with a man so

formidable and influential. He invited Rob Roy to his house, and treated

him with so much kindness, that he produced in his generous bosom a

degree of gratitude which seemed likely to occasion very inconvenient

effects.

The Professor had a son about eight or nine years old,--a lively, stout

boy of his age,--with whose appearance our Highland Robin Hood was much

taken. On the day before his departure from the house of his learned

relative, Rob Roy, who had pondered deeply how he might requite his

cousin's kindness, took Dr. Gregory aside, and addressed him to this

purport:--"My dear kinsman, I have been thinking what I could do to show

my sense of your hospitality. Now, here you have a fine spirited boy of a

son, whom you are ruining by cramming him with your useless

book-learning, and I am determined, by way of manifesting my great

good-will to you and yours, to take him with me and make a man of him."

The learned Professor was utterly overwhelmed when his warlike kinsman

announced his kind purpose in language which implied no doubt of its

being a proposal which, would be, and ought to be, accepted with the

utmost gratitude. The task of apology or explanation was of a most

delicate description; and there might have been considerable danger in

suffering Rob Roy to perceive that the promotion with which he threatened

the son was, in the father's eyes, the ready road to the gallows. Indeed,

every excuse which he could at first think of--such as regret for putting

his friend to trouble with a youth who had been educated in the Lowlands,

and so on--only strengthened the chieftain's inclination to patronise his

young kinsman, as he supposed they arose entirely from the modesty of the

father. He would for a long time take no apology, and even spoke of

carrying off the youth by a certain degree of kindly violence, whether

his father consented, or not. At length the perplexed Professor pleaded

that his son was very young, and in an infirm state of health, and not

yet able to endure the hardships of a mountain life; but that in another

year or two he hoped his health would be firmly established, and he would

be in a fitting condition to attend on his brave kinsman, and follow out

the splendid destinies to which he opened the way. This agreement being

made, the cousins parted,--Rob Roy pledging his honour to carry his young

relation to the hills with him on his next return to Aberdeenshire, and

Dr. Gregory, doubtless, praying in his secret soul that he might never

see Rob's Highland face again.

James Gregory, who thus escaped being his kinsman's recruit, and in all

probability his henchman, was afterwards Professor of Medicine in the

College, and, like most of his family, distinguished by his scientific

acquirements. He was rather of an irritable and pertinacious disposition;

and his friends were wont to remark, when he showed any symptom of these

foibles, "Ah! this comes of not having been educated by Rob Roy."

The connection between Rob Roy and his classical kinsman did not end with

the period of Rob's transient power. At a period considerably subsequent

to the year 1715, he was walking in the Castle Street of Aberdeen, arm in

arm with his host, Dr. James Gregory, when the drums in the barracks

suddenly beat to arms, and soldiers were seen issuing from the barracks.

"If these lads are turning out," said Rob, taking leave of his cousin

with great composure, "it is time for me to look after my safety." So

saying, he dived down a close, and, as John Bunyan says, "went upon his

way and was seen no more."*

* The first of these anecdotes, which brings the highest pitch of

civilisation so closely in contact with the half-savage state of

society, I have heard told by the late distinguished Dr. Gregory; and the

members of his family have had the kindness to collate the story with

their recollections and family documents, and furnish the authentic

particulars. The second rests on the recollection of an old man, who was

present when Rob took French leave of his literary cousin on hearing the

drums beat, and communicated the circumstance to Mr. Alexander Forbes, a

connection of Dr. Gregory by marriage, who is still alive.

We have already stated that Rob Roy's conduct during the insurrection of

1715 was very equivocal. His person and followers were in the Highland

army, but his heart seems to have been with the Duke of Argyle's. Yet the

insurgents were constrained to trust to him as their only guide, when

they marched from Perth towards Dunblane, with the view of crossing the

Forth at what are called the Fords of Frew, and when they themselves said

he could not be relied upon.

This movement to the westward, on the part of the insurgents, brought on

the battle of Sheriffmuir--indecisive, indeed, in its immediate results,

but of which the Duke of Argyle reaped the whole advantage. In this

action, it will be recollected that the right wing of the Highlanders

broke and cut to pieces Argyle's left wing, while the clans on the left

of Mar's army, though consisting of Stewarts, Mackenzies, and Camerons,

were completely routed. During this medley of flight and pursuit, Rob Roy

retained his station on a hill in the centre of the Highland position;

and though it is said his attack might have decided the day, he could not

be prevailed upon to charge. This was the more unfortunate for the

insurgents, as the leading of a party of the Macphersons had been

committed to MacGregor. This, it is said, was owing to the age and

infirmity of the chief of that name, who, unable to lead his clan in

person, objected to his heir-apparent, Macpherson of Nord, discharging

his duty on that occasion; so that the tribe, or a part of them, were

brigaded with their allies the MacGregors. While the favourable moment

for action was gliding away unemployed, Mar's positive orders reached Rob

Roy that he should presently attack. To which he coolly replied, "No, no!

if they cannot do it without me, they cannot do it with me." One of the

Macphersons, named Alexander, one of Rob's original profession,

_videlicet,_ a drover, but a man of great strength and spirit, was so

incensed at the inactivity of this temporary leader, that he threw off

his plaid, drew his sword, and called out to his clansmen, "Let us endure

this no longer! if he will not lead you I will." Rob Roy replied, with

great coolness, "Were the question about driving Highland stots or

kyloes, Sandie, I would yield to your superior skill; but as it respects

the leading of men, I must be allowed to be the better judge."--"Did the

matter respect driving Glen-Eigas stots," answered the Macpherson, "the

question with Rob would not be, which was to be last, but which was to be

foremost." Incensed at this sarcasm, MacGregor drew his sword, and they

would have fought upon the spot if their friends on both sides had not

interfered. But the moment of attack was completely lost. Rob did not,

however, neglect his own private interest on the occasion. In the

confusion of an undecided field of battle, he enriched his followers by

plundering the baggage and the dead on both sides.

The fine old satirical ballad on the battle of Sheriffmuir does not

forget to stigmatise our hero's conduct on this memorable occasion--

Rob Roy he stood watch

On a hill for to catch

The booty for aught that I saw, man;

For he ne'er advanced

From the place where he stanced,

Till nae mair was to do there at a', man.

Notwithstanding the sort of neutrality which Rob Roy had continued to

observe during the progress of the Rebellion, he did not escape some of

its penalties. He was included in the act of attainder, and the house in

Breadalbane, which was his place of retreat, was burned by General Lord

Cadogan, when, after the conclusion of the insurrection, he marched

through the Highlands to disarm and punish the offending clans. But upon

going to Inverary with about forty or fifty of his followers, Rob

obtained favour, by an apparent surrender of their arms to Colonel

Patrick Campbell of Finnah, who furnished them and their leader with

protections under his hand. Being thus in a great measure secured from

the resentment of government, Rob Roy established his residence at

Craig-Royston, near Loch Lomond, in the midst of his own kinsmen, and

lost no time in resuming his private quarrel with the Duke of Montrose.

For this purpose he soon got on foot as many men, and well armed too, as

he had yet commanded. He never stirred without a body-guard of ten or

twelve picked followers, and without much effort could increase them to

fifty or sixty.

The Duke was not wanting in efforts to destroy this troublesome

adversary. His Grace applied to General Carpenter, commanding the forces

in Scotland, and by his orders three parties of soldiers were directed

from the three different points of Glasgow, Stirling, and Finlarig near

Killin. Mr. Graham of Killearn, the Duke of Montrose's relation and

factor, Sheriff-depute also of Dumbartonshire, accompanied the troops,

that they might act under the civil authority, and have the assistance of

a trusty guide well acquainted with the hills. It was the object of these

several columns to arrive about the same time in the neighbourhood of Rob

Roy's residence, and surprise him and his followers. But heavy rains, the

difficulties of the country, and the good intelligence which the Outlaw

was always supplied with, disappointed their well-concerted combination.

The troops, finding the birds were flown, avenged themselves by

destroying the nest. They burned Rob Roy's house,--though not with

impunity; for the MacGregors, concealed among the thickets and cliffs,

fired on them, and killed a grenadier.

Rob Roy avenged himself for the loss which he sustained on this occasion

by an act of singular audacity. About the middle of November 1716, John

Graham of Killearn, already mentioned as factor of the Montrose family,

went to a place called Chapel Errock, where the tenants of the Duke were

summoned to appear with their termly rents. They appeared accordingly,

and the factor had received ready money to the amount of about L300, when

Rob Roy entered the room at the head of an armed party. The Steward

endeavoured to protect the Duke's property by throwing the books of

accounts and money into a garret, trusting they might escape notice. But

the experienced freebooter was not to be baffled where such a prize was

at stake. He recovered the books and cash, placed himself calmly in the

receipt of custom, examined the accounts, pocketed the money, and gave

receipts on the Duke's part, saying he would hold reckoning with the Duke

of Montrose out of the damages which he had sustained by his Grace's

means, in which he included the losses he had suffered, as well by the

burning of his house by General Cadogan, as by the later expedition

against Craig-Royston. He then requested Mr. Graham to attend him; nor

does it appear that he treated him with any personal violence, or even

rudeness, although he informed him he regarded him as a hostage, and

menaced rough usage in case he should be pursued, or in danger of being

overtaken. Few more audacious feats have been performed. After some rapid

changes of place (the fatigue attending which was the only annoyance that

Mr. Graham seems to have complained of), he carried his prisoner to an

island on Loch Katrine, and caused him to write to the Duke, to state

that his ransom was fixed at L3400 merks, being the balance which

MacGregor pretended remained due to him, after deducting all that he owed

to the Duke of Montrose.

However, after detaining Mr. Graham five or six days in custody on the

island, which is still called Rob Roy's Prison, and could be no

comfortable dwelling for November nights, the Outlaw seems to have

despaired of attaining further advantage from his bold attempt, and

suffered his prisoner to depart uninjured, with the account-books, and

bills granted by the tenants, taking especial care to retain the cash.*

* The reader will find two original letters of the Duke of Montrose, with

that which Mr. Graham of Killearn despatched from his prison-house by the

Outlaw's command, in the Appendix, No. II.

About 1717, our Chieftain had the dangerous adventure of falling into the

hands of the Duke of Athole, almost as much his enemy as the Duke of

Montrose himself; but his cunning and dexterity again freed him from

certain death. See a contemporary account of this curious affair in the

Appendix, No. V.

Other pranks are told of Rob, which argue the same boldness and sagacity

as the seizure of Killearn. The Duke of Montrose, weary of his insolence,

procured a quantity of arms, and distributed them among his tenantry, in

order that they might defend themselves against future violences. But

they fell into different hands from those they were intended for. The

MacGregors made separate attacks on the houses of the tenants, and

disarmed them all one after another, not, as was supposed, without the

consent of many of the persons so disarmed.

As a great part of the Duke's rents were payable in kind, there were

girnels (granaries) established for storing up the corn at Moulin, and

elsewhere on the Buchanan estate. To these storehouses Rob Roy used to

repair with a sufficient force, and of course when he was least expected,

and insist upon the delivery of quantities of grain--sometimes for his

own use, and sometimes for the assistance of the country people; always

giving regular receipts in his own name, and pretending to reckon with

the Duke for what sums he received.

In the meanwhile a garrison was established by Government, the ruins of

which may be still seen about half-way betwixt Loch Lomond and Loch

Katrine, upon Rob Roy's original property of Inversnaid. Even this

military establishment could not bridle the restless MacGregor. He

contrived to surprise the little fort, disarm the soldiers, and destroy

the fortification. It was afterwards re-established, and again taken by

the MacGregors under Rob Roy's nephew Ghlune Dhu, previous to the

insurrection of 1745-6. Finally, the fort of Inversnaid was a third time

repaired after the extinction of civil discord; and when we find the

celebrated General Wolfe commanding in it, the imagination is strongly

affected by the variety of time and events which the circumstance brings

simultaneously to recollection. It is now totally dismantled.*

* About 1792, when the author chanced to pass that way while on a tour

through the Highlands, a garrison, consisting of a single veteran, was

still maintained at Inversnaid. The venerable warder was reaping his

barley croft in all peace and tranquillity and when we asked admittance

to repose ourselves, he told us we would find the key of the Fort under

the door.

It was not, strictly speaking, as a professed depredator that Rob Roy now

conducted his operations, but as a sort of contractor for the police; in

Scottish phrase, a lifter of black-mail. The nature of this contract has

been described in the Novel of Waverley, and in the notes on that work.

Mr. Grahame of Gartmore's description of the character may be here

transcribed:--

"The confusion and disorders of the country were so great, and the

Government go absolutely neglected it, that the sober people were obliged

to purchase some security to their effects by shameful and ignominious

contracts of _black-mail._ A person who had the greatest correspondence

with the thieves was agreed with to preserve the lands contracted for

from thefts, for certain sums to be paid yearly. Upon this fund he

employed one half of the thieves to recover stolen cattle, and the other

half of them to steal, in order to make this agreement and black-mail

contract necessary. The estates of those gentlemen who refused to

contract, or give countenance to that pernicious practice, are plundered

by the thieving part of the watch, in order to force them to purchase

their protection. Their leader calls himself the _Captain_ of the

_Watch,_ and his banditti go by that name. And as this gives them a kind

of authority to traverse the country, so it makes them capable of doing

any mischief. These corps through the Highlands make altogether a very

considerable body of men, inured from their infancy to the greatest

fatigues, and very capable, to act in a military way when occasion

offers.

"People who are ignorant and enthusiastic, who are in absolute dependence

upon their chief or landlord, who are directed in their consciences by

Roman Catholic priests, or nonjuring clergymen, and who are not masters

of any property, may easily be formed into any mould. They fear no

dangers, as they have nothing to lose, and so can with ease be induced to

attempt anything. Nothing can make their condition worse: confusions and

troubles do commonly indulge them in such licentiousness, that by these

they better it."*

* Letters from the North of Scotland, vol. ii. pp. 344, 345.

As the practice of contracting for black-mail was an obvious

encouragement to rapine, and a great obstacle to the course of justice,

it was, by the statute 1567, chap. 21, declared a capital crime both on

the part of him who levied and him who paid this sort of tax. But the

necessity of the case prevented the execution of this severe law, I

believe, in any one instance; and men went on submitting to a certain

unlawful imposition rather than run the risk of utter ruin--just as it is

now found difficult or impossible to prevent those who have lost a very

large sum of money by robbery, from compounding with the felons for

restoration of a part of their booty.

At what rate Rob Roy levied black-mail I never heard stated; but there is

a formal contract by which his nephew, in 1741, agreed with various

landholders of estates in the counties of Perth, Stirling, and Dumbarton,

to recover cattle stolen from them, or to pay the value within six months

of the loss being intimated, if such intimation were made to him with

sufficient despatch, in consideration of a payment of L5 on each L100 of

valued rent, which was not a very heavy insurance. Petty thefts were not

included in the contract; but the theft of one horse, or one head of

black cattle, or of sheep exceeding the number of six, fell under the

agreement.

Rob Roy's profits upon such contracts brought him in a considerable

revenue in money or cattle, of which he made a popular use; for he was

publicly liberal as well as privately beneficent. The minister of the

parish of Balquhidder, whose name was Robertson, was at one time

threatening to pursue the parish for an augmentation of his stipend. Rob

Roy took an opportunity to assure him that he would do well to abstain

from this new exaction--a hint which the minister did not fail to

understand. But to make him some indemnification, MacGregor presented him

every year with a cow and a fat sheep; and no scruples as to the mode in

which the donor came by them are said to have affected the reverend

gentleman's conscience.

The following amount of the proceedings of Rob Roy, on an application to

him from one of his contractors, had in it something very interesting to

me, as told by an old countryman in the Lennox who was present on the

expedition. But as there is no point or marked incident in the story, and

as it must necessarily be without the half-frightened, half-bewildered

look with which the narrator accompanied his recollections, it may

possibly lose, its effect when transferred to paper.

My informant stated himself to have been a lad of fifteen, living with

his father on the estate of a gentleman in the Lennox, whose name I have

forgotten, in the capacity of herd. On a fine morning in the end of

October, the period when such calamities were almost always to be

apprehended, they found the Highland thieves had been down upon them, and

swept away ten or twelve head of cattle. Rob Roy was sent for, and came

with a party of seven or eight armed men. He heard with great gravity all

that could be told him of the circumstances of the _creagh,_ and

expressed his confidence that the _herd-widdiefows_* could not have

carried their booty far, and that he should be able to recover them.

* Mad herdsmen--a name given to cattle-stealers [properly one who

deserves to fill a _widdie,_ or halter].

He desired that two Lowlanders should be sent on the party, as it was not

to be expected that any of his gentlemen would take the trouble of

driving the cattle when he should recover possession of them. My

informant and his father were despatched on the expedition. They had no

good will to the journey; nevertheless, provided with a little food, and

with a dog to help them to manage the cattle, they set off with

MacGregor. They travelled a long day's journey in the direction of the

mountain Benvoirlich, and slept for the night in a ruinous hut or bothy.

The next morning they resumed their journey among the hills, Rob Roy

directing their course by signs and marks on the heath which my informant

did not understand.

About noon Rob commanded the armed party to halt, and to lie couched in

the heather where it was thickest. "Do you and your son," he said to the

oldest Lowlander, "go boldly over the hill;--you will see beneath you, in

a glen on the other side, your master's cattle, feeding, it may be, with

others; gather your own together, taking care to disturb no one else, and

drive them to this place. If any one speak to or threaten you, tell them

that I am here, at the head of twenty men."--"But what if they abuse us,

or kill us?" said the Lowland, peasant, by no means delighted at finding

the embassy imposed on him and his son. "If they do you any wrong," said

Rob, "I will never forgive them as long as I live." The Lowlander was by

no means content with this security, but did not think it safe to dispute

Rob's injunctions.

[Illustration: Cattle Lifting--000]

He and his son climbed the hill therefore, found a deep valley, where

there grazed, as Rob had predicted, a large herd of cattle. They

cautiously selected those which their master had lost, and took measures

to drive them over the hill. As soon as they began to remove them, they

were surprised by hearing cries and screams; and looking around in fear

and trembling they saw a woman seeming to have started out of the earth,

who _flyted_ at them, that is, scolded them, in Gaelic. When they

contrived, however, in the best Gaelic they could muster, to deliver the

message Rob Roy told them, she became silent, and disappeared without

offering them any further annoyance. The chief heard their story on their

return, and spoke with great complacency of the art which he possessed of

putting such things to rights without any unpleasant bustle. The party

were now on their road home, and the danger, though not the fatigue, of

the expedition was at an end.

They drove on the cattle with little repose until it was nearly dark,

when Rob proposed to halt for the night upon a wide moor, across which a

cold north-east wind, with frost on its wing, was whistling to the tune

of the Pipers of Strath-Dearn.*

* The winds which sweep a wild glen in Badenoch are so called.

The Highlanders, sheltered by their plaids, lay down on the heath

comfortably enough, but the Lowlanders had no protection whatever. Rob

Roy observing this, directed one of his followers to afford the old man a

portion of his plaid; "for the callant (boy), he may," said the

freebooter, "keep himself warm by walking about and watching the cattle."

My informant heard this sentence with no small distress; and as the frost

wind grew more and more cutting, it seemed to freeze the very blood in

his young veins. He had been exposed to weather all his life, he said,

but never could forget the cold of that night; insomuch that, in the

bitterness of his heart, he cursed the bright moon for giving no heat

with so much light. At length the sense of cold and weariness became so

intolerable that he resolved to desert his watch to seek some repose and

shelter. With that purpose he couched himself down behind one of the most

bulky of the Highlanders, who acted as lieutenant to the party. Not

satisfied with having secured the shelter of the man's large person, he

coveted a share of his plaid, and by imperceptible degrees drew a corner

of it round him. He was now comparatively in paradise, and slept sound

till daybreak, when he awoke, and was terribly afraid on observing that

his nocturnal operations had altogether uncovered the dhuiniewassell's

neck and shoulders, which, lacking the plaid which should have protected

them, were covered with _cranreuch_ (_i.e._ hoar frost). The lad rose in

great dread of a beating, at least, when it should be found how

luxuriously he had been accommodated at the expense of a principal person

of the party. Good Mr. Lieutenant, however, got up and shook himself,

rubbing off the hoar frost with his plaid, and muttering something of a

_cauld neight._ They then drove on the cattle, which were restored to

their owner without farther adventure--The above can hardly be termed a

tale, but yet it contains materials both for the poet and artist.

It was perhaps about the same time that, by a rapid march into the

Balquhidder hills at the head of a body of his own tenantry, the Duke of

Montrose actually surprised Rob Roy, and made him prisoner. He was

mounted behind one of the Duke's followers, named James Stewart, and made

fast to him by a horse-girth. The person who had him thus in charge was

grandfather of the intelligent man of the same name, now deceased, who

lately kept the inn in the vicinity of Loch Katrine, and acted as a guide

to visitors through that beautiful scenery. From him I learned the story

many years before he was either a publican, or a guide, except to

moorfowl shooters.--It was evening (to resume the story), and the Duke

was pressing on to lodge his prisoner, so long sought after in vain, in

some place of security, when, in crossing the Teith or Forth, I forget

which, MacGregor took an opportunity to conjure Stewart, by all the ties

of old acquaintance and good neighbourhood, to give him some chance of an

escape from an assured doom. Stewart was moved with compassion, perhaps

with fear. He slipt the girth-buckle, and Rob, dropping down from behind

the horse's croupe, dived, swam, and escaped, pretty much as described in

the Novel. When James Stewart came on shore, the Duke hastily demanded

where his prisoner was; and as no distinct answer was returned, instantly

suspected Stewart's connivance at the escape of the Outlaw; and, drawing

a steel pistol from his belt, struck him down with a blow on the head,

from the effects of which, his descendant said, he never completely

recovered.

In the success of his repeated escapes from the pursuit of his powerful

enemy, Rob Roy at length became wanton and facetious. He wrote a mock

challenge to the Duke, which he circulated among his friends to amuse

them over a bottle. The reader will find this document in the Appendix.*

It is written in a good hand, and not particularly deficient in grammar

or spelling.

* Appendix, No. III.

Our Southern readers must be given to understand that it was a piece of

humour,--a _quiz,_ in short,--on the part of the Outlaw, who was too

sagacious to propose such a rencontre in reality. This letter was written

in the year 1719.

In the following year Rob Roy composed another epistle, very little to

his own reputation, as he therein confesses having played booty during

the civil war of 1715. It is addressed to General Wade, at that time

engaged in disarming the Highland clans, and making military roads

through the country. The letter is a singular composition. It sets out

the writer's real and unfeigned desire to have offered his service to

King George, but for his liability to be thrown into jail for a civil

debt, at the instance of the Duke of Montrose. Being thus debarred from

taking the right side, he acknowledged he embraced the wrong one, upon

Falstaff's principle, that since the King wanted men and the rebels

soldiers, it were worse shame to be idle in such a stirring world, than

to embrace the worst side, were it as black as rebellion could make it.

The impossibility of his being neutral in such a debate, Rob seems to lay

down as an undeniable proposition. At the same time, while he

acknowledges having been forced into an unnatural rebellion against King

George, he pleads that he not only avoided acting offensively against his

Majesty's forces on all occasions, but, on the contrary, sent to them

what intelligence he could collect from time to time; for the truth of

which he refers to his Grace the Duke of Argyle. What influence this plea

had on General Wade, we have no means of knowing.

Rob Roy appears to have continued to live very much as usual. His fame,

in the meanwhile, passed beyond the narrow limits of the country in which

he resided. A pretended history of him appeared in London during his

lifetime, under the title of the Highland Rogue. It is a catch-penny

publication, bearing in front the effigy of a species of ogre, with a

beard of a foot in length; and his actions are as much exaggerated as his

personal appearance. Some few of the best known adventures of the hero

are told, though with little accuracy; but the greater part of the

pamphlet is entirely fictitious. It is great pity so excellent a theme

for a narrative of the kind had not fallen into the hands of De Foe, who

was engaged at the time on subjects somewhat similar, though inferior in

dignity and interest.

As Rob Roy advanced in years, he became more peaceable in his habits, and

his nephew Ghlune Dhu, with most of his tribe, renounced those peculiar

quarrels with the Duke of Montrose, by which his uncle had been

distinguished. The policy of that great family had latterly been rather

to attach this wild tribe by kindness than to follow the mode of violence

which had been hitherto ineffectually resorted to. Leases at a low rent

were granted to many of the MacGregors, who had heretofore held

possessions in the Duke's Highland property merely by occupancy; and

Glengyle (or Black-knee), who continued to act as collector of

black-mail, managed his police, as a commander of the Highland watch

arrayed at the charge of Government. He is said to have strictly

abstained from the open and lawless depredations which his kinsman had

practised,

It was probably after this state of temporary quiet had been obtained,

that Rob Roy began to think of the concerns of his future state. He had

been bred, and long professed himself, a Protestant; but in his later

years he embraced the Roman Catholic faith,--perhaps on Mrs. Cole's

principle, that it was a comfortable religion for one of his calling. He

is said to have alleged as the cause of his conversion, a desire to

gratify the noble family of Perth, who were then strict Catholics.

Having, as he observed, assumed the name of the Duke of Argyle, his first

protector, he could pay no compliment worth the Earl of Perth's

acceptance save complying with his mode of religion. Rob did not pretend,

when pressed closely on the subject, to justify all the tenets of

Catholicism, and acknowledged that extreme unction always appeared to him

a great waste of _ulzie,_ or oil.*

* Such an admission is ascribed to the robber Donald Bean Lean in

Waverley, chap. lxii,

In the last years of Rob Roy's life, his clan was involved in a dispute

with one more powerful than themselves. Stewart of Appin, a chief of the

tribe so named, was proprietor of a hill-farm in the Braes of

Balquhidder, called Invernenty. The MacGregors of Rob Roy's tribe claimed

a right to it by ancient occupancy, and declared they would oppose to the

uttermost the settlement of any person upon the farm not being of their

own name. The Stewarts came down with two hundred men, well armed, to do

themselves justice by main force. The MacGregors took the field, but were

unable to muster an equal strength. Rob Roy, fending himself the weaker

party, asked a parley, in which he represented that both clans were

friends to the _King,_ and, that he was unwilling they should be weakened

by mutual conflict, and thus made a merit of surrendering to Appin the

disputed territory of Invernenty. Appin, accordingly, settled as tenants

there, at an easy quit-rent, the MacLarens, a family dependent on the

Stewarts, and from whose character for strength and bravery, it was

expected that they would make their right good if annoyed by the

MacGregors. When all this had been amicably adjusted, in presence of the

two clans drawn up in arms near the Kirk of Balquhidder, Rob Roy,

apparently fearing his tribe might be thought to have conceded too much

upon the occasion, stepped forward and said, that where so many gallant

men were met in arms, it would be shameful to part without it trial of

skill, and therefore he took the freedom to invite any gentleman of the

Stewarts present to exchange a few blows with him for the honour of their

respective clans. The brother-in-law of Appin, and second chieftain of

the clan, Alaster Stewart of Invernahyle, accepted the challenge, and

they encountered with broadsword and target before their respective

kinsmen.*

* Some accounts state that Appin himself was Rob Roy's antagonist on this

occasion. My recollection, from the account of Invernahyle himself, was

as stated in the text. But the period when I received the information is

now so distant, that it is possible I may be mistaken. Invernahyle was

rather of low stature, but very well made, athletic, and an excellent

swordsman.

The combat lasted till Rob received a slight wound in the arm, which was

the usual termination of such a combat when fought for honour only, and

not with a mortal purpose. Rob Roy dropped his point, and congratulated

his adversary on having been the first man who ever drew blood from him.

The victor generously acknowledged, that without the advantage of youth,

and the agility accompanying it, he probably could not have come off with

advantage.

This was probably one of Rob Roy's last exploits in arms. The time of his

death is not known with certainty, but he is generally said to have

survived 1738, and to have died an aged man. When he found himself

approaching his final change, he expressed some contrition for particular

parts of his life. His wife laughed at these scruples of conscience, and

exhorted him to die like a man, as he had lived. In reply, he rebuked her

for her violent passions, and the counsels she had given him. "You have

put strife," he said, "betwixt me and the best men of the country, and

now you would place enmity between me and my God."

There is a tradition, no way inconsistent with the former, if the

character of Rob Roy be justly considered, that while on his deathbed, he

learned that a person with whom he was at enmity proposed to visit him.

"Raise me from my bed," said the invalid; "throw my plaid around me, and

bring me my claymore, dirk, and pistols--it shall never be said that a

foeman saw Rob Roy MacGregor defenceless and unarmed." His foeman,

conjectured to be one of the MacLarens before and after mentioned,

entered and paid his compliments, inquiring after the health of his

formidable neighbour. Rob Roy maintained a cold haughty civility during

their short conference, and so soon as he had left the house. "Now," he

said, "all is over--let the piper play, _Ha til mi tulidh_" (we return no

more); and he is said to have expired before the dirge was finished.

This singular man died in bed in his own house, in the parish of

Balquhidder. He was buried in the churchyard of the same parish, where

his tombstone is only distinguished by a rude attempt at the figure of a

broadsword.

The character of Rob Roy is, of course, a mixed one. His sagacity,

boldness, and prudence, qualities so highly necessary to success in war,

became in some degree vices, from the manner in which they were employed.

The circumstances of his education, however, must be admitted as some

extenuation of his habitual transgressions against the law; and for his

political tergiversations, he might in that distracted period plead the

example of men far more powerful, and less excusable in becoming the

sport of circumstances, than the poor and desperate outlaw. On the other

hand, he was in the constant exercise of virtues, the more meritorious as

they seem inconsistent with his general character. Pursuing the

occupation of a predatory chieftain,--in modern phrase a captain of

banditti,--Rob Roy was moderate in his revenge, and humane in his

successes. No charge of cruelty or bloodshed, unless in battle, is

brought against his memory. In like manner, the formidable outlaw was the

friend of the poor, and, to the utmost of his ability, the support of the

widow and the orphan--kept his word when pledged--and died lamented in

his own wild country, where there were hearts grateful for his

beneficence, though their minds were not sufficiently instructed to

appreciate his errors.

The author perhaps ought to stop here; but the fate of a part of Rob

Roy's family was so extraordinary, as to call for a continuation of this

somewhat prolix account, as affording an interesting chapter, not on

Highland manners alone, but on every stage of society in which the people

of a primitive and half-civilised tribe are brought into close contact

with a nation, in which civilisation and polity have attained a complete

superiority.

Rob had five sons,--Coll, Ronald, James, Duncan, and Robert. Nothing

occurs worth notice concerning three of them; but James, who was a very

handsome man, seems to have had a good deal of his father's spirit, and

the mantle of Dougal Ciar Mhor had apparently descended on the shoulders

of Robin Oig, that is, young Robin. Shortly after Rob Roy's death, the

ill-will which the MacGregors entertained against the MacLarens again

broke out, at the instigation, it was said, of Rob's widow, who seems

thus far to have deserved the character given to her by her husband, as

an Ate' stirring up to blood and strife. Robin Oig, under her

instigation, swore that as soon as he could get back a certain gun which

had belonged to his father, and had been lately at Doune to be repaired,

he would shoot MacLaren, for having presumed to settle on his mother's

land.*

* This fatal piece was taken from Robin Oig, when he was seized many

years afterwards. It remained in possession of the magistrates before

whom he was brought for examination, and now makes part of a small

collection of arms belonging to the Author. It is a Spanish-barrelled

gun, marked with the letters R. M. C., for Robert MacGregor Campbell.

He was as good as his word, and shot MacLaren when between the stilts of

his plough, wounding him mortally.

The aid of a Highland leech was procured, who probed the wound with a

probe made out of a castock; _i.e._, the stalk of a colewort or cabbage.

This learned gentleman declared he would not venture to prescribe, not

knowing with what shot the patient had been wounded. MacLaren died, and

about the same time his cattle were houghed, and his live stock destroyed

in a barbarous manner.

Robin Oig, after this feat--which one of his biographers represents as

the unhappy discharge of a gun--retired to his mother's house, to boast

that he had drawn the first blood in the quarrel aforesaid. On the

approach of troops, and a body of the Stewarts, who were bound to take up

the cause of their tenant, Robin Oig absconded, and escaped all search.

The doctor already mentioned, by name Callam MacInleister, with James and

Ronald, brothers to the actual perpetrator of the murder, were brought to

trial. But as they contrived to represent the action as a rash deed

committed by "the daft callant Rob," to which they were not accessory,

the jury found their accession to the crime was Not Proven. The alleged

acts of spoil and violence on the MacLarens' cattle, were also found to

be unsupported by evidence. As it was proved, however, that the two

brothers, Ronald and James, were held and reputed thieves, they were

appointed to find caution to the extent of L200, for their good behaviour

for seven years.*

* Note D. Author's expedition against the MacLarens.

The spirit of clanship was at that time, so strong--to which must be

added the wish to secure the adherence of stout, able-bodied, and, as the

Scotch phrase then went, _pretty_ men--that the representative of the

noble family of Perth condescended to act openly as patron of the

MacGregors, and appeared as such upon their trial. So at least the author

was informed by the late Robert MacIntosh, Esq., advocate. The

circumstance may, however, have occurred later than 1736--the year in

which this first trial took place.

Robin Oig served for a time in the 42d regiment, and was present at the

battle of Fontenoy, where he was made prisoner and wounded. He was

exchanged, returned to Scotland, and obtained his discharge. He

afterwards appeared openly in the MacGregor's country; and,

notwithstanding his outlawry, married a daughter of Graham of Drunkie, a

gentleman of some property. His wife died a few years afterwards.

The insurrection of 1745 soon afterwards called the MacGregors to arms.

Robert MacGregor of Glencarnoch, generally regarded as the chief of the

whole name, and grandfather of Sir John, whom the clan received in that

character, raised a MacGregor regiment, with which he joined the standard

of the Chevalier. The race of Ciar Mhor, however, affecting independence,

and commanded by Glengyle and his cousin James Roy MacGregor, did not

join this kindred corps, but united themselves to the levies of the

titular Duke of Perth, until William MacGregor Drummond of Bolhaldie,

whom they regarded as head of their branch, of Clan Alpine, should come

over from France. To cement the union after the Highland fashion, James

laid down the name of Campbell, and assumed that of Drummond, in

compliment to Lord Perth. He was also called James Roy, after his father,

and James Mhor, or Big James, from his height. His corps, the relics of

his father Rob's band, behaved with great activity; with only twelve men

he succeeded in surprising and burning, for the second time, the fort at

Inversnaid, constructed for the express purpose of bridling the country

of the MacGregors.

What rank or command James MacGregor had, is uncertain. He calls himself

Major; and Chevalier Johnstone calls him Captain. He must have held rank

under Ghlune Dhu, his kinsman, but his active and audacious character

placed him above the rest of his brethren. Many of his followers were

unarmed; he supplied the want of guns and swords with scythe-blades set

straight upon their handles.

At the battle of Prestonpans, James Roy distinguished himself. "His

company," says Chevalier Johnstone, "did great execution with their

scythes." They cut the legs of the horses in two--the riders through the

middle of their bodies. MacGregor was brave and intrepid, but at the same

time, somewhat whimsical and singular. When advancing to the charge with

his company, he received five wounds, two of them from balls that pierced

his body through and through. Stretched on the ground, with his head

resting on his hand, he called out loudly to the Highlanders of his

company, "My lads, I am not dead. By G--, I shall see if any of you does

not do his duty." The victory, as is well known, was instantly obtained.

In some curious letters of James Roy,* it appears that his thigh-bone was

broken on this occasion, and that he, nevertheless, rejoined the army

with six companies, and was present at the battle of Culloden.

* Published in Blackwood's Magazine, vol. ii. p. 228.

After that defeat, the clan MacGregor kept together in a body, and did

not disperse till they had returned into their own country. They brought

James Roy with them in a litter; and, without being particularly

molested, he was permitted to reside in the MacGregor's country along

with his brothers.

James MacGregor Drummond was attainted for high treason with persons of

more importance. But it appears he had entered into some communication

with Government, as, in the letters quoted, he mentions having obtained a

pass from the Lord Justice-Clerk in 1747, which was a sufficient

protection to him from the military. The circumstance is obscurely stated

in one of the letters already quoted, but may perhaps, joined to

subsequent incidents, authorise the suspicion that James, like his

father, could look at both sides of the cards. As the confusion of the

country subsided, the MacGregors, like foxes which had baffled the

hounds, drew back to their old haunts, and lived unmolested. But an

atrocious outrage, in which the sons of Rob Roy were concerned, brought

at length on the family the full vengeance of the law.

James Roy was a married man, and had fourteen children. But his brother,

Robin Oig, was now a widower; and it was resolved, if possible, that he

should make his fortune by carrying off and marrying, by force if

necessary, some woman of fortune from the Lowlands.

The imagination of the half-civilised Highlanders was less shocked at the

idea of this particular species of violence, than might be expected from

their general kindness to the weaker sex when they make part of their own

families. But all their views were tinged with the idea that they lived

in a state of war; and in such a state, from the time of the siege of

Troy to "the moment when Previsa fell,"* the female captives are, to

uncivilised victors, the most valuable part of the booty--

* Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto II.

"The wealthy are slaughtered, the lovely are spared."

We need not refer to the rape of the Sabines, or to a similar instance in

the Book of Judges, for evidence that such deeds of violence have been

committed upon a large scale. Indeed, this sort of enterprise was so

common along the Highland line as to give rise to a variety of songs and

ballads.*

* See Appendix, No. VI.

The annals of Ireland, as well as those of Scotland, prove the crime to

have been common in the more lawless parts of both countries; and any

woman who happened to please a man of spirit who came of a good house,

and possessed a few chosen friends, and a retreat in the mountains, was

not permitted the alternative of saying him nay. What is more, it would

seem that the women themselves, most interested in the immunities of

their sex, were, among the lower classes, accustomed to regard such

marriages as that which is presently to be detailed as "pretty Fanny's

way," or rather, the way of Donald with pretty Fanny. It is not a great

many years since a respectable woman, above the lower rank of life,

expressed herself very warmly to the author on his taking the freedom to

censure the behaviour of the MacGregors on the occasion in question. She

said "that there was no use in giving a bride too much choice upon such

occasions; that the marriages were the happiest long syne which had been

done offhand." Finally, she averred that her "own mother had never seen

her father till the night he brought her up from the Lennox, with ten

head of black cattle, and there had not been a happier couple in the

country."

James Drummond and his brethren having similar opinions with the author's

old acquaintance, and debating how they might raise the fallen fortunes

of their clan, formed a resolution to settle their brother's fortune by

striking up an advantageous marriage betwixt Robin Oig and one Jean Key,

or Wright, a young woman scarce twenty years old, and who had been left

about two months a widow by the death of her husband. Her property was

estimated at only from 16,000 to 18,000 merks, but it seems to have been

sufficient temptation to these men to join in the commission of a great

crime.

This poor young victim lived with her mother in her own house at

Edinbilly, in the parish of Balfron and shire of Stirling. At this place,

in the night of 3d December 1750, the sons of Rob Roy, and particularly

James Mhor and Robin Oig, rushed into the house where the object of their

attack was resident, presented guns, swords, and pistols to the males of

the family, and terrified the women by threatening to break open the

doors if Jean Key was not surrendered, as, said James Roy, "his brother

was a young fellow determined to make his fortune." Having, at length,

dragged the object of their lawless purpose from her place of

concealment, they tore her from her mother's arms, mounted her on a horse

before one of the gang, and carried her off in spite, of her screams and

cries, which were long heard after the terrified spectators of the

outrage could no longer see the party retreat through the darkness. In

her attempts to escape, the poor young woman threw herself from the horse

on which they had placed her, and in so doing wrenched her side. They

then laid her double over the pummel of the saddle, and transported her

through the mosses and moors till the pain of the injury she had suffered

in her side, augmented by the uneasiness of her posture, made her consent

to sit upright. In the execution of this crime they stopped at more

houses than one, but none of the inhabitants dared interrupt their

proceedings. Amongst others who saw them was that classical and

accomplished scholar the late Professor William Richardson of Glasgow,

who used to describe as a terrible dream their violent and noisy entrance

into the house where he was then residing. The Highlanders filled the

little kitchen, brandishing their arms, demanding what they pleased, and

receiving whatever they demanded. James Mhor, he said, was a tall, stern,

and soldier-like man. Robin Oig looked more gentle; dark, but yet ruddy

in complexion--a good-looking young savage. Their victim was so

dishevelled in her dress, and forlorn in her appearance and demeanour,

that he could hardly tell whether she was alive or dead.

The gang carried the unfortunate woman to Rowardennan, where they had a

priest unscrupulous enough to read the marriage service, while James Mhor

forcibly held the bride up before him; and the priest declared the couple

man and wife, even while she protested against the infamy of his conduct.

Under the same threats of violence, which had been all along used to

enforce their scheme, the poor victim was compelled to reside with the

pretended husband who was thus forced upon her. They even dared to carry

her to the public church of Balquhidder, where the officiating clergyman

(the same who had been Rob Roy's pensioner) only asked them if they were

married persons. Robert MacGregor answered in the affirmative; the

terrified female was silent.

The country was now too effectually subjected to the law for this vile

outrage to be followed by the advantages proposed by the actors, Military

parties were sent out in every direction to seize the MacGregors, who

were for two or three weeks compelled to shift from one place to another

in the mountains, bearing the unfortunate Jean Key along with them. In

the meanwhile, the Supreme Civil Court issued a warrant, sequestrating

the property of Jean Key, or Wright, which removed out of the reach of

the actors in the violence the prize which they expected. They had,

however, adopted a belief of the poor woman's spirit being so far broken

that she would prefer submitting to her condition, and adhering to Robin

Oig as her husband, rather than incur the disgrace, of appearing in such

a cause in an open court. It was, indeed, a delicate experiment; but

their kinsman Glengyle, chief of their immediate family, was of a temper

averse to lawless proceedings;* and the captive's friends having had

recourse to his advice, they feared that he would withdraw his protection

if they refused to place the prisoner at liberty.

* Such, at least, was his general character; for when James Mhor, while

perpetrating the violence at Edinbilly, called out, in order to overawe

opposition, that Glengyle was lying in the moor with a hundred men to

patronise his enterprise, Jean Key told him he lied, since she was

confident Glengyle would never countenance so scoundrelly a business.

The brethren resolved, therefore, to liberate the unhappy woman, but

previously had recourse to every measure which should oblige her, either

from fear or otherwise, to own her marriage with Robin Oig. The

cailliachs (old Highland hags) administered drugs, which were designed to

have the effect of philtres, but were probably deleterious. James Mhor at

one time threatened, that if she did not acquiesce in the match she would

find that there were enough of men in the Highlands to bring the heads of

two of her uncles who were pursuing the civil lawsuit. At another time he

fell down on his knees, and confessed he had been accessory to wronging

her, but begged she would not ruin his innocent wife and large family.

She was made to swear she would not prosecute the brethren for the

offence they had committed; and she was obliged by threats to subscribe

papers which were tendered to her, intimating that she was carried off in

consequence of her own previous request.

James Mhor Drummond accordingly brought his pretended sister-in-law to

Edinburgh, where, for some little time, she was carried about from one

house to another, watched by those with whom she was lodged, and never

permitted to go out alone, or even to approach the window. The Court of

Session, considering the peculiarity of the case, and regarding Jean Key

as being still under some forcible restraint, took her person under their

own special charge, and appointed her to reside in the family of Mr.

Wightman of Mauldsley, a gentleman of respectability, who was married to

one of her near relatives. Two sentinels kept guard on the house day and

night--a precaution not deemed superfluous when the MacGregors were in

question. She was allowed to go out whenever she chose, and to see

whomsoever she had a mind, as well as the men of law employed in the

civil suit on either side. When she first came to Mr. Wightman's house

she seemed broken down with affright and suffering, so changed in

features that her mother hardly knew her, and so shaken in mind that she

scarce could recognise her parent. It was long before she could be

assured that she was in perfect safely. But when she at length received

confidence in her situation, she made a judicial declaration, or

affidavit, telling the full history of her wrongs, imputing to fear her

former silence on the subject, and expressing her resolution not to

prosecute those who had injured her, in respect of the oath she had been

compelled to take. From the possible breach of such an oath, though a

compulsory one, she was relieved by the forms of Scottish jurisprudence,

in that respect more equitable than those of England, prosecutions for

crimes being always conducted at the expense and charge of the King,

without inconvenience or cost to the private party who has sustained the

wrong. But the unhappy sufferer did not live to be either accuser or

witness against those who had so deeply injured her.

James Mhor Drummond had left Edinburgh so soon as his half-dead prey had

been taken from his clutches. Mrs. Key, or Wright, was released from her

species of confinement there, and removed to Glasgow, under the escort of

Mr. Wightman. As they passed the Hill of Shotts, her escort chanced to

say, "this is a very wild spot; what if the MacGregors should come upon

us?"--"God forbid!" was her immediate answer, "the very sight of them

would kill me." She continued to reside at Glasgow, without venturing to

return to her own house at Edinbilly. Her pretended husband made some

attempts to obtain an interview with her, which she steadily rejected.

She died on the 4th October 1751. The information for the Crown hints

that her decease might be the consequence of the usage she received. But

there is a general report that she died of the small-pox. In the

meantime, James Mhor, or Drummond, fell into the hands of justice. He was

considered as the instigator of the whole affair. Nay, the deceased had

informed her friends that on the night of her being carried off, Robin

Oig, moved by her cries and tears, had partly consented to let her

return, when James came up with a pistol in his hand, and, asking whether

he was such a coward as to relinquish an enterprise in which he had

risked everything to procure him a fortune, in a manner compelled his

brother to persevere. James's trial took place on 13th July 1752, and was

conducted with the utmost fairness and impartiality. Several witnesses,

all of the MacGregor family, swore that the marriage was performed with

every appearance of acquiescence on the woman's part; and three or four

witnesses, one of them sheriff-substitute of the county, swore she might

have made her escape if she wished, and the magistrate stated that he

offered her assistance if she felt desirous to do so. But when asked why

he, in his official capacity, did not arrest the MacGregors, he could

only answer, that he had not force sufficient to make the attempt.

The judicial declarations of Jean Key, or Wright, stated the violent

manner in which she had been carried off, and they were confirmed by many

of her friends, from her private communications with them, which the

event of her death rendered good evidence. Indeed, the fact of her

abduction (to use a Scottish law term) was completely proved by impartial

witnesses. The unhappy woman admitted that she had pretended acquiescence

in her fate on several occasions, because she dared not trust such as

offered to assist her to escape, not even the sheriff-substitute.

The jury brought in a special verdict, finding that Jean Key, or Wright,

had been forcibly carried off from her house, as charged in the

indictment, and that the accused had failed to show that she was herself

privy and consenting to this act of outrage. But they found the forcible

marriage, and subsequent violence, was not proved; and also found, in

alleviation of the panel's guilt in the premises, that Jean Key did

afterwards acquiesce in her condition. Eleven of the jury, using the

names of other four who were absent, subscribed a letter to the Court,

stating it was their purpose and desire, by such special verdict, to take

the panel's case out of the class of capital crimes.

Learned informations (written arguments) on the import of the verdict,

which must be allowed a very mild one in the circumstances, were laid

before the High Court of Justiciary. This point is very learnedly debated

in these pleadings by Mr. Grant, Solicitor for the Crown, and the

celebrated Mr. Lockhart, on the part of the prisoner; but James Mhor did

not wait the event of the Court's decision.

He had been committed to the Castle of Edinburgh on some reports that an

escape would be attempted. Yet he contrived to achieve his liberty even

from that fortress. His daughter had the address to enter the prison,

disguised as a cobbler, bringing home work, as she pretended. In this

cobbler's dress her father quickly arrayed himself. The wife and daughter

of the prisoner were heard by the sentinels scolding the supposed cobbler

for having done his work ill, and the man came out with his hat slouched

over his eyes, and grumbling, as if at the manner in which they had

treated him. In this way the prisoner passed all the guards without

suspicion, and made his escape to France. He was afterwards outlawed by

the Court of Justiciary, which proceeded to the trial of Duncan

MacGregor, or Drummond, his brother, 15th January 1753. The accused had

unquestionably been with the party which carried off Jean Key; but no

evidence being brought which applied to him individually and directly,

the jury found him not guilty--and nothing more is known of his fate.

That of James MacGregor, who, from talent and activity, if not by

seniority, may be considered as head of the family, has been long

misrepresented; as it has been generally averred in Law Reports, as well

as elsewhere, that his outlawry was reversed, and that he returned and

died in Scotland. But the curious letters published in Blackwood's

Magazine for December 1817, show this to be an error. The first of these

documents is a petition to Charles Edward. It is dated 20th September

1753, and pleads his service to the cause of the Stuarts, ascribing his

exile to the persecution of the Hanoverian Government, without any

allusion to the affair of Jean Key, or the Court of Justiciary. It is

stated to be forwarded by MacGregor Drummond of Bohaldie, whom, as before

mentioned, James Mhor acknowledged as his chief.

The effect which this petition produced does not appear. Some temporary

relief was perhaps obtained. But, soon after, this daring adventurer was

engaged in a very dark intrigue against an exile of his own country, and

placed pretty nearly in his own circumstances. A remarkable Highland

story must be here briefly alluded to. Mr. Campbell of Glenure, who had

been named factor for Government on the forfeited estates of Stewart of

Ardshiel, was shot dead by an assassin as he passed through the wood of

Lettermore, after crossing the ferry of Ballachulish. A gentleman, named

James Stewart, a natural brother of Ardshiel, the forfeited person, was

tried as being accessory to the murder, and condemned and executed upon

very doubtful evidence; the heaviest part of which only amounted to the

accused person having assisted a nephew of his own, called Allan Breck

Stewart, with money to escape after the deed was done. Not satisfied with

this vengeance, which was obtained in a manner little to the honour of

the dispensation of justice at the time, the friends of the deceased

Glenure were equally desirous to obtain possession of the person of Allan

Breck Stewart, supposed to be the actual homicide. James Mhor Drummond

was secretly applied to to trepan Stewart to the sea-coast, and bring him

over to Britain, to almost certain death. Drummond MacGregor had kindred

connections with the slain Glenure; and, besides, the MacGregors and

Campbells had been friends of late, while the former clan and the

Stewarts had, as we have seen, been recently at feud; lastly, Robert Oig

was now in custody at Edinburgh, and James was desirous to do some

service by which his brother might be saved. The joint force of these

motives may, in James's estimation of right and wrong, have been some

vindication for engaging in such an enterprise, although, as must be

necessarily supposed, it could only be executed by treachery of a gross

description. MacGregor stipulated for a license to return to England,

promising to bring Allan Breck thither along with him. But the intended

victim was put upon his guard by two countrymen, who suspected James's

intentions towards him. He escaped from his kidnapper, after, as

MacGregor alleged, robbing his portmanteau of some clothes and four

snuff-boxes. Such a charge, it may be observed, could scarce have been

made unless the parties had been living on a footing of intimacy, and had

access to each other's baggage.

Although James Drummond had thus missed his blow in the matter of Allan

Breck Stewart, he used his license to make a journey to London, and had

an interview, as he avers, with Lord Holdernesse. His Lordship, and the

Under-Secretary, put many puzzling questions to him; and, as he says,

offered him a situation, which would bring him bread, in the Government's

service. This office was advantageous as to emolument; but in the opinion

of James Drummond, his acceptance of it would have been a disgrace to his

birth, and have rendered him a scourge to his country. If such a tempting

offer and sturdy rejection had any foundation in fact, it probably

relates to some plan of espionage on the Jacobites, which the Government

might hope to carry on by means of a man who, in the matter of Allan

Breck Stewart, had shown no great nicety of feeling. Drummond MacGregor

was so far accommodating as to intimate his willingness to act in any

station in which other gentlemen of honour served, but not otherwise;--an

answer which, compared with some passages of his past life, may remind

the reader of Ancient Pistol standing upon his reputation.

Having thus proved intractable, as he tells the story, to the proposals

of Lord Holdernesse, James Drummond was ordered instantly to quit

England.

On his return to France, his condition seems to have been utterly

disastrous. He was seized with fever and gravel--ill, consequently, in

body, and weakened and dispirited in mind. Allan Breck Stewart threatened

to put him to death in revenge of the designs he had harboured against

him.*

* Note E. Allan Breck Stewart.

The Stewart clan were in the highest degree unfriendly to him: and his

late expedition to London had been attended with many suspicious

circumstances, amongst which it was not the slightest that he had kept

his purpose secret from his chief Bohaldie. His intercourse with Lord

Holdernesse was suspicious. The Jacobites were probably, like Don Bernard

de Castel Blaze, in Gil Blas, little disposed to like those who kept

company with Alguazils. Mac-Donnell of Lochgarry, a man of unquestioned

honour, lodged an information against James Drummond before the High

Bailie of Dunkirk, accusing him of being a spy, so that he found himself

obliged to leave that town and come to Paris, with only the sum of

thirteen livres for his immediate subsistence, and with absolute beggary

staring him in the face.

We do not offer the convicted common thief, the accomplice in MacLaren's

assassination, or the manager of the outrage against Jean Key, as an

object of sympathy; but it is melancholy to look on the dying struggles

even of a wolf or a tiger, creatures of a species directly hostile to our

own; and, in like manner, the utter distress of this man, whose faults

may have sprung from a wild system of education, working on a haughty

temper, will not be perused without some pity. In his last letter to

Bohaldie, dated Paris, 25th September 1754, he describes his state of

destitution as absolute, and expresses himself willing to exercise his

talents in breaking or breeding horses, or as a hunter or fowler, if he

could only procure employment in such an inferior capacity till something

better should occur. An Englishman may smile, but a Scotchman will sigh

at the postscript, in which the poor starving exile asks the loan of his

patron's bagpipes that he might play over some of the melancholy tunes of

his own land. But the effect of music arises, in a great degree, from

association; and sounds which might jar the nerves of a Londoner or

Parisian, bring back to the Highlander his lofty mountain, wild lake, and

the deeds of his fathers of the glen. To prove MacGregor's claim to our

reader's compassion, we here insert the last part of the letter alluded

to.

"By all appearance I am born to suffer crosses, and it seems they're not

at an end; for such is my wretched case at present, that I do not know

earthly where to go or what to do, as I have no subsistence to keep body

and soul together. All that I have carried here is about 13 livres, and

have taken a room at my old quarters in Hotel St. Pierre, Rue de Cordier.

I send you the bearer, begging of you to let me know if you are to be in

town soon, that I may have the pleasure of seeing you, for I have none to

make application to but you alone; and all I want is, if it was possible

you could contrive where I could be employed without going to entire

beggary. This probably is a difficult point, yet unless it's attended

with some difficulty, you might think nothing of it, as your long head

can bring about matters of much more difficulty and consequence than

this. If you'd disclose this matter to your friend Mr. Butler, it's

possible he might have some employ wherein I could be of use, as I

pretend to know as much of breeding and riding of horse as any in France,

besides that I am a good hunter either on horseback or by footing. You

may judge my reduction, as I propose the meanest things to lend a turn

till better cast up. I am sorry that I am obliged to give you so much

trouble, but I hope you are very well assured that I am grateful for what

you have done for me, and I leave you to judge of my present wretched

case. I am, and shall for ever continue, dear Chief, your own to command,

Jas. MacGregor.

"P. S.--If you'd send your pipes by the bearer, and all the other little

trinkims belonging to it, I would put them in order, and play some

melancholy tunes, which I may now with safety, and in real truth. Forgive

my not going directly to you, for if I could have borne the seeing of

yourself, I could not choose to be seen by my friends in my wretchedness,

nor by any of my acquaintance."

While MacGregor wrote in this disconsolate manner, Death, the sad but

sure remedy for mortal evils, and decider of all doubts and

uncertainties, was hovering near him. A memorandum on the back of the

letter says the writer died about a week after, in October 1754.

It now remains to mention the fate of Robin Oig--for the other sons of

Rob Roy seem to have been no way distinguished. Robin was apprehended by

a party of military from the fort of Inversnaid, at the foot of Gartmore,

and was conveyed to Edinburgh 26th May 1753. After a delay, which may

have been protracted by the negotiations of James for delivering up Allan

Breck Stewart upon promise of his brother's life, Robin Oig, on the 24th

of December 1753, was brought to the bar of the High Court of Justiciary,

and indicted by the name of Robert MacGregor, alias Campbell, alias

Drummond, alias Robert Oig; and the evidence led against him resembled

exactly that which was brought by the Crown on the former trial. Robert's

case was in some degree more favourable than his brother's;--for, though

the principal in the forcible marriage, he had yet to plead that he had

shown symptoms of relenting while they were carrying Jean Key off, which

were silenced by the remonstrances and threats of his harder natured

brother James. A considerable space of time had also elapsed since the

poor woman died, which is always a strong circumstance in favour of the

accused; for there is a sort of perspective in guilt, and crimes of an

old date seem less odious than those of recent occurrence. But

notwithstanding these considerations, the jury, in Robert's case, did not

express any solicitude to save his life as they had done that of James.

They found him guilty of being art and part in the forcible abduction of

Jean Key from her own dwelling.*

* The Trials of the Sons of Rob Roy, with anecdotes of Himself and his

Family, were published at Edinburgh, 1818, in 12mo.

Robin Oig was condemned to death, and executed on the 14th February 1754.

At the place of execution he behaved with great decency; and professing

himself a Catholic, imputed all his misfortunes to his swerving from the

true church two or three years before. He confessed the violent methods

he had used to gain Mrs. Key, or Wright, and hoped his fate would stop

further proceedings against his brother James.*

* James died near three months before, but his family might easily remain

a long time without the news of that event.

The newspapers observed that his body, after hanging the usual time, was

delivered to his friends to be carried to the Highlands. To this the

recollection of a venerable friend, recently taken from us in the fulness

of years, then a schoolboy at Linlithgow, enables the author to add, that

a much larger body of MacGregors than had cared to advance to Edinburgh

received the corpse at that place with the coronach and other wild

emblems of Highland mourning, and so escorted it to Balquhidder. Thus we

may conclude this long account of Rob Roy and his family with the classic

phrase,

Ite. Conclamatum est.

I have only to add, that I have selected the above from many anecdotes of

Rob Roy which were, and may still be, current among the mountains where

he flourished; but I am far from warranting their exact authenticity.

Clannish partialities were very apt to guide the tongue and pen, as well

as the pistol and claymore, and the features of an anecdote are

wonderfully softened or exaggerated as the story is told by a MacGregor

or a Campbell.

APPENDIX TO INTRODUCTION.

No. I.--ADVERTISEMENT

FOR THE APPREHENSION OF ROB ROY.

(From the Edinburgh Evening Courant, June 18 to June 21, A.D. 1732. No.

1058.)

"That Robert Campbell, commonly known by the name of Rob Roy MacGregor,

being lately intrusted by several noblemen and gentlemen with

considerable sums for buying cows for them in the Highlands, has

treacherously gone off with the money, to the value of L1000 sterling,

which he carries along with him. All Magistrates and Officers of his

Majesty's forces are intreated to seize upon the said Rob Roy, and the

money which he carries with him, until the persons concerned in the money

be heard against him; and that notice be given, when he is apprehended,

to the keepers of the Exchange Coffee-house at Edinburgh, and the keeper

of the Coffee-house at Glasgow, where the parties concerned will be

advertised, and the seizers shall be very reasonably rewarded for their

pains."

It is unfortunate that this Hue and Cry, which is afterwards repeated in

the same paper, contains no description of Rob Roy's person, which, of

course, we must suppose to have been pretty generally known. As it is

directed against Rob Roy personally, it would seem to exclude the idea of

the cattle being carried off by his partner, MacDonald, who would

certainly have been mentioned in the advertisement, if the creditors

concerned had supposed him to be in possession of the money.

No. II.--LETTERS

FROM AND TO THE DUKE OF MONTROSE

RESPECTING ROB ROY'S ARREST OF MR. GRAHAME OF KILLEARN.

_The Duke of Montrose to--_*

* It does not appear to whom this letter was addressed. Certainly, from

its style and tenor, It was designed for some person high in rank and

office--perhaps the King's Advocate for the time.

"Glasgow, the 21st November, 1716.

"My Lord,--I was surprised last night with the account of a very

remarkable instance of the insolence of that very notorious rogue Rob

Roy, whom your lordship has often heard named. The honour of his

Majesty's Government being concerned in it, I thought it my duty to

acquaint your lordship of the particulars by an express.

"Mr. Grahame of Killearn (whom I have had occasion to mention frequently

to you, for the good service he did last winter during the rebellion)

having the charge of my Highland estate, went to Monteath, which is a

part of it, on Monday last, to bring in my rents, it being usual for him

to be there for two or three nights together at this time of the year, in

a country house, for the conveniency of meeting the tenants, upon that

account. The same night, about 9 of the clock, Rob Roy, with a party of

those ruffians whom he has still kept about him since the late rebellion,

surrounded the house where Mr. Grahame was with some of my tenants doing

his business, ordered his men to present their guns in att the windows of

the room where he was sitting, while he himself at the same time with

others entered at the door, with cocked pistols, and made Mr. Grahame

prisoner, carrying him away to the hills with the money he had got, his

books and papers, and my tenants' bonds for their fines, amounting to

above a thousand pounds sterling, whereof the one-half had been paid last

year, and the other was to have been paid now; and att the same time had

the insolence to cause him to write a letter to me (the copy of which is

enclosed) offering me terms of a treaty.

"That your Lordship may have the better view of this matter, it will be

necessary that I should inform you, that this fellow has now, of a long

time, put himself at the head of the Clan M'Gregor, a race of people who

in all ages have distinguished themselves beyond others, by robberies,

depredations, and murders, and have been the constant harbourers and

entertainers of vagabonds and loose people. From the time of the

Revolution he has taken every opportunity to appear against the

Government, acting rather as a robber than doing any real service to

those whom he pretended to appear for, and has really done more mischief

to the countrie than all the other Highlanders have done.

"Some three or four years before the last rebellion broke out, being

overburdened with debts, he quitted his ordinary residence, and removed

some twelve or sixteen miles farther into the Highlands, putting himself

under the protection of the Earl of Bredalbin. When my Lord Cadogan was

in the Highlands, he ordered his house att this place to be burnt, which

your Lordship sees he now places to my account.

"This obliges him to return to the same countrie he went from, being a

most rugged inaccessible place, where he took up his residence anew

amongst his own friends and relations; but well judging that it was

possible to surprise him, he, with about forty-five of his followers,

went to Inverary, and made a sham surrender of their arms to Coll.

Campbell of Finab, Commander of one of the Independent Companies, and

returned home with his men, each of them having the Coll.'s protection.

This happened in the beginning of summer last; yet not long after he

appeared with his men twice in arms, in opposition to the King's troops:

and one of those times attackt them, rescued a prisoner from them, and

all this while sent abroad his party through the countrie, plundering the

countrie people, and amongst the rest some of my tenants.

"Being informed of these disorders after I came to Scotland, I applied to

Lieut.-Genll. Carpenter, who ordered three parties from Glasgow,

Stirling, and Finlarig, to march in the night by different routes, in

order to surprise him and his men in their houses, which would have its

effect certainly, if the great rains that happened to fall that verie

night had not retarded the march of the troops, so as some of the parties

came too late to the stations that they were ordered for. All that could

be done upon the occasion was to burn a countrie house, where Rob Roy

then resided, after some of his clan had, from the rocks, fired upon the

king's troops, by which a grenadier was killed.

"Mr. Grahame of Killearn, being my deputy-sheriff in that countrie, went

along with the party that marched from Stirling; and doubtless will now

meet with the worse treatment from that barbarous people on that account.

Besides, that he is my relation, and that they know how active he has

been in the service of the Government--all which, your Lordship may

believe, puts me under very great concern for the gentleman, while, at

the same time, I can foresee no manner of way how to relieve him, other

than to leave him to chance and his own management.

"I had my thoughts before of proposing to Government the building of some

barracks as the only expedient for suppressing these rebels, and securing

the peace of the countrie; and in that view I spoke to Genll. Carpenter,

who has now a scheme of it in his hands; and I am persuaded that will be

the true method for restraining them effectually; but, in the meantime,

it will be necessary to lodge some of the troops in those places, upon

which I intend to write to the Generall.

"I am sensible I have troubled your Lordship with a very long letter,

which I should be ashamed of, were I myself singly concerned; but where

the honour of the King's Government is touched, I need make no apologie,

and I shall only beg leave to add, that I am, with great respect, and

truth,

"My Lord,

"yr. Lords. most humble and obedient servant,

"MONTROSE"

COPY OF GRAHAME OF KILLEARN'S LETTER, ENCLOSED IN THE PRECEDING.

"Chappellarroch, Nov. 19th, 1716.

"May it please your Grace,--I am obliged to give your Grace the trouble

of this, by Robert Roy's commands, being so unfortunate at present as to

be his prisoner. I refer the way and manner I was apprehended, to the

bearer, and shall only, in short, acquaint your Grace with the demands,

which are, that your Grace shall discharge him of all soumes he owes your

Grace, and give him the soume of 3400 merks for his loss and damages

sustained by him, both at Craigrostown and at his house, Auchinchisallen;

and that your Grace shall give your word not to trouble or prosecute him

afterwards; till which time he carries me, all the money I received this

day, my books and bonds for entress, not yet paid, along with him, with

assurance of hard usage, if any party are sent after him. The soume I

received this day, conform to the nearest computation I can make before

several of the gentlemen, is 3227L. 2sh. 8d. Scots, of which I gave them

notes. I shall wait your Grace's return, and ever am,

"Your Grace's most obedient, faithful,

"humble servant,

_Sic subscribitur,_

"John Grahame."

THE DUKE OF MONTROSE TO ----

28_th Nov._ 1716--_Killearn's Release._

"Glasgow, 28th Nov. 1716.

"Sir,--Having acquainted you by my last, of the 21st instant, of what had

happened to my friend, Mr. Grahame of Killearn, I'm very glad now to tell

you, that last night I was very agreeably surprised with Mr. Grahame's

coming here himself, and giving me the first account I had had of him

from the time of his being carried away. It seems Rob Roy, when he came

to consider a little better of it, found that, he could not mend his

matters by retaining Killearn his prisoner, which could only expose him

still the more to the justice of the Government; and therefore thought

fit to dismiss him on Sunday evening last, having kept him from the

Monday night before, under a very uneasy kind of restraint, being obliged

to change continually from place to place. He gave him back the books,

papers, and bonds, but kept the money.

"I am, with great truth, Sir,

"your most humble servant,

"MONTROSE."

[Some papers connected with Rob Roy Macgregor, signed "Ro. Campbell," in

1711, were lately presented to the Society of Antiquaries. One of these

is a kind of contract between the Duke of Montrose and Rob Roy, by which

the latter undertakes to deliver within a given time "Sixtie good and

sufficient Kintaill highland Cowes, betwixt the age of five and nine

years, at fourtene pounds Scotts per peice, with ane bull to the bargane,

and that at the head dykes of Buchanan upon the twenty-eight day of May

next."--Dated December 1711.--See _Proceedings,_ vol. vii. p. 253.]

No. III.--CHALLENGE BY ROB ROY.

"Rob Roy _to ain hie and mighty Prince,_ James Duke of Montrose.

"In charity to your Grace's couradge and conduct, please know, the only

way to retrive both is to treat Rob Roy like himself, in appointing tyme,

place, and choice of arms, that at once you may extirpate your inveterate

enemy, or put a period to your punny (puny?) life in falling gloriously

by his hands. That impertinent criticks or flatterers may not brand me

for challenging a man that's repute of a poor dastardly soul, let such

know that I admit of the two great supporters of his character and the

captain of his bands to joyne with him in the combat. Then sure your

Grace wont have the impudence to clamour att court for multitudes to hunt

me like a fox, under pretence that I am not to be found above ground.

This saves your Grace and the troops any further trouble of searching;

that is, if your ambition of glory press you to embrace this unequald

venture offerd of Rob's head. But if your Grace's piety, prudence, and

cowardice, forbids hazarding this gentlemanly expedient, then let your

desire of peace restore what you have robed from me by the tyranny of

your present cituation, otherwise your overthrow as a man is determined;

and advertise your friends never more to look for the frequent civility

payed them, of sending them home without their arms only. Even their

former cravings wont purchase that favour; so your Grace by this has

peace in your offer, if the sound of wax be frightful, and chuse you

whilk, your good friend or mortal enemy."

This singular rhodomontade is enclosed in a letter to a friend of Rob

Roy, probably a retainer of the Duke of Argyle in Isle, which is in these

words:--

"Sir,--Receive the enclosd paper, qn you are takeing yor Botle it will

divert yorself and comrad's. I gote noe news since I seed you, only qt

wee had before about the Spainyard's is like to continue. If I'll get any

further account about them I'll be sure to let you know of it, and till

then I will not write any more till I'll have more sure account, and I am

"Sir, your most affectionate Cn [cousin],

"and most humble servant,

"Ro: Roy."

"_Apryle_ 16_th,_ 1719.

"To Mr. Patrick Anderson, at Hay--These.'

The seal, _a stag_--no bad emblem of a wild cateran.

It appears from the envelope that Rob Roy still continued to act as

Intelligencer to the Duke of Argyle, and his agents. The war he alludes

to is probably some vague report of invasion from Spain. Such rumours

were likely enough to be afloat, in consequence of the disembarkation of

the troops who were taken at Glensheal in the preceding year, 1718.

No. IV.--LETTER

FROM ROBERT CAMPBELL, _alias_ M'GREGOR,

COMMONLY CALLED ROB ROY, TO FIELD-MARSHAL WADE,

Then receiving the submission of disaffected Chieftains and Clans.*

* This curious epistle is copied from an authentic narrative of Marshal

Wade's proceedings in the Highlands, communicated by the late eminent

antiquary, George Chalmers, Esq., to Mr. Robert Jamieson, of the Register

House, Edinburgh, and published in the Appendix to an Edition of Burt's

Letters from the North of Scotland, 2 vols. 8vo, Edinburgh, 1818.

Sir,--The great humanity with which you have constantly acted in the

discharge of the trust reposed in you, and your ever having made use of

the great powers with which you were vested as the means of doing good

and charitable offices to such as ye found proper objects of compassion,

will, I hope, excuse my importunity in endeavouring to approve myself not

absolutely unworthy of that mercy and favour which your Excellency has so

generously procured from his Majesty for others in my unfortunate

circumstances. I am very sensible nothing can be alledged sufficient to

excuse so great a crime as I have been guilty of it, that of Rebellion.

But I humbly beg leave to lay before your Excellency some particulars in

the circumstance of my guilt, which, I hope, will extenuate it in some

measure. It was my misfortune, at the time the Rebellion broke out, to be

liable to legal diligence and caption, at the Duke of Montrose's

instance, for debt alledged due to him. To avoid being flung into prison,

as I must certainly have been, had I followed my real inclinations in

joining the King's troops at Stirling, I was forced to take party with

the adherents of the Pretender; for the country being all in arms, it was

neither safe nor indeed possible for me to stand neuter. I should not,

however, plead my being forced into that unnatural rebellion against his

Majesty, King George, if I could not at the same time assure your

Excellency, that I not only avoided acting offensively against his

Majesty's forces upon all occasions, but on the contrary, sent his Grace

the Duke of Argyle all the intelligence I could from time to time, of the

strength and situation of the rebels; which I hope his Grace will do me

the justice to acknowledge. As to the debt to the Duke of Montrose, I

have discharged it to the utmost farthing. I beg your Excellency would be

persuaded that, had it been in my power, as it was in my inclination, I

should always have acted for the service of his Majesty King George, and

that one reason of my begging the favour of your intercession with his

Majesty for the pardon of my life, is the earnest desire I have to employ

it in his service, whose goodness, justice, and humanity, are so

conspicuous to all mankind.--I am, with all duty and respect, your

Excellency's most, &c.,

"Robert Campbell."

No. IVa.--LETTER.

ESCAPE OF ROB ROY FROM THE DUKE OF ATHOLE.

The following copy of a letter which passed from one clergyman of the

Church of Scotland to another, was communicated to me by John Gregorson,

Esq. of Ardtornish. The escape of Rob Roy is mentioned, like other

interesting news of the time with which it is intermingled. The

disagreement between the Dukes of Athole and Argyle seems to have

animated the former against Rob Roy, as one of Argyle's partisans.

"Rev. and dear Brother,

Yrs of the 28th Jun I had by the bearer. Im pleased yo have got back

again yr Delinquent which may probably safe you of the trouble of her

child. I'm sory I've yet very little of certain news to give you from

Court tho' I've seen all the last weekes prints, only I find in them a

pasage which is all the account I can give you of the Indemnity yt when

the estates of forfaulted Rebells Comes to be sold all Just debts

Documented are to be preferred to Officers of the Court of enquiry. The

Bill in favours of that Court against the Lords of Session in Scotland in

past the house of Commons and Come before the Lords which is thought to

be considerably more ample yn formerly wt respect to the Disposeing of

estates Canvassing and paying of Debts. It's said yt the examinations of

Cadugans accounts is droped but it wants Confirmations here as yet.

Oxford's tryals should be entered upon Saturday last. We hear that the

Duchess of Argyle is wt child. I doe not hear yt the Divisions at Court

are any thing abated or of any appearance of the Dukes having any thing

of his Maj: favour. I heartily wish the present humours at Court may not

prove an encouragmt to watchfull and restles enemies.

My accounts of Rob Roy his escape are yt after severall Embassies between

his Grace (who I hear did Correspond wt some at Court about it) and Rob

he at length upon promise of protectione Came to waite upon the Duke &

being presently secured his Grace sent post to Edr to acquent the Court

of his being aprehended & call his friends at Edr and to desire a party

from Gen Carpinter to receive and bring him to Edr which party came the

length of Kenross in Fife, he was to be delivered to them by a party his

Grace had demanded from the Governour at Perth, who when upon their march

towards Dunkell to receive him, were mete wt and returned by his Grace

having resolved to deliver him by a party of his own men and left Rob at

Logierate under a strong guard till yt party should be ready to receive

him. This space of time Rob had Imployed in taking the other dram

heartily wt the Guard & qn all were pretty hearty, Rob is delivering a

letter for his wife to a servant to whom he most needs deliver some

private instructions at the Door (for his wife) where he's attended wt on

the Guard. When serious in this privat Conversations he is making some

few steps carelessly from the Door about the house till he comes close by

this horse which he soon mounted and made off. This is no small

mortifican to the guard because of the delay it give to there hopes of a

Considerable additionall charge agt John Roy.* my wife was upon Thursday

last delivered of a Son after sore travell of which she still continues

very weak.

* _i.e._ John the Red--John Duke of Argyle, so called from his

complexion, more commonly styled "Red John the Warriour."

I give yl Lady hearty thanks for the Highland plaid. It's good cloath but

it does not answer the sett I sent some time agae wt McArthur & tho it

had I told in my last yt my wife was obliged to provid herself to finish

her bed before she was lighted but I know yt letr came not timely to yr

hand--I'm sory I had not mony to send by the bearer having no thought of

it & being exposed to some little expenses last week but I expect some

sure occasion when order by a letter to receive it excuse this freedom

from &c.

"_Manse of Comrie, July_ 2_d,_ 1717.

"I salute yr lady I wish my ............ her Daughter much Joy."

No. V.--HIGHLAND WOOING.

There are many productions of the Scottish Ballad Poets upon the

lion-like mode of wooing practised by the ancient Highlanders when they

had a fancy for the person (or property) of a Lowland damsel. One example

is found in Mr. Robert Jamieson's Popular Scottish Songs:--

Bonny Babby Livingstone

Gaed out to see the kye,

And she has met with Glenlyon,

Who has stolen her away.

He took free her her sattin coat,

But an her silken gown,

Syne roud her in his tartan plaid,

And happd her round and roun'.

In another ballad we are told how--

Four-and-twenty Hieland men,

Came doun by Fiddoch Bide,

And they have sworn a deadly aith,

Jean Muir suld be a bride:

And they have sworn a deadly aith,

Ilke man upon his durke,

That she should wed with Duncan Ger,

Or they'd make bloody works.

This last we have from tradition, but there are many others in the

collections of Scottish Ballads to the same purpose.

The achievement of Robert Oig, or young Rob Roy, as the Lowlanders called

him, was celebrated in a ballad, of which there are twenty different and

various editions. The tune is lively and wild, and we select the

following words from memory:--

Rob Roy is frae the Hielands come,

Down to the Lowland border;

And he has stolen that lady away,

To haud his house in order.

He set her on a milk-white steed,

Of none he stood in awe;

Untill they reached the Hieland hills,

Aboon the Balmaha'!*

* A pass on the eastern margin of Loch Lomond, and an entrance to the

Highlands.

Saying, Be content, be content,

Be content with me, lady;

Where will ye find in Lennox land,

Sae braw a man as me, lady?

Rob Roy he was my father called,

MacGregor was his name, lady;

A' the country, far and near,

Have heard MacGregor's fame, lady.

He was a hedge about his friends,

A heckle to his foes, lady;

If any man did him gainsay,

He felt his deadly blows, lady.

I am as bold, I am as bold,

I am as bold and more, lady;

Any man that doubts my word,

May try my gude claymore, lady.

Then be content, be content.

Be content with me, lady;

For now you are my wedded wife,

Until the day you die, lady.

No. VI--GHLUNE DHU.

The following notices concerning this Chief fell under the Author's eye

while the sheets were in the act of going through the press. They occur

in manuscript memoirs, written by a person intimately acquainted with the

incidents of 1745.

This Chief had the important task intrusted to him of defending the

Castle of Doune, in which the Chevalier placed a garrison to protect his

communication with the Highlands, and to repel any sallies which might be

made from Stirling Castle--Ghlune Dhu distinguished himself by his good

conduct in this charge.

Ghlune Dhu is thus described:--"Glengyle is, in person, a tall handsome

man, and has more of the mien of the ancient heroes than our modern fine

gentlemen are possessed of. He is honest and disinterested to a

proverb--extremely modest--brave and intrepid--and born one of the best

partisans in Europe. In short, the whole people of that country declared

that never did men live under so mild a government as Glengyle's, not a

man having so much as lost a chicken while he continued there."

It would appear from this curious passage, that Glengyle--not Stewart of

Balloch, as averred in a note on Waverley--commanded the garrison of

Doune. Balloch might, no doubt, succeed MacGregor in the situation.

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION TO ROB ROY

In the magnum opus, the author's final edition of the Waverley Novels,

"Rob Roy" appears out of its chronological order, and comes next after

"The Antiquary." In this, as in other matters, the present edition

follows that of 1829. "The Antiquary," as we said, contained in its

preface the author's farewell to his art. This valediction was meant as

prelude to a fresh appearance in a new disguise. Constable, who had

brought out the earlier works, did not publish the "Tales of my Landlord"

("The Black Dwarf" and "Old Mortality "), which Scott had nearly finished

by November 12, 1816. The four volumes appeared from the houses of Mr.

Murray and Mr. Blackwood, on December 1, 1816. Within less than a month

came out "Harold the Dauntless," by the author of "The Bridal of

Triermain." Scott's work on the historical part of the "Annual Register"

had also been unusually arduous. At Abbotsford, or at Ashiestiel, his

mode of life was particularly healthy; in Edinburgh, between the claims

of the courts, of literature, and of society, he was scarcely ever in the

open air. Thus hard sedentary work caused, between the publication

of "Old Mortality" and that of "Rob Roy," the first of those alarming

illnesses which overshadowed the last fifteen years of his life. The

earliest attack of cramp in the stomach occurred on March 5, 1817, when

he "retired from the room with a scream of agony which electrified his

guests."

Living on "parritch," as he tells Miss Baillie (for his national spirit

rejected arrowroot), Scott had yet energy enough to plan a dramatic piece

for Terry, "The Doom of Devorgoil." But in April he announced to John

Ballantyne "a good subject" for a novel, and on May 6, John, after a

visit to Abbotsford with Constable, proclaimed to James Ballantyne the

advent of "Rob Roy."

The anecdote about the title is well known. Constable suggested it, and

Scott was at first wisely reluctant to "write up to a title." Names like

Rob Roy, Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth, Cleopatra, and so forth, tell the

reader too much, and, Scott imagined, often excite hopes which cannot be

fulfilled. However, in the geniality of an after-dinner hour in the

gardens of Abbotsford, Scott allowed Constable to be sponsor. Many things

had lately brought Rob into his mind. In 1812 Scott had acquired Rob

Roy's gun--"a long Spanish-barrelled piece, with his initials R. M. C.,"

C standing for Campbell, a name assumed in compliment to the Argyll

family.

Rob's spleuchan had also been presented by Mr. Train to Sir Walter, in

1816, and may have directed his thoughts to this popular freebooter.

Though Rob flourished in the '15, he was really a character very near

Scott, whose friend Invernahyle had fought Rob with broadsword and

target--a courteous combat like that between Ajax and Hector.

At Tullibody Scott had met, in 1793, a gentleman who once visited Rob,

and arranged to pay him blackmail.

Mr. William Adam had mentioned to Scott in 1816 the use of the word

"curlie-wurlies" for highly decorated architecture, and recognised the

phrase, next year, in the mouth of Andrew Fairservice.

In the meeting at Abbotsford (May 2, 1817) Scott was very communicative,

sketched Bailie Nicol Jarvie, and improvised a dialogue between Rob and

the magistrate. A week later he quoted to Southey, Swift's lines--

Too bad for a blessing, too good for a curse,--which probably suggested

Andrew Fairservice's final estimate of Scott's hero,--"over bad for

blessing, and ower gude for banning."

These are the trifles which show the bent of Scott's mind at this period.

The summer of 1817 he spent in working at the "Annual Register" and at

the "Border Antiquities." When the courts rose, he visited Rob's cave at

the head of Loch Lomond; and this visit seems to have been gossiped

about, as literary people, hearing of the new novel, expected the cave to

be a very prominent feature. He also went to Glasgow, and refreshed his

memory of the cathedral; nor did he neglect old books, such as "A Tour

through Great Britain, by a Gentleman" (4th Edition, 1748). This yielded

him the Bailie's account of Glasgow commerce "in Musselburgh stuffs and

Edinburgh shalloons," and the phrase "sortable cargoes."

Hence, too, Scott took the description of the rise of Glasgow. Thus Scott

was taking pains with his preparations. The book was not written in

post-haste. Announced to Constable early in May, the last sheet was not

corrected till about December 21, when Scott wrote to Ballantyne:--

DEAR JAMES,--

With great joy I send you Roy.

'T was a tough job,

But we're done with Rob.

"Rob Roy" was published on the last day of 1817. The toughness of the job

was caused by constant pain, and by struggles with "the lassitude of

opium." So seldom sentimental, so rarely given to expressing his

melancholy moods in verse, Scott, while composing "Rob Roy," wrote the

beautiful poem "The sun upon the Weirdlaw Hill," in which, for this once,

"pity of self through all makes broken moan."

Some stress may be laid on the state of Sir Walter's health at this

moment, because a living critic has tried to show that, in his case,

"every pang of the stomach paralyses the brain;" that he "never had a fit

of the cramp without spoiling a chapter."--[Mr. Ruskin's "Fiction Fair

and Foul," "Nineteenth Century," 1880, p. 955.]--"Rob Roy" is a

sufficient answer to these theories. The mind of Scott was no slave to

his body.

The success of the story is pleasantly proved by a sentence in a review

of the day: "It is an event unprecedented in the annals either of

literature or of the custom-house that the entire cargo of a packet, or

smack, bound from Leith to London, should be the impression of a novel,

for which the public curiosity was so much upon the alert as to require

this immense importation to satisfy."

Ten thousand copies of a three-volume novel are certainly a ponderous

cargo, and Constable printed no fewer in his first edition. Scott was

assured of his own triumph in February 1819, when a dramatised version of

his novel was acted in Edinburgh by the company of Mr. William Murray, a

descendant of the traitor Murray of Broughton. Mr. Charles Mackay made a

capital Bailie, and the piece remains a favourite with Scotch audiences.

It is plain, from the reviews, that in one respect "Rob Roy" rather

disappointed the world. They had expected Rob to be a much more imposing

and majestic cateran, and complained that his foot was set too late on

his native heather. They found too much of the drover and intriguer, too

little of the traditional driver of the spoil. This was what Scott

foresaw when he objected to "writing up to a title." In fact, he did not

write up to, it, and, as the "Scots Magazine" said, "shaped his story in

such a manner as to throw busybodies out in their chase, with a slight

degree of malicious finesse." "All the expeditions to the wonderful cave

have been thrown away, for the said cave is not once, we think, mentioned

from beginning to end."

"Rob Roy" equals "Waverley" in its pictures of Highland and Lowland

society and character. Scott had clearly set himself to state his

opinions about the Highlands as they were under the patriarchal system of

government. The Highlanders were then a people, not lawless, indeed, but

all their law was the will of their chief. Bailie Nicol Jarvie makes a

statement of their economic and military condition as accurate as it is

humorous. The modern "Highland Question" may be studied as well in the

Bailie's words as in volumes of history and wildernesses of blue-books.

A people patriarchal and military as the Arabs of the desert were

suddenly dragged into modern commercial and industrial society. All old

bonds were snapped in a moment; emigration (at first opposed by some of

the chiefs) and the French wars depleted the country of its "lang-leggit

callants, gaun wanting the breeks." Cattle took the place of men, sheep

of cattle, deer of sheep, and, in the long peace, a population grew up

again--a population destitute of employment even more than of old,

because war and robbery had ceased to be outlets for its energy. Some

chiefs, as Dr. Johnson said, treated their lands as an attorney treats

his row of cheap houses in a town. Hence the Highland Question,--a

question in which Scott's sympathies were with the Highlanders.

"Rob Roy," naturally, is no mere "novel with a purpose," no economic

tract in disguise. Among Scott's novels it stands alone as regards its

pictures of passionate love. The love of Diana Vernon is no less

passionate for its admirable restraint. Here Scott displays, without

affectation, a truly Greek reserve in his art. The deep and strong

affection of Diana Vernon would not have been otherwise handled by him

who drew the not more immortal picture of Antigone. Unlike modern

novelists, Sir Walter deals neither in analysis nor in rapturous

effusions. We can, unfortunately, imagine but too easily how some writers

would peep and pry into the concealed emotions of that maiden heart; how

others would revel in tears, kisses, and caresses. In place of all these

Scott writes:--

She extended her hand, but I clasped her to my bosom. She sighed as

she extricated herself from the embrace which she permitted, escaped

to the door which led to her own apartment, and I saw her no more.

Months pass, in a mist of danger and intrigue, before the lovers meet

again in the dusk and the solitude.

"Mr. Francis Osbaldistone," cries the girl's voice through the

moonlight, "should not whistle his favourite airs when he wishes to

remain undiscovered."

And Diana Vernon--for she, wrapped in a horseman's cloak, was the

last speaker--whistled in playful mimicry the second part of the

tune, which was on my lips when they came up.

Surely there was never, in story or in song, a lady so loving and so

light of heart, save Rosalind alone. Her face touches Frank's, as she

says goodbye for ever "It was a moment never to be forgotten,

inexpressibly bitter, yet mixed with a sensation of pleasure so deeply

soothing and affecting as at once to unlock all the floodgates of the

heart."

She rides into the night, her lover knows the _hysterica passio_ of poor

Lear, but "I had scarce given vent to my feelings in this paroxysm ere I

was ashamed of my weakness."

These were men and women who knew how to love, and how to live.

All men who read "Rob Roy" are innocent rivals of Frank Osbaldistone.

Di Vernon holds her place in our hearts with Rosalind, and these airy

affections, like the actual emotions which they mimic, are not matters

for words. This lady, so gay, so brave, so witty and fearless, so tender

and true, who "endured trials which might have dignified the history of a

martyr, . . . who spent the day in darkness and the night in vigil, and

never breathed a murmur of weakness or complaint," is as immortal in

men's memories as the actual heroine of the White Rose, Flora Macdonald.

Her place is with Helen and Antigone, with Rosalind and Imogen, the

deathless daughters of dreams. She brightens the world as she passes, and

our own hearts tell us all the story when Osbaldistone says, "You know

how I lamented her."

In the central interest, which, for once, is the interest of love, "Rob

Roy" attains the nobility, the reserve, the grave dignity of the highest

art. It is not easy to believe that Frank Osbaldistone is worthy of his

lady; but here no man is a fair judge. In the four novels--"Waverley,"

"Guy Mannering," "The Antiquary," and "Rob Roy"--which we have studied,

the hero has always been a young poet. Waverley versified; so did

Mannering; Lovel "had attempted a few lyrical pieces;" and, in

Osbaldistone's rhymes, Scott parodied his own

blast of that dread horn

On Fontarabian echoes borne.

All the heroes, then, have been poets, and Osbaldistone's youth may have

been suggested by Scott's memories of his own, and of the father who

"feared that he would never be better than a gangrel scrapegut." Like

Henry Morton, in "Old Mortality," Frank Osbaldistone is on the political

side taken by Scott's judgment, not by his emotions. To make Di Vernon

convert him to Jacobitism would have been to repeat the story of

Waverley. Still, he would have been more sympathetic if he had been

converted. He certainly does not lack spirit, as a sportsman, or "on an

occasion," as Sir William Hope says in "The Scots' Fencing Master," when

he encounters Rashleigh in the college gardens. Frank, in short, is all

that a hero should be, and is glorified by his affection.

Of the other characters, perhaps Rob Roy is too sympathetically drawn.

The materials for a judgment are afforded by Scott's own admirable

historical introduction. The Rob Roy who so calmly "played booty," and

kept a foot in either camp, certainly falls below the heroic. His

language has been criticised in late years, and it has been insisted that

the Highlanders never talked Lowland Scotch. But Scott has anticipated

these cavils in the eighteenth chapter of the second volume. Certainly no

Lowlander knew the Highlanders better than he did, and his ear for

dialect was as keen as his musical ear was confessedly obtuse.

Scott had the best means of knowing whether Helen MacGregor would be

likely to soar into heroics as she is apt to do. In fact, here "we may

trust the artist."

The novel is as rich as any in subordinate characters full of life and

humour. Morris is one of the few utter cowards in Scott. He has none of

the passionate impulses towards courage of the hapless hero in "The Fair

Maid of Perth." The various Osbaldistones are nicely discriminated by

Diana Vernon, in one of those "Beatrix moods" which Scott did not always

admire, when they were displayed by "Lady Anne" and other girls of flesh

and blood. Rashleigh is of a nature unusual in Scott. He is, perhaps, Sir

Walter's nearest approach, for malignant egotism, to an Iago. Of Bailie

Nicol Jarvie commendation were impertinent. All Scotland arose, called

him hers, laughed at and applauded her civic child. Concerning Andrew

Fairservice, the first edition tells us what the final edition leaves us

to guess--that Tresham "may recollect him as gardener at Osbaldistone

Hall." Andrew was not a friend who could be shaken off. Diana may have

ruled the hall, but Andrew must have remained absolute in the gardens,

with "something to maw that he would like to see mawn, or something to

saw that he would like to see sawn, or something to ripe that he would

like to see ripen, and sae he e'en daikered on wi' the family frae year's

end to year's end," and life's end. His master "needed some carefu' body

to look after him."

Only Shakspeare and Scott could have given us medicines to make us like

this cowardly, conceited "jimp honest" fellow, Andrew Fairservice, who

just escapes being a hypocrite by dint of some sincere old Covenanting

leaven in his veins. We make bold to say that the creator of Parolles and

Lucie, and many another lax and lovable knave, would, had he been a Scot,

have drawn Andrew Fairservice thus, and not otherwise.

The critics of the hour censured, as they were certain to censure, the

construction, and especially the conclusion, of "Rob Roy." No doubt the

critics were right. In both Scott and Shakspeare there is often seen a

perfect disregard of the denouement. Any moderately intelligent person

can remark on the huddled-up ends and hasty marriages in many of

Shakspeare's comedies; Moliere has been charged with the same offence;

and, if blame there be, Scott is almost always to blame. Thackeray is

little better. There must be some reason that explains why men of genius

go wrong where every newspaper critic, every milliner's girl acquainted

with circulating libraries, can detect the offence.

In the closing remarks of "Old Mortality" Scott expresses himself

humorously on this matter of the denouement. His schoolmaster author

takes his proofsheets to Miss Martha Buskbody, who was the literary set

in Gandercleugh, having read through the whole stock of three circulating

libraries. Miss Buskbody criticises the Dominic as Lady Louisa Stuart

habitually criticised Sir Walter. "Your plan of omitting a formal

conclusion will never do!" The Dominie replies, "Really, madam, you must

be aware that every volume of a narrative turns less and less interesting

as the author draws to a conclusion,--just like your tea, which, though

excellent hyson, is necessarily weaker and more insipid in the last cup."

He compares the orthodox happy ending to "the luscious lump of

half-dissolved sugar" usually found at the bottom of the cup. This topic

might be discussed, and indeed has been discussed, endlessly. In our

actual lives it is probable that most of us have found ourselves living

for a year, or a month, or a week, in a chapter or half a volume of a

novel, and these have been our least happy experiences. But we have also

found that the romance vanishes away like a ghost, dwindles out, closes

with ragged ends, has no denouement. Then the question presents itself,

As art is imitation, should not novels, as a rule, close thus? The

experiment has frequently been tried, especially by the modern geniuses

who do not conceal their belief that their art is altogether finer than

Scott's, or, perhaps, than Shakspeare's.

In his practice, and in his Dominie's critical remarks, Sir Walter

appears inclined to agree with them. He was just as well aware as his

reviewers, or as Lady Louisa Stuart, that the conclusion of "Rob Roy" is

"huddled up," that the sudden demise of all the young Baldistones is a

high-handed measure. He knew that, in real life, Frank and Di Vernon

would never have met again after that farewell on the moonlit road. But

he yielded to Miss Buskbody's demand for "a glimpse of sunshine in the

last chapter;" he understood the human liking for the final lump of

sugar. After all, fiction is not, any more than any other art, a mere

imitation of life: it is an arrangement, a selection. Scott was too kind,

too humane, to disappoint us, the crowd of human beings who find much of

our happiness in dreams. He could not keep up his own interest in his

characters after he had developed them; he could take pleasure in giving

them life,--he had little pleasure in ushering them into an earthly

paradise; so that part of his business he did carelessly, as his only

rivals in literature have also done it.

The critics censured, not unjustly, the "machinery" of the story,--these

mysterious "assets" of Osbaldistone and Tresham, whose absence was to

precipitate the Rising of 1715. The "Edinburgh Review" lost its heart

(Jeffrey's heart was always being lost) to Di Vernon. But it pronounces

that "a king with legs of marble, or a youth with an ivory shoulder,"

heroes of the "Arabian Nights" and of Pindar, was probable, compared with

the wit and accomplishments of Diana. This is hypercriticism. Diana's

education, under Rashleigh, had been elaborate; her acquaintance with

Shakspeare, her main strength, is unusual in women, but not beyond the

limits of belief. Here she is in agreeable contrast to Rose Bradwardine,

who had never heard of "Romeo and Juliet." In any case, Diana compels

belief as well as wins affection, while we are fortunate enough to be in

her delightful company.

As long as we believe in her, it is not of moment to consider whether her

charms are incompatible with probability.

"Rob Roy" was finished in spite of "a very bad touch of the cramp for

about three weeks in November, which, with its natural attendants of

dulness and, weakness, made me unable to get our matters forward till

last week," says Scott to Constable. "But," adds the unconquerable

author, "I am resting myself here a few days before commencing my new

labours, which will be untrodden ground, and, I think, pretty likely to

succeed." The "new labours" were "The Heart of Mid-Lothian."

ANDREW LANG.

ROB ROY

VOLUME ONE

CHAPTER FIRST.

How have I sinn'd, that this affliction

Should light so heavy on me? I have no more sons,

And this no more mine own.--My grand curse

Hang o'er his head that thus transformed thee!--

Travel? I'll send my horse to travel next.

Monsieur Thomas.

You have requested me, my dear friend, to bestow some of that leisure,

with which Providence has blessed the decline of my life, in registering

the hazards and difficulties which attended its commencement. The

recollection of those adventures, as you are pleased to term them, has

indeed left upon my mind a chequered and varied feeling of pleasure and

of pain, mingled, I trust, with no slight gratitude and veneration to the

Disposer of human events, who guided my early course through much risk

and labour, that the ease with which he has blessed my prolonged life

might seem softer from remembrance and contrast. Neither is it possible

for me to doubt, what you have often affirmed, that the incidents which

befell me among a people singularly primitive in their government and

manners, have something interesting and attractive for those who love to

hear an old man's stories of a past age.

Still, however, you must remember, that the tale told by one friend, and

listened to by another, loses half its charms when committed to paper;

and that the narratives to which you have attended with interest, as

heard from the voice of him to whom they occurred, will appear less

deserving of attention when perused in the seclusion of your study. But

your greener age and robust constitution promise longer life than will,

in all human probability, be the lot of your friend. Throw, then, these

sheets into some secret drawer of your escritoire till we are separated

from each other's society by an event which may happen at any moment, and

which must happen within the course of a few--a very few years. When we

are parted in this world, to meet, I hope, in a better, you will, I am

well aware, cherish more than it deserves the memory of your departed

friend, and will find in those details which I am now to commit to paper,

matter for melancholy, but not unpleasing reflection. Others bequeath to

the confidants of their bosom portraits of their external features--I put

into your hands a faithful transcript of my thoughts and feelings, of my

virtues and of my failings, with the assured hope, that the follies and

headstrong impetuosity of my youth will meet the same kind construction

and forgiveness which have so often attended the faults of my matured

age.

One advantage, among the many, of addressing my Memoirs (if I may give

these sheets a name so imposing) to a dear and intimate friend, is, that

I may spare some of the details, in this case unnecessary, with which I

must needs have detained a stranger from what I have to say of greater

interest. Why should I bestow all my tediousness upon you, because I have

you in my power, and have ink, paper, and time before me? At the same

time, I dare not promise that I may not abuse the opportunity so

temptingly offered me, to treat of myself and my own concerns, even

though I speak of circumstances as well known to you as to myself. The

seductive love of narrative, when we ourselves are the heroes of the

events which we tell, often disregards the attention due to the time and

patience of the audience, and the best and wisest have yielded to its

fascination. I need only remind you of the singular instance evinced by

the form of that rare and original edition of Sully's Memoirs, which you

(with the fond vanity of a book-collector) insist upon preferring to that

which is reduced to the useful and ordinary form of Memoirs, but which I

think curious, solely as illustrating how far so great a man as the

author was accessible to the foible of self-importance. If I recollect

rightly, that venerable peer and great statesman had appointed no fewer

than four gentlemen of his household to draw up the events of his life,

under the title of Memorials of the Sage and Royal Affairs of State,

Domestic, Political, and Military, transacted by Henry IV., and so forth.

These grave recorders, having made their compilation, reduced the Memoirs

containing all the remarkable events of their master's life into a

narrative, addressed to himself in _propria persona._ And thus, instead

of telling his own story, in the third person, like Julius Caesar, or in

the first person, like most who, in the hall, or the study, undertake to

be the heroes of their own tale, Sully enjoyed the refined, though

whimsical pleasure, of having the events of his life told over to him by

his secretaries, being himself the auditor, as he was also the hero, and

probably the author, of the whole book. It must have been a great sight

to have seen the ex-minister, as bolt upright as a starched ruff and

laced cassock could make him, seated in state beneath his canopy, and

listening to the recitation of his compilers, while, standing bare in his

presence, they informed him gravely, "Thus said the duke--so did the duke

infer--such were your grace's sentiments upon this important

point--such were your secret counsels to the king on that other

emergency,"--circumstances, all of which must have been much better

known to their hearer than to themselves, and most of which could only

be derived from his own special communication.

My situation is not quite so ludicrous as that of the great Sully, and

yet there would be something whimsical in Frank Osbaldistone giving Will

Tresham a formal account of his birth, education, and connections in the

world. I will, therefore, wrestle with the tempting spirit of P. P.,

Clerk of our Parish, as I best may, and endeavour to tell you nothing

that is familiar to you already. Some things, however, I must recall to

your memory, because, though formerly well known to you, they may have

been forgotten through lapse of time, and they afford the ground-work of

my destiny.

You must remember my father well; for, as your own was a member of the

mercantile house, you knew him from infancy. Yet you hardly saw him in

his best days, before age and infirmity had quenched his ardent spirit of

enterprise and speculation. He would have been a poorer man, indeed, but

perhaps as happy, had he devoted to the extension of science those active

energies, and acute powers of observation, for which commercial pursuits

found occupation. Yet, in the fluctuations of mercantile speculation,

there is something captivating to the adventurer, even independent of the

hope of gain. He who embarks on that fickle sea, requires to possess the

skill of the pilot and the fortitude of the navigator, and after all may

be wrecked and lost, unless the gales of fortune breathe in his favour.

This mixture of necessary attention and inevitable hazard,--the frequent

and awful uncertainty whether prudence shall overcome fortune, or fortune

baffle the schemes of prudence, affords full occupation for the powers,

as well as for the feelings of the mind, and trade has all the

fascination of gambling without its moral guilt.

Early in the 18th century, when I (Heaven help me) was a youth of some

twenty years old, I was summoned suddenly from Bourdeaux to attend my

father on business of importance. I shall never forget our first

interview. You recollect the brief, abrupt, and somewhat stern mode in

which he was wont to communicate his pleasure to those around him.

Methinks I see him even now in my mind's eye;--the firm and upright

figure,--the step, quick and determined,--the eye, which shot so keen and

so penetrating a glance,--the features, on which care had already planted

wrinkles,--and hear his language, in which he never wasted word in vain,

expressed in a voice which had sometimes an occasional harshness, far

from the intention of the speaker.

When I dismounted from my post-horse, I hastened to my father's

apartment. He was traversing it with an air of composed and steady

deliberation, which even my arrival, although an only son unseen for four

years, was unable to discompose. I threw myself into his arms. He was a

kind, though not a fond father, and the tear twinkled in his dark eye,

but it was only for a moment.

"Dubourg writes to me that he is satisfied with you, Frank."

"I am happy, sir"--

"But I have less reason to be so" he added, sitting down at his bureau.

"I am sorry, sir"--

"Sorry and happy, Frank, are words that, on most occasions, signify

little or nothing--Here is your last letter."

He took it out from a number of others tied up in a parcel of red tape,

and curiously labelled and filed. There lay my poor epistle, written on

the subject the nearest to my heart at the time, and couched in words

which I had thought would work compassion if not conviction,--there, I

say, it lay, squeezed up among the letters on miscellaneous business in

which my father's daily affairs had engaged him. I cannot help smiling

internally when I recollect the mixture of hurt vanity, and wounded

feeling, with which I regarded my remonstrance, to the penning of which

there had gone, I promise you, some trouble, as I beheld it extracted

from amongst letters of advice, of credit, and all the commonplace

lumber, as I then thought them, of a merchant's correspondence. Surely,

thought I, a letter of such importance (I dared not say, even to myself,

so well written) deserved a separate place, as well as more anxious

consideration, than those on the ordinary business of the counting-house.

But my father did not observe my dissatisfaction, and would not have

minded it if he had. He proceeded, with the letter in his hand. "This,

Frank, is yours of the 21st ultimo, in which you advise me (reading from

my letter), that in the most important business of forming a plan, and

adopting a profession for life, you trust my paternal goodness will hold

you entitled to at least a negative voice; that you have insuperable--ay,

insuperable is the word--I wish, by the way, you would write a more

distinct current hand--draw a score through the tops of your t's, and

open the loops of your l's--insuperable objections to the arrangements

which I have proposed to you. There is much more to the same effect,

occupying four good pages of paper, which a little attention to

perspicuity and distinctness of expression might have comprised within as

many lines. For, after all, Frank, it amounts but to this, that you will

not do as I would have you."

"That I cannot, sir, in the present instance, not that I will not."

"Words avail very little with me, young man," said my father, whose

inflexibility always possessed the air of the most perfect calmness of

self-possession. "_Can not_ may be a more civil phrase than _will not,_

but the expressions are synonymous where there is no moral impossibility.

But I am not a friend to doing business hastily; we will talk this matter

over after dinner.--Owen!"

Owen appeared, not with the silver locks which you were used to venerate,

for he was then little more than fifty; but he had the same, or an

exactly similar uniform suit of light-brown clothes,--the same pearl-grey

silk stockings,--the same stock, with its silver buckle,--the same

plaited cambric ruffles, drawn down over his knuckles in the parlour, but

in the counting-house carefully folded back under the sleeves, that they

might remain unstained by the ink which he daily consumed;--in a word,

the same grave, formal, yet benevolent cast of features, which continued

to his death to distinguish the head clerk of the great house of

Osbaldistone and Tresham.

"Owen," said my father, as the kind old man shook me affectionately by

the hand, "you must dine with us to-day, and hear the news Frank has

brought us from our friends in Bourdeaux."

Owen made one of his stiff bows of respectful gratitude; for, in those

days, when the distance between superiors and inferiors was enforced in a

manner to which the present times are strangers, such an invitation was a

favour of some little consequence.

I shall long remember that dinner-party. Deeply affected by feelings of

anxiety, not unmingled with displeasure, I was unable to take that active

share in the conversation which my father seemed to expect from me; and I

too frequently gave unsatisfactory answers to the questions with which he

assailed me. Owen, hovering betwixt his respect for his patron, and his

love for the youth he had dandled on his knee in childhood, like the

timorous, yet anxious ally of an invaded nation, endeavoured at every

blunder I made to explain my no-meaning, and to cover my retreat;

manoeuvres which added to my father's pettish displeasure, and brought a

share of it upon my kind advocate, instead of protecting me. I had not,

while residing in the house of Dubourg, absolutely conducted myself like

A clerk condemn'd his father's soul to cross,

Who penn'd a stanza when he should engross;--

but, to say truth, I had frequented the counting-house no more than I had

thought absolutely necessary to secure the good report of the Frenchman,

long a correspondent of our firm, to whom my father had trusted for

initiating me into the mysteries of commerce. In fact, my principal

attention had been dedicated to literature and manly exercises. My father

did not altogether discourage such acquirements, whether mental or

personal. He had too much good sense not to perceive, that they sate

gracefully upon every man, and he was sensible that they relieved and

dignified the character to which he wished me to aspire. But his chief

ambition was, that I should succeed not merely to his fortune, but to the

views and plans by which he imagined he could extend and perpetuate the

wealthy inheritance which he designed for me.

Love of his profession was the motive which he chose should be most

ostensible, when he urged me to tread the same path; but he had others

with which I only became acquainted at a later period. Impetuous in his

schemes, as well as skilful and daring, each new adventure, when

successful, became at once the incentive, and furnished the means, for

farther speculation. It seemed to be necessary to him, as to an ambitious

conqueror, to push on from achievement to achievement, without stopping

to secure, far less to enjoy, the acquisitions which he made. Accustomed

to see his whole fortune trembling in the scales of chance, and dexterous

at adopting expedients for casting the balance in his favour, his health

and spirits and activity seemed ever to increase with the animating

hazards on which he staked his wealth; and he resembled a sailor,

accustomed to brave the billows and the foe, whose confidence rises on

the eve of tempest or of battle. He was not, however, insensible to the

changes which increasing age or supervening malady might make in his own

constitution; and was anxious in good time to secure in me an assistant,

who might take the helm when his hand grew weary, and keep the vessel's

way according to his counsel and instruction. Paternal affection, as well

as the furtherance of his own plans, determined him to the same

conclusion. Your father, though his fortune was vested in the house, was

only a sleeping partner, as the commercial phrase goes; and Owen, whose

probity and skill in the details of arithmetic rendered his services

invaluable as a head clerk, was not possessed either of information or

talents sufficient to conduct the mysteries of the principal management.

If my father were suddenly summoned from life, what would become of the

world of schemes which he had formed, unless his son were moulded into a

commercial Hercules, fit to sustain the weight when relinquished by the

falling Atlas? and what would become of that son himself, if, a stranger

to business of this description, he found himself at once involved in the

labyrinth of mercantile concerns, without the clew of knowledge necessary

for his extraction? For all these reasons, avowed and secret, my father

was determined I should embrace his profession; and when he was

determined, the resolution of no man was more immovable. I, however, was

also a party to be consulted, and, with something of his own pertinacity,

I had formed a determination precisely contrary. It may, I hope, be some

palliative for the resistance which, on this occasion, I offered to my

father's wishes, that I did not fully understand upon what they were

founded, or how deeply his happiness was involved in them. Imagining

myself certain of a large succession in future, and ample maintenance in

the meanwhile, it never occurred to me that it might be necessary, in

order to secure these blessings, to submit to labour and limitations

unpleasant to my taste and temper. I only saw in my father's proposal for

my engaging in business, a desire that I should add to those heaps of

wealth which he had himself acquired; and imagining myself the best judge

of the path to my own happiness, I did not conceive that I should

increase that happiness by augmenting a fortune which I believed was

already sufficient, and more than sufficient, for every use, comfort, and

elegant enjoyment.

Accordingly, I am compelled to repeat, that my time at Bourdeaux had not

been spent as my father had proposed to himself. What he considered as

the chief end of my residence in that city, I had postponed for every

other, and would (had I dared) have neglected altogether. Dubourg, a

favoured and benefited correspondent of our mercantile house, was too

much of a shrewd politician to make such reports to the head of the firm

concerning his only child, as would excite the displeasure of both; and

he might also, as you will presently hear, have views of selfish

advantage in suffering me to neglect the purposes for which I was placed

under his charge. My conduct was regulated by the bounds of decency and

good order, and thus far he had no evil report to make, supposing him so

disposed; but, perhaps, the crafty Frenchman would have been equally

complaisant, had I been in the habit of indulging worse feelings than

those of indolence and aversion to mercantile business. As it was, while

I gave a decent portion of my time to the commercial studies he

recommended, he was by no means envious of the hours which I dedicated to

other and more classical attainments, nor did he ever find fault with me

for dwelling upon Corneille and Boileau, in preference to Postlethwayte

(supposing his folio to have then existed, and Monsieur Dubourg able to

have pronounced his name), or Savary, or any other writer on commercial

economy. He had picked up somewhere a convenient expression, with which

he rounded off every letter to his correspondent,--"I was all," he said,

"that a father could wish."

My father never quarrelled with a phrase, however frequently repeated,

provided it seemed to him distinct and expressive; and Addison himself

could not have found expressions so satisfactory to him as, "Yours

received, and duly honoured the bills enclosed, as per margin."

Knowing, therefore, very well what he desired me to, be, Mr. Osbaldistone

made no doubt, from the frequent repetition of Dubourg's favourite

phrase, that I was the very thing he wished to see me; when, in an evil

hour, he received my letter, containing my eloquent and detailed apology

for declining a place in the firm, and a desk and stool in the corner of

the dark counting-house in Crane Alley, surmounting in height those of

Owen, and the other clerks, and only inferior to the tripod of my father

himself. All was wrong from that moment. Dubourg's reports became as

suspicious as if his bills had been noted for dishonour. I was summoned

home in all haste, and received in the manner I have already communicated

to you.

CHAPTER SECOND.

I begin shrewdly to suspect the young man of a terrible

taint--Poetry; with which idle disease if he be infected,

there's no hope of him in astate course. _Actum est_ of him

for a commonwealth's man, if he goto't in rhyme once.

Ben Jonson's _Bartholomew Fair._

My father had, generally speaking, his temper under complete

self-command, and his anger rarely indicated itself by words, except in

a sort of dry testy manner, to those who had displeased him. He never

used threats, or expressions of loud resentment. All was arranged with

him on system, and it was his practice to do "the needful" on every

occasion, without wasting words about it. It was, therefore, with a

bitter smile that he listened to my imperfect answers concerning the

state of commerce in France, and unmercifully permitted me to involve

myself deeper and deeper in the mysteries of agio, tariffs, tare and

tret; nor can I charge my memory with his having looked positively

angry, until he found me unable to explain the exact effect which the

depreciation of the louis d'or had produced on the negotiation of bills

of exchange. "The most remarkable national occurrence in my time," said

my father (who nevertheless had seen the Revolution)--"and he knows no

more of it than a post on the quay!"

"Mr. Francis," suggested Owen, in his timid and conciliatory manner,

"cannot have forgotten, that by an _arret_ of the King of France, dated

1st May 1700, it was provided that the _porteur,_ within ten days after

due, must make demand"--

"Mr. Francis," said my father, interrupting him, "will, I dare say,

recollect for the moment anything you are so kind as hint to him. But,

body o' me! how Dubourg could permit him! Hark ye, Owen, what sort of a

youth is Clement Dubourg, his nephew there, in the office, the

black-haired lad?"

"One of the cleverest clerks, sir, in the house; a prodigious young man

for his time," answered Owen; for the gaiety and civility of the young

Frenchman had won his heart.

"Ay, ay, I suppose _he_ knows something of the nature of exchange.

Dubourg was determined I should have one youngster at least about my hand

who understood business. But I see his drift, and he shall find that I do

so when he looks at the balance-sheet. Owen, let Clement's salary be paid

up to next quarter-day, and let him ship himself back to Bourdeaux in his

father's ship, which is clearing out yonder."

"Dismiss Clement Dubourg, sir?" said Owen, with a faltering voice.

"Yes, sir, dismiss him instantly; it is enough to have a stupid

Englishman in the counting-house to make blunders, without keeping a

sharp Frenchman there to profit by them."

I had lived long enough in the territories of the _Grand Monarque_ to

contract a hearty aversion to arbitrary exertion of authority, even if it

had not been instilled into me with my earliest breeding; and I could not

refrain from interposing, to prevent an innocent and meritorious young

man from paying the penalty of having acquired that proficiency which my

father had desired for me.

"I beg pardon, sir," when Mr. Osbaldistone had done speaking; "but I

think it but just, that if I have been negligent of my studies, I should

pay the forfeit myself. I have no reason to charge Monsieur Dubourg with

having neglected to give me opportunities of improvement, however little

I may have profited by them; and with respect to Monsieur Clement

Dubourg"--

"With respect to him, and to you, I shall take the measures which I see

needful," replied my father; "but it is fair in you, Frank, to take your

own blame on your own shoulders--very fair, that cannot be denied.--I

cannot acquit old Dubourg," he said, looking to Owen, "for having merely

afforded Frank the means of useful knowledge, without either seeing that

he took advantage of them or reporting to me if he did not. You see,

Owen, he has natural notions of equity becoming a British merchant."

"Mr. Francis," said the head-clerk, with his usual formal inclination of

the head, and a slight elevation of his right hand, which he had acquired

by a habit of sticking his pen behind his ear before he spoke--"Mr.

Francis seems to understand the fundamental principle of all moral

accounting, the great ethic rule of three. Let A do to B, as he would

have B do to him; the product will give the rule of conduct required."

My father smiled at this reduction of the golden rule to arithmetical

form, but instantly proceeded.

"All this signifies nothing, Frank; you have been throwing away your time

like a boy, and in future you must learn to live like a man. I shall put

you under Owen's care for a few months, to recover the lost ground."

I was about to reply, but Owen looked at me with such a supplicatory and

warning gesture, that I was involuntarily silent.

"We will then," continued my father, "resume the subject of mine of the

1st ultimo, to which you sent me an answer which was unadvised and

unsatisfactory. So now, fill your glass, and push the bottle to Owen."

Want of courage--of audacity if you will--was never my failing. I

answered firmly, "I was sorry that my letter was unsatisfactory,

unadvised it was not; for I had given the proposal his goodness had made

me, my instant and anxious attention, and it was with no small pain that

I found myself obliged to decline it."

My father bent his keen eye for a moment on me, and instantly withdrew

it. As he made no answer, I thought myself obliged to proceed, though

with some hesitation, and he only interrupted me by monosyllables.--"It

is impossible, sir, for me to have higher respect for any character than

I have for the commercial, even were it not yours."

"Indeed!"

"It connects nation with nation, relieves the wants, and contributes to

the wealth of all; and is to the general commonwealth of the civilised

world what the daily intercourse of ordinary life is to private society,

or rather, what air and food are to our bodies."

"Well, sir?"

"And yet, sir, I find myself compelled to persist in declining to adopt a

character which I am so ill qualified to support."

"I will take care that you acquire the qualifications necessary. You are

no longer the guest and pupil of Dubourg."

"But, my dear sir, it is no defect of teaching which I plead, but my own

inability to profit by instruction."

"Nonsense.--Have you kept your journal in the terms I desired?"

"Yes, sir."

"Be pleased to bring it here."

The volume thus required was a sort of commonplace book, kept by my

father's recommendation, in which I had been directed to enter notes of

the miscellaneous information which I had acquired in the course of my

studies. Foreseeing that he would demand inspection of this record, I had

been attentive to transcribe such particulars of information as he would

most likely be pleased with, but too often the pen had discharged the

task without much correspondence with the head. And it had also happened,

that, the book being the receptacle nearest to my hand, I had

occasionally jotted down memoranda which had little regard to traffic. I

now put it into my father's hand, devoutly hoping he might light on

nothing that would increase his displeasure against me. Owen's face,

which had looked something blank when the question was put, cleared up at

my ready answer, and wore a smile of hope, when I brought from my

apartment, and placed before my father, a commercial-looking volume,

rather broader than it was long, having brazen clasps and a binding of

rough calf. This looked business-like, and was encouraging to my

benevolent well-wisher. But he actually smiled with pleasure as he heard

my father run over some part of the contents, muttering his critical

remarks as he went on.

"_--Brandies--Barils and barricants, also tonneaux.--At Nantz 29--Velles

to the barique at Cognac and Rochelle 27--At Bourdeaux 32_--Very right,

Frank--_Duties on tonnage and custom-house, see Saxby's Tables_--That's

not well; you should have transcribed the passage; it fixes the thing in

the memory--_Reports outward and inward--Corn debentures--Over-sea

Cockets--Linens--Isingham--Gentish--Stock-fish--Titling--Cropling--

Lub-fish._ You should have noted that they are all, nevertheless to be

entered as titlings.--How many inches long is a titling?"

Owen, seeing me at fault, hazarded a whisper, of which I fortunately

caught the import.

"Eighteen inches, sir."--

"And a lub-fish is twenty-four--very right. It is important to remember

this, on account of the Portuguese trade--But what have we here?--

_Bourdeaux founded in the year--Castle of the Trompette--Palace of

Gallienus_--Well, well, that's very right too.--This is a kind of

waste-book, Owen, in which all the transactions of the day,--emptions,

orders, payments, receipts, acceptances, draughts, commissions, and

advices,--are entered miscellaneously."

"That they may be regularly transferred to the day-book and ledger,"

answered Owen: "I am glad Mr. Francis is so methodical."

I perceived myself getting so fast into favour, that I began to fear the

consequence would be my father's more obstinate perseverance in his

resolution that I must become a merchant; and as I was determined on the

contrary, I began to wish I had not, to use my friend Mr. Owen's phrase,

been so methodical. But I had no reason for apprehension on that score;

for a blotted piece of paper dropped out of the book, and, being taken up

by my father, he interrupted a hint from Owen, on the propriety of

securing loose memoranda with a little paste, by exclaiming, "To the

memory of Edward the Black Prince--What's all this?--verses!--By Heaven,

Frank, you are a greater blockhead than I supposed you!"

My father, you must recollect, as a man of business, looked upon the

labour of poets with contempt; and as a religious man, and of the

dissenting persuasion, he considered all such pursuits as equally trivial

and profane. Before you condemn him, you must recall to remembrance how

too many of the poets in the end of the seventeenth century had led their

lives and employed their talents. The sect also to which my father

belonged, felt, or perhaps affected, a puritanical aversion to the

lighter exertions of literature. So that many causes contributed to

augment the unpleasant surprise occasioned by the ill-timed discovery of

this unfortunate copy of verses. As for poor Owen, could the bob-wig

which he then wore have uncurled itself, and stood on end with horror, I

am convinced the morning's labour of the friseur would have been undone,

merely by the excess of his astonishment at this enormity. An inroad on

the strong-box, or an erasure in the ledger, or a mis-summation in a

fitted account, could hardly have surprised him more disagreeably. My

father read the lines sometimes with an affectation of not being able to

understand the sense--sometimes in a mouthing tone of mock heroic--always

with an emphasis of the most bitter irony, most irritating to the nerves

of an author.

"O for the voice of that wild horn,

On Fontarabian echoes borne,

The dying hero's call,

That told imperial Charlemagne,

How Paynim sons of swarthy Spain

Had wrought his champion's fall.

"_Fontarabian echoes!_" continued my father, interrupting himself; "the

Fontarabian Fair would have been more to the purpose--_Paynim!_--What's

Paynim?--Could you not say Pagan as well, and write English at least, if

you must needs write nonsense?--

"Sad over earth and ocean sounding.

And England's distant cliffs astounding.

Such are the notes should say

How Britain's hope, and France's fear,

Victor of Cressy and Poitier,

In Bordeaux dying lay."

"Poitiers, by the way, is always spelt with an _s,_ and I know no reason

why orthography should give place to rhyme.--

"'Raise my faint head, my squires,' he said,

'And let the casement be display'd,

That I may see once more

The splendour of the setting sun

Gleam on thy mirrored wave, Garonne,

And Blaye's empurpled shore.

"_Garonne_ and _sun_ is a bad rhyme. Why, Frank, you do not even

understand the beggarly trade you have chosen.

"'Like me, he sinks to Glory's sleep,

His fall the dews of evening steep,

As if in sorrow shed,

So soft shall fall the trickling tear,

When England's maids and matrons hear

Of their Black Edward dead.

"'And though my sun of glory set,

Nor France, nor England, shall forget

The terror of my name;

And oft shall Britain's heroes rise,

New planets in these southern skies,

Through clouds of blood and flame.'

"A cloud of flame is something new--Good-morrow, my masters all, and a

merry Christmas to you!--Why, the bellman writes better lines." He then

tossed the paper from him with an air of superlative contempt, and

concluded--"Upon my credit, Frank, you are a greater blockhead than I

took you for."

What could I say, my dear Tresham? There I stood, swelling with indignant

mortification, while my father regarded me with a calm but stern look of

scorn and pity; and poor Owen, with uplifted hands and eyes, looked as

striking a picture of horror as if he had just read his patron's name in

the Gazette. At length I took courage to speak, endeavouring that my tone

of voice should betray my feelings as little as possible.

"I am quite aware, sir, how ill qualified I am to play the conspicuous

part in society you have destined for me; and, luckily, I am not

ambitious of the wealth I might acquire. Mr. Owen would be a much more

effective assistant." I said this in some malice, for I considered Owen

as having deserted my cause a little too soon.

"Owen!" said my father--"The boy is mad--actually insane. And, pray, sir,

if I may presume to inquire, having coolly turned me over to Mr. Owen

(although I may expect more attention from any one than from my son),

what may your own sage projects be?"

"I should wish, sir," I replied, summoning up my courage, "to travel for

two or three years, should that consist with your pleasure; otherwise,

although late, I would willingly spend the same time at Oxford or

Cambridge."

"In the name of common sense! was the like ever heard?--to put yourself

to school among pedants and Jacobites, when you might be pushing your

fortune in the world! Why not go to Westminster or Eton at once, man, and

take to Lilly's Grammar and Accidence, and to the birch, too, if you like

it?"

"Then, sir, if you think my plan of improvement too late, I would

willingly return to the Continent."

"You have already spent too much time there to little purpose, Mr.

Francis."

"Then I would choose the army, sir, in preference to any other active

line of life."

"Choose the d--l!" answered my father, hastily, and then checking

himself--"I profess you make me as great a fool as you are yourself. Is

he not enough to drive one mad, Owen?"--Poor Owen shook his head, and

looked down. "Hark ye, Frank," continued my father, "I will cut all this

matter very short. I was at your age when my father turned me out of

doors, and settled my legal inheritance on my younger brother. I left

Osbaldistone Hall on the back of a broken-down hunter, with ten guineas

in my purse. I have never crossed the threshold again, and I never will.

I know not, and I care not, if my fox-hunting brother is alive, or has

broken his neck; but he has children, Frank, and one of them shall be my

son if you cross me farther in this matter."

"You will do your pleasure," I answered--rather, I fear, with more sullen

indifference than respect, "with what is your own."

"Yes, Frank, what I have _is_ my own, if labour in getting, and care in

augmenting, can make a right of property; and no drone shall feed on my

honeycomb. Think on it well: what I have said is not without reflection,

and what I resolve upon I will execute."

"Honoured sir!--dear sir!" exclaimed Owen, tears rushing into his eyes,

"you are not wont to be in such a hurry in transacting business of

importance. Let Mr. Francis run up the balance before you shut the

account; he loves you, I am sure; and when he puts down his filial

obedience to the _per contra,_ I am sure his objections will disappear."

"Do you think I will ask him twice," said my father, sternly, "to be my

friend, my assistant, and my confidant?--to be a partner of my cares and

of my fortune?--Owen, I thought you had known me better."

He looked at me as if he meant to add something more, but turned

instantly away, and left the room abruptly. I was, I own, affected by

this view of the case, which had not occurred to me; and my father would

probably have had little reason to complain of me, had he commenced the

discussion with this argument.

But it was too late. I had much of his own obduracy of resolution, and

Heaven had decreed that my sin should be my punishment, though not to the

extent which my transgression merited. Owen, when we were left alone,

continued to look at me with eyes which tears from time to time

moistened, as if to discover, before attempting the task of intercessor,

upon what point my obstinacy was most assailable. At length he began,

with broken and disconcerted accents,--"O L--d, Mr. Francis!--Good

Heavens, sir!--My stars, Mr. Osbaldistone!--that I should ever have seen

this day--and you so young a gentleman, sir!--For the love of Heaven!

look at both sides of the account--think what you are going to lose--a

noble fortune, sir--one of the finest houses in the City, even under the

old firm of Tresham and Trent, and now Osbaldistone and Tresham--You

might roll in gold, Mr. Francis--And, my dear young Mr. Frank, if there

was any particular thing in the business of the house which you disliked,

I would" (sinking his voice to a whisper) "put it in order for you

termly, or weekly, or daily, if you will--Do, my dear Mr. Francis, think

of the honour due to your father, that your days may be long in the

land."

"I am much obliged to you, Mr. Owen," said I--"very much obliged indeed;

but my father is best judge how to bestow his money. He talks of one of

my cousins: let him dispose of his wealth as he pleases--I will never

sell my liberty for gold."

"Gold, sir?--I wish you saw the balance-sheet of profits at last term--It

was in five figures--five figures to each partner's sum total, Mr.

Frank--And all this is to go to a Papist, and a north-country booby, and

a disaffected person besides--It will break my heart, Mr. Francis, that

have been toiling more like a dog than a man, and all for love of

the firm. Think how it will sound, Osbaldistone, Tresham, and

Osbaldistone--or perhaps, who knows" (again lowering his voice),

"Osbaldistone, Osbaldistone, and Tresham, for our Mr. Osbaldistone can

buy them all out."

"But, Mr. Owen, my cousin's name being also Osbaldistone, the name of the

company will sound every bit as well in your ears."

"O fie upon you, Mr. Francis, when you know how well I love you--Your

cousin, indeed!--a Papist, no doubt, like his father, and a disaffected

person to the Protestant succession--that's another item, doubtless."

"There are many very good men Catholics, Mr. Owen," rejoined I.

As Owen was about to answer with unusual animation, my father re-entered

the apartment.

"You were right," he said, "Owen, and I was wrong; we will take more time

to think over this matter.--Young man, you will prepare to give me an

answer on this important subject this day month."

I bowed in silence, sufficiently glad of a reprieve, and trusting it

might indicate some relaxation in my father's determination.

The time of probation passed slowly, unmarked by any accident whatever. I

went and came, and disposed of my time as I pleased, without question or

criticism on the part of my father. Indeed, I rarely saw him, save at

meal-times, when he studiously avoided a discussion which you may well

suppose I was in no hurry to press onward. Our conversation was of the

news of the day, or on such general topics as strangers discourse upon to

each other; nor could any one have guessed, from its tenor, that there

remained undecided betwixt us a dispute of such importance. It haunted

me, however, more than once, like the nightmare. Was it possible he would

keep his word, and disinherit his only son in favour of a nephew whose

very existence he was not perhaps quite certain of? My grandfather's

conduct, in similar circumstances, boded me no good, had I considered the

matter rightly. But I had formed an erroneous idea of my father's

character, from the importance which I recollected I maintained with him

and his whole family before I went to France. I was not aware that there

are men who indulge their children at an early age, because to do so

interests and amuses them, and who can yet be sufficiently severe when

the same children cross their expectations at a more advanced period. On

the contrary, I persuaded myself, that all I had to apprehend was some

temporary alienation of affection--perhaps a rustication of a few weeks,

which I thought would rather please me than otherwise, since it would

give me an opportunity of setting about my unfinished version of Orlando

Furioso, a poem which I longed to render into English verse. I suffered

this belief to get such absolute possession of my mind, that I had

resumed my blotted papers, and was busy in meditation on the

oft-recurring rhymes of the Spenserian stanza, when I heard a low and

cautious tap at the door of my apartment. "Come in," I said, and Mr. Owen

entered. So regular were the motions and habits of this worthy man, that

in all probability this was the first time he had ever been in the second

story of his patron's house, however conversant with the first; and I am

still at a loss to know in what manner he discovered my apartment.

"Mr. Francis," he said, interrupting my expression of surprise and

pleasure at seeing, him, "I do not know if I am doing well in what I am

about to say--it is not right to speak of what passes in the

compting-house out of doors--one should not tell, as they say, to the

post in the warehouse, how many lines there are in the ledger. But young

Twineall has been absent from the house for a fortnight and more, until

two days since."

"Very well, my dear sir, and how does that concern us?"

"Stay, Mr. Francis;--your father gave him a private commission; and I am

sure he did not go down to Falmouth about the pilchard affair; and the

Exeter business with Blackwell and Company has been settled; and the

mining people in Cornwall, Trevanion and Treguilliam, have paid all they

are likely to pay; and any other matter of business must have been put

through my books:--in short, it's my faithful belief that Twineall has

been down in the north."

"Do you really suppose?" so said I, somewhat startled.

"He has spoken about nothing, sir, since he returned, but his new boots,

and his Ripon spurs, and a cockfight at York--it's as true as the

multiplication-table. Do, Heaven bless you, my dear child, make up your

mind to please your father, and to be a man and a merchant at once."

I felt at that instant a strong inclination to submit, and to make Owen

happy by requesting him to tell my father that I resigned myself to his

disposal. But pride--pride, the source of so much that is good and so

much that is evil in our course of life, prevented me. My acquiescence

stuck in my throat; and while I was coughing to get it up, my father's

voice summoned Owen. He hastily left the room, and the opportunity was

lost.

My father was methodical in everything. At the very same time of the day,

in the same apartment, and with the same tone and manner which he had

employed an exact month before, he recapitulated the proposal he had made

for taking me into partnership, and assigning me a department in the

counting-house, and requested to have my final decision. I thought at the

time there was something unkind in this; and I still think that my

father's conduct was injudicious. A more conciliatory treatment would, in

all probability, have gained his purpose. As it was, I stood fast, and,

as respectfully as I could, declined the proposal he made to me.

Perhaps--for who can judge of their own heart?--I felt it unmanly to

yield on the first summons, and expected farther solicitation, as at

least a pretext for changing my mind. If so, I was disappointed; for my

father turned coolly to Owen, and only said, "You see it is as I told

you.--Well, Frank" (addressing me), "you are nearly of age, and as well

qualified to judge of what will constitute your own happiness as you

ever are like to be; therefore, I say no more. But as I am not bound to

give in to your plans, any more than you are compelled to submit to

mine, may I ask to know if you have formed any which depend on my

assistance?"

I answered, not a little abashed, "That being bred to no profession, and

having no funds of my own, it was obviously impossible for me to subsist

without some allowance from my father; that my wishes were very moderate;

and that I hoped my aversion for the profession to which he had designed

me, would not occasion his altogether withdrawing his paternal support

and protection."

"That is to say, you wish to lean on my arm, and yet to walk your own

way? That can hardly be, Frank;--however, I suppose you mean to obey my

directions, so far as they do not cross your own humour?"

I was about to speak--"Silence, if you please," he continued. "Supposing

this to be the case, you will instantly set out for the north of England,

to pay your uncle a visit, and see the state of his family. I have chosen

from among his sons (he has six, I believe) one who, I understand, is

most worthy to fill the place I intended for you in the counting-house.

But some farther arrangements may be necessary, and for these your

presence may be requisite. You shall have farther instructions at

Osbaldistone Hall, where you will please to remain until you hear from

me. Everything will be ready for your departure to-morrow morning."

With these words my father left the apartment.

"What does all this mean, Mr. Owen?" said I to my sympathetic friend,

whose countenance wore a cast of the deepest dejection.

"You have ruined yourself, Mr. Frank, that's all. When your father talks

in that quiet determined manner, there will be no more change in him than

in a fitted account."

And so it proved; for the next morning, at five o'clock, I found myself

on the road to York, mounted on a reasonably good horse, and with fifty

guineas in my pocket; travelling, as it would seem, for the purpose of

assisting in the adoption of a successor to myself in my father's house

and favour, and, for aught I knew, eventually in his fortune also.

CHAPTER THIRD.

The slack sail shifts from side to side,

The boat, untrimm'd, admits the tide,

Borne down, adrift, at random tost,

The oar breaks short, the rudder's lost.

Gay's _Fables._

I have tagged with rhyme and blank verse the subdivisions of this

important narrative, in order to seduce your continued attention by

powers of composition of stronger attraction than my own. The preceding

lines refer to an unfortunate navigator, who daringly unloosed from its

moorings a boat, which he was unable to manage, and thrust it off into

the full tide of a navigable river. No schoolboy, who, betwixt frolic and

defiance, has executed a similar rash attempt, could feel himself, when

adrift in a strong current, in a situation more awkward than mine, when I

found myself driving, without a compass, on the ocean of human life.

There had been such unexpected ease in the manner in which my father

slipt a knot, usually esteemed the strongest which binds society

together, and suffered me to depart as a sort of outcast from his family,

that it strangely lessened the confidence in my own personal

accomplishments, which had hitherto sustained me. Prince Prettyman, now a

prince, and now a fisher's son, had not a more awkward sense of his

degradation. We are so apt, in our engrossing egotism, to consider all

those accessories which are drawn around us by prosperity, as pertaining

and belonging to our own persons, that the discovery of our unimportance,

when left to our own proper resources, becomes inexpressibly mortifying.

As the hum of London died away on my ear, the distant peal of her

steeples more than once sounded to my ears the admonitory "Turn again,"

erst heard by her future Lord Mayor; and when I looked back from Highgate

on her dusky magnificence, I felt as if I were leaving behind me comfort,

opulence, the charms of society, and all the pleasures of cultivated

life.

But the die was cast. It was, indeed, by no means probable that a late

and ungracious compliance with my father's wishes would have reinstated

me in the situation which I had lost. On the contrary, firm and strong of

purpose as he himself was, he might rather have been disgusted than

conciliated by my tardy and compulsory acquiescence in his desire that I

should engage in commerce. My constitutional obstinacy came also to my

aid, and pride whispered how poor a figure I should make, when an airing

of four miles from London had blown away resolutions formed during a

month's serious deliberation. Hope, too, that never forsakes the young

and hardy, lent her lustre to my future prospects. My father could not be

serious in the sentence of foris-familiation, which he had so

unhesitatingly pronounced. It must be but a trial of my disposition,

which, endured with patience and steadiness on my part, would raise me in

his estimation, and lead to an amicable accommodation of the point in

dispute between us. I even settled in my own mind how far I would concede

to him, and on what articles of our supposed treaty I would make a firm

stand; and the result was, according to my computation, that I was to be

reinstated in my full rights of filiation, paying the easy penalty of

some ostensible compliances to atone for my past rebellion.

In the meanwhile, I was lord of my person, and experienced that feeling

of independence which the youthful bosom receives with a thrilling

mixture of pleasure and apprehension. My purse, though by no means amply

replenished, was in a situation to supply all the wants and wishes of a

traveller. I had been accustomed, while at Bourdeaux, to act as my own

valet; my horse was fresh, young, and active, and the buoyancy of my

spirits soon surmounted the melancholy reflections with which my journey

commenced.

I should have been glad to have journeyed upon a line of road better

calculated to afford reasonable objects of curiosity, or a more

interesting country, to the traveller. But the north road was then, and

perhaps still is, singularly deficient in these respects; nor do I

believe you can travel so far through Britain in any other direction

without meeting more of what is worthy to engage the attention. My mental

ruminations, notwithstanding my assumed confidence, were not always of an

unchequered nature. The Muse too,--the very coquette who had led me into

this wilderness,--like others of her sex, deserted me in my utmost need,

and I should have been reduced to rather an uncomfortable state of

dulness, had it not been for the occasional conversation of strangers who

chanced to pass the same way. But the characters whom I met with were of

a uniform and uninteresting description. Country parsons, jogging

homewards after a visitation; farmers, or graziers, returning from a

distant market; clerks of traders, travelling to collect what was due to

their masters, in provincial towns; with now and then an officer going

down into the country upon the recruiting service, were, at this period,

the persons by whom the turnpikes and tapsters were kept in exercise. Our

speech, therefore, was of tithes and creeds, of beeves and grain, of

commodities wet and dry, and the solvency of the retail dealers,

occasionally varied by the description of a siege, or battle, in

Flanders, which, perhaps, the narrator only gave me at second hand.

Robbers, a fertile and alarming theme, filled up every vacancy; and the

names of the Golden Farmer, the Flying Highwayman, Jack Needham, and

other Beggars' Opera heroes, were familiar in our mouths as household

words. At such tales, like children closing their circle round the fire

when the ghost story draws to its climax, the riders drew near to each

other, looked before and behind them, examined the priming of their

pistols, and vowed to stand by each other in case of danger; an

engagement which, like other offensive and defensive alliances, sometimes

glided out of remembrance when there was an appearance of actual peril.

Of all the fellows whom I ever saw haunted by terrors of this nature, one

poor man, with whom I travelled a day and a half, afforded me most

amusement. He had upon his pillion a very small, but apparently a very

weighty portmanteau, about the safety of which he seemed particularly

solicitous; never trusting it out of his own immediate care, and

uniformly repressing the officious zeal of the waiters and ostlers, who

offered their services to carry it into the house. With the same

precaution he laboured to conceal, not only the purpose of his journey,

and his ultimate place of destination, but even the direction of each

day's route. Nothing embarrassed him more than to be asked by any one,

whether he was travelling upwards or downwards, or at what stage he

intended to bait. His place of rest for the night he scrutinised with the

most anxious care, alike avoiding solitude, and what he considered as bad

neighbourhood; and at Grantham, I believe, he sate up all night to avoid

sleeping in the next room to a thick-set squinting fellow, in a black

wig, and a tarnished gold-laced waistcoat. With all these cares on his

mind, my fellow traveller, to judge by his thews and sinews, was a man

who might have set danger at defiance with as much impunity as most men.

He was strong and well built; and, judging from his gold-laced hat and

cockade, seemed to have served in the army, or, at least, to belong to

the military profession in one capacity or other. His conversation also,

though always sufficiently vulgar, was that of a man of sense, when the

terrible bugbears which haunted his imagination for a moment ceased to

occupy his attention. But every accidental association recalled them. An

open heath, a close plantation, were alike subjects of apprehension; and

the whistle of a shepherd lad was instantly converted into the signal of

a depredator. Even the sight of a gibbet, if it assured him that one

robber was safely disposed of by justice, never failed to remind him how

many remained still unhanged.

I should have wearied of this fellow's company, had I not been still more

tired of my own thoughts. Some of the marvellous stories, however, which

he related, had in themselves a cast of interest, and another whimsical

point of his peculiarities afforded me the occasional opportunity of

amusing myself at his expense. Among his tales, several of the

unfortunate travellers who fell among thieves, incurred that calamity

from associating themselves on the road with a well-dressed and

entertaining stranger, in whose company they trusted to find protection

as well as amusement; who cheered their journey with tale and song,

protected them against the evils of over-charges and false reckonings,

until at length, under pretext of showing a near path over a desolate

common, he seduced his unsuspicious victims from the public road into

some dismal glen, where, suddenly blowing his whistle, he assembled his

comrades from their lurking-place, and displayed himself in his true

colours--the captain, namely, of the band of robbers to whom his unwary

fellow-travellers had forfeited their purses, and perhaps their lives.

Towards the conclusion of such a tale, and when my companion had wrought

himself into a fever of apprehension by the progress of his own

narrative, I observed that he usually eyed me with a glance of doubt and

suspicion, as if the possibility occurred to him, that he might, at that

very moment, be in company with a character as dangerous as that which

his tale described. And ever and anon, when such suggestions pressed

themselves on the mind of this ingenious self-tormentor, he drew off from

me to the opposite side of the high-road, looked before, behind, and

around him, examined his arms, and seemed to prepare himself for flight

or defence, as circumstances might require.

The suspicion implied on such occasions seemed to me only momentary, and

too ludicrous to be offensive. There was, in fact, no particular

reflection on my dress or address, although I was thus mistaken for a

robber. A man in those days might have all the external appearance of a

gentleman, and yet turn out to be a highwayman. For the division of

labour in every department not having then taken place so fully as since

that period, the profession of the polite and accomplished adventurer,

who nicked you out of your money at White's, or bowled you out of it at

Marylebone, was often united with that of the professed ruffian, who on

Bagshot Heath, or Finchley Common, commanded his brother beau to stand

and deliver. There was also a touch of coarseness and hardness about the

manners of the times, which has since, in a great degree, been softened

and shaded away. It seems to me, on recollection, as if desperate men had

less reluctance then than now to embrace the most desperate means of

retrieving their fortune. The times were indeed past, when Anthony-a-Wood

mourned over the execution of two men, goodly in person, and of

undisputed courage and honour, who were hanged without mercy at Oxford,

merely because their distress had driven them to raise contributions on

the highway. We were still farther removed from the days of "the mad

Prince and Poins." And yet, from the number of unenclosed and extensive

heaths in the vicinity of the metropolis, and from the less populous

state of remote districts, both were frequented by that species of

mounted highwaymen, that may possibly become one day unknown, who carried

on their trade with something like courtesy; and, like Gibbet in the

Beaux Stratagem, piqued themselves on being the best behaved men on the

road, and on conducting themselves with all appropriate civility in the

exercise of their vocation. A young man, therefore, in my circumstances

was not entitled to be highly indignant at the mistake which confounded

him with this worshipful class of depredators.

Neither was I offended. On the contrary, I found amusement in alternately

exciting, and lulling to sleep, the suspicions of my timorous companion,

and in purposely so acting as still farther to puzzle a brain which

nature and apprehension had combined to render none of the clearest. When

my free conversation had lulled him into complete security, it required

only a passing inquiry concerning the direction of his journey, or the

nature of the business which occasioned it, to put his suspicions once

more in arms. For example, a conversation on the comparative strength and

activity of our horses, took such a turn as follows:--

"O sir," said my companion, "for the gallop I grant you; but allow me to

say, your horse (although he is a very handsome gelding--that must be

owned,) has too little bone to be a good roadster. The trot, sir"

(striking his Bucephalus with his spurs),--"the trot is the true pace for

a hackney; and, were we near a town, I should like to try that

daisy-cutter of yours upon a piece of level road (barring canter) for a

quart of claret at the next inn."

"Content, sir," replied I; "and here is a stretch of ground very

favourable."

"Hem, ahem," answered my friend with hesitation; "I make it a rule of

travelling never to blow my horse between stages; one never knows what

occasion he may have to put him to his mettle: and besides, sir, when I

said I would match you, I meant with even weight; you ride four stone

lighter than I."

"Very well; but I am content to carry weight. Pray, what may that

portmanteau of yours weigh?"

"My p-p-portmanteau?" replied he, hesitating--"O very little--a

feather--just a few shirts and stockings."

"I should think it heavier, from its appearance. I'll hold you the quart

of claret it makes the odds betwixt our weight."

"You're mistaken, sir, I assure you--quite mistaken," replied my friend,

edging off to the side of the road, as was his wont on these alarming

occasions.

"Well, I am willing to venture the wine; or, I will bet you ten pieces to

five, that I carry your portmanteau on my croupe, and out-trot you into

the bargain."

This proposal raised my friend's alarm to the uttermost. His nose changed

from the natural copper hue which it had acquired from many a comfortable

cup of claret or sack, into a palish brassy tint, and his teeth chattered

with apprehension at the unveiled audacity of my proposal, which seemed

to place the barefaced plunderer before him in full atrocity. As he

faltered for an answer, I relieved him in some degree by a question

concerning a steeple, which now became visible, and an observation that

we were now so near the village as to run no risk from interruption on

the road. At this his countenance cleared up: but I easily perceived that

it was long ere he forgot a proposal which seemed to him so fraught with

suspicion as that which I had now hazarded. I trouble you with this

detail of the man's disposition, and the manner in which I practised upon

it, because, however trivial in themselves, these particulars were

attended by an important influence on future incidents which will occur

in this narrative. At the time, this person's conduct only inspired me

with contempt, and confirmed me in an opinion which I already

entertained, that of all the propensities which teach mankind to torment

themselves, that of causeless fear is the most irritating, busy, painful,

and pitiable.

CHAPTER FOURTH.

The Scots are poor, cries surly English pride.

True is the charge; nor by themselves denied.

Are they not, then, in strictest reason clear,

Who wisely come to mend their fortunes here?

Churchill.

There was, in the days of which I write, an old-fashioned custom on the

English road, which I suspect is now obsolete, or practised only by the

vulgar. Journeys of length being made on horseback, and, of course, by

brief stages, it was usual always to make a halt on the Sunday in some

town where the traveller might attend divine service, and his horse have

the benefit of the day of rest, the institution of which is as humane to

our brute labourers as profitable to ourselves. A counterpart to this

decent practice, and a remnant of old English hospitality, was, that the

landlord of a principal inn laid aside his character of a publican on the

seventh day, and invited the guests who chanced to be within his walls to

take a part of his family beef and pudding. This invitation was usually

complied with by all whose distinguished rank did not induce them to

think compliance a derogation; and the proposal of a bottle of wine after

dinner, to drink the landlord's health, was the only recompense ever

offered or accepted.

I was born a citizen of the world, and my inclination led me into all

scenes where my knowledge of mankind could be enlarged; I had, besides,

no pretensions to sequester myself on the score of superior dignity, and

therefore seldom failed to accept of the Sunday's hospitality of mine

host, whether of the Garter, Lion, or Bear. The honest publican, dilated

into additional consequence by a sense of his own importance, while

presiding among the guests on whom it was his ordinary duty to attend,

was in himself an entertaining, spectacle; and around his genial orbit,

other planets of inferior consequence performed their revolutions. The

wits and humorists, the distinguished worthies of the town or village,

the apothecary, the attorney, even the curate himself, did not disdain to

partake of this hebdomadal festivity. The guests, assembled from

different quarters, and following different professions, formed, in

language, manners, and sentiments, a curious contrast to each other, not

indifferent to those who desired to possess a knowledge of mankind in its

varieties.

It was on such a day, and such an occasion, that my timorous acquaintance

and I were about to grace the board of the ruddy-faced host of the Black

Bear, in the town of Darlington, and bishopric of Durham, when our

landlord informed us, with a sort of apologetic tone, that there was a

Scotch gentleman to dine with us.

"A gentleman!--what sort of a gentleman?" said my companion somewhat

hastily--his mind, I suppose, running on gentlemen of the pad, as they

were then termed.

"Why, a Scotch sort of a gentleman, as I said before," returned mine

host; "they are all gentle, ye mun know, though they ha' narra shirt to

back; but this is a decentish hallion--a canny North Briton as e'er

cross'd Berwick Bridge--I trow he's a dealer in cattle."

"Let us have his company, by all means," answered my companion; and then,

turning to me, he gave vent to the tenor of his own reflections. "I

respect the Scotch, sir; I love and honour the nation for their sense of

morality. Men talk of their filth and their poverty: but commend me to

sterling honesty, though clad in rags, as the poet saith. I have been

credibly assured, sir, by men on whom I can depend, that there was never

known such a thing in Scotland as a highway robbery."

"That's because they have nothing to lose," said mine host, with the

chuckle of a self-applauding wit.

"No, no, landlord," answered a strong deep voice behind him, "it's e'en

because your English gaugers and supervisors,* that you have sent down

benorth the Tweed, have taen up the trade of thievery over the heads of

the native professors."

* The introduction of gaugers, supervisors, and examiners, was one of the

great complaints of the Scottish nation, though a natural consequence of

the Union.

"Well said, Mr. Campbell," answered the landlord; "I did not think

thoud'st been sae near us, mon. But thou kens I'm an outspoken Yorkshire

tyke. And how go markets in the south?"

"Even in the ordinar," replied Mr. Campbell; "wise folks buy and sell,

and fools are bought and sold."

"But wise men and fools both eat their dinner," answered our jolly

entertainer; "and here a comes--as prime a buttock of beef as e'er hungry

men stuck fork in."

So saying, he eagerly whetted his knife, assumed his seat of empire at

the head of the board, and loaded the plates of his sundry guests with

his good cheer.

This was the first time I had heard the Scottish accent, or, indeed, that

I had familiarly met with an individual of the ancient nation by whom it

was spoken. Yet, from an early period, they had occupied and interested

my imagination. My father, as is well known to you, was of an ancient

family in Northumberland, from whose seat I was, while eating the

aforesaid dinner, not very many miles distant. The quarrel betwixt him

and his relatives was such, that he scarcely ever mentioned the race from

which he sprung, and held as the most contemptible species of vanity, the

weakness which is commonly termed family pride. His ambition was only to

be distinguished as William Osbaldistone, the first, at least one of the

first, merchants on Change; and to have proved him the lineal

representative of William the Conqueror would have far less flattered his

vanity than the hum and bustle which his approach was wont to produce

among the bulls, bears, and brokers of Stock-alley. He wished, no doubt,

that I should remain in such ignorance of my relatives and descent as

might insure a correspondence between my feelings and his own on this

subject. But his designs, as will happen occasionally to the wisest,

were, in some degree at least, counteracted by a being whom his pride

would never have supposed of importance adequate to influence them in any

way. His nurse, an old Northumbrian woman, attached to him from his

infancy, was the only person connected with his native province for whom

he retained any regard; and when fortune dawned upon him, one of the

first uses which he made of her favours, was to give Mabel Rickets a

place of residence within his household. After the death of my mother,

the care of nursing me during my childish illnesses, and of rendering all

those tender attentions which infancy exacts from female affection,

devolved on old Mabel. Interdicted by her master from speaking to him on

the subject of the heaths, glades, and dales of her beloved

Northumberland, she poured herself forth to my infant ear in descriptions

of the scenes of her youth, and long narratives of the events which

tradition declared to have passed amongst them. To these I inclined my

ear much more seriously than to graver, but less animated instructors.

Even yet, methinks I see old Mabel, her head slightly agitated by the

palsy of age, and shaded by a close cap, as white as the driven

snow,--her face wrinkled, but still retaining the healthy tinge which it had

acquired in rural labour--I think I see her look around on the brick

walls and narrow street which presented themselves before our windows,

as she concluded with a sigh the favourite old ditty, which I then

preferred, and--why should I not tell the truth?--which I still prefer

to all the opera airs ever minted by the capricious brain of an Italian

Mus. D.--

Oh, the oak, the ash, and the bonny ivy tree,

They flourish best at home in the North Countrie!

Now, in the legends of Mabel, the Scottish nation was ever freshly

remembered, with all the embittered declamation of which the narrator was

capable. The inhabitants of the opposite frontier served in her

narratives to fill up the parts which ogres and giants with seven-leagued

boots occupy in the ordinary nursery tales. And how could it be

otherwise? Was it not the Black Douglas who slew with his own hand the

heir of the Osbaldistone family the day after he took possession of his

estate, surprising him and his vassals while solemnizing a feast suited

to the occasion? Was it not Wat the Devil, who drove all the year-old

hogs off the braes of Lanthorn-side, in the very recent days of my

grandfather's father? And had we not many a trophy, but, according to old

Mabel's version of history, far more honourably gained, to mark our

revenge of these wrongs? Did not Sir Henry Osbaldistone, fifth baron of

the name, carry off the fair maid of Fairnington, as Achilles did his

Chryseis and Briseis of old, and detain her in his fortress against all

the power of her friends, supported by the most mighty Scottish chiefs of

warlike fame? And had not our swords shone foremost at most of those

fields in which England was victorious over her rival? All our family

renown was acquired--all our family misfortunes were occasioned--by the

northern wars.

Warmed by such tales, I looked upon the Scottish people during my

childhood, as a race hostile by nature to the more southern inhabitants

of this realm; and this view of the matter was not much corrected by the

language which my father sometimes held with respect to them. He had

engaged in some large speculations concerning oak-woods, the property of

Highland proprietors, and alleged, that he found them much more ready to

make bargains, and extort earnest of the purchase-money, than punctual in

complying on their side with the terms of the engagements. The Scottish

mercantile men, whom he was under the necessity of employing as a sort of

middle-men on these occasions, were also suspected by my father of having

secured, by one means or other, more than their own share of the profit

which ought to have accrued. In short, if Mabel complained of the

Scottish arms in ancient times, Mr. Osbaldistone inveighed no less

against the arts of these modern Sinons; and between them, though without

any fixed purpose of doing so, they impressed my youthful mind with a

sincere aversion to the northern inhabitants of Britain, as a people

bloodthirsty in time of war, treacherous during truce, interested,

selfish, avaricious, and tricky in the business of peaceful life, and

having few good qualities, unless there should be accounted such, a

ferocity which resembled courage in martial affairs, and a sort of wily

craft which supplied the place of wisdom in the ordinary commerce of

mankind. In justification, or apology, for those who entertained such

prejudices, I must remark, that the Scotch of that period were guilty of

similar injustice to the English, whom they branded universally as a race

of purse-proud arrogant epicures. Such seeds of national dislike remained

between the two countries, the natural consequences of their existence as

separate and rival states. We have seen recently the breath of a

demagogue blow these sparks into a temporary flame, which I sincerely

hope is now extinguished in its own ashes. *

* This seems to have been written about the time of Wilkes and Liberty.

It was, then, with an impression of dislike, that I contemplated the

first Scotchman I chanced to meet in society. There was much about him

that coincided with my previous conceptions. He had the hard features and

athletic form said to be peculiar to his country, together with the

national intonation and slow pedantic mode of expression, arising from a

desire to avoid peculiarities of idiom or dialect. I could also observe

the caution and shrewdness of his country in many of the observations

which he made, and the answers which he returned. But I was not prepared

for the air of easy self-possession and superiority with which he seemed

to predominate over the company into which he was thrown, as it were by

accident. His dress was as coarse as it could be, being still decent;

and, at a time when great expense was lavished upon the wardrobe, even of

the lowest who pretended to the character of gentleman, this indicated

mediocrity of circumstances, if not poverty. His conversation intimated

that he was engaged in the cattle trade, no very dignified professional

pursuit. And yet, under these disadvantages, he seemed, as a matter of

course, to treat the rest of the company with the cool and condescending

politeness which implies a real, or imagined, superiority over those

towards whom it is used. When he gave his opinion on any point, it was

with that easy tone of confidence used by those superior to their society

in rank or information, as if what he said could not be doubted, and was

not to be questioned. Mine host and his Sunday guests, after an effort or

two to support their consequence by noise and bold averment, sunk

gradually under the authority of Mr. Campbell, who thus fairly possessed

himself of the lead in the conversation. I was tempted, from curiosity,

to dispute the ground with him myself, confiding in my knowledge of the

world, extended as it was by my residence abroad, and in the stores with

which a tolerable education had possessed my mind. In the latter respect

he offered no competition, and it was easy to see that his natural powers

had never been cultivated by education. But I found him much better

acquainted than I was myself with the present state of France, the

character of the Duke of Orleans, who had just succeeded to the regency

of that kingdom, and that of the statesmen by whom he was surrounded; and

his shrewd, caustic, and somewhat satirical remarks, were those of a man

who had been a close observer of the affairs of that country.

On the subject of politics, Campbell observed a silence and moderation

which might arise from caution. The divisions of Whig and Tory then shook

England to her very centre, and a powerful party, engaged in the Jacobite

interest, menaced the dynasty of Hanover, which had been just established

on the throne. Every alehouse resounded with the brawls of contending

politicians, and as mine host's politics were of that liberal description

which quarrelled with no good customer, his hebdomadal visitants were

often divided in their opinion as irreconcilably as if he had feasted the

Common Council. The curate and the apothecary, with a little man, who

made no boast of his vocation, but who, from the flourish and snap of his

fingers, I believe to have been the barber, strongly espoused the cause

of high church and the Stuart line. The excise-man, as in duty bound, and

the attorney, who looked to some petty office under the Crown, together

with my fellow-traveller, who seemed to enter keenly into the contest,

staunchly supported the cause of King George and the Protestant

succession. Dire was the screaming--deep the oaths! Each party appealed

to Mr. Campbell, anxious, it seemed, to elicit his approbation.

"You are a Scotchman, sir; a gentleman of your country must stand up for

hereditary right," cried one party.

"You are a Presbyterian," assumed the other class of disputants; "you

cannot be a friend to arbitrary power."

"Gentlemen," said our Scotch oracle, after having gained, with some

difficulty, a moment's pause, "I havena much dubitation that King George

weel deserves the predilection of his friends; and if he can haud the

grip he has gotten, why, doubtless, he may made the gauger, here, a

commissioner of the revenue, and confer on our friend, Mr. Quitam, the

preferment of solicitor-general; and he may also grant some good deed or

reward to this honest gentleman who is sitting upon his portmanteau,

which he prefers to a chair: And, questionless, King James is also a

grateful person, and when he gets his hand in play, he may, if he be so

minded, make this reverend gentleman archprelate of Canterbury, and Dr.

Mixit chief physician to his household, and commit his royal beard to the

care of my friend Latherum. But as I doubt mickle whether any of the

competing sovereigns would give Rob Campbell a tass of aquavitae, if he

lacked it, I give my vote and interest to Jonathan Brown, our landlord,

to be the King and Prince of Skinkers, conditionally that he fetches us

another bottle as good as the last."

This sally was received with general applause, in which the landlord

cordially joined; and when he had given orders for fulfilling the

condition on which his preferment was to depend, he failed not to

acquaint them, "that, for as peaceable a gentleman as Mr. Campbell was,

he was, moreover, as bold as a lion--seven highwaymen had he defeated

with his single arm, that beset him as he came from Whitson-Tryste."

"Thou art deceived, friend Jonathan," said Campbell, interrupting him;

"they were but barely two, and two cowardly loons as man could wish to

meet withal."

"And did you, sir, really," said my fellow-traveller, edging his chair (I

should have said his portmanteau) nearer to Mr. Campbell, "really and

actually beat two highwaymen yourself alone?"

"In troth did I, sir," replied Campbell; "and I think it nae great thing

to make a sang about."

"Upon my word, sir," replied my acquaintance, "I should be happy to have

the pleasure of your company on my journey--I go northward, sir."

This piece of gratuitous information concerning the route he proposed to

himself, the first I had heard my companion bestow upon any one, failed

to excite the corresponding confidence of the Scotchman.

"We can scarce travel together," he replied, drily. "You, sir, doubtless,

are well mounted, and I for the present travel on foot, or on a Highland

shelty, that does not help me much faster forward."

So saying, he called for a reckoning for the wine, and throwing down the

price of the additional bottle which he had himself introduced, rose as

if to take leave of us. My companion made up to him, and taking him by

the button, drew him aside into one of the windows. I could not help

overhearing him pressing something--I supposed his company upon the

journey, which Mr. Campbell seemed to decline.

"I will pay your charges, sir," said the traveller, in a tone as if he

thought the argument should bear down all opposition.

"It is quite impossible," said Campbell, somewhat contemptuously; "I have

business at Rothbury."

"But I am in no great hurry; I can ride out of the way, and never miss a

day or so for good company."

"Upon my faith, sir," said Campbell, "I cannot render you the service you

seem to desiderate. I am," he added, drawing himself up haughtily,

"travelling on my own private affairs, and if ye will act by my

advisement, sir, ye will neither unite yourself with an absolute stranger

on the road, nor communicate your line of journey to those who are asking

ye no questions about it." He then extricated his button, not very

ceremoniously, from the hold which detained him, and coming up to me as

the company were dispersing, observed, "Your friend, sir, is too

communicative, considering the nature of his trust."

"That gentleman," I replied, looking towards the traveller, "is no friend

of mine, but an acquaintance whom I picked up on the road. I know neither

his name nor business, and you seem to be deeper in his confidence than I

am."

"I only meant," he replied hastily, "that he seems a thought rash in

conferring the honour of his company on those who desire it not."

"The gentleman," replied I, "knows his own affairs best, and I should be

sorry to constitute myself a judge of them in any respect."

Mr. Campbell made no farther observation, but merely wished me a good

journey, and the party dispersed for the evening.

Next day I parted company with my timid companion, as I left the great

northern road to turn more westerly in the direction of Osbaldistone

Manor, my uncle's seat. I cannot tell whether he felt relieved or

embarrassed by my departure, considering the dubious light in which he

seemed to regard me. For my own part, his tremors ceased to amuse me,

and, to say the truth, I was heartily glad to get rid of him.

CHAPTER FIFTH.

How melts my beating heart as I behold

Each lovely nymph, our island's boast and pride,

Push on the generous steed, that sweeps along

O'er rough, o'er smooth, nor heeds the steepy hill,

Nor falters in the extended vale below!

The Chase.

I approached my native north, for such I esteemed it, with that

enthusiasm which romantic and wild scenery inspires in the lovers of

nature. No longer interrupted by the babble of my companion, I could now

remark the difference which the country exhibited from that through which

I had hitherto travelled. The streams now more properly deserved the

name, for, instead of slumbering stagnant among reeds and willows, they

brawled along beneath the shade of natural copsewood; were now hurried

down declivities, and now purled more leisurely, but still in active

motion, through little lonely valleys, which, opening on the road from

time to time, seemed to invite the traveller to explore their recesses.

The Cheviots rose before me in frowning majesty; not, indeed, with the

sublime variety of rock and cliff which characterizes mountains of the

primary class but huge, round-headed, and clothed with a dark robe of

russet, gaining, by their extent and desolate appearance, an influence

upon the imagination, as a desert district possessing a character of its

own.

The abode of my fathers, which I was now approaching, was situated in a

glen, or narrow valley, which ran up among those hills. Extensive

estates, which once belonged to the family of Osbaldistone, had been long

dissipated by the misfortunes or misconduct of my ancestors; but enough

was still attached to the old mansion, to give my uncle the title of a

man of large property. This he employed (as I was given to understand by

some inquiries which I made on the road) in maintaining the prodigal

hospitality of a northern squire of the period, which he deemed essential

to his family dignity.

From the summit of an eminence I had already had a distant view of

Osbaldistone Hall, a large and antiquated edifice, peeping out from a

Druidical grove of huge oaks; and I was directing my course towards it,

as straightly and as speedily as the windings of a very indifferent road

would permit, when my horse, tired as he was, pricked up his ears at the

enlivening notes of a pack of hounds in full cry, cheered by the

occasional bursts of a French horn, which in those days was a constant

accompaniment to the chase. I made no doubt that the pack was my uncle's,

and drew up my horse with the purpose of suffering the hunters to pass

without notice, aware that a hunting-field was not the proper scene to

introduce myself to a keen sportsman, and determined when they had passed

on, to proceed to the mansion-house at my own pace, and there to await

the return of the proprietor from his sport. I paused, therefore, on a

rising ground, and, not unmoved by the sense of interest which that

species of silvan sport is so much calculated to inspire (although my

mind was not at the moment very accessible to impressions of this

nature), I expected with some eagerness the appearance of the huntsmen.

The fox, hard run, and nearly spent, first made his appearance from the

copse which clothed the right-hand side of the valley. His drooping

brush, his soiled appearance, and jaded trot, proclaimed his fate

impending; and the carrion crow, which hovered over him, already

considered poor Reynard as soon to be his prey. He crossed the stream

which divides the little valley, and was dragging himself up a ravine on

the other side of its wild banks, when the headmost hounds, followed by

the rest of the pack in full cry, burst from the coppice, followed by the

huntsman and three or four riders. The dogs pursued the trace of Reynard

with unerring instinct; and the hunters followed with reckless haste,

regardless of the broken and difficult nature of the ground. They were

tall, stout young men, well mounted, and dressed in green and red, the

uniform of a sporting association, formed under the auspices of old Sir

Hildebrand Osbaldistone.--"My cousins!" thought I, as they swept past me.

The next reflection was, what is my reception likely to be among these

worthy successors of Nimrod? and how improbable is it that I, knowing

little or nothing of rural sports, shall find myself at ease, or happy,

in my uncle's family. A vision that passed me interrupted these

reflections.

It was a young lady, the loveliness of whose very striking features was

enhanced by the animation of the chase and the glow of the exercise,

mounted on a beautiful horse, jet black, unless where he was flecked by

spots of the snow-white foam which embossed his bridle. She wore, what

was then somewhat unusual, a coat, vest, and hat, resembling those of a

man, which fashion has since called a riding habit. The mode had been

introduced while I was in France, and was perfectly new to me. Her long

black hair streamed on the breeze, having in the hurry of the chase

escaped from the ribbon which bound it. Some very broken ground, through

which she guided her horse with the most admirable address and presence

of mind, retarded her course, and brought her closer to me than any of

the other riders had passed. I had, therefore, a full view of her

uncommonly fine face and person, to which an inexpressible charm was

added by the wild gaiety of the scene, and the romance of her singular

dress and unexpected appearance. As she passed me, her horse made, in his

impetuosity, an irregular movement, just while, coming once more upon

open ground, she was again putting him to his speed. It served as an

apology for me to ride close up to her, as if to her assistance. There

was, however, no cause for alarm; it was not a stumble, nor a false step;

and, if it had, the fair Amazon had too much self-possession to have been

deranged by it. She thanked my good intentions, however, by a smile, and

I felt encouraged to put my horse to the same pace, and to keep in her

immediate neighbourhood. The clamour of "Whoop! dead! dead!"--and the

corresponding flourish of the French horn, soon announced to us that

there was no more occasion for haste, since the chase was at a close. One

of the young men whom we had seen approached us, waving the brush of the

fox in triumph, as if to upbraid my fair companion,

"I see," she replied,--"I see; but make no noise about it: if Phoebe,"

she said, patting the neck of the beautiful animal on which she rode,

"had not got among the cliffs, you would have had little cause for

boasting."

They met as she spoke, and I observed them both look at me, and converse

a moment in an under-tone, the young lady apparently pressing the

sportsman to do something which he declined shyly, and with a sort of

sheepish sullenness. She instantly turned her horse's head towards me,

saying,--"Well, well, Thornie, if you won't, I must, that's all.--Sir,"

she continued, addressing me, "I have been endeavouring to persuade this

cultivated young gentleman to make inquiry of you whether, in the course

of your travels in these parts, you have heard anything of a friend of

ours, one Mr. Francis Osbaldistone, who has been for some days expected

at Osbaldistone Hall?"

I was too happy to acknowledge myself to be the party inquired after, and

to express my thanks for the obliging inquiries of the young lady.

"In that case, sir," she rejoined, "as my kinsman's politeness seems to

be still slumbering, you will permit me (though I suppose it is highly

improper) to stand mistress of ceremonies, and to present to you young

Squire Thorncliff Osbaldistone, your cousin, and Die Vernon, who has also

the honour to be your accomplished cousin's poor kinswoman."

There was a mixture of boldness, satire, and simplicity in the manner in

which Miss Vernon pronounced these words. My knowledge of life was

sufficient to enable me to take up a corresponding tone as I expressed my

gratitude to her for her condescension, and my extreme pleasure at having

met with them. To say the truth, the compliment was so expressed, that

the lady might easily appropriate the greater share of it, for Thorncliff

seemed an arrant country bumpkin, awkward, shy, and somewhat sulky

withal. He shook hands with me, however, and then intimated his intention

of leaving me that he might help the huntsman and his brothers to couple

up the hounds,--a purpose which he rather communicated by way of

information to Miss Vernon than as apology to me.

"There he goes," said the young lady, following him with eyes in which

disdain was admirably painted--"the prince of grooms and cock-fighters,

and blackguard horse-coursers. But there is not one of them to mend

another.--Have you read Markham?" said Miss Vernon.

"Read whom, ma'am?--I do not even remember the author's name."

"O lud! on what a strand are you wrecked!" replied the young lady. "A

poor forlorn and ignorant stranger, unacquainted with the very Alcoran of

the savage tribe whom you are come to reside among--Never to have heard

of Markham, the most celebrated author on farriery! then I fear you are

equally a stranger to the more modern names of Gibson and Bartlett?"

"I am, indeed, Miss Vernon."

"And do you not blush to own it?" said Miss Vernon. "Why, we must

forswear your alliance. Then, I suppose, you can neither give a ball, nor

a mash, nor a horn!"

"I confess I trust all these matters to an ostler, or to my groom."

"Incredible carelessness!--And you cannot shoe a horse, or cut his mane

and tail; or worm a dog, or crop his ears, or cut his dew-claws; or

reclaim a hawk, or give him his casting-stones, or direct his diet when

he is sealed; or"--

"To sum up my insignificance in one word," replied I, "I am profoundly

ignorant in all these rural accomplishments."

"Then, in the name of Heaven, Mr. Francis Osbaldistone, what _can_ you

do?"

"Very little to the purpose, Miss Vernon; something, however, I can

pretend to--When my groom has dressed my horse I can ride him, and when

my hawk is in the field, I can fly him."

"Can you do this?" said the young lady, putting her horse to a canter.

There was a sort of rude overgrown fence crossed the path before us, with

a gate composed of pieces of wood rough from the forest; I was about to

move forward to open it, when Miss Vernon cleared the obstruction at a

flying leap. I was bound in point of honour to follow, and was in a

moment again at her side. "There are hopes of you yet," she said. "I was

afraid you had been a very degenerate Osbaldistone. But what on earth

brings you to Cub-Castle?--for so the neighbours have christened this

hunting-hall of ours. You might have stayed away, I suppose, if you

would?"

I felt I was by this time on a very intimate footing with my beautiful

apparition, and therefore replied, in a confidential under-tone--"Indeed,

my dear Miss Vernon, I might have considered it as a sacrifice to be a

temporary resident in Osbaldistone Hall, the inmates being such as you

describe them; but I am convinced there is one exception that will make

amends for all deficiencies."

"O, you mean Rashleigh?" said Miss Vernon.

"Indeed I do not; I was thinking--forgive me--of some person much nearer

me."

"I suppose it would be proper not to understand your civility?--But that

is not my way--I don't make a courtesy for it because I am sitting on

horseback. But, seriously, I deserve your exception, for I am the only

conversable being about the Hall, except the old priest and Rashleigh."

"And who is Rashleigh, for Heaven's sake?"

"Rashleigh is one who would fain have every one like him for his own

sake. He is Sir Hildebrand's youngest son--about your own age, but not

so--not well looking, in short. But nature has given him a mouthful of

common sense, and the priest has added a bushelful of learning; he is

what we call a very clever man in this country, where clever men are

scarce. Bred to the church, but in no hurry to take orders."

"To the Catholic Church?"

"The Catholic Church? what Church else?" said the young lady. "But I

forgot--they told me you are a heretic. Is that true, Mr. Osbaldistone?"

"I must not deny the charge."

"And yet you have been abroad, and in Catholic countries?"

"For nearly four years."

"You have seen convents?"

"Often; but I have not seen much in them which recommended the Catholic

religion."

"Are not the inhabitants happy?"

"Some are unquestionably so, whom either a profound sense of devotion, or

an experience of the persecutions and misfortunes of the world, or a

natural apathy of temper, has led into retirement. Those who have adopted

a life of seclusion from sudden and overstrained enthusiasm, or in hasty

resentment of some disappointment or mortification, are very miserable.

The quickness of sensation soon returns, and like the wilder animals in a

menagerie, they are restless under confinement, while others muse or

fatten in cells of no larger dimensions than theirs."

"And what," continued Miss Vernon, "becomes of those victims who are

condemned to a convent by the will of others? what do they resemble?

especially, what do they resemble, if they are born to enjoy life, and

feel its blessings?"

"They are like imprisoned singing-birds," replied I, "condemned to wear

out their lives in confinement, which they try to beguile by the exercise

of accomplishments which would have adorned society had they been left at

large."

"I shall be," returned Miss Vernon--"that is," said she, correcting

herself--"I should be rather like the wild hawk, who, barred the free

exercise of his soar through heaven, will dash himself to pieces against

the bars of his cage. But to return to Rashleigh," said she, in a more

lively tone, "you will think him the pleasantest man you ever saw in your

life, Mr. Osbaldistone,--that is, for a week at least. If he could find

out a blind mistress, never man would be so secure of conquest; but the

eye breaks the spell that enchants the ear.--But here we are in the court

of the old hall, which looks as wild and old-fashioned as any of its

inmates. There is no great toilette kept at Osbaldistone Hall, you must

know; but I must take off these things, they are so unpleasantly

warm,--and the hat hurts my forehead, too," continued the lively girl,

taking it off, and shaking down a profusion of sable ringlets, which,

half laughing, half blushing, she separated with her white slender

fingers, in order to clear them away from her beautiful face and

piercing hazel eyes. If there was any coquetry in the action, it was

well disguised by the careless indifference of her manner. I could not

help saying, "that, judging of the family from what I saw, I should

suppose the toilette a very unnecessary care."

"That's very politely said--though, perhaps, I ought not to understand in

what sense it was meant," replied Miss Vernon; "but you will see a better

apology for a little negligence when you meet the Orsons you are to live

amongst, whose forms no toilette could improve. But, as I said before,

the old dinner-bell will clang, or rather clank, in a few minutes--it

cracked of its own accord on the day of the landing of King Willie, and

my uncle, respecting its prophetic talent, would never permit it to be

mended. So do you hold my palfrey, like a duteous knight, until I send

some more humble squire to relieve you of the charge."

She threw me the rein as if we had been acquainted from our childhood,

jumped from her saddle, tripped across the courtyard, and entered at a

side-door, leaving me in admiration of her beauty, and astonished with

the over-frankness of her manners, which seemed the more extraordinary at

a time when the dictates of politeness, flowing from the court of the

Grand Monarque Louis XIV., prescribed to the fair sex an unusual severity

of decorum. I was left awkwardly enough stationed in the centre of the

court of the old hall, mounted on one horse, and holding another in my

hand.

The building afforded little to interest a stranger, had I been disposed

to consider it attentively; the sides of the quadrangle were of various

architecture, and with their stone-shafted latticed windows, projecting

turrets, and massive architraves, resembled the inside of a convent, or

of one of the older and less splendid colleges of Oxford. I called for a

domestic, but was for some time totally unattended to; which was the more

provoking, as I could perceive I was the object of curiosity to several

servants, both male and female, from different parts of the building, who

popped out their heads and withdrew them, like rabbits in a warren,

before I could make a direct appeal to the attention of any individual.

The return of the huntsmen and hounds relieved me from my embarrassment,

and with some difficulty I got one down to relieve me of the charge of

the horses, and another stupid boor to guide me to the presence of Sir

Hildebrand. This service he performed with much such grace and good-will,

as a peasant who is compelled to act as guide to a hostile patrol; and in

the same manner I was obliged to guard against his deserting me in the

labyrinth of low vaulted passages which conducted to "Stun Hall," as he

called it, where I was to be introduced to the gracious presence of my

uncle.

We did, however, at length reach a long vaulted room, floored with stone,

where a range of oaken tables, of a weight and size too massive ever to

be moved aside, were already covered for dinner. This venerable

apartment, which had witnessed the feasts of several generations of the

Osbaldistone family, bore also evidence of their success in field sports.

Huge antlers of deer, which might have been trophies of the hunting of

Chevy Chace, were ranged around the walls, interspersed with the stuffed

skins of badgers, otters, martins, and other animals of the chase. Amidst

some remnants of old armour, which had, perhaps, served against the

Scotch, hung the more valued weapons of silvan war, cross-bows, guns of

various device and construction, nets, fishing-rods, otter-spears,

hunting-poles, with many other singular devices, and engines for taking

or killing game. A few old pictures, dimmed with smoke, and stained with

March beer, hung on the walls, representing knights and ladies, honoured,

doubtless, and renowned in their day; those frowning fearfully from huge

bushes of wig and of beard; and these looking delightfully with all their

might at the roses which they brandished in their hands.

I had just time to give a glance at these matters, when about twelve

blue-coated servants burst into the hall with much tumult and talk, each

rather employed in directing his comrades than in discharging his own

duty. Some brought blocks and billets to the fire, which roared, blazed,

and ascended, half in smoke, half in flame, up a huge tunnel, with an

opening wide enough to accommodate a stone seat within its ample vault,

and which was fronted, by way of chimney-piece, with a huge piece of

heavy architecture, where the monsters of heraldry, embodied by the art

of some Northumbrian chisel, grinned and ramped in red free-stone, now

japanned by the smoke of centuries. Others of these old-fashioned

serving-men bore huge smoking dishes, loaded with substantial fare;

others brought in cups, flagons, bottles, yea barrels of liquor. All

tramped, kicked, plunged, shouldered, and jostled, doing as little

service with as much tumult as could well be imagined. At length, while

the dinner was, after various efforts, in the act of being arranged upon

the board, "the clamour much of men and dogs," the cracking of whips,

calculated for the intimidation of the latter, voices loud and high,

steps which, impressed by the heavy-heeled boots of the period, clattered

like those in the statue of the _Festin de Pierre,_* announced the

arrival of those for whose benefit the preparations were made.

* Now called Don Juan.

The hubbub among the servants rather increased than diminished as this

crisis approached. Some called to make haste,--others to take

time,--some exhorted to stand out of the way, and make room for Sir

Hildebrand and the young squires,--some to close round the table and be

_in_ the way,--some bawled to open, some to shut, a pair of

folding-doors which divided the hall from a sort of gallery, as I

afterwards learned, or withdrawing-room, fitted up with black wainscot.

Opened the doors were at length, and in rushed curs and men,--eight

dogs, the domestic chaplain, the village doctor, my six cousins, and my

uncle.

CHAPTER SIXTH.

The rude hall rocks--they come, they come,--

The din of voices shakes the dome;--

In stalk the various forms, and, drest

In varying morion, varying vest,

All march with haughty step--all proudly shake the crest.

Penrose.

If Sir Hildebrand Osbaldistone was in no hurry to greet his nephew, of

whose arrival he must have been informed for some time, he had important

avocations to allege in excuse. "Had seen thee sooner, lad," he

exclaimed, after a rough shake of the hand, and a hearty welcome to

Osbaldistone Hall, "but had to see the hounds kennelled first. Thou art

welcome to the Hall, lad--here is thy cousin Percie, thy cousin Thornie,

and thy cousin John--your cousin Dick, your cousin Wilfred, and--stay,

where's Rashleigh?--ay, here's Rashleigh--take thy long body aside

Thornie, and let's see thy brother a bit--your cousin Rashleigh. So, thy

father has thought on the old Hall, and old Sir Hildebrand at

last--better late than never--Thou art welcome, lad, and there's enough.

Where's my little Die?--ay, here she comes--this is my niece Die, my

wife's brother's daughter--the prettiest girl in our dales, be the other

who she may--and so now let's to the sirloin."--

To gain some idea of the person who held this language, you must suppose,

my dear Tresham, a man aged about sixty, in a hunting suit which had once

been richly laced, but whose splendour had been tarnished by many a

November and December storm. Sir Hildebrand, notwithstanding the

abruptness of his present manner, had, at one period of his life, known

courts and camps; had held a commission in the army which encamped on

Hounslow Heath previous to the Revolution--and, recommended perhaps by

his religion, had been knighted about the same period by the unfortunate

and ill-advised James II. But the Knight's dreams of further preferment,

if he ever entertained any, had died away at the crisis which drove his

patron from the throne, and since that period he had spent a sequestered

life upon his native domains. Notwithstanding his rusticity, however, Sir

Hildebrand retained much of the exterior of a gentleman, and appeared

among his sons as the remains of a Corinthian pillar, defaced and

overgrown with moss and lichen, might have looked, if contrasted with the

rough unhewn masses of upright stones in Stonhenge, or any other

Druidical temple. The sons were, indeed, heavy unadorned blocks as the

eye would desire to look upon. Tall, stout, and comely, all and each of

the five eldest seemed to want alike the Promethean fire of intellect,

and the exterior grace and manner, which, in the polished world,

sometimes supply mental deficiency. Their most valuable moral quality

seemed to be the good-humour and content which was expressed in their

heavy features, and their only pretence to accomplishment was their

dexterity in field sports, for which alone they lived. The strong Gyas,

and the strong Cloanthus, are not less distinguished by the poet, than

the strong Percival, the strong Thorncliff, the strong John, Richard, and

Wilfred Osbaldistones, were by outward appearance.

But, as if to indemnify herself for a uniformity so uncommon in her

productions, Dame Nature had rendered Rashleigh Osbaldistone a striking

contrast in person and manner, and, as I afterwards learned, in temper

and talents, not only to his brothers, but to most men whom I had

hitherto met with. When Percie, Thornie, and Co. had respectively nodded,

grinned, and presented their shoulder rather than their hand, as their

father named them to their new kinsman, Rashleigh stepped forward, and

welcomed me to Osbaldistone Hall, with the air and manner of a man of the

world. His appearance was not in itself prepossessing. He was of low

stature, whereas all his brethren seemed to be descendants of Anak; and

while they were handsomely formed, Rashleigh, though strong in person,

was bull-necked and cross-made, and from some early injury in his youth

had an imperfection in his gait, so much resembling an absolute halt,

that many alleged that it formed the obstacle to his taking orders; the

Church of Rome, as is well known, admitting none to the clerical

profession who labours under any personal deformity. Others, however,

ascribed this unsightly defect to a mere awkward habit, and contended

that it did not amount to a personal disqualification from holy orders.

The features of Rashleigh were such, as, having looked upon, we in vain

wish to banish from our memory, to which they recur as objects of painful

curiosity, although we dwell upon them with a feeling of dislike, and

even of disgust. It was not the actual plainness of his face, taken

separately from the meaning, which made this strong impression. His

features were, indeed, irregular, but they were by no means vulgar; and

his keen dark eyes, and shaggy eyebrows, redeemed his face from the

charge of commonplace ugliness. But there was in these eyes an expression

of art and design, and, on provocation, a ferocity tempered by caution,

which nature had made obvious to the most ordinary physiognomist, perhaps

with the same intention that she has given the rattle to the poisonous

snake. As if to compensate him for these disadvantages of exterior,

Rashleigh Osbaldistone was possessed of a voice the most soft, mellow,

and rich in its tones that I ever heard, and was at no loss for language

of every sort suited to so fine an organ. His first sentence of welcome

was hardly ended, ere I internally agreed with Miss Vernon, that my new

kinsman would make an instant conquest of a mistress whose ears alone

were to judge his cause. He was about to place himself beside me at

dinner, but Miss Vernon, who, as the only female in the family, arranged

all such matters according to her own pleasure, contrived that I should

sit betwixt Thorncliff and herself; and it can scarce be doubted that I

favoured this more advantageous arrangement.

"I want to speak with you," she said, "and I have placed honest Thornie

betwixt Rashleigh and you on purpose. He will be like--

Feather-bed 'twixt castle wall

And heavy brunt of cannon ball,

while I, your earliest acquaintance in this intellectual family, ask of

you how you like us all?"

"A very comprehensive question, Miss Vernon, considering how short while

I have been at Osbaldistone Hall."

"Oh, the philosophy of our family lies on the surface--there are minute

shades distinguishing the individuals, which require the eye of an

intelligent observer; but the species, as naturalists I believe call it,

may be distinguished and characterized at once."

"My five elder cousins, then, are I presume of pretty nearly the same

character."

"Yes, they form a happy compound of sot, gamekeeper, bully, horse-jockey,

and fool; but as they say there cannot be found two leaves on the same

tree exactly alike, so these happy ingredients, being mingled in somewhat

various proportions in each individual, make an agreeable variety for

those who like to study character."

"Give me a sketch, if you please, Miss Vernon."

"You shall have them all in a family-piece, at full length--the favour is

too easily granted to be refused. Percie, the son and heir, has more of

the sot than of the gamekeeper, bully, horse-jockey, or fool--My precious

Thornie is more of the bully than the sot, gamekeeper, jockey, or

fool--John, who sleeps whole weeks amongst the hills, has most of the

gamekeeper--The jockey is powerful with Dickon, who rides two hundred

miles by day and night to be bought and sold at a horse-race--And the

fool predominates so much over Wilfred's other qualities, that he may be

termed a fool positive."

"A goodly collection, Miss Vernon, and the individual varieties belong to

a most interesting species. But is there no room on the canvas for Sir

Hildebrand?"

"I love my uncle," was her reply: "I owe him some kindness (such it was

meant for at least), and I will leave you to draw his picture yourself,

when you know him better."

"Come," thought I to myself, "I am glad there is some forbearance. After

all, who would have looked for such bitter satire from a creature so

young, and so exquisitely beautiful?"

"You are thinking of me," she said, bending her dark eyes on me, as if

she meant to pierce through my very soul.

"I certainly was," I replied, with some embarrassment at the determined

suddenness of the question, and then, endeavouring to give a

complimentary turn to my frank avowal--"How is it possible I should think

of anything else, seated as I have the happiness to be?"

She smiled with such an expression of concentrated haughtiness as she

alone could have thrown into her countenance. "I must inform you at once,

Mr. Osbaldistone, that compliments are entirely lost upon me; do not,

therefore, throw away your pretty sayings--they serve fine gentlemen who

travel in the country, instead of the toys, beads, and bracelets, which

navigators carry to propitiate the savage inhabitants of newly-discovered

lands. Do not exhaust your stock in trade;--you will find natives in

Northumberland to whom your fine things will recommend you--on me they

would be utterly thrown away, for I happen to know their real value."

I was silenced and confounded.

"You remind me at this moment," said the young lady, resuming her lively

and indifferent manner, "of the fairy tale, where the man finds all the

money which he had carried to market suddenly changed into pieces of

slate. I have cried down and ruined your whole stock of complimentary

discourse by one unlucky observation. But come, never mind it--You are

belied, Mr. Osbaldistone, unless you have much better conversation than

these _fadeurs,_ which every gentleman with a toupet thinks himself

obliged to recite to an unfortunate girl, merely because she is dressed

in silk and gauze, while he wears superfine cloth with embroidery. Your

natural paces, as any of my five cousins might say, are far preferable to

your complimentary amble. Endeavour to forget my unlucky sex; call me Tom

Vernon, if you have a mind, but speak to me as you would to a friend and

companion; you have no idea how much I shall like you."

"That would be a bribe indeed," returned I.

"Again!" replied Miss Vernon, holding up her finger; "I told you I would

not bear the shadow of a compliment. And now, when you have pledged my

uncle, who threatens you with what he calls a brimmer, I will tell you

what you think of me."

The bumper being pledged by me, as a dutiful nephew, and some other

general intercourse of the table having taken place, the continued and

business-like clang of knives and forks, and the devotion of cousin

Thorncliff on my right hand, and cousin Dickon, who sate on Miss Vernon's

left, to the huge quantities of meat with which they heaped their plates,

made them serve as two occasional partitions, separating us from the rest

of the company, and leaving us to our _tete-a-tete._ "And now," said

I, "give me leave to ask you frankly, Miss Vernon, what you suppose I am

thinking of you!--I could tell you what I really _do_ think, but you have

interdicted praise."

"I do not want your assistance. I am conjuror enough to tell your

thoughts without it. You need not open the casement of your bosom; I see

through it. You think me a strange bold girl, half coquette, half romp;

desirous of attracting attention by the freedom of her manners and

loudness of her conversation, because she is ignorant of what the

Spectator calls the softer graces of the sex; and perhaps you think I

have some particular plan of storming you into admiration. I should be

sorry to shock your self-opinion, but you were never more mistaken. All

the confidence I have reposed in you, I would have given as readily to

your father, if I thought he could have understood me. I am in this happy

family as much secluded from intelligent listeners as Sancho in the

Sierra Morena, and when opportunity offers, I must speak or die. I assure

you I would not have told you a word of all this curious intelligence,

had I cared a pin who knew it or knew it not."

"It is very cruel in you, Miss Vernon, to take away all particular marks

of favour from your communications, but I must receive them on your own

terms.--You have not included Mr. Rashleigh Osbaldistone in your domestic

sketches."

She shrunk, I thought, at this remark, and hastily answered, in a much

lower tone, "Not a word of Rashleigh! His ears are so acute when his

selfishness is interested, that the sounds would reach him even through

the mass of Thorncliff's person, stuffed as it is with beef,

venison-pasty, and pudding."

"Yes," I replied; "but peeping past the living screen which divides us,

before I put the question, I perceived that Mr. Rashleigh's chair was

empty--he has left the table."

"I would not have you be too sure of that," Miss Vernon replied. "Take my

advice, and when you speak of Rashleigh, get up to the top of

Otterscope-hill, where you can see for twenty miles round you in every

direction--stand on the very peak, and speak in whispers; and, after all,

don't be too sure that the bird of the air will not carry the matter,

Rashleigh has been my tutor for four years; we are mutually tired of each

other, and we shall heartily rejoice at our approaching separation."

"Mr. Rashleigh leaves Osbaldistone Hall, then?"

"Yes, in a few days;--did you not know that?--your father must keep his

resolutions much more secret than Sir Hildebrand. Why, when my uncle was

informed that you were to be his guest for some time, and that your

father desired to have one of his hopeful sons to fill up the lucrative

situation in his counting-house which was vacant by your obstinacy, Mr.

Francis, the good knight held a _cour ple'nie're_ of all his family,

including the butler, housekeeper, and gamekeeper. This reverend assembly

of the peers and household officers of Osbaldistone Hall was not

convoked, as you may suppose, to elect your substitute, because, as

Rashleigh alone possessed more arithmetic than was necessary to calculate

the odds on a fighting cock, none but he could be supposed qualified for

the situation. But some solemn sanction was necessary for transforming

Rashleigh's destination from starving as a Catholic priest to thriving as

a wealthy banker; and it was not without some reluctance that the

acquiescence of the assembly was obtained to such an act of degradation."

"I can conceive the scruples--but how were they got over?"

"By the general wish, I believe, to get Rashleigh out of the house,"

replied Miss Vernon. "Although youngest of the family, he has somehow or

other got the entire management of all the others; and every one is

sensible of the subjection, though they cannot shake it off. If any one

opposes him, he is sure to rue having done so before the year goes about;

and if you do him a very important service, you may rue it still more."

"At that rate," answered I, smiling, "I should look about me; for I have

been the cause, however unintentionally, of his change of situation."

"Yes; and whether he regards it as an advantage or disadvantage, he will

owe you a grudge for it--But here comes cheese, radishes, and a bumper to

church and king, the hint for chaplains and ladies to disappear; and I,

the sole representative of womanhood at Osbaldistone Hall, retreat, as in

duty bound."

She vanished as she spoke, leaving me in astonishment at the mingled

character of shrewdness, audacity, and frankness, which her conversation

displayed. I despair conveying to you the least idea of her manner,

although I have, as nearly as I can remember, imitated her language. In

fact, there was a mixture of untaught simplicity, as well as native

shrewdness and haughty boldness, in her manner, and all were modified and

recommended by the play of the most beautiful features I had ever beheld.

It is not to be thought that, however strange and uncommon I might think

her liberal and unreserved communications, a young man of two-and-twenty

was likely to be severely critical on a beautiful girl of eighteen, for

not observing a proper distance towards him. On the contrary, I was

equally diverted and flattered by Miss Vernon's confidence, and that

notwithstanding her declaration of its being conferred on me solely

because I was the first auditor who occurred, of intelligence enough to

comprehend it. With the presumption of my age, certainly not diminished

by my residence in France, I imagined that well-formed features, and a

handsome person, both which I conceived myself to possess, were not

unsuitable qualifications for the confidant of a young beauty. My vanity

thus enlisted in Miss Vernon's behalf, I was far from judging her with

severity, merely for a frankness which I supposed was in some degree

justified by my own personal merit; and the feelings of partiality, which

her beauty, and the singularity of her situation, were of themselves

calculated to excite, were enhanced by my opinion of her penetration and

judgment in her choice of a friend.

After Miss Vernon quitted the apartment, the bottle circulated, or rather

flew, around the table in unceasing revolution. My foreign education had

given me a distaste to intemperance, then and yet too common a vice among

my countrymen. The conversation which seasoned such orgies was as little

to my taste, and if anything could render it more disgusting, it was the

relationship of the company. I therefore seized a lucky opportunity, and

made my escape through a side door, leading I knew not whither, rather

than endure any longer the sight of father and sons practising the same

degrading intemperance, and holding the same coarse and disgusting

conversation. I was pursued, of course, as I had expected, to be

reclaimed by force, as a deserter from the shrine of Bacchus. When I

heard the whoop and hollo, and the tramp of the heavy boots of my

pursuers on the winding stair which I was descending, I plainly foresaw I

should be overtaken unless I could get into the open air. I therefore

threw open a casement in the staircase, which looked into an

old-fashioned garden, and as the height did not exceed six feet, I jumped

out without hesitation, and soon heard far behind the "hey whoop! stole

away! stole away!" of my baffled pursuers. I ran down one alley, walked

fast up another; and then, conceiving myself out of all danger of

pursuit, I slackened my pace into a quiet stroll, enjoying the cool air

which the heat of the wine I had been obliged to swallow, as well as that

of my rapid retreat, rendered doubly grateful.

As I sauntered on, I found the gardener hard at his evening employment,

and saluted him, as I paused to look at his work.

"Good even, my friend."

"Gude e'en--gude e'en t'ye," answered the man, without looking up, and in

a tone which at once indicated his northern extraction.

"Fine weather for your work, my friend."

"It's no that muckle to be compleened o'," answered the man, with that

limited degree of praise which gardeners and farmers usually bestow on

the very best weather. Then raising his head, as if to see who spoke to

him, he touched his Scotch bonnet with an air of respect, as he observed,

"Eh, gude safe us!--it's a sight for sair een, to see a gold-laced

jeistiecor in the Ha'garden sae late at e'en."

"A gold-laced what, my good friend?"

"Ou, a jeistiecor*--that's a jacket like your ain, there. They

* Perhaps from the French _Juste-au-corps._

hae other things to do wi' them up yonder--unbuttoning them to make room

for the beef and the bag-puddings, and the claret-wine, nae doubt--that's

the ordinary for evening lecture on this side the border."

"There's no such plenty of good cheer in your country, my good friend," I

replied, "as to tempt you to sit so late at it."

"Hout, sir, ye ken little about Scotland; it's no for want of gude

vivers--the best of fish, flesh, and fowl hae we, by sybos, ingans,

turneeps, and other garden fruit. But we hae mense and discretion, and

are moderate of our mouths;--but here, frae the kitchen to the ha', it's

fill and fetch mair, frae the tae end of the four-and-twenty till the

tother. Even their fast days--they ca' it fasting when they hae the best

o' sea-fish frae Hartlepool and Sunderland by land carriage, forbye

trouts, grilses, salmon, and a' the lave o't, and so they make their very

fasting a kind of luxury and abomination; and then the awfu' masses and

matins of the puir deceived souls--But I shouldna speak about them, for

your honour will be a Roman, I'se warrant, like the lave."

"Not I, my friend; I was bred an English presbyterian, or dissenter."

"The right hand of fellowship to your honour, then," quoth the gardener,

with as much alacrity as his hard features were capable of expressing,

and, as if to show that his good-will did not rest on words, he plucked

forth a huge horn snuff-box, or mull, as he called it, and proffered a

pinch with a most fraternal grin.

Having accepted his courtesy, I asked him if he had been long a domestic

at Osbaldistone Hall.

"I have been fighting with wild beasts at Ephesus," said he, looking

towards the building, "for the best part of these four-and-twenty years,

as sure as my name's Andrew Fairservice."

"But, my excellent friend, Andrew Fairservice, if your religion and your

temperance are so much offended by Roman rituals and southern

hospitality, it seems to me that you must have been putting yourself to

an unnecessary penance all this while, and that you might have found a

service where they eat less, and are more orthodox in their worship. I

dare say it cannot be want of skill which prevented your being placed

more to your satisfaction."

"It disna become me to speak to the point of my qualifications," said

Andrew, looking round him with great complacency; "but nae doubt I should

understand my trade of horticulture, seeing I was bred in the parish of

Dreepdaily, where they raise lang-kale under glass, and force the early

nettles for their spring kale. And, to speak truth, I hae been flitting

every term these four-and-twenty years; but when the time comes, there's

aye something to saw that I would like to see sawn,--or something to maw

that I would like to see mawn,--or something to ripe that I would like to

see ripen,--and sae I e'en daiker on wi' the family frae year's end to

year's end. And I wad say for certain, that I am gaun to quit at

Cannlemas, only I was just as positive on it twenty years syne, and I

find mysell still turning up the mouls here, for a' that. Forbye that, to

tell your honour the evendown truth, there's nae better place ever

offered to Andrew. But if your honour wad wush me to ony place where I

wad hear pure doctrine, and hae a free cow's grass, and a cot, and a

yard, and mair than ten punds of annual fee, and where there's nae leddy

about the town to count the apples, I'se hold mysell muckle indebted

t'ye."

"Bravo, Andrew! I perceive you'll lose no preferment for want of asking

patronage."

"I canna see what for I should," replied Andrew; "it's no a generation to

wait till ane's worth's discovered, I trow."

"But you are no friend, I observe, to the ladies."

"Na, by my troth, I keep up the first gardener's quarrel to them. They're

fasheous bargains--aye crying for apricocks, pears, plums, and apples,

summer and winter, without distinction o' seasons; but we hae nae slices

o' the spare rib here, be praised for't! except auld Martha, and she's

weel eneugh pleased wi' the freedom o' the berry-bushes to her sister's

weans, when they come to drink tea in a holiday in the housekeeper's

room, and wi' a wheen codlings now and then for her ain private supper."

"You forget your young mistress."

"What mistress do I forget?--whae's that?"

"Your young mistress, Miss Vernon."

"What! the lassie Vernon?--She's nae mistress o' mine, man. I wish she

was her ain mistress; and I wish she mayna be some other body's mistress

or it's lang--She's a wild slip that."

"Indeed!" said I, more interested than I cared to own to myself, or to

show to the fellow--"why, Andrew, you know all the secrets of this

family."

"If I ken them, I can keep them," said Andrew; "they winna work in my

wame like harm in a barrel, I'se warrant ye. Miss Die is--but it's

neither beef nor brose o' mine."

And he began to dig with a great semblance of assiduity.

"What is Miss Vernon, Andrew? I am a friend of the family, and should

like to know."

"Other than a gude ane, I'm fearing," said Andrew, closing one eye hard,

and shaking his head with a grave and mysterious look--"something

glee'd--your honour understands me?"

"I cannot say I do," said I, "Andrew; but I should like to hear you

explain yourself;" and therewithal I slipped a crown-piece into Andrew's

horn-hard hand. The touch of the silver made him grin a ghastly smile, as

he nodded slowly, and thrust it into his breeches pocket; and then, like

a man who well understood that there was value to be returned, stood up,

and rested his arms on his spade, with his features composed into the

most important gravity, as for some serious communication.

"Ye maun ken, then, young gentleman, since it imports you to know, that

Miss Vernon is"--

Here breaking off, he sucked in both his cheeks, till his lantern jaws

and long chin assumed the appearance of a pair of nut-crackers; winked

hard once more, frowned, shook his head, and seemed to think his

physiognomy had completed the information which his tongue had not fully

told.

"Good God!" said I--"so young, so beautiful, so early lost!"

"Troth ye may say sae--she's in a manner lost, body and saul; forby being

a Papist, I'se uphaud her for"--and his northern caution prevailed, and

he was again silent.

"For what, sir?" said I sternly. "I insist on knowing the plain meaning

of all this."

"On, just for the bitterest Jacobite in the haill shire."

"Pshaw! a Jacobite?--is that all?"

Andrew looked at me with some astonishment, at hearing his information

treated so lightly; and then muttering, "Aweel, it's the warst thing I

ken aboot the lassie, howsoe'er," he resumed his spade, like the king of

the Vandals, in Marmontel's late novel.

CHAPTER SEVENTH.

_Bardolph._--The sheriff, with a monstrous watch, is at the door.

Henry IV. _First Part._

I found out with some difficulty the apartment which was destined for my

accommodation; and having secured myself the necessary good-will and

attention from my uncle's domestics, by using the means they were most

capable of comprehending, I secluded myself there for the remainder of

the evening, conjecturing, from the fair way in which I had left my new

relatives, as well as from the distant noise which continued to echo from

the stone-hall (as their banqueting-room was called), that they were not

likely to be fitting company for a sober man.

"What could my father mean by sending me to be an inmate in this strange

family?" was my first and most natural reflection. My uncle, it was

plain, received me as one who was to make some stay with him, and his

rude hospitality rendered him as indifferent as King Hal to the number of

those who fed at his cost. But it was plain my presence or absence would

be of as little importance in his eyes as that of one of his blue-coated

serving-men. My cousins were mere cubs, in whose company I might, if I

liked it, unlearn whatever decent manners, or elegant accomplishments, I

had acquired, but where I could attain no information beyond what

regarded worming dogs, rowelling horses, and following foxes. I could

only imagine one reason, which was probably the true one. My father

considered the life which was led at Osbaldistone Hall as the natural and

inevitable pursuits of all country gentlemen, and he was desirous, by

giving me an opportunity of seeing that with which he knew I should be

disgusted, to reconcile me, if possible, to take an active share in his

own business. In the meantime, he would take Rashleigh Osbaldistone into

the counting-house. But he had an hundred modes of providing for him, and

that advantageously, whenever he chose to get rid of him. So that,

although I did feel a certain qualm of conscience at having been the

means of introducing Rashleigh, being such as he was described by Miss

Vernon, into my father's business--perhaps into his confidence--I subdued

it by the reflection that my father was complete master of his own

affairs--a man not to be imposed upon, or influenced by any one--and that

all I knew to the young gentleman's prejudice was through the medium of a

singular and giddy girl, whose communications were made with an

injudicious frankness, which might warrant me in supposing her

conclusions had been hastily or inaccurately formed. Then my mind

naturally turned to Miss Vernon herself; her extreme beauty; her very

peculiar situation, relying solely upon her reflections, and her own

spirit, for guidance and protection; and her whole character offering

that variety and spirit which piques our curiosity, and engages our

attention in spite of ourselves. I had sense enough to consider the

neighbourhood of this singular young lady, and the chance of our being

thrown into very close and frequent intercourse, as adding to the

dangers, while it relieved the dulness, of Osbaldistone Hall; but I could

not, with the fullest exertion of my prudence, prevail upon myself to

regret excessively this new and particular hazard to which I was to be

exposed. This scruple I also settled as young men settle most

difficulties of the kind--I would be very cautious, always on my guard,

consider Miss Vernon rather as a companion than an intimate; and all

would do well enough. With these reflections I fell asleep, Miss Vernon,

of course, forming the last subject of my contemplation.

Whether I dreamed of her or not, I cannot satisfy you, for I was tired

and slept soundly. But she was the first person I thought of in the

morning, when waked at dawn by the cheerful notes of the hunting horn. To

start up, and direct my horse to be saddled, was my first movement; and

in a few minutes I was in the court-yard, where men, dogs, and horses,

were in full preparation. My uncle, who, perhaps, was not entitled to

expect a very alert sportsman in his nephew, bred as he had been in

foreign parts, seemed rather surprised to see me, and I thought his

morning salutation wanted something of the hearty and hospitable tone

which distinguished his first welcome. "Art there, lad?--ay, youth's aye

rathe--but look to thysell--mind the old song, lad--

He that gallops his horse on Blackstone edge

May chance to catch a fall."

I believe there are few young men, and those very sturdy moralists, who

would not rather be taxed with some moral peccadillo than with want of

knowledge in horsemanship. As I was by no means deficient either in skill

or courage, I resented my uncle's insinuation accordingly, and assured

him he would find me up with the hounds.

"I doubtna, lad," was his reply; "thou'rt a rank rider, I'se warrant

thee--but take heed. Thy father sent thee here to me to be bitted, and I

doubt I must ride thee on the curb, or we'll hae some one to ride thee on

the halter, if I takena the better heed."

As this speech was totally unintelligible to me--as, besides, it did not

seem to be delivered for my use, or benefit, but was spoken as it were

aside, and as if expressing aloud something which was passing through the

mind of my much-honoured uncle, I concluded it must either refer to my

desertion of the bottle on the preceding evening, or that my uncle's

morning hours being a little discomposed by the revels of the night

before, his temper had suffered in proportion. I only made the passing

reflection, that if he played the ungracious landlord, I would remain the

shorter while his guest, and then hastened to salute Miss Vernon, who

advanced cordially to meet me. Some show of greeting also passed between

my cousins and me; but as I saw them maliciously bent upon criticising my

dress and accoutrements, from the cap to the stirrup-irons, and sneering

at whatever had a new or foreign appearance, I exempted myself from the

task of paying them much attention; and assuming, in requital of their

grins and whispers, an air of the utmost indifference and contempt, I

attached myself to Miss Vernon, as the only person in the party whom I

could regard as a suitable companion. By her side, therefore, we sallied

forth to the destined cover, which was a dingle or copse on the side of

an extensive common. As we rode thither, I observed to Diana, "that I did

not see my cousin Rashleigh in the field;" to which she replied,--"O

no--he's a mighty hunter, but it's after the fashion of Nimrod, and his

game is man."

The dogs now brushed into the cover, with the appropriate encouragement

from the hunters--all was business, bustle, and activity. My cousins were

soon too much interested in the business of the morning to take any

further notice of me, unless that I overheard Dickon the horse-jockey

whisper to Wilfred the fool--"Look thou, an our French cousin be nat off

a' first burst."

To which Wilfred answered, "Like enow, for he has a queer outlandish

binding on's castor."

Thorncliff, however, who in his rude way seemed not absolutely insensible

to the beauty of his kinswoman, appeared determined to keep us company

more closely than his brothers,--perhaps to watch what passed betwixt

Miss Vernon and me--perhaps to enjoy my expected mishaps in the chase. In

the last particular he was disappointed. After beating in vain for the

greater part of the morning, a fox was at length found, who led us a

chase of two hours, in the course of which, notwithstanding the

ill-omened French binding upon my hat, I sustained my character as a

horseman to the admiration of my uncle and Miss Vernon, and the secret

disappointment of those who expected me to disgrace it. Reynard, however,

proved too wily for his pursuers, and the hounds were at fault. I could

at this time observe in Miss Vernon's manner an impatience of the close

attendance which we received from Thorncliff Osbaldistone; and, as that

active-spirited young lady never hesitated at taking the readiest means

to gratify any wish of the moment, she said to him, in a tone of

reproach--"I wonder, Thornie, what keeps you dangling at my horse's

crupper all this morning, when you know the earths above Woolverton-mill

are not stopt."

"I know no such an thing then, Miss Die, for the miller swore himself as

black as night, that he stopt them at twelve o'clock midnight that was."

"O fie upon you, Thornie! would you trust to a miller's word?--and these

earths, too, where we lost the fox three times this season! and you on

your grey mare, that can gallop there and back in ten minutes!"

"Well, Miss Die, I'se go to Woolverton then, and if the earths are not

stopt, I'se raddle Dick the miller's bones for him."

"Do, my dear Thornie; horsewhip the rascal to purpose--via--fly away, and

about it;"--Thorncliff went off at the gallop--"or get horsewhipt

yourself, which will serve my purpose just as well.--I must teach them

all discipline and obedience to the word of command. I am raising a

regiment, you must know. Thornie shall be my sergeant-major, Dickon my

riding-master, and Wilfred, with his deep dub-a-dub tones, that speak but

three syllables at a time, my kettle-drummer."

"And Rashleigh?"

"Rashleigh shall be my scout-master." "And will you find no employment

for me, most lovely colonel?"

"You shall have the choice of being pay-master, or plunder-master, to the

corps. But see how the dogs puzzle about there. Come, Mr. Frank, the

scent's cold; they won't recover it there this while; follow me, I have a

view to show you."

And in fact, she cantered up to the top of a gentle hill, commanding an

extensive prospect. Casting her eyes around, to see that no one was near

us, she drew up her horse beneath a few birch-trees, which screened us

from the rest of the hunting-field--"Do you see yon peaked, brown, heathy

hill, having something like a whitish speck upon the side?"

"Terminating that long ridge of broken moorish uplands?--I see it

distinctly."

"That whitish speck is a rock called Hawkesmore-crag, and Hawkesmore-crag

is in Scotland."

"Indeed! I did not think we had been so near Scotland."

"It is so, I assure you, and your horse will carry you there in two

hours."

"I shall hardly give him the trouble; why, the distance must be eighteen

miles as the crow flies."

"You may have my mare, if you think her less blown--I say, that in two

hours you may be in Scotland."

"And I say, that I have so little desire to be there, that if my horse's

head were over the Border, I would not give his tail the trouble of

following. What should I do in Scotland?"

"Provide for your safety, if I must speak plainly. Do you understand me

now, Mr. Frank?"

"Not a whit; you are more and more oracular."

"Then, on my word, you either mistrust me most unjustly, and are a better

dissembler than Rashleigh Osbaldistone himself, or you know nothing of

what is imputed to you; and then no wonder you stare at me in that grave

manner, which I can scarce see without laughing."

"Upon my word of honour, Miss Vernon," said I, with an impatient feeling

of her childish disposition to mirth, "I have not the most distant

conception of what you mean. I am happy to afford you any subject of

amusement, but I am quite ignorant in what it consists."

"Nay, there's no sound jest after all," said the young lady, composing

herself; "only one looks so very ridiculous when he is fairly perplexed.

But the matter is serious enough. Do you know one Moray, or Morris, or

some such name?"

"Not that I can at present recollect."

"Think a moment. Did you not lately travel with somebody of such a name?"

"The only man with whom I travelled for any length of time was a fellow

whose soul seemed to lie in his portmanteau."

"Then it was like the soul of the licentiate Pedro Garcias, which lay

among the ducats in his leathern purse. That man has been robbed, and he

has lodged an information against you, as connected with the violence

done to him."

"You jest, Miss Vernon!"

"I do not, I assure you--the thing is an absolute fact."

"And do you," said I, with strong indignation, which I did not attempt to

suppress, "do you suppose me capable of meriting such a charge?"

"You would call me out for it, I suppose, had I the advantage of being a

man--You may do so as it is, if you like it--I can shoot flying, as well

as leap a five-barred gate."

"And are colonel of a regiment of horse besides," replied I, reflecting

how idle it was to be angry with her--"But do explain the present jest to

me."

"There's no jest whatever," said Diana; "you are accused of robbing this

man, and my uncle believes it as well as I did."

"Upon my honour, I am greatly obliged to my friends for their good

opinion!"

"Now do not, if you can help it, snort, and stare, and snuff the wind,

and look so exceedingly like a startled horse--There's no such offence as

you suppose--you are not charged with any petty larceny or vulgar

felony--by no means. This fellow was carrying money from Government, both

specie and bills, to pay the troops in the north; and it is said he has

been also robbed of some despatches of great consequence."

"And so it is high treason, then, and not simple robbery, of which I am

accused!"

"Certainly--which, you know, has been in all ages accounted the crime of

a gentleman. You will find plenty in this country, and one not far from

your elbow, who think it a merit to distress the Hanoverian government by

every means possible."

"Neither my politics nor my morals, Miss Vernon, are of a description so

accommodating."

"I really begin to believe that you are a Presbyterian and Hanoverian in

good earnest. But what do you propose to do?"

"Instantly to refute this atrocious calumny.--Before whom," I asked, "was

this extraordinary accusation laid."

"Before old Squire Inglewood, who had sufficient unwillingness to receive

it. He sent tidings to my uncle, I suppose, that he might smuggle you

away into Scotland, out of reach of the warrant. But my uncle is sensible

that his religion and old predilections render him obnoxious to

Government, and that, were he caught playing booty, he would be disarmed,

and probably dismounted (which would be the worse evil of the two), as a

Jacobite, papist, and suspected person."*

* On occasions of public alarm, in the beginning of the eighteenth

century, the horses of the Catholics were often seized upon, as they were

always supposed to be on the eve of rising in rebellion.

"I can conceive that, sooner than lose his hunters, he would give up his

nephew."

"His nephew, nieces, sons--daughters, if he had them, and whole

generation," said Diana;--"therefore trust not to him, even for a single

moment, but make the best of your way before they can serve the warrant."

"That I shall certainly do; but it shall be to the house of this Squire

Inglewood--Which way does it lie?"

"About five miles off, in the low ground, behind yonder plantations--you

may see the tower of the clock-house."

"I will be there in a few minutes," said I, putting my horse in motion.

"And I will go with you, and show you the way," said Diana, putting her

palfrey also to the trot.

"Do not think of it, Miss Vernon," I replied. "It is not--permit me the

freedom of a friend--it is not proper, scarcely even delicate, in you to

go with me on such an errand as I am now upon."

"I understand your meaning," said Miss Vernon, a slight blush crossing

her haughty brow;--"it is plainly spoken;" and after a moment's pause she

added, "and I believe kindly meant."

"It is indeed, Miss Vernon. Can you think me insensible of the interest

you show me, or ungrateful for it?" said I, with even more earnestness

than I could have wished to express. "Yours is meant for true kindness,

shown best at the hour of need. But I must not, for your own sake--for

the chance of misconstruction--suffer you to pursue the dictates of your

generosity; this is so public an occasion--it is almost like venturing

into an open court of justice."

"And if it were not almost, but altogether entering into an open court of

justice, do you think I would not go there if I thought it right, and

wished to protect a friend? You have no one to stand by you--you are a

stranger; and here, in the outskirts of the kingdom, country justices do

odd things. My uncle has no desire to embroil himself in your affair;

Rashleigh is absent, and were he here, there is no knowing which side he

might take; the rest are all more stupid and brutal one than another. I

will go with you, and I do not fear being able to serve you. I am no fine

lady, to be terrified to death with law-books, hard words, or big wigs."

"But my dear Miss Vernon"--

"But my dear Mr. Francis, be patient and quiet, and let me take my own

way; for when I take the bit between my teeth, there is no bridle will

stop me."

Flattered with the interest so lovely a creature seemed to take in my

fate, yet vexed at the ridiculous appearance I should make, by carrying a

girl of eighteen along with me as an advocate, and seriously concerned

for the misconstruction to which her motives might be exposed, I

endeavoured to combat her resolution to accompany me to Squire

Inglewood's. The self-willed girl told me roundly, that my dissuasions

were absolutely in vain; that she was a true Vernon, whom no

consideration, not even that of being able to do but little to assist

him, should induce to abandon a friend in distress; and that all I could

say on the subject might be very well for pretty, well-educated,

well-behaved misses from a town boarding-school, but did not apply to

her, who was accustomed to mind nobody's opinion but her own.

While she spoke thus, we were advancing hastily towards Inglewood Place,

while, as if to divert me from the task of further remonstrance, she drew

a ludicrous picture of the magistrate and his clerk.--Inglewood

was--according to her description--a white-washed Jacobite; that is, one

who, having been long a non-juror, like most of the other gentlemen of the

country, had lately qualified himself to act as a justice, by taking the

oaths to Government. "He had done so," she said, "in compliance with the

urgent request of most of his brother squires, who saw, with regret, that

the palladium of silvan sport, the game-laws, were likely to fall into

disuse for want of a magistrate who would enforce them; the nearest

acting justice being the Mayor of Newcastle, and he, as being rather

inclined to the consumption of the game when properly dressed, than to

its preservation when alive, was more partial, of course, to the cause of

the poacher than of the sportsman. Resolving, therefore, that it was

expedient some one of their number should sacrifice the scruples of

Jacobitical loyalty to the good of the community, the Northumbrian

country gentlemen imposed the duty on Inglewood, who, being very inert in

most of his feelings and sentiments, might, they thought, comply with any

political creed without much repugnance. Having thus procured the body of

justice, they proceeded," continued Miss Vernon, "to attach to it a

clerk, by way of soul, to direct and animate its movements. Accordingly

they got a sharp Newcastle attorney, called Jobson, who, to vary my

metaphor, finds it a good thing enough to retail justice at the sign of

Squire Inglewood, and, as his own emoluments depend on the quantity of

business which he transacts, he hooks in his principal for a great deal

more employment in the justice line than the honest squire had ever

bargained for; so that no apple-wife within the circuit of ten miles can

settle her account with a costermonger without an audience of the

reluctant Justice and his alert clerk, Mr. Joseph Jobson. But the most

ridiculous scenes occur when affairs come before him, like our business

of to-day, having any colouring of politics. Mr. Joseph Jobson (for

which, no doubt, he has his own very sufficient reasons) is a prodigious

zealot for the Protestant religion, and a great friend to the present

establishment in church and state. Now, his principal, retaining a sort

of instinctive attachment to the opinions which he professed openly until

he relaxed his political creed with the patriotic view of enforcing the

law against unauthorized destroyers of black-game, grouse, partridges,

and hares, is peculiarly embarrassed when the zeal of his assistant

involves him in judicial proceedings connected with his earlier faith;

and, instead of seconding his zeal, he seldom fails to oppose to it a

double dose of indolence and lack of exertion. And this inactivity does

not by any means arise from actual stupidity. On the contrary, for one

whose principal delight is in eating and drinking, he is an alert,

joyous, and lively old soul, which makes his assumed dulness the more

diverting. So you may see Jobson on such occasions, like a bit of a

broken down blood-tit condemned to drag an overloaded cart, puffing,

strutting, and spluttering, to get the Justice put in motion, while,

though the wheels groan, creak, and revolve slowly, the great and

preponderating weight of the vehicle fairly frustrates the efforts of the

willing quadruped, and prevents its being brought into a state of actual

progression. Nay more, the unfortunate pony, I understand, has been heard

to complain that this same car of justice, which he finds it so hard to

put in motion on some occasions, can on others run fast enough down hill

of its own accord, dragging his reluctant self backwards along with it,

when anything can be done of service to Squire Inglewood's quondam

friends. And then Mr. Jobson talks big about reporting his principal to

the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if it were not for his

particular regard and friendship for Mr. Inglewood and his family."

As Miss Vernon concluded this whimsical description, we found ourselves

in front of Inglewood Place, a handsome, though old-fashioned building.

which showed the consequence of the family.

CHAPTER EIGHTH.

"Sir," quoth the Lawyer, "not to flatter ye,

You have as good and fair a battery

As heart could wish, and need not shame

The proudest man alive to claim."

Butler.

Our horses were taken by a servant in Sir Hildebrand's livery, whom we

found in the court-yard, and we entered the house. In the entrance-hall I

was somewhat surprised, and my fair companion still more so, when we met

Rashleigh Osbaldistone, who could not help showing equal wonder at our

rencontre.

"Rashleigh," said Miss Vernon, without giving him time to ask any

question, "you have heard of Mr. Francis Osbaldistone's affair, and you

have been talking to the Justice about it?"

"Certainly," said Rashleigh, composedly--"it has been my business here.--

I have been endeavouring," he said, with a bow to me, "to render my

cousin what service I can. But I am sorry to meet him here."

"As a friend and relation, Mr. Osbaldistone, you ought to have been sorry

to have met me anywhere else, at a time when the charge of my reputation

required me to be on this spot as soon as possible."

"True; but judging from what my father said, I should have supposed a

short retreat into Scotland--just till matters should be smoothed over in

a quiet way"--

I answered with warmth, "That I had no prudential measures to observe,

and desired to have nothing smoothed over;--on the contrary, I was come

to inquire into a rascally calumny, which I was determined to probe to

the bottom."

"Mr. Francis Osbaldistone is an innocent man, Rashleigh," said Miss

Vernon, "and he demands an investigation of the charge against him, and I

intend to support him in it."

"You do, my pretty cousin?--I should think, now, Mr. Francis Osbaldistone

was likely to be as effectually, and rather more delicately, supported by

my presence than by yours."

"Oh, certainly; but two heads are better than one, you know."

"Especially such a head as yours, my pretty Die," advancing and taking

her hand with a familiar fondness, which made me think him fifty times

uglier than nature had made him. She led him, however, a few steps aside;

they conversed in an under voice, and she appeared to insist upon some

request which he was unwilling or unable to comply with. I never saw so

strong a contrast betwixt the expression of two faces. Miss Vernon's,

from being earnest, became angry; her eyes and cheeks became more

animated, her colour mounted, she clenched her little hand, and stamping

on the ground with her tiny foot, seemed to listen with a mixture of

contempt and indignation to the apologies, which, from his look of civil

deference, his composed and respectful smile, his body rather drawing

back than advanced, and other signs of look and person, I concluded him

to be pouring out at her feet. At length she flung away from him, with "I

_will_ have it so."

"It is not in my power--there is no possibility of it.--Would you think

it, Mr. Osbaldistone?" said he, addressing me--

"You are not mad?" said she, interrupting him.

"Would you think it?" said he, without attending to her hint--"Miss

Vernon insists, not only that I know your innocence (of which, indeed, it

is impossible for any one to be more convinced), but that I must also be

acquainted with the real perpetrators of the outrage on this fellow--if

indeed such an outrage has been committed. Is this reasonable, Mr.

Osbaldistone?"

"I will not allow any appeal to Mr. Osbaldistone, Rashleigh," said the

young lady; "he does not know, as I do, the incredible extent and

accuracy of your information on all points."

"As I am a gentleman, you do me more honour than I deserve."

"Justice, Rashleigh--only justice:--and it is only justice which I expect

at your hands."

"You are a tyrant, Diana," he answered, with a sort of sigh--"a

capricious tyrant, and rule your friends with a rod of iron. Still,

however, it shall be as you desire. But you ought not to be here--you

know you ought not;--you must return with me."

Then turning from Diana, who seemed to stand undecided, he came up to me

in the most friendly manner, and said, "Do not doubt my interest in what

regards you, Mr. Osbaldistone. If I leave you just at this moment, it is

only to act for your advantage. But you must use your influence with your

cousin to return; her presence cannot serve you, and must prejudice

herself."

"I assure you, sir," I replied, "you cannot be more convinced of this

than I; I have urged Miss Vernon's return as anxiously as she would

permit me to do."

"I have thought on it," said Miss Vernon after a pause, "and I will not

go till I see you safe out of the hands of the Philistines. Cousin

Rashleigh, I dare say, means well; but he and I know each other well.

Rashleigh, I will not go;--I know," she added, in a more soothing tone,

"my being here will give you more motive for speed and exertion."

"Stay then, rash, obstinate girl," said Rashleigh; "you know but too well

to whom you trust;" and hastening out of the hall, we heard his horse's

feet a minute afterwards in rapid motion.

"Thank Heaven he is gone!" said Diana. "And now let us seek out the

Justice."

"Had we not better call a servant?"

"Oh, by no means; I know the way to his den--we must burst on him

suddenly--follow me."

I did follow her accordingly, as she tripped up a few gloomy steps,

traversed a twilight passage, and entered a sort of ante-room, hung round

with old maps, architectural elevations, and genealogical trees. A pair

of folding-doors opened from this into Mr. Inglewood's sitting apartment,

from which was heard the fag-end of an old ditty, chanted by a voice

which had been in its day fit for a jolly bottle-song.

"O, in Skipton-in-Craven

Is never a haven,

But many a day foul weather;

And he that would say

A pretty girl nay,

I wish for his cravat a tether."

"Heyday!" said Miss Vernon, "the genial Justice must have dined

already--I did not think it had been so late."

It was even so. Mr. Inglewood's appetite having been sharpened by his

official investigations, he had antedated his meridian repast, having

dined at twelve instead of one o'clock, then the general dining hour in

England. The various occurrences of the morning occasioned our arriving

some time after this hour, to the Justice the most important of the

four-and-twenty, and he had not neglected the interval.

"Stay you here," said Diana. "I know the house, and I will call a

servant; your sudden appearance might startle the old gentleman even to

choking;" and she escaped from me, leaving me uncertain whether I ought

to advance or retreat. It was impossible for me not to hear some part of

what passed within the dinner apartment, and particularly several

apologies for declining to sing, expressed in a dejected croaking voice,

the tones of which, I conceived, were not entirely new to me.

"Not sing, sir? by our Lady! but you must--What! you have cracked my

silver-mounted cocoa-nut of sack, and tell me that you cannot sing!--Sir,

sack will make a cat sing, and speak too; so up with a merry stave, or

trundle yourself out of my doors!--Do you think you are to take up all my

valuable time with your d-d declarations, and then tell me you cannot

sing?"

"Your worship is perfectly in rule," said another voice, which, from its

pert conceited accent, might be that of the cleric, "and the party must

be conformable; he hath _canet_ written on his face in court hand."

"Up with it then," said the Justice, "or by St. Christopher, you shall

crack the cocoa-nut full of salt-and-water, according to the statute for

such effect made and provided."

Thus exhorted and threatened, my quondam fellow-traveller, for I could no

longer doubt that he was the recusant in question, uplifted, with a voice

similar to that of a criminal singing his last psalm on the scaffold, a

most doleful stave to the following effect:--

"Good people all, I pray give ear,

A woeful story you shall hear,

'Tis of a robber as stout as ever

Bade a true man stand and deliver.

With his foodle doo fa loodle loo.

"This knave, most worthy of a cord,

Being armed with pistol and with sword,

'Twixt Kensington and Brentford then

Did boldly stop six honest men.

With his foodle doo, etc.

"These honest men did at Brentford dine,

Having drank each man his pint of wine,

When this bold thief, with many curses,

Did say, You dogs, your lives or purses.

With his foodle doo," etc.

I question if the honest men, whose misfortune is commemorated in this

pathetic ditty, were more startled at the appearance of the bold thief

than the songster was at mine; for, tired of waiting for some one to

announce me, and finding my situation as a listener rather awkward, I

presented myself to the company just as my friend Mr. Morris, for such,

it seems, was his name, was uplifting the fifth stave of his doleful

ballad. The high tone with which the tune started died away in a quaver

of consternation on finding himself so near one whose character he

supposed to be little less suspicious than that of the hero of his

madrigal, and he remained silent, with a mouth gaping as if I had brought

the Gorgon's head in my hand.

The Justice, whose eyes had closed under the influence of the somniferous

lullaby of the song, started up in his chair as it suddenly ceased, and

stared with wonder at the unexpected addition which the company had

received while his organs of sight were in abeyance. The clerk, as I

conjectured him to be from his appearance, was also commoved; for,

sitting opposite to Mr. Morris, that honest gentleman's terror

communicated itself to him, though he wotted not why.

[Illustration: Frank at Judge Inglewood's--104]

I broke the silence of surprise occasioned by my abrupt entrance.--"My

name, Mr. Inglewood, is Francis Osbaldistone; I understand that some

scoundrel has brought a complaint before you, charging me with being

concerned in a loss which he says he has sustained."

"Sir," said the Justice, somewhat peevishly, "these are matters I never

enter upon after dinner;--there is a time for everything, and a justice

of peace must eat as well as other folks."

The goodly person of Mr. Inglewood, by the way, seemed by no means to

have suffered by any fasts, whether in the service of the law or of

religion.

"I beg pardon for an ill-timed visit, sir; but as my reputation is

concerned, and as the dinner appears to be concluded"--

"It is not concluded, sir," replied the magistrate; "man requires

digestion as well as food, and I protest I cannot have benefit from my

victuals unless I am allowed two hours of quiet leisure, intermixed with

harmless mirth, and a moderate circulation of the bottle."

"If your honour will forgive me," said Mr. Jobson, who had produced and

arranged his writing implements in the brief space that our conversation

afforded; "as this is a case of felony, and the gentleman seems something

impatient, the charge is _contra pacem domini regis_"--

"D--n _dominie regis!_" said the impatient Justice--"I hope it's no

treason to say so; but it's enough to made one mad to be worried in this

way. Have I a moment of my life quiet for warrants, orders, directions,

acts, bails, bonds, and recognisances?--I pronounce to you, Mr. Jobson,

that I shall send you and the justiceship to the devil one of these

days."

"Your honour will consider the dignity of the office one of the quorum

and custos rotulorum, an office of which Sir Edward Coke wisely saith,

The whole Christian world hath not the like of it, so it be duly

executed."

"Well," said the Justice, partly reconciled by this eulogium on the

dignity of his situation, and gulping down the rest of his

dissatisfaction in a huge bumper of claret, "let us to this gear then,

and get rid of it as fast as we can.--Here you, sir--you, Morris--you,

knight of the sorrowful countenance--is this Mr. Francis Osbaldistone the

gentleman whom you charge with being art and part of felony?"

"I, sir?" replied Morris, whose scattered wits had hardly yet reassembled

themselves; "I charge nothing--I say nothing against the gentleman,"

"Then we dismiss your complaint, sir, that's all, and a good riddance--

Push about the bottle--Mr. Osbaldistone, help yourself."

Jobson, however, was determined that Morris should not back out of the

scrape so easily. "What do you mean, Mr. Morris?--Here is your own

declaration--the ink scarce dried--and you would retract it in this

scandalous manner!"

"How do I know," whispered the other in a tremulous tone, "how many

rogues are in the house to back him? I have read of such things in

Johnson's Lives of the Highwaymen. I protest the door opens"--

And it did open, and Diana Vernon entered--"You keep fine order here,

Justice--not a servant to be seen or heard of."

"Ah!" said the Justice, starting up with an alacrity which showed that he

was not so engrossed by his devotions to Themis or Comus, as to forget

what was due to beauty--"Ah, ha! Die Vernon, the heath-bell of Cheviot,

and the blossom of the Border, come to see how the old bachelor keeps

house? Art welcome, girl, as flowers in May."

"A fine, open, hospitable house you do keep, Justice, that must be

allowed--not a soul to answer a visitor."

"Ah, the knaves! they reckoned themselves secure of me for a couple of

hours--But why did you not come earlier?--Your cousin Rashleigh dined

here, and ran away like a poltroon after the first bottle was out--But

you have not dined--we'll have something nice and ladylike--sweet and

pretty like yourself, tossed up in a trice."

"I may eat a crust in the ante-room before I set out," answered Miss

Vernon--"I have had a long ride this morning; but I can't stay long,

Justice--I came with my cousin, Frank Osbaldistone, there, and I must

show him the way back again to the Hall, or he'll lose himself in the

wolds."

"Whew! sits the wind in that quarter?" inquired the Justice--

"She showed him the way, she showed him the way,

She showed him the way to woo.

What! no luck for old fellows, then, my sweet bud of the wilderness?"

"None whatever, Squire Inglewood; but if you will be a good kind Justice,

and despatch young Frank's business, and let us canter home again, I'll

bring my uncle to dine with you next week, and we'll expect merry

doings."

"And you shall find them, my pearl of the Tyne--Zookers, lass, I never

envy these young fellows their rides and scampers, unless when you come

across me. But I must not keep you just now, I suppose?--I am quite

satisfied with Mr. Francis Osbaldistone's explanation--here has been some

mistake, which can be cleared at greater leisure."

"Pardon me, sir," said I; "but I have not heard the nature of the

accusation yet."

"Yes, sir," said the clerk, who, at the appearance of Miss Vernon, had

given up the matter in despair, but who picked up courage to press

farther investigation on finding himself supported from a quarter whence

assuredly he expected no backing--"Yes, sir, and Dalton saith, That he

who is apprehended as a felon shall not be discharged upon any man's

discretion, but shall be held either to bail or commitment, paying to the

clerk of the peace the usual fees for recognisance or commitment."

The Justice, thus goaded on, gave me at length a few words of

explanation.

It seems the tricks which I had played to this man Morris had made a

strong impression on his imagination; for I found they had been arrayed

against me in his evidence, with all the exaggerations which a timorous

and heated imagination could suggest. It appeared also, that on the day

he parted from me, he had been stopped on a solitary spot and eased of

his beloved travelling-companion, the portmanteau, by two men, well

mounted and armed, having their faces covered with vizards.

One of them, he conceived, had much of my shape and air, and in a

whispering conversation which took place betwixt the freebooters, he

heard the other apply to him the name of Osbaldistone. The declaration

farther set forth, that upon inquiring into the principles of the family

so named, he, the said declarant, was informed that they were of the

worst description, the family, in all its members, having been Papists

and Jacobites, as he was given to understand by the dissenting clergyman

at whose house he stopped after his rencontre, since the days of William

the Conqueror.

Upon all and each of these weighty reasons, he charged me with being

accessory to the felony committed upon his person; he, the said

declarant, then travelling in the special employment of Government, and

having charge of certain important papers, and also a large sum in

specie, to be paid over, according to his instructions, to certain

persons of official trust and importance in Scotland.

Having heard this extraordinary accusation, I replied to it, that the

circumstances on which it was founded were such as could warrant no

justice, or magistrate, in any attempt on my personal liberty. I admitted

that I had practised a little upon the terrors of Mr. Morris, while we

travelled together, but in such trifling particulars as could have

excited apprehension in no one who was one whit less timorous and jealous

than himself. But I added, that I had never seen him since we parted, and

if that which he feared had really come upon him, I was in nowise

accessory to an action so unworthy of my character and station in life.

That one of the robbers was called Osbaldistone, or that such a name was

mentioned in the course of the conversation betwixt them, was a trifling

circumstance, to which no weight was due. And concerning the disaffection

alleged against me, I was willing to prove, to the satisfaction of the

Justice, the clerk, and even the witness himself, that I was of the same

persuasion as his friend the dissenting clergyman; had been educated as a

good subject in the principles of the Revolution, and as such now

demanded the personal protection of the laws which had been assured by

that great event.

The Justice fidgeted, took snuff, and seemed considerably embarrassed,

while Mr. Attorney Jobson, with all the volubility of his profession, ran

over the statute of the 34 Edward III., by which justices of the peace

are allowed to arrest all those whom they find by indictment or

suspicion, and to put them into prison. The rogue even turned my own

admissions against me, alleging, "that since I had confessedly, upon my

own showing, assumed the bearing or deportment of a robber or malefactor,

I had voluntarily subjected myself to the suspicions of which I

complained, and brought myself within the compass of the act, having

wilfully clothed my conduct with all the colour and livery of guilt."

I combated both his arguments and his jargon with much indignation and

scorn, and observed, "That I should, if necessary, produce the bail of my

relations, which I conceived could not be refused, without subjecting the

magistrate in a misdemeanour."

"Pardon me, my good sir--pardon me," said the insatiable clerk; "this is

a case in which neither bail nor mainprize can be received, the felon who

is liable to be committed on heavy grounds of suspicion, not being

replevisable under the statute of the 3d of King Edward, there being in

that act an express exception of such as be charged of commandment, or

force, and aid of felony done;" and he hinted that his worship would do

well to remember that such were no way replevisable by common writ, nor

without writ.

At this period of the conversation a servant entered, and delivered a

letter to Mr. Jobson. He had no sooner run it hastily over, than he

exclaimed, with the air of one who wished to appear much vexed at the

interruption, and felt the consequence attached to a man of multifarious

avocations--"Good God!--why, at this rate, I shall have neither time to

attend to the public concerns nor my own--no rest--no quiet--I wish to

Heaven another gentleman in our line would settle here!"

"God forbid!" said the Justice in a tone of _sotto-voce_ deprecation;

"some of us have enough of one of the tribe."

"This is a matter of life and death, if your worship pleases."

"In God's name! no more justice business, I hope," said the alarmed

magistrate.

"No--no," replied Mr. Jobson, very consequentially; "old Gaffer Rutledge

of Grime's-hill is subpoenaed for the next world; he has sent an express

for Dr. Kill-down to put in bail--another for me to arrange his worldly

affairs."

"Away with you, then," said Mr. Inglewood, hastily; "his may not be a

replevisable case under the statute, you know, or Mr. Justice Death may

not like the doctor for a _main pernor,_ or bailsman."

"And yet," said Jobson, lingering as he moved towards the door, "if my

presence here be necessary--I could make out the warrant for committal in

a moment, and the constable is below--And you have heard," he said,

lowering his voice, "Mr. Rashleigh's opinion"--the rest was lost in a

whisper.

The Justice replied aloud, "I tell thee no, man, no--we'll do nought till

thou return, man; 'tis but a four-mile ride--Come, push the bottle, Mr.

Morris--Don't be cast down, Mr. Osbaldistone--And you, my rose of the

wilderness--one cup of claret to refresh the bloom of your cheeks."

Diana started, as if from a reverie, in which she appeared to have been

plunged while we held this discussion. "No, Justice--I should be afraid

of transferring the bloom to a part of my face where it would show to

little advantage; but I will pledge you in a cooler beverage;" and

filling a glass with water, she drank it hastily, while her hurried

manner belied her assumed gaiety.

I had not much leisure to make remarks upon her demeanour, however, being

full of vexation at the interference of fresh obstacles to an instant

examination of the disgraceful and impertinent charge which was brought

against me. But there was no moving the Justice to take the matter up in

absence of his clerk, an incident which gave him apparently as much

pleasure as a holiday to a schoolboy. He persisted in his endeavours to

inspire jollity into a company, the individuals of which, whether

considered with reference to each other, or to their respective

situations, were by no means inclined to mirth. "Come, Master Morris,

you're not the first man that's been robbed, I trow--grieving ne'er

brought back loss, man. And you, Mr. Frank Osbaldistone, are not the

first bully-boy that has said stand to a true man. There was Jack

Winterfield, in my young days, kept the best company in the land--at

horse-races and cock-fights who but he--hand and glove was I with Jack.

Push the bottle, Mr. Morris, it's dry talking--Many quart bumpers have I

cracked, and thrown many a merry main with poor Jack--good family--ready

wit--quick eye--as honest a fellow, barring the deed he died for--we'll

drink to his memory, gentlemen--Poor Jack Winterfield--And since we talk

of him, and of those sort of things, and since that d--d clerk of mine

has taken his gibberish elsewhere, and since we're snug among ourselves,

Mr. Osbaldistone, if you will have my best advice, I would take up this

matter--the law's hard--very severe--hanged poor Jack Winterfield at

York, despite family connections and great interest, all for easing a fat

west-country grazier of the price of a few beasts--Now, here is honest

Mr. Morris, has been frightened, and so forth--D--n it, man, let the poor

fellow have back his portmanteau, and end the frolic at once."

Morris's eyes brightened up at this suggestion, and he began to hesitate

forth an assurance that he thirsted for no man's blood, when I cut the

proposed accommodation short, by resenting the Justice's suggestion as an

insult, that went directly to suppose me guilty of the very crime which I

had come to his house with the express intention of disavowing. We were

in this awkward predicament when a servant, opening the door, announced,

"A strange gentleman to wait upon his honour;" and the party whom he thus

described entered the room without farther ceremony.

[Illustration: Die Vernon at Judge Inglewood's--112]

CHAPTER NINTH.

One of the thieves come back again! I'll stand close,

He dares not wrong me now, so near the house,

And call in vain 'tis, till I see him offer it.

The Widow.

"A stranger!" echoed the Justice--"not upon business, I trust, for I'll

be"--

His protestation was cut short by the answer of the man himself. "My

business is of a nature somewhat onerous and particular," said my

acquaintance, Mr. Campbell--for it was he, the very Scotchman whom I had

seen at Northallerton--"and I must solicit your honour to give instant

and heedful consideration to it.--I believe, Mr. Morris," he added,

fixing his eye on that person with a look of peculiar firmness and almost

ferocity--"I believe ye ken brawly what I am--I believe ye cannot have

forgotten what passed at our last meeting on the road?" Morris's jaw

dropped--his countenance became the colour of tallow--his teeth

chattered, and he gave visible signs of the utmost consternation. "Take

heart of grace, man," said Campbell, "and dinna sit clattering your jaws

there like a pair of castanets! I think there can be nae difficulty in

your telling Mr. Justice, that ye have seen me of yore, and ken me to be

a cavalier of fortune, and a man of honour. Ye ken fu' weel ye will be

some time resident in my vicinity, when I may have the power, as I will

possess the inclination, to do you as good a turn."

"Sir--sir--I believe you to be a man of honour, and, as you say, a man of

fortune. Yes, Mr. Inglewood," he added, clearing his voice, "I really

believe this gentleman to be so."

"And what are this gentleman's commands with me?" said the Justice,

somewhat peevishly. "One man introduces another, like the rhymes in the

'house that Jack built,' and I get company without either peace or

conversation!"

"Both shall be yours, sir," answered Campbell, "in a brief period of

time. I come to release your mind from a piece of troublesome duty, not

to make increment to it."

"Body o' me! then you are welcome as ever Scot was to England, and that's

not saying much. But get on, man--let's hear what you have got to say at

once."

"I presume, this gentleman," continued the North Briton, "told you there

was a person of the name of Campbell with him, when he had the mischance

to lose his valise?"

"He has not mentioned such a name, from beginning to end of the matter,"

said the Justice.

"Ah! I conceive--I conceive," replied Mr. Campbell;--"Mr. Morris was

kindly afeared of committing a stranger into collision wi' the judicial

forms of the country; but as I understand my evidence is necessary to the

compurgation of one honest gentleman here, Mr. Francis Osbaldistone, wha

has been most unjustly suspected, I will dispense with the precaution. Ye

will therefore" (he added addressing Morris with the same determined look

and accent) "please tell Mr. Justice Inglewood, whether we did not travel

several miles together on the road, in consequence of your own anxious

request and suggestion, reiterated ance and again, baith on the evening

that we were at Northallerton, and there declined by me, but afterwards

accepted, when I overtook ye on the road near Cloberry Allers, and was

prevailed on by you to resign my ain intentions of proceeding to

Rothbury; and, for my misfortune, to accompany you on your proposed

route."

"It's a melancholy truth," answered Morris, holding down his head, as he

gave this general assent to the long and leading question which Campbell

put to him, and seemed to acquiesce in the statement it contained with

rueful docility.

"And I presume you can also asseverate to his worship, that no man is

better qualified than I am to bear testimony in this case, seeing that I

was by you, and near you, constantly during the whole occurrence."

"No man better qualified, certainly," said Morris, with a deep and

embarrassed sigh.

"And why the devil did you not assist him, then," said the Justice,

"since, by Mr. Morris's account, there were but two robbers; so you were

two to two, and you are both stout likely men?"

"Sir, if it please your worship," said Campbell, "I have been all my life

a man of peace and quietness, noways given to broils or batteries. Mr.

Morris, who belongs, as I understand, or hath belonged, to his Majesty's

army, might have used his pleasure in resistance, he travelling, as I

also understand, with a great charge of treasure; but, for me, who had

but my own small peculiar to defend, and who am, moreover, a man of a

pacific occupation, I was unwilling to commit myself to hazard in the

matter."

I looked at Campbell as he muttered these words, and never recollect to

have seen a more singular contrast than that between the strong daring

sternness expressed in his harsh features, and the air of composed

meekness and simplicity which his language assumed. There was even a

slight ironical smile lurking about the corners of his mouth, which

seemed, involuntarily as it were, to intimate his disdain of the quiet

and peaceful character which he thought proper to assume, and which led

me to entertain strange suspicions that his concern in the violence done

to Morris had been something very different from that of a

fellow-sufferer, or even of a mere spectator.

Perhaps some suspicious crossed the Justice's mind at the moment, for he

exclaimed, as if by way of ejaculation, "Body o' me! but this is a

strange story."

The North Briton seemed to guess at what was passing in his mind; for he

went on, with a change of manner and tone, dismissing from his

countenance some part of the hypocritical affectation of humility which

had made him obnoxious to suspicion, and saying, with a more frank and

unconstrained air, "To say the truth, I am just ane o' those canny folks

wha care not to fight but when they hae gotten something to fight for,

which did not chance to be my predicament when I fell in wi' these loons.

But that your worship may know that I am a person of good fame and

character, please to cast your eye over that billet."

Mr. Inglewood took the paper from his hand, and read, half aloud, "These

are to certify, that the bearer, Robert Campbell of--of some place which

I cannot pronounce," interjected the Justice--"is a person of good

lineage, and peaceable demeanour, travelling towards England on his own

proper affairs, &c. &c. &c. Given under our hand, at our Castle of

Inver--Invera--rara--Argyle."

"A slight testimonial, sir, which I thought fit to impetrate from that

worthy nobleman" (here he raised his hand to his head, as if to touch his

hat), "MacCallum More."

"MacCallum who, sir?" said the Justice.

"Whom the Southern call the Duke of Argyle."

"I know the Duke of Argyle very well to be a nobleman of great worth and

distinction, and a true lover of his country. I was one of those that

stood by him in 1714, when he unhorsed the Duke of Marlborough out of his

command. I wish we had more noblemen like him. He was an honest Tory in

those days, and hand and glove with Ormond. And he has acceded to the

present Government, as I have done myself, for the peace and quiet of his

country; for I cannot presume that great man to have been actuated, as

violent folks pretend, with the fear of losing his places and regiment.

His testimonial, as you call it, Mr. Campbell, is perfectly satisfactory;

and now, what have you got to say to this matter of the robbery?"

"Briefly this, if it please your worship,--that Mr. Morris might as weel

charge it against the babe yet to be born, or against myself even, as

against this young gentleman, Mr. Osbaldistone; for I am not only free to

depone that the person whom he took for him was a shorter man, and a

thicker man, but also, for I chanced to obtain a glisk of his visage, as

his fause-face slipped aside, that he was a man of other features and

complexion than those of this young gentleman, Mr. Osbaldistone. And I

believe," he added, turning round with a natural, yet somewhat sterner

air, to Mr. Morris, "that the gentleman will allow I had better

opportunity to take cognisance wha were present on that occasion than he,

being, I believe, much the cooler o' the twa."

"I agree to it, sir--I agree to it perfectly," said Morris, shrinking

back as Campbell moved his chair towards him to fortify his appeal--"And

I incline, sir," he added, addressing Mr. Inglewood, "to retract my

information as to Mr. Osbaldistone; and I request, sir, you will permit

him, sir, to go about his business, and me to go about mine also; your

worship may have business to settle with Mr. Campbell, and I am rather in

haste to be gone."

"Then, there go the declarations," said the Justice, throwing them into

the fire--"And now you are at perfect liberty, Mr Osbaldistone. And you,

Mr. Morris, are set quite at your ease."

"Ay," said Campbell, eyeing Morris as he assented with a rueful grin to

the Justice's observations, "much like the ease of a tod under a pair of

harrows--But fear nothing, Mr. Morris; you and I maun leave the house

thegither. I will see you safe--I hope you will not doubt my honour, when

I say sae--to the next highway, and then we part company; and if we do

not meet as friends in Scotland, it will be your ain fault."

With such a lingering look of terror as the condemned criminal throws,

when he is informed that the cart awaits him, Morris arose; but when on

his legs, appeared to hesitate. "I tell thee, man, fear nothing,"

reiterated Campbell; "I will keep my word with you--Why, thou sheep's

heart, how do ye ken but we may can pick up some speerings of your

valise, if ye will be amenable to gude counsel?--Our horses are ready.

Bid the Justice fareweel, man, and show your Southern breeding."

Morris, thus exhorted and encouraged, took his leave, under the escort of

Mr. Campbell; but, apparently, new scruples and terrors had struck him

before they left the house, for I heard Campbell reiterating assurances

of safety and protection as they left the ante-room--"By the soul of my

body, man, thou'rt as safe as in thy father's kailyard--Zounds! that a

chield wi' sic a black beard should hae nae mair heart than a

hen-partridge!--Come on wi' ye, like a frank fallow, anes and for aye."

The voices died away, and the subsequent trampling of their horses

announced to us that they had left the mansion of Justice Inglewood.

The joy which that worthy magistrate received at this easy conclusion of

a matter which threatened him with some trouble in his judicial capacity,

was somewhat damped by reflection on what his clerk's views of the

transaction might be at his return. "Now, I shall have Jobson on my

shoulders about these d--d papers--I doubt I should not have destroyed

them, after all--But hang it! it is only paying his fees, and that will

make all smooth--And now, Miss Die Vernon, though I have liberated all

the others, I intend to sign a writ for committing you to the custody of

Mother Blakes, my old housekeeper, for the evening, and we will send for

my neighbour Mrs. Musgrave, and the Miss Dawkins, and your cousins, and

have old Cobs the fiddler, and be as merry as the maids; and Frank

Osbaldistone and I will have a carouse that will make us fit company for

you in half-an-hour."

"Thanks, most worshipful," returned Miss Vernon; "but, as matters stand,

we must return instantly to Osbaldistone Hall, where they do not know

what has become of us, and relieve my uncle of his anxiety on my cousin's

account, which is just the same as if one of his own sons were

concerned."

"I believe it truly," said the Justice; "for when his eldest son, Archie,

came to a bad end, in that unlucky affair of Sir John Fenwick's, old

Hildebrand used to hollo out his name as readily as any of the remaining

six, and then complain that he could not recollect which of his sons had

been hanged. So, pray hasten home, and relieve his paternal solicitude,

since go you must. But hark thee hither, heath-blossom," he said, pulling

her towards him by the hand, and in a good-humoured tone of admonition,

"another time let the law take its course, without putting your pretty

finger into her old musty pie, all full of fragments of law

gibberish--French and dog-Latin--And, Die, my beauty, let young fellows

show each other the way through the moors, in case you should lose your

own road, while you are pointing out theirs, my pretty Will o' the

Wisp."

With this admonition, he saluted and dismissed Miss Vernon, and took an

equally kind farewell of me.

"Thou seems to be a good tight lad, Mr. Frank, and I remember thy father

too--he was my playfellow at school. Hark thee, lad,--ride early at

night, and don't swagger with chance passengers on the king's highway.

What, man! all the king's liege subjects are not bound to understand

joking, and it's ill cracking jests on matters of felony. And here's poor

Die Vernon too--in a manner alone and deserted on the face of this wide

earth, and left to ride, and run, and scamper, at her own silly pleasure.

Thou must be careful of Die, or, egad, I will turn a young fellow again

on purpose, and fight thee myself, although I must own it would be a

great deal of trouble. And now, get ye both gone, and leave me to my pipe

of tobacco, and my meditations; for what says the song--

The Indian leaf doth briefly burn;

So doth man's strength to weakness turn

The fire of youth extinguished quite,

Comes age, like embers, dry and white.

Think of this as you take tobacco."*

* [The lines here quoted belong to or were altered from a set of verses

at one time very popular in England, beginning, _Tobacco that is withered

quite._ In Scotland, the celebrated Ralph Erskine, author of the _Gospel

Sonnets,_ published what he called "_Smoking Spiritualized,_ in two

parts. The first part being an Old Meditation upon Smoking Tobacco." It

begins--*

This Indian weed now withered quite,

Tho' green at noon, cut down at night,

Shows thy decay;

All flesh is hay.

Thus thank, and smoke tobacco.]

I was much pleased with the gleams of sense and feeling which escaped

from the Justice through the vapours of sloth and self-indulgence,

assured him of my respect to his admonitions, and took a friendly

farewell of the honest magistrate and his hospitable mansion.

We found a repast prepared for us in the ante-room, which we partook of

slightly, and rejoined the same servant of Sir Hildebrand who had taken

our horses at our entrance, and who had been directed, as he informed

Miss Vernon, by Mr. Rashleigh, to wait and attend upon us home. We rode a

little way in silence, for, to say truth, my mind was too much bewildered

with the events of the morning, to permit me to be the first to break it.

At length Miss Vernon exclaimed, as if giving vent to her own

reflections, "Well, Rashleigh is a man to be feared and wondered at, and

all but loved; he does whatever he pleases, and makes all others his

puppets--has a player ready to perform every part which he imagines, and

an invention and readiness which supply expedients for every emergency."

"You think, then," said I, answering rather to her meaning, than to the

express words she made use of, "that this Mr. Campbell, whose appearance

was so opportune, and who trussed up and carried off my accuser as a

falcon trusses a partridge, was an agent of Mr. Rashleigh

Osbaldistone's?"

"I do guess as much," replied Diana; "and shrewdly suspect, moreover,

that he would hardly have appeared so very much in the nick of time, if I

had not happened to meet Rashleigh in the hall at the Justice's."

"In that case, my thanks are chiefly due to you, my fair preserver."

"To be sure they are," returned Diana; "and pray, suppose them paid, and

accepted with a gracious smile, for I do not care to be troubled with

hearing them in good earnest, and am much more likely to yawn than to

behave becoming. In short, Mr. Frank, I wished to serve you, and I have

fortunately been able to do so, and have only one favour to ask in

return, and that is, that you will say no more about it.--But who comes

here to meet us, 'bloody with spurring, fiery-red with haste?' It is the

subordinate man of law, I think--no less than Mr. Joseph Jobson."

And Mr. Joseph Jobson it proved to be, in great haste, and, as it

speedily appeared, in most extreme bad humour. He came up to us, and

stopped his horse, as we were about to pass with a slight salutation.

"So, sir--so, Miss Vernon--ay, I see well enough how it is--bail put in

during my absence, I suppose--I should like to know who drew the

recognisance, that's all. If his worship uses this form of procedure

often, I advise him to get another clerk, that's all, for I shall

certainly demit."

"Or suppose he get this present clerk stitched to his sleeve, Mr.

Jobson," said Diana; "would not that do as well? And pray, how does

Farmer Rutledge, Mr. Jobson? I hope you found him able to sign, seal, and

deliver?"

This question seemed greatly to increase the wrath of the man of law. He

looked at Miss Vernon with such an air of spite and resentment, as laid

me under a strong temptation to knock him off his horse with the butt-end

of my whip, which I only suppressed in consideration of his

insignificance.

"Farmer Rutledge, ma'am?" said the clerk, as soon as his indignation

permitted him to articulate, "Farmer Rutledge is in as handsome enjoyment

of his health as you are--it's all a bam, ma'am--all a bamboozle and a

bite, that affair of his illness; and if you did not know as much before,

you know it now, ma'am."

"La you there now!" replied Miss Vernon, with an affectation of extreme

and simple wonder, "sure you don't say so, Mr. Jobson?"

"But I _do_ say so, ma'am," rejoined the incensed scribe; "and

moreover I say, that the old miserly clod-breaker called me

pettifogger--pettifogger, ma'am--and said I came to hunt for a job,

ma'am--which I have no more right to have said to me than any other

gentleman of my profession, ma'am--especially as I am clerk to the

peace, having and holding said office under _Trigesimo Septimo Henrici

Octavi_ and _Primo Gulielmi,_ the first of King William, ma'am, of

glorious and immortal memory--our immortal deliverer from papists and

pretenders, and wooden shoes and warming pans, Miss Vernon."

"Sad things, these wooden shoes and warming pans," retorted the young

lady, who seemed to take pleasure in augmenting his wrath;--"and it is a

comfort you don't seem to want a warming pan at present, Mr. Jobson. I am

afraid Gaffer Rutledge has not confined his incivility to language--Are

you sure he did not give you a beating?"

"Beating, ma'am!--no"--(very shortly)--"no man alive shall beat me, I

promise you, ma'am."

"That is according as you happen to merit, sir," said I: "for your mode

of speaking to this young lady is so unbecoming, that, if you do not

change your tone, I shall think it worth while to chastise you myself."

"Chastise, sir? and--me, sir?--Do you know whom you speak to, sir?"

"Yes, sir," I replied; "you say yourself you are clerk of peace to the

county; and Gaffer Rutledge says you are a pettifogger; and in neither

capacity are you entitled to be impertinent to a young lady of fashion."

Miss Vernon laid her hand on my arm, and exclaimed, "Come, Mr.

Osbaldistone, I will have no assaults and battery on Mr. Jobson; I am

not in sufficient charity with him to permit a single touch of your

whip--why, he would live on it for a term at least. Besides, you have

already hurt his feelings sufficiently--you have called him

impertinent."

"I don't value his language, Miss," said the clerk, somewhat crestfallen:

"besides, impertinent is not an actionable word; but pettifogger is

slander in the highest degree, and that I will make Gaffer Rutledge know

to his cost, and all who maliciously repeat the same, to the breach of

the public peace, and the taking away of my private good name."

"Never mind that, Mr. Jobson," said Miss Vernon; "you know, where there

is nothing, your own law allows that the king himself must lose his

rights; and for the taking away of your good name, I pity the poor fellow

who gets it, and wish you joy of losing it with all my heart."

"Very well, ma'am--good evening, ma'am--I have no more to say--only there

are laws against papists, which it would be well for the land were they

better executed. There's third and fourth Edward VI., of antiphoners,

missals, grailes, professionals, manuals, legends, pies, portuasses, and

those that have such trinkets in their possession, Miss Vernon--and

there's summoning of papists to take the oaths--and there are popish

recusant convicts under the first of his present Majesty--ay, and there

are penalties for hearing mass--See twenty-third of Queen Elizabeth, and

third James First, chapter twenty-fifth. And there are estates to be

registered, and deeds and wills to be enrolled, and double taxes to be

made, according to the acts in that case made and provided"--

"See the new edition of the Statutes at Large, published under the

careful revision of Joseph Jobson, Gent., Clerk of the Peace," said Miss

Vernon.

"Also, and above all," continued Jobson,--"for I speak to your

warning--you, Diana Vernon, spinstress, not being a _femme couverte,_

and being a convict popish recusant, are bound to repair to your own

dwelling, and that by the nearest way, under penalty of being held felon

to the king--and diligently to seek for passage at common ferries, and

to tarry there but one ebb and flood; and unless you can have it in such

places, to walk every day into the water up to the knees, assaying to

pass over."

"A sort of Protestant penance for my Catholic errors, I suppose," said

Miss Vernon, laughing.--"Well, I thank you for the information, Mr.

Jobson, and will hie me home as fast as I can, and be a better

housekeeper in time coming. Good-night, my dear Mr. Jobson, thou mirror

of clerical courtesy."

"Good-night, ma'am, and remember the law is not to be trifled with."

And we rode on our separate ways.

"There he goes for a troublesome mischief-making tool," said Miss Vernon,

as she gave a glance after him; it is hard that persons of birth and rank

and estate should be subjected to the official impertinence of such a

paltry pickthank as that, merely for believing as the whole world

believed not much above a hundred years ago--for certainly our Catholic

Faith has the advantage of antiquity at least."

"I was much tempted to have broken the rascal's head," I replied.

"You would have acted very like a hasty young man," said Miss Vernon;

"and yet, had my own hand been an ounce heavier than it is, I think I

should have laid its weight upon him. Well, it does not signify

complaining, but there are three things for which I am much to be pitied,

if any one thought it worth while to waste any compassion upon me."

"And what are these three things, Miss Vernon, may I ask?"

"Will you promise me your deepest sympathy, if I tell you?"

"Certainly;--can you doubt it?" I replied, closing my horse nearer to

hers as I spoke, with an expression of interest which I did not attempt

to disguise.

"Well, it is very seducing to be pitied, after all; so here are my three

grievances: In the first place, I am a girl, and not a young fellow, and

would be shut up in a mad-house if I did half the things that I have a

mind to;--and that, if I had your happy prerogative of acting as you

list, would make all the world mad with imitating and applauding me."

"I can't quite afford you the sympathy you expect upon this score," I

replied; "the misfortune is so general, that it belongs to one half of

the species; and the other half"--

"Are so much better cared for, that they are jealous of their

prerogatives," interrupted Miss Vernon--"I forgot you were a party

interested. Nay," she said, as I was going to speak, "that soft smile is

intended to be the preface of a very pretty compliment respecting the

peculiar advantages which Die Vernon's friends and kinsmen enjoy, by her

being born one of their Helots; but spare me the utterance, my good

friend, and let us try whether we shall agree better on the second count

of my indictment against fortune, as that quill-driving puppy would call

it. I belong to an oppressed sect and antiquated religion, and, instead

of getting credit for my devotion, as is due to all good girls beside, my

kind friend, Justice Inglewood, may send me to the house of correction,

merely for worshipping God in the way of my ancestors, and say, as old

Pembroke did to the Abbess of Wilton,* when he usurped her convent and

establishment, 'Go spin, you jade,--Go spin.'"

* Note F. The Abbess of Wilton.

"This is not a cureless evil," said I gravely. "Consult some of our

learned divines, or consult your own excellent understanding, Miss

Vernon; and surely the particulars in which our religious creed differs

from that in which you have been educated"--

"Hush!" said Diana, placing her fore-finger on her mouth,--"Hush! no more

of that. Forsake the faith of my gallant fathers! I would as soon, were I

a man, forsake their banner when the tide of battle pressed hardest

against it, and turn, like a hireling recreant, to join the victorious

enemy."

"I honour your spirit, Miss Vernon; and as to the inconveniences to which

it exposes you, I can only say, that wounds sustained for the sake of

conscience carry their own balsam with the blow."

"Ay; but they are fretful and irritating, for all that. But I see, hard

of heart as you are, my chance of beating hemp, or drawing out flax into

marvellous coarse thread, affects you as little as my condemnation to

coif and pinners, instead of beaver and cockade; so I will spare myself

the fruitless pains of telling my third cause of vexation."

"Nay, my dear Miss Vernon, do not withdraw your confidence, and I will

promise you, that the threefold sympathy due to your very unusual causes

of distress shall be all duly and truly paid to account of the third,

providing you assure me, that it is one which you neither share with all

womankind, nor even with every Catholic in England, who, God bless you,

are still a sect more numerous than we Protestants, in our zeal for

church and state, would desire them to be."

"It is indeed," said Diana, with a manner greatly altered, and more

serious than I had yet seen her assume, "a misfortune that well merits

compassion. I am by nature, as you may easily observe, of a frank and

unreserved disposition--a plain true-hearted girl, who would willingly

act openly and honestly by the whole world, and yet fate has involved me

in such a series of nets and toils, and entanglements, that I dare hardly

speak a word for fear of consequences--not to myself, but to others."

"That is indeed a misfortune, Miss Vernon, which I do most sincerely

compassionate, but which I should hardly have anticipated."

"O, Mr. Osbaldistone, if you but knew--if any one knew, what difficulty I

sometimes find in hiding an aching heart with a smooth brow, you would

indeed pity me. I do wrong, perhaps, in speaking to you even thus far on

my own situation; but you are a young man of sense and penetration--you

cannot but long to ask me a hundred questions on the events of this

day--on the share which Rashleigh has in your deliverance from this petty

scrape--upon many other points which cannot but excite your attention;

and I cannot bring myself to answer with the necessary falsehood and

finesse--I should do it awkwardly, and lose your good opinion, if I have

any share of it, as well as my own. It is best to say at once, Ask me no

questions,--I have it not in my power to reply to them."

Miss Vernon spoke these words with a tone of feeling which could not but

make a corresponding impression upon me. I assured her she had neither to

fear my urging her with impertinent questions, nor my misconstruing her

declining to answer those which might in themselves be reasonable, or at

least natural.

"I was too much obliged," I said, "by the interest she had taken in my

affairs, to misuse the opportunity her goodness had afforded me of prying

into hers--I only trusted and entreated, that if my services could at any

time be useful, she would command them without doubt or hesitation."

"Thank you--thank you," she replied; "your voice does not ring the cuckoo

chime of compliment, but speaks like that of one who knows to what he

pledges himself. If--but it is impossible--but yet, if an opportunity

should occur, I will ask you if you remember this promise; and I assure

you, I shall not be angry if I find you have forgotten it, for it is

enough that you are sincere in your intentions just now--much may occur

to alter them ere I call upon you, should that moment ever come, to

assist Die Vernon, as if you were Die Vernon's brother."

"And if I were Die Vernon's brother," said I, "there could not be less

chance that I should refuse my assistance--And now I am afraid I must not

ask whether Rashleigh was willingly accessory to my deliverance?"

"Not of me; but you may ask it of himself, and depend upon it, he will

say _yes;_ for rather than any good action should walk through the world

like an unappropriated adjective in an ill-arranged sentence, he is

always willing to stand noun substantive to it himself."

"And I must not ask whether this Campbell be himself the party who eased

Mr. Morris of his portmanteau,--or whether the letter, which our friend

the attorney received, was not a finesse to withdraw him from the scene

of action, lest he should have marred the happy event of my deliverance?

And I must not ask"--

"You must ask nothing of me," said Miss Vernon; "so it is quite in vain

to go on putting cases. You are to think just as well of me as if I had

answered all these queries, and twenty others besides, as glibly as

Rashleigh could have done; and observe, whenever I touch my chin just so,

it is a sign that I cannot speak upon the topic which happens to occupy

your attention. I must settle signals of correspondence with you, because

you are to be my confidant and my counsellor, only you are to know

nothing whatever of my affairs."

"Nothing can be more reasonable," I replied, laughing; "and the extent of

your confidence will, you may rely upon it, only be equalled by the

sagacity of my counsels."

This sort of conversation brought us, in the highest good-humour with

each other, to Osbaldistone Hall, where we found the family far advanced

in the revels of the evening.

"Get some dinner for Mr. Osbaldistone and me in the library," said Miss

Vernon to a servant.--"I must have some compassion upon you," she added,

turning to me, "and provide against your starving in this mansion of

brutal abundance; otherwise I am not sure that I should show you my

private haunts. This same library is my den--the only corner of the

Hall-house where I am safe from the Ourang-Outangs, my cousins. They

never venture there, I suppose for fear the folios should fall down and

crack their skulls; for they will never affect their heads in any other

way--So follow me."

And I followed through hall and bower, vaulted passage and winding stair,

until we reached the room where she had ordered our refreshments.

CHAPTER TENTH.

In the wide pile, by others heeded not,

Hers was one sacred solitary spot,

Whose gloomy aisles and bending shelves contain

For moral hunger food, and cures for moral pain.

Anonymous.

The library at Osbaldistone Hall was a gloomy room, whose antique oaken

shelves bent beneath the weight of the ponderous folios so dear to the

seventeenth century, from which, under favour be it spoken, we have

distilled matter for our quartos and octavos, and which, once more

subjected to the alembic, may, should our sons be yet more frivolous than

ourselves, be still farther reduced into duodecimos and pamphlets. The

collection was chiefly of the classics, as well foreign as ancient

history, and, above all, divinity. It was in wretched order. The priests,

who in succession had acted as chaplains at the Hall, were, for many

years, the only persons who entered its precincts, until Rashleigh's

thirst for reading had led him to disturb the venerable spiders, who had

muffled the fronts of the presses with their tapestry. His destination

for the church rendered his conduct less absurd in his father's eyes,

than if any of his other descendants had betrayed so strange a

propensity, and Sir Hildebrand acquiesced in the library receiving some

repairs, so as to fit it for a sitting-room. Still an air of

dilapidation, as obvious as it was uncomfortable, pervaded the large

apartment, and announced the neglect from which the knowledge which its

walls contained had not been able to exempt it. The tattered tapestry,

the worm-eaten shelves, the huge and clumsy, yet tottering, tables,

desks, and chairs, the rusty grate, seldom gladdened by either sea-coal

or faggots, intimated the contempt of the lords of Osbaldistone Hall for

learning, and for the volumes which record its treasures.

"You think this place somewhat disconsolate, I suppose?" said Diana, as I

glanced my eye round the forlorn apartment; "but to me it seems like a

little paradise, for I call it my own, and fear no intrusion. Rashleigh

was joint proprietor with me, while we were friends."

"And are you no longer so?" was my natural question. Her fore-finger

immediately touched her dimpled chin, with an arch look of prohibition.

"We are still _allies,_" she continued, "bound, like other confederate

powers, by circumstances of mutual interest; but I am afraid, as will

happen in other cases, the treaty of alliance has survived the amicable

dispositions in which it had its origin. At any rate, we live less

together; and when he comes through that door there, I vanish through

this door here; and so, having made the discovery that we two were one

too many for this apartment, as large as it seems, Rashleigh, whose

occasions frequently call him elsewhere, has generously made a cession of

his rights in my favour; so that I now endeavour to prosecute alone the

studies in which he used formerly to be my guide."

"And what are those studies, if I may presume to ask?"

"Indeed you may, without the least fear of seeing my fore-finger raised

to my chin. Science and history are my principal favourites; but I also

study poetry and the classics."

"And the classics? Do you read them in the original?"

"Unquestionably. Rashleigh, who is no contemptible scholar, taught me

Greek and Latin, as well as most of the languages of modern Europe. I

assure you there has been some pains taken in my education, although I

can neither sew a tucker, nor work cross-stitch, nor make a pudding,

nor--as the vicar's fat wife, with as much truth as elegance, good-will,

and politeness, was pleased to say in my behalf--do any other useful

thing in the varsal world."

"And was this selection of studies Rashleigh's choice, or your own, Miss

Vernon?" I asked.

"Um!" said she, as if hesitating to answer my question,--"It's not worth

while lifting my finger about, after all. Why, partly his and partly

mine. As I learned out of doors to ride a horse, and bridle and saddle

him in cue of necessity, and to clear a five-barred gate, and fire a gun

without winking, and all other of those masculine accomplishments that my

brute cousins run mad after, I wanted, like my rational cousin, to read

Greek and Latin within doors, and make my complete approach to the tree

of knowledge, which you men-scholars would engross to yourselves, in

revenge, I suppose, for our common mother's share in the great original

transgression."

"And Rashleigh indulged your propensity to learning?"

"Why, he wished to have me for his scholar, and he could but teach me

that which he knew himself--he was not likely to instruct me in the

mysteries of washing lace-ruffles, or hemming cambric handkerchiefs, I

suppose."

"I admit the temptation of getting such a scholar, and have no doubt that

it made a weighty consideration on the tutor's part."

"Oh, if you begin to investigate Rashleigh's motives, my finger touches

my chin once more. I can only be frank where my own are inquired into.

But to resume--he has resigned the library in my favour, and never enters

without leave had and obtained; and so I have taken the liberty to make

it the place of deposit for some of my own goods and chattels, as you may

see by looking round you."

"I beg pardon, Miss Vernon, but I really see nothing around these walls

which I can distinguish as likely to claim you as mistress."

"That is, I suppose, because you neither see a shepherd or shepherdess

wrought in worsted, and handsomely framed in black ebony, or a stuffed

parrot,--or a breeding-cage, full of canary birds,--or a housewife-case,

broidered with tarnished silver,--or a toilet-table with a nest of

japanned boxes, with as many angles as Christmas minced-pies,--or a

broken-backed spinet,--or a lute with three strings,--or rock-work,--or

shell-work,--or needle-work, or work of any kind,--or a lap-dog with a

litter of blind puppies--None of these treasures do I possess," she

continued, after a pause, in order to recover the breath she had lost in

enumerating them--"But there stands the sword of my ancestor Sir Richard

Vernon, slain at Shrewsbury, and sorely slandered by a sad fellow called

Will Shakspeare, whose Lancastrian partialities, and a certain knack at

embodying them, has turned history upside down, or rather inside

out;--and by that redoubted weapon hangs the mail of the still older

Vernon, squire to the Black Prince, whose fate is the reverse of his

descendant's, since he is more indebted to the bard who took the trouble

to celebrate him, for good-will than for talents,--

Amiddes the route you may discern one

Brave knight, with pipes on shield, ycleped Vernon

Like a borne fiend along the plain he thundered,

Prest to be carving throtes, while others plundered.

"Then there is a model of a new martingale, which I invented myself--a

great improvement on the Duke of Newcastle's; and there are the hood and

bells of my falcon Cheviot, who spitted himself on a heron's bill at

Horsely-moss--poor Cheviot, there is not a bird on the perches below, but

are kites and riflers compared to him; and there is my own light

fowling-piece, with an improved firelock; with twenty other treasures,

each more valuable than another--And there, that speaks for itself."

She pointed to the carved oak frame of a full-length portrait by Vandyke,

on which were inscribed, in Gothic letters, the words _Vernon semper

viret._ I looked at her for explanation. "Do you not know," said she,

with some surprise, "our motto--the Vernon motto, where,

Like the solemn vice iniquity,

We moralise two meanings in one word

And do you not know our cognisance, the pipes?" pointing to the armorial

bearings sculptured on the oaken scutcheon, around which the legend was

displayed.

"Pipes!--they look more like penny-whistles--But, pray, do not be angry

with my ignorance," I continued, observing the colour mount to her

cheeks, "I can mean no affront to your armorial bearings, for I do not

even know my own."

"You an Osbaldistone, and confess so much!" she exclaimed. "Why, Percie,

Thornie, John, Dickon--Wilfred himself, might be your instructor. Even

ignorance itself is a plummet over you."

"With shame I confess it, my dear Miss Vernon, the mysteries couched

under the grim hieroglyphics of heraldry are to me as unintelligible as

those of the pyramids of Egypt."

"What! is it possible?--Why, even my uncle reads Gwillym sometimes of a

winter night--Not know the figures of heraldry!--of what could your

father be thinking?"

"Of the figures of arithmetic," I answered; "the most insignificant unit

of which he holds more highly than all the blazonry of chivalry. But,

though I am ignorant to this inexpressible degree, I have knowledge and

taste enough to admire that splendid picture, in which I think I can

discover a family likeness to you. What ease and dignity in the

attitude!--what richness of colouring--what breadth and depth of shade!"

"Is it really a fine painting?" she asked.

"I have seen many works of the renowned artist," I replied, "but never

beheld one more to my liking!"

"Well, I know as little of pictures as you do of heraldry," replied Miss

Vernon; "yet I have the advantage of you, because I have always admired

the painting without understanding its value."

"While I have neglected pipes and tabors, and all the whimsical

combinations of chivalry, still I am informed that they floated in the

fields of ancient fame. But you will allow their exterior appearance is

not so peculiarly interesting to the uninformed spectator as that of a

fine painting.--Who is the person here represented?"

"My grandfather. He shared the misfortunes of Charles I., and, I am sorry

to add, the excesses of his son. Our patrimonial estate was greatly

impaired by his prodigality, and was altogether lost by his successor, my

unfortunate father. But peace be with them who have got it!--it was lost

in the cause of loyalty."

"Your father, I presume, suffered in the political dissensions of the

period?"

"He did indeed;--he lost his all. And hence is his child a dependent

orphan--eating the bread of others--subjected to their caprices, and

compelled to study their inclinations; yet prouder of having had such a

father, than if, playing a more prudent but less upright part, he had

left me possessor of all the rich and fair baronies which his family once

possessed."

As she thus spoke, the entrance of the servants with dinner cut off all

conversation but that of a general nature.

When our hasty meal was concluded, and the wine placed on the table, the

domestic informed us, "that Mr. Rashleigh had desired to be told when our

dinner was removed."

"Tell him," said Miss Vernon, "we shall be happy to see him if he will

step this way--place another wineglass and chair, and leave the room.--

You must retire with him when he goes away," she continued, addressing

herself to me; "even _my_ liberality cannot spare a gentleman above eight

hours out of the twenty-four; and I think we have been together for at

least that length of time."

"The old scythe-man has moved so rapidly," I answered, "that I could not

count his strides."

"Hush!" said Miss Vernon, "here comes Rashleigh;" and she drew off her

chair, to which I had approached mine rather closely, so as to place a

greater distance between us. A modest tap at the door,--a gentle manner

of opening when invited to enter,--a studied softness and humility of

step and deportment, announced that the education of Rashleigh

Osbaldistone at the College of St. Omers accorded well with the ideas I

entertained of the manners of an accomplished Jesuit. I need not add,

that, as a sound Protestant, these ideas were not the most favourable.

"Why should you use the ceremony of knocking," said Miss Vernon, "when

you knew that I was not alone?"

This was spoken with a burst of impatience, as if she had felt that

Rashleigh's air of caution and reserve covered some insinuation of

impertinent suspicion. "You have taught me the form of knocking at this

door so perfectly, my fair cousin," answered Rashleigh, without change of

voice or manner, "that habit has become a second nature."

"I prize sincerity more than courtesy, sir, and you know I do," was Miss

Vernon's reply.

"Courtesy is a gallant gay, a courtier by name and by profession,"

replied Rashleigh, "and therefore most fit for a lady's bower."

"But Sincerity is the true knight," retorted Miss Vernon, "and therefore

much more welcome, cousin. But to end a debate not over amusing to your

stranger kinsman, sit down, Rashleigh, and give Mr. Francis Osbaldistone

your countenance to his glass of wine. I have done the honours of the

dinner, for the credit of Osbaldistone Hall."

Rashleigh sate down, and filled his glass, glancing his eye from Diana to

me, with an embarrassment which his utmost efforts could not entirely

disguise. I thought he appeared to be uncertain concerning the extent of

confidence she might have reposed in me, and hastened to lead the

conversation into a channel which should sweep away his suspicion that

Diana might have betrayed any secrets which rested between them. "Miss

Vernon," I said, "Mr. Rashleigh, has recommended me to return my thanks

to you for my speedy disengagement from the ridiculous accusation of

Morris; and, unjustly fearing my gratitude might not be warm enough to

remind me of this duty, she has put my curiosity on its side, by

referring me to you for an account, or rather explanation, of the events

of the day."

"Indeed?" answered Rashleigh; "I should have thought" (looking keenly at

Miss Vernon) "that the lady herself might have stood interpreter;" and

his eye, reverting from her face, sought mine, as if to search, from the

expression of my features, whether Diana's communication had been as

narrowly limited as my words had intimated. Miss Vernon retorted his

inquisitorial glance with one of decided scorn; while I, uncertain

whether to deprecate or resent his obvious suspicion, replied, "If it is

your pleasure, Mr. Rashleigh, as it has been Miss Vernon's, to leave me

in ignorance, I must necessarily submit; but, pray, do not withhold your

information from me on the ground of imagining that I have already

obtained any on the subject. For I tell you, as a man of honour, I am as

ignorant as that picture of anything relating to the events I have

witnessed to-day, excepting that I understand from Miss Vernon, that you

have been kindly active in my favour."

"Miss Vernon has overrated my humble efforts," said Rashleigh, "though I

claim full credit for my zeal. The truth is, that as I galloped back to

get some one of our family to join me in becoming your bail, which was

the most obvious, or, indeed, I may say, the only way of serving you

which occurred to my stupidity, I met the man Cawmil--Colville--Campbell,

or whatsoever they call him. I had understood from Morris that he was

present when the robbery took place, and had the good fortune to prevail

on him (with some difficulty, I confess) to tender his evidence in your

exculpation--which I presume was the means of your being released from an

unpleasant situation."

"Indeed?--I am much your debtor for procuring such a seasonable evidence

in my behalf. But I cannot see why (having been, as he said, a

fellow-sufferer with Morris) it should have required much trouble to

persuade him to step forth and bear evidence, whether to convict the

actual robber, or free an innocent person."

"You do not know the genius of that man's country, sir," answered

Rashleigh;--"discretion, prudence, and foresight, are their leading

qualities; these are only modified by a narrow-spirited, but yet ardent

patriotism, which forms as it were the outmost of the concentric bulwarks

with which a Scotchman fortifies himself against all the attacks of a

generous philanthropical principle. Surmount this mound, you find an

inner and still dearer barrier--the love of his province, his village,

or, most probably, his clan; storm this second obstacle, you have a

third--his attachment to his own family--his father, mother, sons,

daughters, uncles, aunts, and cousins, to the ninth generation. It is

within these limits that a Scotchman's social affection expands itself,

never reaching those which are outermost, till all means of discharging

itself in the interior circles have been exhausted. It is within these

circles that his heart throbs, each pulsation being fainter and fainter,

till, beyond the widest boundary, it is almost unfelt. And what is worst

of all, could you surmount all these concentric outworks, you have an

inner citadel, deeper, higher, and more efficient than them all--a

Scotchman's love for himself."

"All this is extremely eloquent and metaphorical, Rashleigh," said Miss

Vernon, who listened with unrepressed impatience; "there are only two

objections to it: first, it is _not_ true; secondly, if true, it is

nothing to the purpose."

"It _is_ true, my fairest Diana," returned Rashleigh; "and moreover, it

is most instantly to the purpose. It is true, because you cannot deny

that I know the country and people intimately, and the character is drawn

from deep and accurate consideration--and it is to the purpose, because

it answers Mr. Francis Osbaldistone's question, and shows why this same

wary Scotchman, considering our kinsman to be neither his countryman, nor

a Campbell, nor his cousin in any of the inextricable combinations by

which they extend their pedigree; and, above all, seeing no prospect of

personal advantage, but, on the contrary, much hazard of loss of time and

delay of business"--

"With other inconveniences, perhaps, of a nature yet more formidable,"

interrupted Miss Vernon.

"Of which, doubtless, there might be many," said Rashleigh, continuing in

the same tone--"In short, my theory shows why this man, hoping for no

advantage, and afraid of some inconvenience, might require a degree of

persuasion ere he could be prevailed on to give his testimony in favour

of Mr. Osbaldistone."

"It seems surprising to me," I observed, "that during the glance I cast

over the declaration, or whatever it is termed, of Mr. Morris, he should

never have mentioned that Campbell was in his company when he met the

marauders."

"I understood from Campbell, that he had taken his solemn promise not to

mention that circumstance," replied Rashleigh: "his reason for exacting

such an engagement you may guess from what I have hinted--he wished to

get back to his own country, undelayed and unembarrassed by any of the

judicial inquiries which he would have been under the necessity of

attending, had the fact of his being present at the robbery taken air

while he was on this side of the Border. But let him once be as distant

as the Forth, Morris will, I warrant you, come forth with all he knows

about him, and, it may be, a good deal more. Besides, Campbell is a very

extensive dealer in cattle, and has often occasion to send great droves

into Northumberland; and, when driving such a trade, he would be a great

fool to embroil himself with our Northumbrian thieves, than whom no men

who live are more vindictive."

"I dare be sworn of that," said Miss Vernon, with a tone which implied

something more than a simple acquiescence in the proposition.

"Still," said I, resuming the subject, "allowing the force of the reasons

which Campbell might have for desiring that Morris should be silent with

regard to his promise when the robbery was committed, I cannot yet see

how he could attain such an influence over the man, as to make him

suppress his evidence in that particular, at the manifest risk of

subjecting his story to discredit."

Rashleigh agreed with me, that it was very extraordinary, and seemed to

regret that he had not questioned the Scotchman more closely on that

subject, which he allowed looked extremely mysterious. "But," he asked,

immediately after this acquiescence, "are you very sure the circumstance

of Morris's being accompanied by Campbell is really not alluded to in his

examination?"

"I read the paper over hastily," said I; "but it is my strong impression

that no such circumstance is mentioned;--at least, it must have been

touched on very slightly, since it failed to catch my attention."

"True, true," answered Rashleigh, forming his own inference while he

adopted my words; "I incline to think with you, that the circumstance

must in reality have been mentioned, but so slightly that it failed to

attract your attention. And then, as to Campbell's interest with Morris,

I incline to suppose that it must have been gained by playing upon his

fears. This chicken-hearted fellow, Morris, is bound, I understand, for

Scotland, destined for some little employment under Government; and,

possessing the courage of the wrathful dove, or most magnanimous mouse,

he may have been afraid to encounter the ill-will of such a kill-cow as

Campbell, whose very appearance would be enough to fright him out of his

little wits. You observed that Mr. Campbell has at times a keen and

animated manner--something of a martial cast in his tone and bearing."

"I own," I replied, "that his expression struck me as being occasionally

fierce and sinister, and little adapted to his peaceable professions. Has

he served in the army?"

"Yes--no--not, strictly speaking, _served;_ but he has been, I believe,

like most of his countrymen, trained to arms. Indeed, among the hills,

they carry them from boyhood to the grave. So, if you know anything of

your fellow-traveller, you will easily judge, that, going to such a

country, he will take cue to avoid a quarrel, if he can help it, with any

of the natives. But, come, I see you decline your wine--and I too am a

degenerate Osbaldistone, so far as respects the circulation of the

bottle. If you will go to my room, I will hold you a hand at piquet."

We rose to take leave of Miss Vernon, who had from time to time

suppressed, apparently with difficulty, a strong temptation to break in

upon Rashleigh's details. As we were about to leave the room, the

smothered fire broke forth.

"Mr. Osbaldistone," she said, "your own observation will enable you to

verify the justice, or injustice, of Rashleigh's suggestions concerning

such individuals as Mr. Campbell and Mr. Morris. But, in slandering

Scotland, he has borne false witness against a whole country; and I

request you will allow no weight to his evidence."

"Perhaps," I answered, "I may find it somewhat difficult to obey your

injunction, Miss Vernon; for I must own I was bred up with no very

favourable idea of our northern neighbours."

"Distrust that part of your education, sir," she replied, "and let the

daughter of a Scotchwoman pray you to respect the land which gave her

parent birth, until your own observation has proved them to be unworthy

of your good opinion. Preserve your hatred and contempt for

dissimulation, baseness, and falsehood, wheresoever they are to be met

with. You will find enough of all without leaving England.--Adieu,

gentlemen, I wish you good evening."

And she signed to the door, with the manner of a princess dismissing her

train.

We retired to Rashleigh's apartment, where a servant brought us coffee

and cards. I had formed my resolution to press Rashleigh no farther on

the events of the day. A mystery, and, as I thought, not of a favourable

complexion, appeared to hang over his conduct; but to ascertain if my

suspicions were just, it was necessary to throw him off his guard. We cut

for the deal, and were soon earnestly engaged in our play. I thought I

perceived in this trifling for amusement (for the stake which Rashleigh

proposed was a mere trifle) something of a fierce and ambitious temper.

He seemed perfectly to understand the beautiful game at which he played,

but preferred, as it were on principle, the risking bold and precarious

strokes to the ordinary rules of play; and neglecting the minor and

better-balanced chances of the game, he hazarded everything for the

chance of piqueing, repiqueing, or capoting his adversary. So soon as the

intervention of a game or two at piquet, like the music between the acts

of a drama, had completely interrupted our previous course of

conversation, Rashleigh appeared to tire of the game, and the cards were

superseded by discourse, in which he assumed the lead.

More learned than soundly wise--better acquainted with men's minds than

with the moral principles that ought to regulate them, he had still

powers of conversation which I have rarely seen equalled, never excelled.

Of this his manner implied some consciousness; at least, it appeared to

me that he had studied hard to improve his natural advantages of a

melodious voice, fluent and happy expression, apt language, and fervid

imagination. He was never loud, never overbearing, never so much occupied

with his own thoughts as to outrun either the patience or the

comprehension of those he conversed with. His ideas succeeded each other

with the gentle but unintermitting flow of a plentiful and bounteous

spring; while I have heard those of others, who aimed at distinction in

conversation, rush along like the turbid gush from the sluice of a

mill-pond, as hurried, and as easily exhausted. It was late at night ere

I could part from a companion so fascinating; and, when I gained my own

apartment, it cost me no small effort to recall to my mind the character

of Rashleigh, such as I had pictured him previous to this

_tete-a-tete._

So effectual, my dear Tresham, does the sense of being pleased and amused

blunt our faculties of perception and discrimination of character, that I

can only compare it to the taste of certain fruits, at once luscious and

poignant, which renders our palate totally unfit for relishing or

distinguishing the viands which are subsequently subjected to its

criticism.

CHAPTER ELEVENTH.

What gars ye gaunt, my merrymen a'?

What gars ye look sae dreary?

What gars ye hing your head sae sair

In the castle of Balwearie?

Old Scotch Ballad.

The next morning chanced to be Sunday, a day peculiarly hard to be got

rid of at Osbaldistone Hall; for after the formal religious service of

the morning had been performed, at which all the family regularly

attended, it was hard to say upon which individual, Rashleigh and Miss

Vernon excepted, the fiend of ennui descended with the most abundant

outpouring of his spirit. To speak of my yesterday's embarrassment amused

Sir Hildebrand for several minutes, and he congratulated me on my

deliverance from Morpeth or Hexham jail, as he would have done if I had

fallen in attempting to clear a five-barred gate, and got up without

hurting myself.

"Hast had a lucky turn, lad; but do na be over venturous again. What,

man! the king's road is free to all men, be they Whigs, be they Tories."

"On my word, sir, I am innocent of interrupting it; and it is the most

provoking thing on earth, that every person will take it for granted that

I am accessory to a crime which I despise and detest, and which would,

moreover, deservedly forfeit my life to the laws of my country."

"Well, well, lad; even so be it; I ask no questions--no man bound to tell

on himsell--that's fair play, or the devil's in't."

Rashleigh here came to my assistance; but I could not help thinking that

his arguments were calculated rather as hints to his father to put on a

show of acquiescence in my declaration of innocence, than fully to

establish it.

"In your own house, my dear sir--and your own nephew--you will not surely

persist in hurting his feelings by seeming to discredit what he is so

strongly interested in affirming. No doubt, you are fully deserving of

all his confidence, and I am sure, were there anything you could do to

assist him in this strange affair, he would have recourse to your

goodness. But my cousin Frank has been dismissed as an innocent man, and

no one is entitled to suppose him otherwise. For my part, I have not the

least doubt of his innocence; and our family honour, I conceive, requires

that we should maintain it with tongue and sword against the whole

country."

"Rashleigh," said his father, looking fixedly at him, "thou art a sly

loon--thou hast ever been too cunning for me, and too cunning for most

folks. Have a care thou provena too cunning for thysell--two faces under

one hood is no true heraldry. And since we talk of heraldry, I'll go and

read Gwillym."

This resolution he intimated with a yawn, resistless as that of the

Goddess in the Dunciad, which was responsively echoed by his giant sons,

as they dispersed in quest of the pastimes to which their minds severally

inclined them--Percie to discuss a pot of March beer with the steward in

the buttery,--Thorncliff to cut a pair of cudgels, and fix them in their

wicker hilts,--John to dress May-flies,--Dickon to play at pitch and toss

by himself, his right hand against his left,--and Wilfred to bite his

thumbs and hum himself into a slumber which should last till dinner-time,

if possible. Miss Vernon had retired to the library.

Rashleigh and I were left alone in the old hall, from which the servants,

with their usual bustle and awkwardness, had at length contrived to hurry

the remains of our substantial breakfast. I took the opportunity to

upbraid him with the manner in which he had spoken of my affair to his

father, which I frankly stated was highly offensive to me, as it seemed

rather to exhort Sir Hildebrand to conceal his suspicions, than to root

them out.

"Why, what can I do, my dear friend?" replied Rashleigh "my father's

disposition is so tenacious of suspicions of all kinds, when once they

take root (which, to do him justice, does not easily happen), that I have

always found it the best way to silence him upon such subjects, instead

of arguing with him. Thus I get the better of the weeds which I cannot

eradicate, by cutting them over as often as they appear, until at length

they die away of themselves. There is neither wisdom nor profit in

disputing with such a mind as Sir Hildebrand's, which hardens itself

against conviction, and believes in its own inspirations as firmly as we

good Catholics do in those of the Holy Father of Rome."

"It is very hard, though, that I should live in the house of a man, and

he a near relation too, who will persist in believing me guilty of a

highway robbery."

"My father's foolish opinion, if one may give that epithet to any opinion

of a father's, does not affect your real innocence; and as to the

disgrace of the fact, depend on it, that, considered in all its bearings,

political as well as moral, Sir Hildebrand regards it as a meritorious

action--a weakening of the enemy--a spoiling of the Amalekites; and you

will stand the higher in his regard for your supposed accession to it."

"I desire no man's regard, Mr. Rashleigh, on such terms as must sink me

in my own; and I think these injurious suspicions will afford a very good

reason for quitting Osbaldistone Hall, which I shall do whenever I can

communicate on the subject with my father."

The dark countenance of Rashleigh, though little accustomed to betray its

master's feelings, exhibited a suppressed smile, which he instantly

chastened by a sigh. "You are a happy man, Frank--you go and come, as the

wind bloweth where it listeth. With your address, taste, and talents, you

will soon find circles where they will be more valued, than amid the dull

inmates of this mansion; while I--" he paused.

"And what is there in your lot that can make you or any one envy

mine,--an outcast, as I may almost term myself, from my father's house

and favour?"

"Ay, but," answered Rashleigh, "consider the gratified sense of

independence which you must have attained by a very temporary

sacrifice,--for such I am sure yours will prove to be; consider the

power of acting as a free agent, of cultivating your own talents in the

way to which your taste determines you, and in which you are well

qualified to distinguish yourself. Fame and freedom are cheaply

purchased by a few weeks' residence in the North, even though your place

of exile be Osbaldistone Hall. A second Ovid in Thrace, you have not his

reasons for writing Tristia."

"I do not know," said I, blushing as became a young scribbler, "how you

should be so well acquainted with my truant studies."

"There was an emissary of your father's here some time since, a young

coxcomb, one Twineall, who informed me concerning your secret sacrifices

to the muses, and added, that some of your verses had been greatly

admired by the best judges."

Tresham, I believe you are guiltless of having ever essayed to build the

lofty rhyme; but you must have known in your day many an apprentice and

fellow-craft, if not some of the master-masons, in the temple of Apollo.

Vanity is their universal foible, from him who decorated the shades of

Twickenham, to the veriest scribbler whom he has lashed in his Dunciad. I

had my own share of this common failing, and without considering how

little likely this young fellow Twineall was, by taste and habits, either

to be acquainted with one or two little pieces of poetry, which I had at

times insinuated into Button's coffee-house, or to report the opinion of

the critics who frequented that resort of wit and literature, I almost

instantly gorged the bait; which Rashleigh perceiving, improved his

opportunity by a diffident, yet apparently very anxious request to be

permitted to see some of my manuscript productions.

"You shall give me an evening in my own apartment," he continued; "for I

must soon lose the charms of literary society for the drudgery of

commerce, and the coarse every-day avocations of the world. I repeat it,

that my compliance with my father's wishes for the advantage of my

family, is indeed a sacrifice, especially considering the calm and

peaceful profession to which my education destined me."

I was vain, but not a fool, and this hypocrisy was too strong for me to

swallow. "You would not persuade me," I replied, "that you really regret

to exchange the situation of an obscure Catholic priest, with all its

privations, for wealth and society, and the pleasures of the world?"

Rashleigh saw that he had coloured his affectation of moderation too

highly, and, after a second's pause, during which, I suppose, he

calculated the degree of candour which it was necessary to use with me

(that being a quality of which he was never needlessly profuse), he

answered, with a smile--"At my age, to be condemned, as you say, to

wealth and the world, does not, indeed, sound so alarming as perhaps it

ought to do. But, with pardon be it spoken, you have mistaken my

destination--a Catholic priest, if you will, but not an obscure one. No,

sir,--Rashleigh Osbaldistone will be more obscure, should he rise to be

the richest citizen in London, than he might have been as a member of a

church, whose ministers, as some one says, 'set their sandall'd feet on

princes.' My family interest at a certain exiled court is high, and the

weight which that court ought to possess, and does possess, at Rome is

yet higher--my talents not altogether inferior to the education I have

received. In sober judgment, I might have looked forward to high eminence

in the church--in the dream of fancy, to the very highest. Why might

not"--(he added, laughing, for it was part of his manner to keep much of

his discourse apparently betwixt jest and earnest)--"why might not

Cardinal Osbaldistone have swayed the fortunes of empires, well-born and

well-connected, as well as the low-born Mazarin, or Alberoni, the son of

an Italian gardener?"

"Nay, I can give you no reason to the contrary; but in your place I

should not much regret losing the chance of such precarious and invidious

elevation."

"Neither would I," he replied, "were I sure that my present establishment

was more certain; but that must depend upon circumstances which I can

only learn by experience--the disposition of your father, for example."

"Confess the truth without finesse, Rashleigh; you would willingly know

something of him from me?"

"Since, like Die Vernon, you make a point of following the banner of the

good knight Sincerity, I reply--certainly."

"Well, then, you will find in my father a man who has followed the paths

of thriving more for the exercise they afforded to his talents, than for

the love of the gold with which they are strewed. His active mind would

have been happy in any situation which gave it scope for exertion, though

that exertion had been its sole reward. But his wealth has accumulated,

because, moderate and frugal in his habits, no new sources of expense

have occurred to dispose of his increasing income. He is a man who hates

dissimulation in others; never practises it himself; and is peculiarly

alert in discovering motives through the colouring of language. Himself

silent by habit, he is readily disgusted by great talkers; the rather,

that the circumstances by which he is most interested, afford no great

scope for conversation. He is severely strict in the duties of religion;

but you have no reason to fear his interference with yours, for he

regards toleration as a sacred principle of political economy. But if you

have any Jacobitical partialities, as is naturally to be supposed, you

will do well to suppress them in his presence, as well as the least

tendency to the highflying or Tory principles; for he holds both in utter

detestation. For the rest, his word is his own bond, and must be the law

of all who act under him. He will fail in his duty to no one, and will

permit no one to fail towards him; to cultivate his favour, you must

execute his commands, instead of echoing his sentiments. His greatest

failings arise out of prejudices connected with his own profession, or

rather his exclusive devotion to it, which makes him see little worthy of

praise or attention, unless it be in some measure connected with

commerce."

"O rare-painted portrait!" exclaimed Rashleigh, when I was

silent--"Vandyke was a dauber to you, Frank. I see thy sire before me in

all his strength and weakness; loving and honouring the King as a sort

of lord mayor of the empire, or chief of the board of trade--venerating

the Commons, for the acts regulating the export trade--and respecting

the Peers, because the Lord Chancellor sits on a woolsack."

"Mine was a likeness, Rashleigh; yours is a caricature. But in return for

the _carte du pays_ which I have unfolded to you, give me some lights on

the geography of the unknown lands"--

"On which you are wrecked," said Rashleigh. "It is not worth while; it is

no Isle of Calypso, umbrageous with shade and intricate with silvan

labyrinth--but a bare ragged Northumbrian moor, with as little to

interest curiosity as to delight the eye; you may descry it in all its

nakedness in half an hour's survey, as well as if I were to lay it down

before you by line and compass."

"O, but something there is, worthy a more attentive survey--What say you

to Miss Vernon? Does not she form an interesting object in the landscape,

were all round as rude as Iceland's coast?"

I could plainly perceive that Rashleigh disliked the topic now presented

to him; but my frank communication had given me the advantageous title to

make inquiries in my turn. Rashleigh felt this, and found himself obliged

to follow my lead, however difficult he might find it to play his cards

successfully. "I have known less of Miss Vernon," he said, "for some

time, than I was wont to do formerly. In early age I was her tutor; but

as she advanced towards womanhood, my various avocations,--the gravity of

the profession to which I was destined,--the peculiar nature of her

engagements,--our mutual situation, in short, rendered a close and

constant intimacy dangerous and improper. I believe Miss Vernon might

consider my reserve as unkindness, but it was my duty; I felt as much as

she seemed to do, when compelled to give way to prudence. But where was

the safety in cultivating an intimacy with a beautiful and susceptible

girl, whose heart, you are aware, must be given either to the cloister or

to a betrothed husband?"

"The cloister or a betrothed husband?" I echoed--"Is that the alternative

destined for Miss Vernon?"

"It is indeed," said Rashleigh, with a sigh. "I need not, I suppose,

caution you against the danger of cultivating too closely the friendship

of Miss Vernon;--you are a man of the world, and know how far you can

indulge yourself in her society with safety to yourself, and justice to

her. But I warn you, that, considering her ardent temper, you must let

your experience keep guard over her as well as yourself, for the specimen

of yesterday may serve to show her extreme thoughtlessness and neglect of

decorum."

There was something, I was sensible, of truth, as well as good sense, in

all this; it seemed to be given as a friendly warning, and I had no right

to take it amiss; yet I felt I could with pleasure have run Rashleigh

Osbaldistone through the body all the time he was speaking.

"The deuce take his insolence!" was my internal meditation. "Would he

wish me to infer that Miss Vernon had fallen in love with that

hatchet-face of his, and become degraded so low as to require his shyness

to cure her of an imprudent passion? I will have his meaning from him,"

was my resolution, "if I should drag it out with cart-ropes."

For this purpose, I placed my temper under as accurate a guard as I

could, and observed, "That, for a lady of her good sense and acquired

accomplishments, it was to be regretted that Miss Vernon's manners were

rather blunt and rustic."

"Frank and unreserved, at least, to the extreme," replied Rashleigh:

"yet, trust me, she has an excellent heart. To tell you the truth, should

she continue her extreme aversion to the cloister, and to her destined

husband, and should my own labours in the mine of Plutus promise to

secure me a decent independence, I shall think of reviewing our

acquaintance and sharing it with Miss Vernon."

"With all his fine voice, and well-turned periods," thought I, "this same

Rashleigh Osbaldistone is the ugliest and most conceited coxcomb I ever

met with!"

"But," continued Rashleigh, as if thinking aloud, "I should not like to

supplant Thorncliff."

"Supplant Thorncliff!--Is your brother Thorncliff," I inquired, with

great surprise, "the destined husband of Diana Vernon?"

"Why, ay, her father's commands, and a certain family-contract, destined

her to marry one of Sir Hildebrand's sons. A dispensation has been

obtained from Rome to Diana Vernon to marry _Blank_ Osbaldistone, Esq.,

son of Sir Hildebrand Osbaldistone, of Osbaldistone Hall, Bart., and so

forth; and it only remains to pitch upon the happy man whose name shall

fill the gap in the manuscript. Now, as Percie is seldom sober, my father

pitched on Thorncliff, as the second prop of the family, and therefore

most proper to carry on the line of the Osbaldistones."

"The young lady," said I, forcing myself to assume an air of pleasantry,

which, I believe, became me extremely ill, "would perhaps have been

inclined to look a little lower on the family-tree, for the branch to

which she was desirous of clinging."

"I cannot say," he replied. "There is room for little choice in our

family; Dick is a gambler, John a boor, and Wilfred an ass. I believe my

father really made the best selection for poor Die, after all."

"The present company," said I, "being always excepted."

"Oh, my destination to the church placed me out of the question;

otherwise I will not affect to say, that, qualified by my education both

to instruct and guide Miss Vernon, I might not have been a more

creditable choice than any of my elders."

"And so thought the young lady, doubtless?"

"You are not to suppose so," answered Rashleigh, with an affectation of

denial which was contrived to convey the strongest affirmation the case

admitted of: "friendship--only friendship--formed the tie betwixt us, and

the tender affection of an opening mind to its only instructor--Love came

not near us--I told you I was wise in time."

I felt little inclination to pursue this conversation any farther, and

shaking myself clear of Rashleigh, withdrew to my own apartment, which I

recollect I traversed with much vehemence of agitation, repeating aloud

the expressions which had most offended me.--"Susceptible--ardent--tender

affection--Love--Diana Vernon, the most beautiful creature I ever beheld,

in love with him, the bandy-legged, bull-necked, limping scoundrel!

Richard the Third in all but his hump-back!--And yet the opportunities he

must have had during his cursed course of lectures; and the fellow's

flowing and easy strain of sentiment; and her extreme seclusion from

every one who spoke and acted with common sense; ay, and her obvious

pique at him, mixed with admiration of his talents, which looked as like

the result of neglected attachment as anything else--Well, and what is it

to me, that I should storm and rage at it? Is Diana Vernon the first

pretty girl that has loved and married an ugly fellow? And if she were

free of every Osbaldistone of them, what concern is it of mine?--a

Catholic--a Jacobite--a termagant into the boot--for me to look that way

were utter madness."

By throwing such reflections on the flame of my displeasure, I subdued it

into a sort of smouldering heart-burning, and appeared at the

dinner-table in as sulky a humour as could well be imagined.

CHAPTER TWELFTH.

Drunk?--and speak parrot?--and squabble?--swagger?--

Swear?--and discourse fustian with one's own shadow?

Othello.

I have already told you, my dear Tresham, what probably was no news to

you, that my principal fault was an unconquerable pitch of pride, which

exposed me to frequent mortification. I had not even whispered to myself

that I loved Diana Vernon; yet no sooner did I hear Rashleigh talk of her

as a prize which he might stoop to carry off, or neglect, at his

pleasure, than every step which the poor girl had taken, in the innocence

and openness of her heart, to form a sort of friendship with me, seemed

in my eyes the most insulting coquetry.--"Soh! she would secure me as a

_pis aller,_ I suppose, in case Mr. Rashleigh Osbaldistone should not

take compassion upon her! But I will satisfy her that I am not a person

to be trepanned in that manner--I will make her sensible that I see

through her arts, and that I scorn them."

I did not reflect for a moment, that all this indignation, which I had no

right whatever to entertain, proved that I was anything but indifferent

to Miss Vernon's charms; and I sate down to table in high ill-humour with

her and all the daughters of Eve.

Miss Vernon heard me, with surprise, return ungracious answers to one or

two playful strokes of satire which she threw out with her usual freedom

of speech; but, having no suspicion that offence was meant, she only

replied to my rude repartees with jests somewhat similar, but polished by

her good temper, though pointed by her wit. At length she perceived I was

really out of humour, and answered one of my rude speeches thus:--

"They say, Mr. Frank, that one may gather sense from fools--I heard

cousin Wilfred refuse to play any longer at cudgels the other day with

cousin Thornie, because cousin Thornie got angry, and struck harder than

the rules of amicable combat, it seems, permitted. 'Were I to break your

head in good earnest,' quoth honest Wilfred, 'I care not how angry you

are, for I should do it so much the more easily but it's hard I should

get raps over the costard, and only pay you back in make-believes'--Do

you understand the moral of this, Frank?"

"I have never felt myself under the necessity, madam, of studying how to

extract the slender portion of sense with which this family season their

conversation."

"Necessity! and madam!--You surprise me, Mr. Osbaldistone."

"I am unfortunate in doing so."

"Am I to suppose that this capricious tone is serious? or is it only

assumed, to make your good-humour more valuable?"

"You have a right to the attention of so many gentlemen in this family,

Miss Vernon, that it cannot be worth your while to inquire into the cause

of my stupidity and bad spirits."

"What!" she said, "am I to understand, then, that you have deserted my

faction, and gone over to the enemy?"

Then, looking across the table, and observing that Rashleigh, who was

seated opposite, was watching us with a singular expression of interest

on his harsh features, she continued--

"Horrible thought!--Ay, now I see 'tis true,

For the grim-visaged Rashleigh smiles on me,

And points at thee for his!--

Well, thank Heaven, and the unprotected state which has taught me

endurance, I do not take offence easily; and that I may not be forced to

quarrel, whether I like it or no, I have the honour, earlier than usual,

to wish you a happy digestion of your dinner and your bad humour."

And she left the table accordingly.

Upon Miss Vernon's departure, I found myself very little satisfied with

my own conduct. I had hurled back offered kindness, of which

circumstances had but lately pointed out the honest sincerity, and I had

but just stopped short of insulting the beautiful, and, as she had said

with some emphasis, the unprotected being by whom it was proffered. My

conduct seemed brutal in my own eyes. To combat or drown these painful

reflections, I applied myself more frequently than usual to the wine

which circulated on the table.

The agitated state of my feelings combined with my habits of temperance

to give rapid effect to the beverage. Habitual topers, I believe, acquire

the power of soaking themselves with a quantity of liquor that does

little more than muddy those intellects which in their sober state are

none of the clearest; but men who are strangers to the vice of

drunkenness as a habit, are more powerfully acted upon by intoxicating

liquors. My spirits, once aroused, became extravagant; I talked a great

deal, argued upon what I knew nothing of, told stories of which I forgot

the point, then laughed immoderately at my own forgetfulness; I accepted

several bets without having the least judgment; I challenged the giant

John to wrestle with me, although he had kept the ring at Hexham for a

year, and I never tried so much as a single fall.

My uncle had the goodness to interpose and prevent this consummation of

drunken folly, which, I suppose, would have otherwise ended in my neck

being broken.

It has even been reported by maligners, that I sung a song while under

this vinous influence; but, as I remember nothing of it, and never

attempted to turn a tune in all my life before or since, I would

willingly hope there is no actual foundation for the calumny. I was

absurd enough without this exaggeration. Without positively losing my

senses, I speedily lost all command of my temper, and my impetuous

passions whirled me onward at their pleasure. I had sate down sulky and

discontented, and disposed to be silent--the wine rendered me loquacious,

disputatious, and quarrelsome. I contradicted whatever was asserted, and

attacked, without any respect to my uncle's table, both his politics and

his religion. The affected moderation of Rashleigh, which he well knew

how to qualify with irritating ingredients, was even more provoking to me

than the noisy and bullying language of his obstreperous brothers. My

uncle, to do him justice, endeavoured to bring us to order; but his

authority was lost amidst the tumult of wine and passion. At length,

frantic at some real or supposed injurious insinuation, I actually struck

Rashleigh with my fist. No Stoic philosopher, superior to his own passion

and that of others, could have received an insult with a higher degree of

scorn. What he himself did not think it apparently worth while to resent,

Thorncliff resented for him. Swords were drawn, and we exchanged one or

two passes, when the other brothers separated us by main force; and I

shall never forget the diabolical sneer which writhed Rashleigh's wayward

features, as I was forced from the apartment by the main strength of two

of these youthful Titans. They secured me in my apartment by locking the

door, and I heard them, to my inexpressible rage, laugh heartily as they

descended the stairs. I essayed in my fury to break out; but the

window-grates, and the strength of a door clenched with iron, resisted my

efforts. At length I threw myself on my bed, and fell asleep amidst vows

of dire revenge to be taken in the ensuing day.

But with the morning cool repentance came. I felt, in the keenest manner,

the violence and absurdity of my conduct, and was obliged to confess that

wine and passion had lowered my intellects even below those of Wilfred

Osbaldistone, whom I held in so much contempt. My uncomfortable

reflections were by no means soothed by meditating the necessity of an

apology for my improper behaviour, and recollecting that Miss Vernon must

be a witness of my submission. The impropriety and unkindness of my

conduct to her personally, added not a little to these galling

considerations, and for this I could not even plead the miserable excuse

of intoxication.

Under all these aggravating feelings of shame and degradation, I

descended to the breakfast hall, like a criminal to receive sentence. It

chanced that a hard frost had rendered it impossible to take out the

hounds, so that I had the additional mortification to meet the family,

excepting only Rashleigh and Miss Vernon, in full divan, surrounding the

cold venison pasty and chine of beef. They were in high glee as I

entered, and I could easily imagine that the jests were furnished at my

expense. In fact, what I was disposed to consider with serious pain, was

regarded as an excellent good joke by my uncle, and the greater part of

my cousins. Sir Hildebrand, while he rallied me on the exploits of the

preceding evening, swore he thought a young fellow had better be thrice

drunk in one day, than sneak sober to bed like a Presbyterian, and leave

a batch of honest fellows, and a double quart of claret. And to back this

consolatory speech, he poured out a large bumper of brandy, exhorting me

to swallow "a hair of the dog that had bit me."

"Never mind these lads laughing, nevoy," he continued; "they would have

been all as great milksops as yourself, had I not nursed them, as one may

say, on the toast and tankard."

Ill-nature was not the fault of my cousins in general; they saw I was

vexed and hurt at the recollections of the preceding evening, and

endeavoured, with clumsy kindness, to remove the painful impression they

had made on me. Thorncliff alone looked sullen and unreconciled. This

young man had never liked me from the beginning; and in the marks of

attention occasionally shown me by his brothers, awkward as they were, he

alone had never joined. If it was true, of which, however, I began to

have my doubts, that he was considered by the family, or regarded

himself, as the destined husband of Miss Vernon, a sentiment of jealousy

might have sprung up in his mind from the marked predilection which it

was that young lady's pleasure to show for one whom Thorncliff might,

perhaps, think likely to become a dangerous rival.

Rashleigh at last entered, his visage as dark as mourning weed--brooding,

I could not but doubt, over the unjustifiable and disgraceful insult I

had offered to him. I had already settled in my own mind how I was to

behave on the occasion, and had schooled myself to believe, that true

honour consisted not in defending, but in apologising for, an injury so

much disproportioned to any provocation I might have to allege.

I therefore hastened to meet Rashleigh, and to express myself in the

highest degree sorry for the violence with which I had acted on the

preceding evening. "No circumstances," I said, "could have wrung from me

a single word of apology, save my own consciousness of the impropriety of

my behaviour. I hoped my cousin would accept of my regrets so sincerely

offered, and consider how much of my misconduct was owing to the

excessive hospitality of Osbaldistone Hall."

"He shall be friends with thee, lad," cried the honest knight, in the

full effusion of his heart; "or d--n me, if I call him son more!--Why,

Rashie, dost stand there like a log? _Sorry for it_ is all a gentleman

can say, if he happens to do anything awry, especially over his claret. I

served in Hounslow, and should know something, I think, of affairs of

honour. Let me hear no more of this, and we'll go in a body and rummage

out the badger in Birkenwood-bank."

Rashleigh's face resembled, as I have already noticed, no other

countenance that I ever saw. But this singularity lay not only in the

features, but in the mode of changing their expression. Other

countenances, in altering from grief to joy, or from anger to

satisfaction, pass through some brief interval, ere the expression of the

predominant passion supersedes entirely that of its predecessor. There is

a sort of twilight, like that between the clearing up of the darkness and

the rising of the sun, while the swollen muscles subside, the dark eye

clears, the forehead relaxes and expands itself, and the whole

countenance loses its sterner shades, and becomes serene and placid.

Rashleigh's face exhibited none of these gradations, but changed almost

instantaneously from the expression of one passion to that of the

contrary. I can compare it to nothing but the sudden shifting of a scene

in the theatre, where, at the whistle of the prompter, a cavern

disappears, and a grove arises.

My attention was strongly arrested by this peculiarity on the present

occasion. At Rashleigh's first entrance, "black he stood as night!" With

the same inflexible countenance he heard my excuse and his father's

exhortation; and it was not until Sir Hildebrand had done speaking, that

the cloud cleared away at once, and he expressed, in the kindest and most

civil terms, his perfect satisfaction with the very handsome apology I

had offered.

"Indeed," he said, "I have so poor a brain myself, when I impose on it

the least burden beyond my usual three glasses, that I have only, like

honest Cassio, a very vague recollection of the confusion of last

night--remember a mass of things, but nothing distinctly--a quarrel, but

nothing wherefore--So, my dear Cousin," he continued, shaking me kindly

by the hand, "conceive how much I am relieved by finding that I have to

receive an apology, instead of having to make one--I will not have a

word said upon the subject more; I should be very foolish to institute

any scrutiny into an account, when the balance, which I expected to be

against me, has been so unexpectedly and agreeably struck in my favour.

You see, Mr. Osbaldistone, I am practising the language of Lombard

Street, and qualifying myself for my new calling."

As I was about to answer, and raised my eyes for the purpose, they

encountered those of Miss Vernon, who, having entered the room unobserved

during the conversation, had given it her close attention. Abashed and

confounded, I fixed my eyes on the ground, and made my escape to the

breakfast-table, where I herded among my busy cousins.

My uncle, that the events of the preceding day might not pass out of our

memory without a practical moral lesson, took occasion to give Rashleigh

and me his serious advice to correct our milksop habits, as he termed

them, and gradually to inure our brains to bear a gentlemanlike quantity

of liquor, without brawls or breaking of heads. He recommended that we

should begin piddling with a regular quart of claret per day, which, with

the aid of March beer and brandy, made a handsome competence for a

beginner in the art of toping. And for our encouragement, he assured us

that he had known many a man who had lived to our years without having

drunk a pint of wine at a sitting, who yet, by falling into honest

company, and following hearty example, had afterwards been numbered among

the best good fellows of the time, and could carry off their six bottles

under their belt quietly and comfortably, without brawling or babbling,

and be neither sick nor sorry the next morning.

Sage as this advice was, and comfortable as was the prospect it held out

to me, I profited but little by the exhortation--partly, perhaps,

because, as often as I raised my eyes from the table, I observed Miss

Vernon's looks fixed on me, in which I thought I could read grave

compassion blended with regret and displeasure. I began to consider how I

should seek a scene of explanation and apology with her also, when she

gave me to understand she was determined to save me the trouble of

soliciting an interview. "Cousin Francis," she said, addressing me by the

same title she used to give to the other Osbaldistones, although I had,

properly speaking, no title to be called her kinsman, "I have encountered

this morning a difficult passage in the Divina Comme'dia of Dante; will

you have the goodness to step to the library and give me your assistance?

and when you have unearthed for me the meaning of the obscure Florentine,

we will join the rest at Birkenwood-bank, and see their luck at

unearthing the badger."

I signified, of course, my readiness to wait upon her. Rashleigh made an

offer to accompany us. "I am something better skilled," he said, "at

tracking the sense of Dante through the metaphors and elisions of his

wild and gloomy poem, than at hunting the poor inoffensive hermit yonder

out of his cave."

"Pardon me, Rashleigh," said Miss Vernon, "but as you are to occupy Mr.

Francis's place in the counting-house, you must surrender to him the

charge of your pupil's education at Osbaldistone Hall. We shall call you

in, however, if there is any occasion; so pray do not look so grave upon

it. Besides, it is a shame to you not to understand field-sports--What

will you do should our uncle in Crane-Alley ask you the signs by which

you track a badger?"

"Ay, true, Die,--true," said Sir Hildebrand, with a sigh, "I misdoubt

Rashleigh will be found short at the leap when he is put to the trial. An

he would ha' learned useful knowledge like his brothers, he was bred up

where it grew, I wuss; but French antics, and book-learning, with the new

turnips, and the rats, and the Hanoverians, ha' changed the world that I

ha' known in Old England--But come along with us, Rashie, and carry my

hunting-staff, man; thy cousin lacks none of thy company as now, and I

wonna ha' Die crossed--It's ne'er be said there was but one woman in

Osbaldistone Hall, and she died for lack of her will."

Rashleigh followed his father, as he commanded, not, however, ere he had

whispered to Diana, "I suppose I must in discretion bring the courtier,

Ceremony, in my company, and knock when I approach the door of the

library?"

"No, no, Rashleigh," said Miss Vernon; "dismiss from your company the

false archimage Dissimulation, and it will better ensure your free access

to our classical consultations."

So saying, she led the way to the library, and I followed--like a

criminal, I was going to say, to execution; but, as I bethink me, I have

used the simile once, if not twice before. Without any simile at all,

then, I followed, with a sense of awkward and conscious embarrassment,

which I would have given a great deal to shake off. I thought it a

degrading and unworthy feeling to attend one on such an occasion, having

breathed the air of the Continent long enough to have imbibed the notion

that lightness, gallantry, and something approaching to well-bred

self-assurance, should distinguish the gentleman whom a fair lady selects

for her companion in a _tete-a-tete._

My English feelings, however, were too many for my French education, and

I made, I believe, a very pitiful figure, when Miss Vernon, seating

herself majestically in a huge elbow-chair in the library, like a judge

about to hear a cause of importance, signed to me to take a chair

opposite to her (which I did, much like the poor fellow who is going to

be tried), and entered upon conversation in a tone of bitter irony.

CHAPTER THIRTEENTH.

Dire was his thought, who first in poison steeped

The weapon formed for slaughter--direr his,

And worthier of damnation, who instilled

The mortal venom in the social cup,

To fill the veins with death instead of life.

Anonymous.

"Upon my Word, Mr. Francis Osbaldistone," said Miss Vernon, with the air

of one who thought herself fully entitled to assume the privilege of

ironical reproach, which she was pleased to exert, "your character

improves upon us, sir--I could not have thought that it was in you.

Yesterday might be considered as your assay-piece, to prove yourself

entitled to be free of the corporation of Osbaldistone Hall. But it was a

masterpiece."

"I am quite sensible of my ill-breeding, Miss Vernon, and I can only say

for myself that I had received some communications by which my spirits

were unusually agitated. I am conscious I was impertinent and absurd."

"You do yourself great injustice," said the merciless monitor--"you have

contrived, by what I saw and have since heard, to exhibit in the course

of one evening a happy display of all the various masterly qualifications

which distinguish your several cousins;--the gentle and generous temper

of the benevolent Rashleigh,--the temperance of Percie,--the cool courage

of Thorncliff,--John's skill in dog-breaking,--Dickon's aptitude to

betting,--all exhibited by the single individual, Mr. Francis, and that

with a selection of time, place, and circumstance, worthy the taste and

sagacity of the sapient Wilfred."

"Have a little mercy, Miss Vernon," said I; for I confess I thought the

schooling as severe as the case merited, especially considering from what

quarter it came, "and forgive me if I suggest, as an excuse for follies I

am not usually guilty of, the custom of this house and country. I am far

from approving of it; but we have Shakspeare's authority for saying, that

good wine is a good familiar creature, and that any man living may be

overtaken at some time."

"Ay, Mr. Francis, but he places the panegyric and the apology in the

mouth of the greatest villain his pencil has drawn. I will not, however,

abuse the advantage your quotation has given me, by overwhelming you with

the refutation with which the victim Cassio replies to the tempter Iago.

I only wish you to know, that there is one person at least sorry to see a

youth of talents and expectations sink into the slough in which the

inhabitants of this house are nightly wallowing."

"I have but wet my shoe, I assure you, Miss Vernon, and am too sensible

of the filth of the puddle to step farther in."

"If such be your resolution," she replied, "it is a wise one. But I was

so much vexed at what I heard, that your concerns have pressed before my

own,--You behaved to me yesterday, during dinner, as if something had

been told you which lessened or lowered me in your opinion--I beg leave

to ask you what it was?"

I was stupified. The direct bluntness of the demand was much in the style

one gentleman uses to another, when requesting explanation of any part of

his conduct in a good-humoured yet determined manner, and was totally

devoid of the circumlocutions, shadings, softenings, and periphrasis,

which usually accompany explanations betwixt persons of different sexes

in the higher orders of society.

I remained completely embarrassed; for it pressed on my recollection,

that Rashleigh's communications, supposing them to be correct, ought to

have rendered Miss Vernon rather an object of my compassion than of my

pettish resentment; and had they furnished the best apology possible for

my own conduct, still I must have had the utmost difficulty in detailing

what inferred such necessary and natural offence to Miss Vernon's

feelings. She observed my hesitation, and proceeded, in a tone somewhat

more peremptory, but still temperate and civil--"I hope Mr. Osbaldistone

does not dispute my title to request this explanation. I have no relative

who can protect me; it is, therefore, just that I be permitted to protect

myself."

I endeavoured with hesitation to throw the blame of my rude behaviour

upon indisposition--upon disagreeable letters from London. She suffered

me to exhaust my apologies, and fairly to run myself aground, listening

all the while with a smile of absolute incredulity.

"And now, Mr. Francis, having gone through your prologue of excuses, with

the same bad grace with which all prologues are delivered, please to draw

the curtain, and show me that which I desire to see. In a word, let me

know what Rashleigh says of me; for he is the grand engineer and first

mover of all the machinery of Osbaldistone Hall."

"But, supposing there was anything to tell, Miss Vernon, what does he

deserve that betrays the secrets of one ally to another?--Rashleigh, you

yourself told me, remained your ally, though no longer your friend."

"I have neither patience for evasion, nor inclination for jesting, on the

present subject. Rashleigh cannot--ought not--dare not, hold any language

respecting me, Diana Vernon, but what I may demand to hear repeated. That

there are subjects of secrecy and confidence between us, is most certain;

but to such, his communications to you could have no relation; and with

such, I, as an individual, have no concern."

I had by this time recovered my presence of mind, and hastily determined

to avoid making any disclosure of what Rashleigh had told me in a sort of

confidence. There was something unworthy in retailing private

conversation; it could, I thought, do no good, and must necessarily give

Miss Vernon great pain. I therefore replied, gravely, "that nothing but

frivolous talk had passed between Mr. Rashleigh Osbaldistone and me on

the state of the family at the Hall; and I protested, that nothing had

been said which left a serious impression to her disadvantage. As a

gentleman," I said, "I could not be more explicit in reporting private

conversation."

She started up with the animation of a Camilla about to advance into

battle. "This shall not serve your turn, sir,--I must have another answer

from you." Her features kindled--her brow became flushed--her eye glanced

wild-fire as she proceeded--"I demand such an explanation, as a woman

basely slandered has a right to demand from every man who calls himself a

gentleman--as a creature, motherless, friendless, alone in the world,

left to her own guidance and protection, has a right to require from

every being having a happier lot, in the name of that God who sent _them_

into the world to enjoy, and _her_ to suffer. You shall not deny me--or,"

she added, looking solemnly upwards, "you will rue your denial, if there

is justice for wrong either on earth or in heaven."

I was utterly astonished at her vehemence, but felt, thus conjured, that

it became my duty to lay aside scrupulous delicacy, and gave her briefly,

but distinctly, the heads of the information which Rashleigh had conveyed

to me.

She sate down and resumed her composure, as soon as I entered upon the

subject, and when I stopped to seek for the most delicate turn of

expression, she repeatedly interrupted me with "Go on--pray, go on; the

first word which occurs to you is the plainest, and must be the best. Do

not think of my feelings, but speak as you would to an unconcerned third

party."

Thus urged and encouraged, I stammered through all the account which

Rashleigh had given of her early contract to marry an Osbaldistone, and

of the uncertainty and difficulty of her choice; and there I would

willingly have paused. But her penetration discovered that there was

still something behind, and even guessed to what it related.

"Well, it was ill-natured of Rashleigh to tell this tale on me. I am like

the poor girl in the fairy tale, who was betrothed in her cradle to the

Black Bear of Norway, but complained chiefly of being called Bruin's

bride by her companions at school. But besides all this, Rashleigh said

something of himself with relation to me--Did he not?"

"He certainly hinted, that were it not for the idea of supplanting his

brother, he would now, in consequence of his change of profession, be

desirous that the word Rashleigh should fill up the blank in the

dispensation, instead of the word Thorncliff."

"Ay? indeed?" she replied--"was he so very condescending?--Too much

honour for his humble handmaid, Diana Vernon--And she, I suppose, was to

be enraptured with joy could such a substitute be effected?"

"To confess the truth, he intimated as much, and even farther

insinuated"--

"What?--Let me hear it all!" she exclaimed, hastily.

"That he had broken off your mutual intimacy, lest it should have given

rise to an affection by which his destination to the church would not

permit him to profit."

"I am obliged to him for his consideration," replied Miss Vernon, every

feature of her fine countenance taxed to express the most supreme degree

of scorn and contempt. She paused a moment, and then said, with her usual

composure, "There is but little I have heard from you which I did not

expect to hear, and which I ought not to have expected; because, bating

one circumstance, it is all very true. But as there are some poisons so

active, that a few drops, it is said, will infect a whole fountain, so

there is one falsehood in Rashleigh's communication, powerful enough to

corrupt the whole well in which Truth herself is said to have dwelt. It

is the leading and foul falsehood, that, knowing Rashleigh as I have

reason too well to know him, any circumstance on earth could make me

think of sharing my lot with him. No," she continued with a sort of

inward shuddering that seemed to express involuntary horror, "any lot

rather than that--the sot, the gambler, the bully, the jockey, the

insensate fool, were a thousand times preferable to Rashleigh:--the

convent--the jail--the grave, shall be welcome before them all."

There was a sad and melancholy cadence in her voice, corresponding with

the strange and interesting romance of her situation. So young, so

beautiful, so untaught, so much abandoned to herself, and deprived of all

the support which her sex derives from the countenance and protection of

female friends, and even of that degree of defence which arises from the

forms with which the sex are approached in civilised life,--it is scarce

metaphorical to say, that my heart bled for her. Yet there was an

expression of dignity in her contempt of ceremony--of upright feeling in

her disdain of falsehood--of firm resolution in the manner in which she

contemplated the dangers by which she was surrounded, which blended my

pity with the warmest admiration. She seemed a princess deserted by her

subjects, and deprived of her power, yet still scorning those formal

regulations of society which are created for persons of an inferior rank;

and, amid her difficulties, relying boldly and confidently on the justice

of Heaven, and the unshaken constancy of her own mind.

I offered to express the mingled feelings of sympathy and admiration with

which her unfortunate situation and her high spirit combined to impress

me, but she imposed silence on me at once.

"I told you in jest," she said, "that I disliked compliments--I now tell

you in earnest, that I do not ask sympathy, and that I despise

consolation. What I have borne, I have borne--What I am to bear I will

sustain as I may; no word of commiseration can make a burden feel one

feather's weight lighter to the slave who must carry it. There is only

one human being who could have assisted me, and that is he who has rather

chosen to add to my embarrassment--Rashleigh Osbaldistone.--Yes! the time

once was that I might have learned to love that man--But, great God! the

purpose for which he insinuated himself into the confidence of one

already so forlorn--the undeviating and continued assiduity with which he

pursued that purpose from year to year, without one single momentary

pause of remorse or compassion--the purpose for which he would have

converted into poison the food he administered to my mind--Gracious

Providence! what should I have been in this world, and the next, in body

and soul, had I fallen under the arts of this accomplished villain!"

I was so much struck with the scene of perfidious treachery which these

words disclosed, that I rose from my chair hardly knowing what I did,

laid my hand on the hilt of my sword, and was about to leave the

apartment in search of him on whom I might discharge my just indignation.

Almost breathless, and with eyes and looks in which scorn and indignation

had given way to the most lively alarm, Miss Vernon threw herself between

me and the door of the apartment.

"Stay!" she said--"stay!--however just your resentment, you do not know

half the secrets of this fearful prison-house." She then glanced her eyes

anxiously round the room, and sunk her voice almost to a whisper--"He

bears a charmed life; you cannot assail him without endangering other

lives, and wider destruction. Had it been otherwise, in some hour of

justice he had hardly been safe, even from this weak hand. I told you,"

she said, motioning me back to my seat, "that I needed no comforter. I

now tell you I need no avenger."

I resumed my seat mechanically, musing on what she said, and recollecting

also, what had escaped me in my first glow of resentment, that I had no

title whatever to constitute myself Miss Vernon's champion. She paused to

let her own emotions and mine subside, and then addressed me with more

composure.

"I have already said that there is a mystery connected with Rashleigh, of

a dangerous and fatal nature. Villain as he is, and as he knows he stands

convicted in my eyes, I cannot--dare not, openly break with or defy him.

You also, Mr. Osbaldistone, must bear with him with patience, foil his

artifices by opposing to them prudence, not violence; and, above all, you

must avoid such scenes as that of last night, which cannot but give him

perilous advantages over you. This caution I designed to give you, and it

was the object with which I desired this interview; but I have extended

my confidence farther than I proposed."

I assured her it was not misplaced.

"I do not believe that it is," she replied. "You have that in your face

and manners which authorises trust. Let us continue to be friends. You

need not fear," she said, laughing, while she blushed a little, yet

speaking with a free and unembarrassed voice, "that friendship with us

should prove only a specious name, as the poet says, for another feeling.

I belong, in habits of thinking and acting, rather to your sex, with

which I have always been brought up, than to my own. Besides, the fatal

veil was wrapt round me in my cradle; for you may easily believe I have

never thought of the detestable condition under which I may remove it.

The time," she added, "for expressing my final determination is not

arrived, and I would fain have the freedom of wild heath and open air

with the other commoners of nature, as long as I can be permitted to

enjoy them. And now that the passage in Dante is made so clear, pray go

and see what has become of the badger-baiters. My head aches so much that

I cannot join the party."

I left the library, but not to join the hunters. I felt that a solitary

walk was necessary to compose my spirits before I again trusted myself in

Rashleigh's company, whose depth of calculating villany had been so

strikingly exposed to me. In Dubourg's family (as he was of the reformed

persuasion) I had heard many a tale of Romish priests who gratified, at

the expense of friendship, hospitality, and the most sacred ties of

social life, those passions, the blameless indulgence of which is denied

by the rules of their order. But the deliberate system of undertaking the

education of a deserted orphan of noble birth, and so intimately allied

to his own family, with the perfidious purpose of ultimately seducing

her, detailed as it was by the intended victim with all the glow of

virtuous resentment, seemed more atrocious to me than the worst of the

tales I had heard at Bourdeaux, and I felt it would be extremely

difficult for me to meet Rashleigh, and yet to suppress the abhorrence

with which he impressed me. Yet this was absolutely necessary, not only

on account of the mysterious charge which Diana had given me, but because

I had, in reality, no ostensible ground for quarrelling with him.

I therefore resolved, as far as possible, to meet Rashleigh's

dissimulation with equal caution on my part during our residence in the

same family; and when he should depart for London, I resolved to give

Owen at least such a hint of his character as might keep him on his guard

over my father's interests. Avarice or ambition, I thought, might have as

great, or greater charms, for a mind constituted like Rashleigh's, than

unlawful pleasure; the energy of his character, and his power of assuming

all seeming good qualities, were likely to procure him a high degree of

confidence, and it was not to be hoped that either good faith or

gratitude would prevent him from abusing it. The task was somewhat

difficult, especially in my circumstances, since the caution which I

threw out might be imputed to jealousy of my rival, or rather my

successor, in my father's favour. Yet I thought it absolutely necessary

to frame such a letter, leaving it to Owen, who, in his own line, was

wary, prudent, and circumspect, to make the necessary use of his

knowledge of Rashleigh's true character. Such a letter, therefore, I

indited, and despatched to the post-house by the first opportunity.

At my meeting with Rashleigh, he, as well as I, appeared to have taken up

distant ground, and to be disposed to avoid all pretext for collision. He

was probably conscious that Miss Vernon's communications had been

unfavourable to him, though he could not know that they extended to

discovering his meditated villany towards her. Our intercourse,

therefore, was reserved on both sides, and turned on subjects of little

interest. Indeed, his stay at Osbaldistone Hall did not exceed a few days

after this period, during which I only remarked two circumstances

respecting him. The first was the rapid and almost intuitive manner in

which his powerful and active mind seized upon and arranged the

elementary principles necessary to his new profession, which he now

studied hard, and occasionally made parade of his progress, as if to show

me how light it was for him to lift the burden which I had flung down

from very weariness and inability to carry it. The other remarkable

circumstance was, that, notwithstanding the injuries with which Miss

Vernon charged Rashleigh, they had several private interviews together of

considerable length, although their bearing towards each other in public

did not seem more cordial than usual.

When the day of Rashleigh's departure arrived, his father bade him

farewell with indifference; his brothers with the ill-concealed glee of

school-boys who see their task-master depart for a season, and feel a joy

which they dare not express; and I myself with cold politeness. When he

approached Miss Vernon, and would have saluted her she drew back with a

look of haughty disdain; but said, as she extended her hand to him,

"Farewell, Rashleigh; God reward you for the good you have done, and

forgive you for the evil you have meditated."

"Amen, my fair cousin," he replied, with an air of sanctity, which

belonged, I thought, to the seminary of Saint Omers; "happy is he whose

good intentions have borne fruit in deeds, and whose evil thoughts have

perished in the blossom."

These were his parting words. "Accomplished hypocrite!" said Miss Vernon

to me, as the door closed behind him--"how nearly can what we most

despise and hate, approach in outward manner to that which we most

venerate!"

I had written to my father by Rashleigh, and also a few lines to Owen,

besides the confidential letter which I have already mentioned, and which

I thought it more proper and prudent to despatch by another conveyance.

In these epistles, it would have been natural for me to have pointed out

to my father and my friend, that I was at present in a situation where I

could improve myself in no respect, unless in the mysteries of hunting

and hawking; and where I was not unlikely to forget, in the company of

rude grooms and horse-boys, any useful knowledge or elegant

accomplishments which I had hitherto acquired. It would also have been

natural that I should have expressed the disgust and tedium which I was

likely to feel among beings whose whole souls were centred in

field-sports or more degrading pastimes--that I should have complained of

the habitual intemperance of the family in which I was a guest, and the

difficulty and almost resentment with which my uncle, Sir Hildebrand,

received any apology for deserting the bottle. This last, indeed, was a

topic on which my father, himself a man of severe temperance, was likely

to be easily alarmed, and to have touched upon this spring would to a

certainty have opened the doors of my prison-house, and would either have

been the means of abridging my exile, or at least would have procured me

a change of residence during my rustication.

I say, my dear Tresham, that, considering how very unpleasant a prolonged

residence at Osbaldistone Hall must have been to a young man of my age,

and with my habits, it might have seemed very natural that I should have

pointed out all these disadvantages to my father, in order to obtain his

consent for leaving my uncle's mansion. Nothing, however, is more

certain, than that I did not say a single word to this purpose in my

letters to my father and Owen. If Osbaldistone Hall had been Athens in

all its pristine glory of learning, and inhabited by sages, heroes, and

poets, I could not have expressed less inclination to leave it.

If thou hast any of the salt of youth left in thee, Tresham, thou wilt be

at no loss to account for my silence on a topic seemingly so obvious.

Miss Vernon's extreme beauty, of which she herself seemed so little

conscious--her romantic and mysterious situation--the evils to which she

was exposed--the courage with which she seemed to face them--her manners,

more frank than belonged to her sex, yet, as it seemed to me,

exceeding in frankness only from the dauntless consciousness of her

innocence,--above all, the obvious and flattering distinction which she

made in my favour over all other persons, were at once calculated to

interest my best feelings, to excite my curiosity, awaken my

imagination, and gratify my vanity. I dared not, indeed, confess to

myself the depth of the interest with which Miss Vernon inspired me, or

the large share which she occupied in my thoughts. We read together,

walked together, rode together, and sate together. The studies which she

had broken off upon her quarrel with Rashleigh, she now resumed, under

the auspices of a tutor whose views were more sincere, though his

capacity was far more limited.

In truth, I was by no means qualified to assist her in the prosecution of

several profound studies which she had commenced with Rashleigh, and

which appeared to me more fitted for a churchman than for a beautiful

female. Neither can I conceive with what view he should have engaged

Diana in the gloomy maze of casuistry which schoolmen called philosophy,

or in the equally abstruse though more certain sciences of mathematics

and astronomy; unless it were to break down and confound in her mind the

difference and distinction between the sexes, and to habituate her to

trains of subtle reasoning, by which he might at his own time invest that

which is wrong with the colour of that which is right. It was in the same

spirit, though in the latter case the evil purpose was more obvious, that

the lessons of Rashleigh had encouraged Miss Vernon in setting at nought

and despising the forms and ceremonial limits which are drawn round

females in modern society. It is true, she was sequestrated from all

female company, and could not learn the usual rules of decorum, either

from example or precept; yet such was her innate modesty, and accurate

sense of what was right and wrong, that she would not of herself have

adopted the bold uncompromising manner which struck me with so much

surprise on our first acquaintance, had she not been led to conceive that

a contempt of ceremony indicated at once superiority of understanding and

the confidence of conscious innocence. Her wily instructor had, no doubt,

his own views in levelling those outworks which reserve and caution erect

around virtue. But for these, and for his other crimes, he has long since

answered at a higher tribunal.

Besides the progress which Miss Vernon, whose powerful mind readily

adopted every means of information offered to it, had made in more

abstract science, I found her no contemptible linguist, and well

acquainted both with ancient and modern literature. Were it not that

strong talents will often go farthest when they seem to have least

assistance, it would be almost incredible to tell the rapidity of Miss

Vernon's progress in knowledge; and it was still more extraordinary, when

her stock of mental acquisitions from books was compared with her total

ignorance of actual life. It seemed as if she saw and knew everything,

except what passed in the world around her;--and I believe it was this

very ignorance and simplicity of thinking upon ordinary subjects, so

strikingly contrasted with her fund of general knowledge and information,

which rendered her conversation so irresistibly fascinating, and rivetted

the attention to whatever she said or did; since it was absolutely

impossible to anticipate whether her next word or action was to display

the most acute perception, or the most profound simplicity. The degree of

danger which necessarily attended a youth of my age and keen feelings

from remaining in close and constant intimacy with an object so amiable,

and so peculiarly interesting, all who remember their own sentiments at

my age may easily estimate.

CHAPTER FOURTEENTH.

Yon lamp its line of quivering light

Shoots from my lady's bower;

But why should Beauty's lamp be bright

At midnight's lonely hour?

OLD BALLAD.

The mode of life at Osbaldistone Hall was too uniform to admit of

description. Diana Vernon and I enjoyed much of our time in our mutual

studies; the rest of the family killed theirs in such sports and pastimes

as suited the seasons, in which we also took a share. My uncle was a man

of habits, and by habit became so much accustomed to my presence and mode

of life, that, upon the whole, he was rather fond of me than otherwise. I

might probably have risen yet higher in his good graces, had I employed

the same arts for that purpose which were used by Rashleigh, who,

availing himself of his father's disinclination to business, had

gradually insinuated himself into the management of his property. But

although I readily gave my uncle the advantage of my pen and my

arithmetic so often as he desired to correspond with a neighbour, or

settle with a tenant, and was, in so far, a more useful inmate in his

family than any of his sons, yet I was not willing to oblige Sir

Hildebrand by relieving him entirely from the management of his own

affairs; so that, while the good knight admitted that nevoy Frank was a

steady, handy lad, he seldom failed to remark in the same breath, that he

did not think he should ha' missed Rashleigh so much as he was like to

do.

As it is particularly unpleasant to reside in a family where we are at

variance with any part of it, I made some efforts to overcome the

ill-will which my cousins entertained against me. I exchanged my laced

hat for a jockey-cap, and made some progress in their opinion; I broke a

young colt in a manner which carried me further into their good graces. A

bet or two opportunely lost to Dickon, and an extra health pledged with

Percie, placed me on an easy and familiar footing with all the young

squires, except Thorncliff.

I have already noticed the dislike entertained against me by this young

fellow, who, as he had rather more sense, had also a much worse temper,

than any of his brethren. Sullen, dogged, and quarrelsome, he regarded my

residence at Osbaldistone Hall as an intrusion, and viewed with envious

and jealous eyes my intimacy with Diana Vernon, whom the effect proposed

to be given to a certain family-compact assigned to him as an intended

spouse. That he loved her, could scarcely be said, at least without much

misapplication of the word; but he regarded her as something appropriated

to himself, and resented internally the interference which he knew not

how to prevent or interrupt. I attempted a tone of conciliation towards

Thorncliff on several occasions; but he rejected my advances with a

manner about as gracious as that of a growling mastiff, when the animal

shuns and resents a stranger's attempts to caress him. I therefore

abandoned him to his ill-humour, and gave myself no further trouble about

the matter.

Such was the footing upon which I stood with the family at Osbaldistone

Hall; but I ought to mention another of its inmates with whom I

occasionally held some discourse. This was Andrew Fairservice, the

gardener who (since he had discovered that I was a Protestant) rarely

suffered me to pass him without proffering his Scotch mull for a social

pinch. There were several advantages attending this courtesy. In the

first place, it was made at no expense, for I never took snuff; and

secondly, it afforded an excellent apology to Andrew (who was not

particularly fond of hard labour) for laying aside his spade for several

minutes. But, above all, these brief interviews gave Andrew an

opportunity of venting the news he had collected, or the satirical

remarks which his shrewd northern humour suggested.

"I am saying, sir," he said to me one evening, with a face obviously

charged with intelligence, "I hae been down at the Trinlay-knowe."

"Well, Andrew, and I suppose you heard some news at the alehouse?"

"Na, sir; I never gang to the yillhouse--that is unless ony neighbour was

to gie me a pint, or the like o' that; but to gang there on ane's ain

coat-tail, is a waste o' precious time and hard-won siller.--But I was

doun at the Trinlay-knowe, as I was saying, about a wee bit business o'

my ain wi' Mattie Simpson, that wants a forpit or twa o' peers that will

never be missed in the Ha'-house--and when we were at the thrangest o'

our bargain, wha suld come in but Pate Macready the travelling merchant?"

"Pedlar, I suppose you mean?"

"E'en as your honour likes to ca' him; but it's a creditable calling and

a gainfu', and has been lang in use wi' our folk. Pate's a far-awa cousin

o' mine, and we were blythe to meet wi' ane anither."

"And you went and had a jug of ale together, I suppose, Andrew?--For

Heaven's sake, cut short your story."

"Bide a wee--bide a wee; you southrons are aye in sic a hurry, and

this is something concerns yourself, an ye wad tak patience to

hear't--Yill?--deil a drap o' yill did Pate offer me; but Mattie gae us

baith a drap skimmed milk, and ane o' her thick ait jannocks, that was

as wat and raw as a divot. O for the bonnie girdle cakes o' the

north!--and sae we sat doun and took out our clavers."

"I wish you would take them out just now. Pray, tell me the news, if you

have got any worth telling, for I can't stop here all night."

"Than, if ye maun hae't, the folk in Lunnun are a' clean wud about this

bit job in the north here."

"Clean wood! what's that?"

"Ou, just real daft--neither to haud nor to bind--a' hirdy-girdy--clean

through ither--the deil's ower Jock Wabster."

[Illustration: Frank and Andrew Fairservice--194]

"But what does all this mean? or what business have I with the devil or

Jack Webster?"

"Umph!" said Andrew, looking extremely knowing, "it's just because--just

that the dirdum's a' about yon man's pokmanty."

"Whose portmanteau? or what do you mean?"

"Ou, just the man Morris's, that he said he lost yonder: but if it's no

your honour's affair, as little is it mine; and I mauna lose this

gracious evening."

And, as if suddenly seized with a violent fit of industry, Andrew began

to labour most diligently.

My attention, as the crafty knave had foreseen, was now arrested, and

unwilling, at the same time, to acknowledge any particular interest in

that affair, by asking direct questions, I stood waiting till the spirit

of voluntary communication should again prompt him to resume his story.

Andrew dug on manfully, and spoke at intervals, but nothing to the

purpose of Mr. Macready's news; and I stood and listened, cursing him in

my heart, and desirous at the same time to see how long his humour of

contradiction would prevail over his desire of speaking upon the subject

which was obviously uppermost in his mind.

"Am trenching up the sparry-grass, and am gaun to saw some Misegun beans;

they winna want them to their swine's flesh, I'se warrant--muckle gude

may it do them. And siclike dung as the grieve has gien me!--it should be

wheat-strae, or aiten at the warst o't, and it's pease dirt, as

fizzenless as chuckie-stanes. But the huntsman guides a' as he likes

about the stable-yard, and he's selled the best o' the litter, I'se

warrant. But, howsoever, we mauna lose a turn o' this Saturday at e'en,

for the wather's sair broken, and if there's a fair day in seven,

Sunday's sure to come and lick it up--Howsomever, I'm no denying that it

may settle, if it be Heaven's will, till Monday morning,--and what's the

use o' my breaking my back at this rate?--I think, I'll e'en awa' hame,

for yon's the curfew, as they ca' their jowing-in bell."

Accordingly, applying both his hands to his spade, he pitched it upright

in the trench which he had been digging and, looking at me with the air

of superiority of one who knows himself possessed of important

information, which he may communicate or refuse at his pleasure, pulled

down the sleeves of his shirt, and walked slowly towards his coat, which

lay carefully folded up upon a neighbouring garden-seat.

"I must pay the penalty of having interrupted the tiresome rascal,"

thought I to myself, "and even gratify Mr. Fairservice by taking his

communication on his own terms." Then raising my voice, I addressed

him,--"And after all, Andrew, what are these London news you had from your

kinsman, the travelling merchant?"

"The pedlar, your honour means?" retorted Andrew--"but ca' him what ye

wull, they're a great convenience in a country-side that's scant o'

borough-towns like this Northumberland--That's no the case, now, in

Scotland;--there's the kingdom of Fife, frae Culross to the East Nuik,

it's just like a great combined city--sae mony royal boroughs yoked on

end to end, like ropes of ingans, with their hie-streets and their

booths, nae doubt, and their kraemes, and houses of stane and lime and

fore-stairs--Kirkcaldy, the sell o't, is langer than ony town in

England."

"I daresay it is all very splendid and very fine--but you were talking of

the London news a little while ago, Andrew."

"Ay," replied Andrew; "but I dinna think your honour cared to hear about

them--Howsoever" (he continued, grinning a ghastly smile), "Pate Macready

does say, that they are sair mistrysted yonder in their Parliament House

about this rubbery o' Mr. Morris, or whatever they ca' the chiel."

"In the House of Parliament, Andrew!--how came they to mention it there?"

"Ou, that's just what I said to Pate; if it like your honour, I'll tell

you the very words; it's no worth making a lie for the matter--'Pate,'

said I, 'what ado had the lords and lairds and gentles at Lunnun wi' the

carle and his walise?--When we had a Scotch Parliament, Pate,' says I

(and deil rax their thrapples that reft us o't!) 'they sate dousely down

and made laws for a haill country and kinrick, and never fashed their

beards about things that were competent to the judge ordinar o' the

bounds; but I think,' said I, 'that if ae kailwife pou'd aff her

neighbour's mutch they wad hae the twasome o' them into the Parliament

House o' Lunnun. It's just,' said I, 'amaist as silly as our auld daft

laird here and his gomerils o' sons, wi' his huntsmen and his hounds, and

his hunting cattle and horns, riding haill days after a bit beast that

winna weigh sax punds when they hae catched it.'"

"You argued most admirably, Andrew," said I, willing to encourage him to

get into the marrow of his intelligence; "and what said Pate?"

"Ou," he said, "what better could be expected of a wheen pock-pudding

English folk?--But as to the robbery, it's like that when they're a' at

the thrang o' their Whig and Tory wark, and ca'ing ane anither, like

unhanged blackguards--up gets ae lang-tongued chield, and he says, that

a' the north of England were rank Jacobites (and, quietly, he wasna far

wrang maybe), and that they had levied amaist open war, and a king's

messenger had been stoppit and rubbit on the highway, and that the best

bluid o' Northumberland had been at the doing o't--and mickle gowd ta'en

aff him, and mony valuable papers; and that there was nae redress to be

gotten by remeed of law for the first justice o' the peace that the

rubbit man gaed to, he had fund the twa loons that did the deed birling

and drinking wi' him, wha but they; and the justice took the word o' the

tane for the compearance o' the tither; and that they e'en gae him

leg-bail, and the honest man that had lost his siller was fain to leave

the country for fear that waur had come of it."

"Can this be really true?" said I.

"Pate swears it's as true as that his ellwand is a yard lang--(and so it

is, just bating an inch, that it may meet the English measure)--And when

the chield had said his warst, there was a terrible cry for names, and

out comes he wi' this man Morris's name, and your uncle's, and Squire

Inglewood's, and other folk's beside" (looking sly at me)--"And then

another dragon o' a chield got up on the other side, and said, wad they

accuse the best gentleman in the land on the oath of a broken

coward?--for it's like that Morris had been drummed out o' the army for

rinning awa in Flanders; and he said, it was like the story had been

made up between the minister and him or ever he had left Lunnun; and

that, if there was to be a search-warrant granted, he thought the siller

wad be fund some gate near to St. James's Palace. Aweel, they trailed up

Morris to their bar, as they ca't, to see what he could say to the job;

but the folk that were again him, gae him sic an awfu' throughgaun about

his rinnin' awa, and about a' the ill he had ever dune or said for a'

the forepart o' his life, that Patie says he looked mair like ane dead

than living; and they cou'dna get a word o' sense out o' him, for

downright fright at their growling and routing. He maun be a saft sap,

wi' a head nae better than a fozy frosted turnip--it wad hae ta'en a

hantle o' them to scaur Andrew Fairservice out o' his tale."

"And how did it all end, Andrew? did your friend happen to learn?"

"Ou, ay; for as his walk is in this country, Pate put aff his journey for

the space of a week or thereby, because it wad be acceptable to his

customers to bring down the news. It's just a' gaed aft like moonshine in

water. The fallow that began it drew in his horns, and said, that though

he believed the man had been rubbit, yet he acknowledged he might hae

been mista'en about the particulars. And then the other chield got up,

and said, he caredna whether Morris was rubbed or no, provided it wasna

to become a stain on ony gentleman's honour and reputation, especially in

the north of England; for, said he before them, I come frae the north

mysell, and I carena a boddle wha kens it. And this is what they ca'

explaining--the tane gies up a bit, and the tither gies up a bit, and a'

friends again. Aweel, after the Commons' Parliament had tuggit, and

rived, and rugged at Morris and his rubbery till they were tired o't, the

Lords' Parliament they behoved to hae their spell o't. In puir auld

Scotland's Parliament they a' sate thegither, cheek by choul, and than

they didna need to hae the same blethers twice ower again. But till't

their lordships went wi' as muckle teeth and gude-will, as if the matter

had been a' speck and span new. Forbye, there was something said about

ane Campbell, that suld hae been concerned in the rubbery, mair or less,

and that he suld hae had a warrant frae the Duke of Argyle, as a

testimonial o' his character. And this put MacCallum More's beard in a

bleize, as gude reason there was; and he gat up wi' an unco bang, and

garr'd them a' look about them, and wad ram it even doun their throats,

there was never ane o' the Campbells but was as wight, wise, warlike, and

worthy trust, as auld Sir John the Graeme. Now, if your honour's sure ye

arena a drap's bluid a-kin to a Campbell, as I am nane mysell, sae far as

I can count my kin, or hae had it counted to me, I'll gie ye my mind on

that matter."

"You may be assured I have no connection whatever with any gentleman of

the name."

"Ou, than we may speak it quietly amang oursells. There's baith gude and

bad o' the Campbells, like other names, But this MacCallum More has an

unco sway and say baith, amang the grit folk at Lunnun even now; for he

canna preceesely be said to belang to ony o' the twa sides o' them, sae

deil any o' them likes to quarrel wi' him; sae they e'en voted Morris's

tale a fause calumnious libel, as they ca't, and if he hadna gien them

leg-bail, he was likely to hae ta'en the air on the pillory for

leasing-making."

So speaking, honest Andrew collected his dibbles, spades, and hoes, and

threw them into a wheel-barrow,--leisurely, however, and allowing me full

time to put any further questions which might occur to me before he

trundled them off to the tool-house, there to repose during the ensuing

day. I thought it best to speak out at once, lest this meddling fellow

should suppose there were more weighty reasons for my silence than

actually existed.

"I should like to see this countryman of yours, Andrew and to hear his

news from himself directly. You have probably heard that I had some

trouble from the impertinent folly of this man Morris" (Andrew grinned a

most significant grin), "and I should wish to see your cousin the

merchant, to ask him the particulars of what he heard in London, if it

could be done without much trouble."

"Naething mair easy," Andrew observed; "he had but to hint to his cousin

that I wanted a pair or twa o' hose, and he wad be wi' me as fast as he

could lay leg to the grund."

"O yes, assure him I shall be a customer; and as the night is, as you

say, settled and fair, I shall walk in the garden until he comes; the

moon will soon rise over the fells. You may bring him to the little

back-gate; and I shall have pleasure, in the meanwhile, in looking on the

bushes and evergreens by the bright frosty moonlight."

"Vara right, vara right--that's what I hae aften said; a kail-blade, or a

colliflour, glances sae glegly by moonlight, it's like a leddy in her

diamonds."

So saying, off went Andrew Fairservice with great glee. He had to walk

about two miles, a labour he undertook with the greatest pleasure, in

order to secure to his kinsman the sale of some articles of his trade,

though it is probable he would not have given him sixpence to treat him

to a quart of ale. "The good will of an Englishman would have displayed

itself in a manner exactly the reverse of Andrew's," thought I, as I

paced along the smooth-cut velvet walks, which, embowered with high,

hedges of yew and of holly, intersected the ancient garden of

Osbaldistone Hall.

As I turned to retrace my steps, it was natural that I should lift up my

eyes to the windows of the old library; which, small in size, but several

in number, stretched along the second story of that side of the house

which now faced me. Light glanced from their casements. I was not

surprised at this, for I knew Miss Vernon often sat there of an evening,

though from motives of delicacy I put a strong restraint upon myself, and

never sought to join her at a time when I knew, all the rest of the

family being engaged for the evening, our interviews must necessarily

have been strictly _tete-a'-tete._ In the mornings we usually read

together in the same room; but then it often happened that one or other

of our cousins entered to seek some parchment duodecimo that could be

converted into a fishing-book, despite its gildings and illumination, or

to tell us of some "sport toward," or from mere want of knowing where

else to dispose of themselves. In short, in the mornings the library was

a sort of public room, where man and woman might meet as on neutral

ground. In the evening it was very different and bred in a country where

much attention is paid, or was at least then paid, to _biense'ance,_ I

was desirous to think for Miss Vernon concerning those points of

propriety where her experience did not afford her the means of thinking

for herself. I made her therefore comprehend, as delicately as I could,

that when we had evening lessons, the presence of a third party was

proper.

Miss Vernon first laughed, then blushed, and was disposed to be

displeased; and then, suddenly checking herself, said, "I believe you are

very right; and when I feel inclined to be a very busy scholar, I will

bribe old Martha with a cup of tea to sit by me and be my screen."

Martha, the old housekeeper, partook of the taste of the family at the

Hall. A toast and tankard would have pleased her better than all the tea

in China. However, as the use of this beverage was then confined to the

higher ranks, Martha felt some vanity in being asked to partake of it;

and by dint of a great deal of sugar, many words scarce less sweet, and

abundance of toast and butter, she was sometimes prevailed upon to give

us her countenance. On other occasions, the servants almost unanimously

shunned the library after nightfall, because it was their foolish

pleasure to believe that it lay on the haunted side of the house. The

more timorous had seen sights and heard sounds there when all the rest of

the house was quiet; and even the young squires were far from having any

wish to enter these formidable precincts after nightfall without

necessity.

That the library had at one time been a favourite resource of

Rashleigh--that a private door out of one side of it communicated with

the sequestered and remote apartment which he chose for himself, rather

increased than disarmed the terrors which the household had for the

dreaded library of Osbaldistone Hall. His extensive information as to

what passed in the world--his profound knowledge of science of every

kind--a few physical experiments which he occasionally showed off, were,

in a house of so much ignorance and bigotry, esteemed good reasons for

supposing him endowed with powers over the spiritual world. He understood

Greek, Latin, and Hebrew; and, therefore, according to the apprehension,

and in the phrase of his brother Wilfred, needed not to care "for ghaist

or bar-ghaist, devil or dobbie." Yea, the servants persisted that they

had heard him hold conversations in the library, when every varsal soul

in the family were gone to bed; and that he spent the night in watching

for bogles, and the morning in sleeping in his bed, when he should have

been heading the hounds like a true Osbaldistone.

All these absurd rumours I had heard in broken hints and imperfect

sentences, from which I was left to draw the inference; and, as easily

may be supposed, I laughed them to scorn. But the extreme solitude to

which this chamber of evil fame was committed every night after curfew

time, was an additional reason why I should not intrude on Miss Vernon

when she chose to sit there in the evening.

To resume what I was saying,--I was not surprised to see a glimmering of

light from the library windows: but I was a little struck when I

distinctly perceived the shadows of two persons pass along and intercept

the light from the first of the windows, throwing the casement for a

moment into shade. "It must be old Martha," thought I, "whom Diana has

engaged to be her companion for the evening; or I must have been

mistaken, and taken Diana's shadow for a second person. No, by Heaven! it

appears on the second window,--two figures distinctly traced; and now it

is lost again--it is seen on the third--on the fourth--the darkened forms

of two persons distinctly seen in each window as they pass along the

room, betwixt the windows and the lights. Whom can Diana have got for a

companion?"--The passage of the shadows between the lights and the

casements was twice repeated, as if to satisfy me that my observation

served me truly; after which the lights were extinguished, and the

shades, of course, were seen no more.

Trifling as this circumstance was, it occupied my mind for a considerable

time. I did not allow myself to suppose that my friendship for Miss

Vernon had any directly selfish view; yet it is incredible the

displeasure I felt at the idea of her admitting any one to private

interviews, at a time, and in a place, where, for her own sake, I had

been at some trouble to show her that it was improper for me to meet with

her.

"Silly, romping, incorrigible girl!" said I to myself, "on whom all good

advice and delicacy are thrown away! I have been cheated by the

simplicity of her manner, which I suppose she can assume just as she

could a straw bonnet, were it the fashion, for the mere sake of

celebrity. I suppose, notwithstanding the excellence of her

understanding, the society of half a dozen of clowns to play at whisk and

swabbers would give her more pleasure than if Ariosto himself were to

awake from the dead."

This reflection came the more powerfully across my mind, because, having

mustered up courage to show to Diana my version of the first books of

Ariosto, I had requested her to invite Martha to a tea-party in the

library that evening, to which arrangement Miss Vernon had refused her

consent, alleging some apology which I thought frivolous at the time. I

had not long speculated on this disagreeable subject, when the

back garden-door opened, and the figures of Andrew and his

country-man--bending under his pack--crossed the moonlight alley,

and called my attention elsewhere.

I found Mr. Macready, as I expected, a tough, sagacious, long-headed

Scotchman, and a collector of news both from choice and profession. He

was able to give me a distinct account of what had passed in the House of

Commons and House of Lords on the affair of Morris, which, it appears,

had been made by both parties a touchstone to ascertain the temper of the

Parliament. It appeared also, that, as I had learned from Andrew, by

second hand, the ministry had proved too weak to support a story

involving the character of men of rank and importance, and resting upon

the credit of a person of such indifferent fame as Morris, who was,

moreover, confused and contradictory in his mode of telling the story.

Macready was even able to supply me with a copy of a printed journal, or

News-Letter, seldom extending beyond the capital, in which the substance

of the debate was mentioned; and with a copy of the Duke of Argyle's

speech, printed upon a broadside, of which he had purchased several from

the hawkers, because, he said, it would be a saleable article on the

north of the Tweed. The first was a meagre statement, full of blanks and

asterisks, and which added little or nothing to the information I had

from the Scotchman; and the Duke's speech, though spirited and eloquent,

contained chiefly a panegyric on his country, his family, and his clan,

with a few compliments, equally sincere, perhaps, though less glowing,

which he took so favourable an opportunity of paying to himself. I could

not learn whether my own reputation had been directly implicated,

although I perceived that the honour of my uncle's family had been

impeached, and that this person Campbell, stated by Morris to have been

the most active robber of the two by whom he was assailed, was said by

him to have appeared in the behalf of a Mr. Osbaldistone, and by the

connivance of the Justice procured his liberation. In this particular,

Morris's story jumped with my own suspicions, which had attached to

Campbell from the moment I saw him appear at Justice Inglewood's. Vexed

upon the whole, as well as perplexed, with this extraordinary story, I

dismissed the two Scotchmen, after making some purchases from Macready,

and a small compliment to Fairservice, and retired to my own apartment to

consider what I ought to do in defence of my character thus publicly

attacked.

CHAPTER FIFTEENTH.

Whence, and what art you?

Milton.

After exhausting a sleepless night in meditating on the intelligence I

had received, I was at first inclined to think that I ought, as speedily

as possible, to return to London, and by my open appearance repel the

calumny which had been spread against me. But I hesitated to take this

course on recollection of my father's disposition, singularly absolute in

his decisions as to all that concerned his family. He was most able,

certainly, from experience, to direct what I ought to do, and from his

acquaintance with the most distinguished Whigs then in power, had

influence enough to obtain a hearing for my cause. So, upon the whole, I

judged it most safe to state my whole story in the shape of a narrative,

addressed to my father; and as the ordinary opportunities of intercourse

between the Hall and the post-town recurred rarely, I determined to ride

to the town, which was about ten miles' distance, and deposit my letter

in the post-office with my own hands.

Indeed I began to think it strange that though several weeks had elapsed

since my departure from home, I had received no letter, either from my

father or Owen, although Rashleigh had written to Sir Hildebrand of his

safe arrival in London, and of the kind reception he had met with from

his uncle. Admitting that I might have been to blame, I did not deserve,

in my own opinion at least, to be so totally forgotten by my father; and

I thought my present excursion might have the effect of bringing a letter

from him to hand more early than it would otherwise have reached me. But

before concluding my letter concerning the affair of Morris, I failed not

to express my earnest hope and wish that my father would honour me with a

few lines, were it but to express his advice and commands in an affair of

some difficulty, and where my knowledge of life could not be supposed

adequate to my own guidance. I found it impossible to prevail on myself

to urge my actual return to London as a place of residence, and I

disguised my unwillingness to do so under apparent submission to my

father's will, which, as I imposed it on myself as a sufficient reason

for not urging my final departure from Osbaldistone Hall, would, I

doubted not, be received as such by my parent. But I begged permission to

come to London, for a short time at least, to meet and refute the

infamous calumnies which had been circulated concerning me in so public a

manner. Having made up my packet, in which my earnest desire to vindicate

my character was strangely blended with reluctance to quit my present

place of residence, I rode over to the post-town, and deposited my letter

in the office. By doing so, I obtained possession, somewhat earlier than

I should otherwise have done, of the following letter from my friend Mr.

Owen:--

"Dear Mr. Francis,

"Yours received per favour of Mr. R. Osbaldistone, and note the contents.

Shall do Mr. R. O. such civilities as are in my power, and have taken him

to see the Bank and Custom-house. He seems a sober, steady young

gentleman, and takes to business; so will be of service to the firm.

Could have wished another person had turned his mind that way; but God's

will be done. As cash may be scarce in those parts, have to trust you

will excuse my enclosing a goldsmith's bill at six days' sight, on

Messrs. Hooper and Girder of Newcastle, for L100, which I doubt not will

be duly honoured.--I remain, as in duty bound, dear Mr. Frank, your very

respectful and obedient servant,

"Joseph Owen.

"_Postscriptum._--Hope you will advise the above coming safe to hand. Am

sorry we have so few of yours. Your father says he is as usual, but looks

poorly."

From this epistle, written in old Owen's formal style, I was rather

surprised to observe that he made no acknowledgment of that private

letter which I had written to him, with a view to possess him of

Rashleigh's real character, although, from the course of post, it seemed

certain that he ought to have received it. Yet I had sent it by the usual

conveyance from the Hall, and had no reason to suspect that it could

miscarry upon the road. As it comprised matters of great importance both

to my father and to myself, I sat down in the post-office and again wrote

to Owen, recapitulating the heads of my former letter, and requesting to

know, in course of post, if it had reached him in safety. I also

acknowledged the receipt of the bill, and promised to make use of the

contents if I should have any occasion for money. I thought, indeed, it

was odd that my father should leave the care of supplying my necessities

to his clerk; but I concluded it was a matter arranged between them. At

any rate, Owen was a bachelor, rich in his way, and passionately attached

to me, so that I had no hesitation in being obliged to him for a small

sum, which I resolved to consider as a loan, to be returned with my

earliest ability, in case it was not previously repaid by my father; and

I expressed myself to this purpose to Mr. Owen. A shopkeeper in a little

town, to whom the post-master directed me, readily gave me in gold the

amount of my bill on Messrs. Hooper and Girder, so that I returned to

Osbaldistone Hall a good deal richer than I had set forth. This recruit

to my finances was not a matter of indifference to me, as I was

necessarily involved in some expenses at Osbaldistone Hall; and I had

seen, with some uneasy impatience, that the sum which my travelling

expenses had left unexhausted at my arrival there was imperceptibly

diminishing. This source of anxiety was for the present removed. On my

arrival at the Hall I found that Sir Hildebrand and all his offspring had

gone down to the little hamlet, called Trinlay-knowes, "to see," as

Andrew Fairservice expressed it, "a wheen midden cocks pike ilk ither's

barns out."

"It is indeed a brutal amusement, Andrew; I suppose you have none such in

Scotland?"

"Na, na," answered Andrew boldly; then shaded away his negative with,

"unless it be on Fastern's-e'en, or the like o' that--But indeed it's no

muckle matter what the folk do to the midden pootry, for they had siccan

a skarting and scraping in the yard, that there's nae getting a bean or

pea keepit for them.--But I am wondering what it is that leaves that

turret-door open;--now that Mr. Rashleigh's away, it canna be him, I

trow."

The turret-door to which he alluded opened to the garden at the bottom of

a winding stair, leading down from Mr. Rashleigh's apartment. This, as I

have already mentioned, was situated in a sequestered part of the house,

communicating with the library by a private entrance, and by another

intricate and dark vaulted passage with the rest of the house. A long

narrow turf walk led, between two high holly hedges, from the turret-door

to a little postern in the wall of the garden. By means of these

communications Rashleigh, whose movements were very independent of those

of the rest of his family, could leave the Hall or return to it at

pleasure, without his absence or presence attracting any observation. But

during his absence the stair and the turret-door were entirely disused,

and this made Andrew's observation somewhat remarkable.

"Have you often observed that door open?" was my question.

"No just that often neither; but I hae noticed it ance or twice. I'm

thinking it maun hae been the priest, Father Vaughan, as they ca' him.

Ye'll no catch ane o' the servants gauging up that stair, puir frightened

heathens that they are, for fear of bogles and brownies, and lang-nebbit

things frae the neist warld. But Father Vaughan thinks himself a

privileged person--set him up and lay him down!--I'se be caution the

warst stibbler that ever stickit a sermon out ower the Tweed yonder, wad

lay a ghaist twice as fast as him, wi' his holy water and his idolatrous

trinkets. I dinna believe he speaks gude Latin neither; at least he disna

take me up when I tell him the learned names o' the plants."

Of Father Vaughan, who divided his time and his ghostly care between

Osbaldistone Hall and about half a dozen mansions of Catholic gentlemen

in the neighbourhood, I have as yet said nothing, for I had seen but

little. He was aged about sixty--of a good family, as I was given to

understand, in the north--of a striking and imposing presence, grave in

his exterior, and much respected among the Catholics of Northumberland as

a worthy and upright man. Yet Father Vaughan did not altogether lack

those peculiarities which distinguish his order. There hung about him an

air of mystery, which, in Protestant eyes, savoured of priestcraft. The

natives (such they might be well termed) of Osbaldistone Hall looked up

to him with much more fear, or at least more awe, than affection. His

condemnation of their revels was evident, from their being discontinued

in some measure when the priest was a resident at the Hall. Even Sir

Hildebrand himself put some restraint upon his conduct at such times,

which, perhaps, rendered Father Vaughan's presence rather irksome than

otherwise. He had the well-bred, insinuating, and almost flattering

address peculiar to the clergy of his persuasion, especially in England,

where the lay Catholic, hemmed in by penal laws, and by the restrictions

of his sect and recommendation of his pastor, often exhibits a reserved,

and almost a timid manner in the society of Protestants; while the

priest, privileged by his order to mingle with persons of all creeds, is

open, alert, and liberal in his intercourse with them, desirous of

popularity, and usually skilful in the mode of obtaining it.

Father Vaughan was a particular acquaintance of Rashleigh's, otherwise,

in all probability, he would scarce have been able to maintain his

footing at Osbaldistone Hall. This gave me no desire to cultivate his

intimacy, nor did he seem to make any advances towards mine; so our

occasional intercourse was confined to the exchange of mere civility. I

considered it as extremely probable that Mr. Vaughan might occupy

Rashleigh's apartment during his occasional residence at the Hall; and

his profession rendered it likely that he should occasionally be a tenant

of the library. Nothing was more probable than that it might have been

his candle which had excited my attention on a preceding evening. This

led me involuntarily to recollect that the intercourse between Miss

Vernon and the priest was marked with something like the same mystery

which characterised her communications with Rashleigh. I had never heard

her mention Vaughan's name, or even allude to him, excepting on the

occasion of our first meeting, when she mentioned the old priest and

Rashleigh as the only conversable beings, besides herself, in

Osbaldistone Hall. Yet although silent with respect to Father Vaughan,

his arrival at the Hall never failed to impress Miss Vernon with an

anxious and fluttering tremor, which lasted until they had exchanged one

or two significant glances.

Whatever the mystery might be which overclouded the destinies of this

beautiful and interesting female, it was clear that Father Vaughan was

implicated in it; unless, indeed, I could suppose that he was the agent

employed to procure her settlement in the cloister, in the event of her

rejecting a union with either of my cousins,--an office which would

sufficiently account for her obvious emotion at his appearance. As to the

rest, they did not seem to converse much together, or even to seek each

other's society. Their league, if any subsisted between them, was of a

tacit and understood nature, operating on their actions without any

necessity of speech. I recollected, however, on reflection, that I had

once or twice discovered signs pass betwixt them, which I had at the time

supposed to bear reference to some hint concerning Miss Vernon's

religious observances, knowing how artfully the Catholic clergy maintain,

at all times and seasons, their influence over the minds of their

followers. But now I was disposed to assign to these communications a

deeper and more mysterious import. Did he hold private meetings with Miss

Vernon in the library? was a question which occupied my thoughts; and if

so, for what purpose? And why should she have admitted an intimate of the

deceitful Rashleigh to such close confidence?

These questions and difficulties pressed on my mind with an interest

which was greatly increased by the impossibility of resolving them. I had

already begun to suspect that my friendship for Diana Vernon was not

altogether so disinterested as in wisdom it ought to have been. I had

already felt myself becoming jealous of the contemptible lout Thorncliff,

and taking more notice, than in prudence or dignity of feeling I ought to

have done, of his silly attempts to provoke me. And now I was

scrutinising the conduct of Miss Vernon with the most close and eager

observation, which I in vain endeavoured to palm on myself as the

offspring of idle curiosity. All these, like Benedick's brushing his hat

of a morning, were signs that the sweet youth was in love; and while my

judgment still denied that I had been guilty of forming an attachment so

imprudent, she resembled those ignorant guides, who, when they have led

the traveller and themselves into irretrievable error, persist in

obstinately affirming it to be impossible that they can have missed the

way.

CHAPTER SIXTEENTH.

It happened one day about noon, going to my boat, I was exceedingly

surprised with the print of a man's naked foot on the shore, which

was very plain to be seen on the sand.

Robinson Crusoe.

With the blended feelings of interest and jealousy which were engendered

by Miss Vernon's singular situation, my observations of her looks and

actions became acutely sharpened, and that to a degree which,

notwithstanding my efforts to conceal it, could not escape her

penetration. The sense that she was observed, or, more properly speaking,

that she was watched by my looks, seemed to give Diana a mixture of

embarrassment, pain, and pettishness. At times it seemed that she sought

an opportunity of resenting a conduct which she could not but feel as

offensive, considering the frankness with which she had mentioned the

difficulties that surrounded her. At other times she seemed prepared to

expostulate upon the subject. But either her courage failed, or some

other sentiment impeded her seeking an _e'claircissement._ Her

displeasure evaporated in repartee, and her expostulations died on her

lips. We stood in a singular relation to each other,--spending, and by

mutual choice, much of our time in close society with each other, yet

disguising our mutual sentiments, and jealous of, or offended by, each

other's actions. There was betwixt us intimacy without confidence;--on

one side, love without hope or purpose, and curiosity without any

rational or justifiable motive; and on the other, embarrassment and

doubt, occasionally mingled with displeasure. Yet I believe that this

agitation of the passions (such is the nature of the human bosom), as it

continued by a thousand irritating and interesting, though petty

circumstances, to render Miss Vernon and me the constant objects of each

other's thoughts, tended, upon the whole, to increase the attachment with

which we were naturally disposed to regard each other. But although my

vanity early discovered that my presence at Osbaldistone Hall had given

Diana some additional reason for disliking the cloister, I could by no

means confide in an affection which seemed completely subordinate to the

mysteries of her singular situation. Miss Vernon was of a character far

too formed and determined, to permit her love for me to overpower either

her sense of duty or of prudence, and she gave me a proof of this in a

conversation which we had together about this period.

We were sitting together in the library. Miss Vernon, in turning over a

copy of the Orlando Furioso, which belonged to me, shook a piece of

writing paper from between the leaves. I hastened to lift it, but she

prevented me.--"It is verse," she said, on glancing at the paper; and

then unfolding it, but as if to wait my answer before proceeding--"May I

take the liberty?--Nay, nay, if you blush and stammer, I must do violence

to your modesty, and suppose that permission is granted."

"It is not worthy your perusal--a scrap of a translation--My dear Miss

Vernon, it would be too severe a trial, that you, who understand the

original so well, should sit in judgment."

"Mine honest friend," replied Diana, "do not, if you will be guided by my

advice, bait your hook with too much humility; for, ten to one, it will

not catch a single compliment. You know I belong to the unpopular family

of Tell-truths, and would not flatter Apollo for his lyre."

She proceeded to read the first stanza, which was nearly to the following

purpose:--

"Ladies, and knights, and arms, and love's fair flame,

Deeds of emprize and courtesy, I sing;

What time the Moors from sultry Africk came,

Led on by Agramant, their youthful king--

He whom revenge and hasty ire did bring

O'er the broad wave, in France to waste and war;

Such ills from old Trojano's death did spring,

Which to avenge he came from realms afar,

And menaced Christian Charles, the Roman Emperor.

Of dauntless Roland, too, my strain shall sound,

In import never known in prose or rhyme,

How He, the chief, of judgment deemed profound,

For luckless love was crazed upon a time"--

"There is a great deal of it," said she, glancing along the paper, and

interrupting the sweetest sounds which mortal ears can drink in,--those

of a youthful poet's verses, namely, read by the lips which are dearest

to him.

"Much more than ought to engage your attention, Miss Vernon," I replied,

something mortified; and I took the verses from her unreluctant hand--

"And yet," I continued, "shut up as I am in this retired situation, I

have felt sometimes I could not amuse myself better than by carrying

on--merely for my own amusement, you will of course understand--the

version of this fascinating author, which I began some months since when

I was on the banks of the Garonne."

"The question would only be," said Diana, gravely, "whether you could not

spend your time to better purpose?"

"You mean in original composition?" said I, greatly flattered--"But, to

say truth, my genius rather lies in finding words and rhymes than ideas;

and therefore I am happy to use those which Ariosto has prepared to my

hand. However, Miss Vernon, with the encouragement you give"--

"Pardon me, Frank--it is encouragement not of my giving, but of your

taking. I meant neither original composition nor translation, since I

think you might employ your time to far better purpose than in either.

You are mortified," she continued, "and I am sorry to be the cause."

"Not mortified,--certainly not mortified," said I, with the best grace I

could muster, and it was but indifferently assumed; "I am too much

obliged by the interest you take in me."

"Nay, but," resumed the relentless Diana, "there is both mortification

and a little grain of anger in that constrained tone of voice; do not be

angry if I probe your feelings to the bottom--perhaps what I am about to

say will affect them still more."

I felt the childishness of my own conduct, and the superior manliness of

Miss Vernon's, and assured her, that she need not fear my wincing under

criticism which I knew to be kindly meant.

"That was honestly meant and said," she replied; "I knew full well that

the fiend of poetical irritability flew away with the little preluding

cough which ushered in the declaration. And now I must be serious--Have

you heard from your father lately?"

"Not a word," I replied; "he has not honoured me with a single line

during the several months of my residence here."

"That is strange!--you are a singular race, you bold Osbaldistones. Then

you are not aware that he has gone to Holland, to arrange some pressing

affairs which required his own immediate presence?"

"I never heard a word of it until this moment."

"And farther, it must be news to you, and I presume scarcely the most

agreeable, that he has left Rashleigh in the almost uncontrolled

management of his affairs until his return."

I started, and could not suppress my surprise and apprehension.

"You have reason for alarm," said Miss Vernon, very gravely; "and were I

you, I would endeavour to meet and obviate the dangers which arise from

so undesirable an arrangement."

"And how is it possible for me to do so?"

"Everything is possible for him who possesses courage and activity," she

said, with a look resembling one of those heroines of the age of

chivalry, whose encouragement was wont to give champions double valour at

the hour of need; "and to the timid and hesitating, everything is

impossible, because it seems so."

"And what would you advise, Miss Vernon?" I replied, wishing, yet

dreading, to hear her answer.

She paused a moment, then answered firmly--"That you instantly leave

Osbaldistone Hall, and return to London. You have perhaps already," she

continued, in a softer tone, "been here too long; that fault was not

yours. Every succeeding moment you waste here will be a crime. Yes, a

crime: for I tell you plainly, that if Rashleigh long manages your

father's affairs, you may consider his ruin as consummated."

"How is this possible?"

"Ask no questions," she said; "but believe me, Rashleigh's views extend

far beyond the possession or increase of commercial wealth: he will only

make the command of Mr. Osbaldistone's revenues and property the means of

putting in motion his own ambitious and extensive schemes. While your

father was in Britain this was impossible; during his absence, Rashleigh

will possess many opportunities, and he will not neglect to use them."

"But how can I, in disgrace with my father, and divested of all control

over his affairs, prevent this danger by my mere presence in London?"

"That presence alone will do much. Your claim to interfere is a part of

your birthright, and it is inalienable. You will have the countenance,

doubtless, of your father's head-clerk, and confidential friends and

partners. Above all, Rashleigh's schemes are of a nature that"--(she

stopped abruptly, as if fearful of saying too much)--"are, in short," she

resumed, "of the nature of all selfish and unconscientious plans, which

are speedily abandoned as soon as those who frame them perceive their

arts are discovered and watched. Therefore, in the language of your

favourite poet--

To horse! to horse! Urge doubts to those that fear."

A feeling, irresistible in its impulse, induced me to reply--"Ah! Diana,

can _you_ give me advice to leave Osbaldistone Hall?--then indeed I have

already been a resident here too long!"

Miss Vernon coloured, but proceeded with great firmness--"Indeed, I do

give you this advice--not only to quit Osbaldistone Hall, but never to

return to it more. You have only one friend to regret here," she

continued, forcing a smile, "and she has been long accustomed to

sacrifice her friendships and her comforts to the welfare of others.

In the world you will meet a hundred whose friendship will be

as disinterested--more useful--less encumbered by untoward

circumstances--less influenced by evil tongues and evil times."

"Never!" I exclaimed, "never!--the world can afford me nothing to repay

what I must leave behind me." Here I took her hand, and pressed it to my

lips.

"This is folly!" she exclaimed--"this is madness!" and she struggled to

withdraw her hand from my grasp, but not so stubbornly as actually to

succeed until I had held it for nearly a minute. "Hear me, sir!" she

said, "and curb this unmanly burst of passion. I am, by a solemn

contract, the bride of Heaven, unless I could prefer being wedded to

villany in the person of Rashleigh Osbaldistone, or brutality in that of

his brother. I am, therefore, the bride of Heaven,--betrothed to the

convent from the cradle. To me, therefore, these raptures are

misapplied--they only serve to prove a farther necessity for your

departure, and that without delay." At these words she broke suddenly

off, and said, but in a suppressed tone of voice, "Leave me

instantly--we will meet here again, but it must be for the last time."

My eyes followed the direction of hers as she spoke, and I thought I saw

the tapestry shake, which covered the door of the secret passage from

Rashleigh's room to the library. I conceived we were observed, and turned

an inquiring glance on Miss Vernon.

"It is nothing," said she, faintly; "a rat behind the arras."

"Dead for a ducat," would have been my reply, had I dared to give way to

the feelings which rose indignant at the idea of being subjected to an

eaves-dropper on such an occasion. Prudence, and the necessity of

suppressing my passion, and obeying Diana's reiterated command of "Leave

me! leave me!" came in time to prevent my rash action. I left the

apartment in a wild whirl and giddiness of mind, which I in vain

attempted to compose when I returned to my own.

A chaos of thoughts intruded themselves on me at once, passing hastily

through my brain, intercepting and overshadowing each other, and

resembling those fogs which in mountainous countries are wont to descend

in obscure volumes, and disfigure or obliterate the usual marks by which

the traveller steers his course through the wilds. The dark and undefined

idea of danger arising to my father from the machinations of such a man

as Rashleigh Osbaldistone--the half declaration of love that I had

offered to Miss Vernon's acceptance--the acknowledged difficulties of her

situation, bound by a previous contract to sacrifice herself to a

cloister or to an ill-assorted marriage,--all pressed themselves at once

upon my recollection, while my judgment was unable deliberately to

consider any of them in their just light and bearings. But chiefly and

above all the rest, I was perplexed by the manner in which Miss Vernon

had received my tender of affection, and by her manner, which,

fluctuating betwixt sympathy and firmness, seemed to intimate that I

possessed an interest in her bosom, but not of force sufficient to

counterbalance the obstacles to her avowing a mutual affection. The

glance of fear, rather than surprise, with which she had watched the

motion of the tapestry over the concealed door, implied an apprehension

of danger which I could not but suppose well grounded; for Diana Vernon

was little subject to the nervous emotions of her sex, and totally unapt

to fear without actual and rational cause. Of what nature could those

mysteries be, with which she was surrounded as with an enchanter's spell,

and which seemed continually to exert an active influence over her

thoughts and actions, though their agents were never visible? On this

subject of doubt my mind finally rested, as if glad to shake itself free

from investigating the propriety or prudence of my own conduct, by

transferring the inquiry to what concerned Miss Vernon. I will be

resolved, I concluded, ere I leave Osbaldistone Hall, concerning the

light in which I must in future regard this fascinating being, over whose

life frankness and mystery seem to have divided their reign,--the former

inspiring her words and sentiments--the latter spreading in misty

influence over all her actions.

Joined to the obvious interests which arose from curiosity and anxious

passion, there mingled in my feelings a strong, though unavowed and

undefined, infusion of jealousy. This sentiment, which springs up with

love as naturally as the tares with the wheat, was excited by the degree

of influence which Diana appeared to concede to those unseen beings by

whom her actions were limited. The more I reflected upon her character,

the more I was internally though unwillingly convinced, that she was

formed to set at defiance all control, excepting that which arose from

affection; and I felt a strong, bitter, and gnawing suspicion, that such

was the foundation of that influence by which she was overawed.

These tormenting doubts strengthened my desire to penetrate into the

secret of Miss Vernon's conduct, and in the prosecution of this sage

adventure, I formed a resolution, of which, if you are not weary of these

details, you will find the result in the next chapter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEENTH.

I hear a voice you cannot hear,

Which says, I must not stay;

I see a hand you cannot see,

Which beckons me awry.

Tickell.

I have already told you, Tresham, if you deign to bear it in remembrance,

that my evening visits to the library had seldom been made except by

appointment, and under the sanction of old Dame Martha's presence. This,

however, was entirely a tacit conventional arrangement of my own

instituting. Of late, as the embarrassments of our relative situation had

increased, Miss Vernon and I had never met in the evening at all. She had

therefore no reason to suppose that I was likely to seek a renewal of

these interviews, and especially without some previous notice or

appointment betwixt us, that Martha might, as usual, be placed upon duty;

but, on the other hand, this cautionary provision was a matter of

understanding, not of express enactment. The library was open to me, as

to the other members of the family, at all hours of the day and night,

and I could not be accused of intrusion, however suddenly and

unexpectedly I might made my appearance in it. My belief was strong, that

in this apartment Miss Vernon occasionally received Vaughan, or some

other person, by whose opinion she was accustomed to regulate her

conduct, and that at the times when she could do so with least chance of

interruption. The lights which gleamed in the library at unusual

hours--the passing shadows which I had myself remarked--the footsteps

which might be traced in the morning-dew from the turret-door to the

postern-gate in the garden--sounds and sights which some of the servants,

and Andrew Fairservice in particular, had observed, and accounted for in

their own way,--all tended to show that the place was visited by some one

different from the ordinary inmates of the hall. Connected as this

visitant probably must be with the fates of Diana Vernon, I did not

hesitate to form a plan of discovering who or what he was,--how far his

influence was likely to produce good or evil consequences to her on whom

he acted;--above all, though I endeavoured to persuade myself that this

was a mere subordinate consideration, I desired to know by what means

this person had acquired or maintained his influence over Diana, and

whether he ruled over her by fear or by affection. The proof that this

jealous curiosity was uppermost in my mind, arose from my imagination

always ascribing Miss Vernon's conduct to the influence of some one

individual agent, although, for aught I knew about the matter, her

advisers might be as numerous am Legion. I remarked this over and over to

myself; but I found that my mind still settled back in my original

conviction, that one single individual, of the masculine sex, and in all

probability young and handsome, was at the bottom of Miss Vernon's

conduct; and it was with a burning desire of discovering, or rather of

detecting, such a rival, that I stationed myself in the garden to watch

the moment when the lights should appear in the library windows.

So eager, however, was my impatience, that I commenced my watch for a

phenomenon, which could not appear until darkness, a full hour before the

daylight disappeared, on a July evening. It was Sabbath, and all the

walks were still and solitary. I walked up and down for some time,

enjoying the refreshing coolness of a summer evening, and meditating on

the probable consequences of my enterprise. The fresh and balmy air of

the garden, impregnated with fragrance, produced its usual sedative

effects on my over-heated and feverish blood. As these took place, the

turmoil of my mind began proportionally to abate, and I was led to

question the right I had to interfere with Miss Vernon's secrets, or with

those of my uncle's family. What was it to me whom my uncle might choose

to conceal in his house, where I was myself a guest only by tolerance?

And what title had I to pry into the affairs of Miss Vernon, fraught, as

she had avowed them to be, with mystery, into which she desired no

scrutiny?

Passion and self-will were ready with their answers to these questions.

In detecting this secret, I was in all probability about to do service to

Sir Hildebrand, who was probably ignorant of the intrigues carried on in

his family--and a still more important service to Miss Vernon, whose

frank simplicity of character exposed her to so many risks in maintaining

a private correspondence, perhaps with a person of doubtful or dangerous

character. If I seemed to intrude myself on her confidence, it was with

the generous and disinterested (yes, I even ventured to call it the

_disinterested_) intention of guiding, defending, and protecting her

against craft--against malice,--above all, against the secret counsellor

whom she had chosen for her confidant. Such were the arguments which my

will boldly preferred to my conscience, as coin which ought to be

current, and which conscience, like a grumbling shopkeeper, was contented

to accept, rather than come to an open breach with a customer, though

more than doubting that the tender was spurious.

While I paced the green alleys, debating these things _pro_ and _con,_ I

suddenly alighted upon Andrew Fairservice, perched up like a statue by a

range of bee-hives, in an attitude of devout contemplation--one eye,

however, watching the motions of the little irritable citizens, who were

settling in their straw-thatched mansion for the evening, and the other

fixed on a book of devotion, which much attrition had deprived of its

corners, and worn into an oval shape; a circumstance which, with the

close print and dingy colour of the volume in question, gave it an air of

most respectable antiquity.

"I was e'en taking a spell o' worthy Mess John Quackleben's Flower of a

Sweet Savour sawn on the Middenstead of this World," said Andrew, closing

his book at my appearance, and putting his horn spectacles, by way of

mark, at the place where he had been reading.

"And the bees, I observe, were dividing your attention, Andrew, with the

learned author?"

"They are a contumacious generation," replied the gardener; "they hae sax

days in the week to hive on, and yet it's a common observe that they will

aye swarm on the Sabbath-day, and keep folk at hame frae hearing the

word--But there's nae preaching at Graneagain chapel the e'en--that's aye

ae mercy."

"You might have gone to the parish church as I did, Andrew, and heard an

excellent discourse."

"Clauts o' cauld parritch--clauts o' cauld parritch," replied Andrew,

with a most supercilious sneer,--"gude aneueh for dogs, begging your

honour's pardon--Ay! I might nae doubt hae heard the curate linking awa

at it in his white sark yonder, and the musicians playing on whistles,

mair like a penny-wedding than a sermon--and to the boot of that, I might

hae gaen to even-song, and heard Daddie Docharty mumbling his

mass--muckle the better I wad hae been o' that!"

"Docharty!" said I (this was the name of an old priest, an Irishman, I

think, who sometimes officiated at Osbaldistone Hall)--"I thought Father

Vaughan had been at the Hall. He was here yesterday."

"Ay," replied Andrew; "but he left it yestreen, to gang to Greystock, or

some o' thae west-country haulds. There's an unco stir among them a'

e'enow. They are as busy as my bees are--God sain them! that I suld even

the puir things to the like o' papists. Ye see this is the second swarm,

and whiles they will swarm off in the afternoon. The first swarm set off

sune in the morning.--But I am thinking they are settled in their skeps

for the night; sae I wuss your honour good-night, and grace, and muckle

o't."

So saying, Andrew retreated, but often cast a parting glance upon the

_skeps,_ as he called the bee-hives.

I had indirectly gained from him an important piece of information, that

Father Vaughan, namely, was not supposed to be at the Hall. If,

therefore, there appeared light in the windows of the library this

evening, it either could not be his, or he was observing a very secret

and suspicious line of conduct. I waited with impatience the time of

sunset and of twilight. It had hardly arrived, ere a gleam from the

windows of the library was seen, dimly distinguishable amidst the still

enduring light of the evening. I marked its first glimpse, however, as

speedily as the benighted sailor descries the first distant twinkle of

the lighthouse which marks his course. The feelings of doubt and

propriety, which had hitherto contended with my curiosity and jealousy,

vanished when an opportunity of gratifying the former was presented to

me. I re-entered the house, and avoiding the more frequented apartments

with the consciousness of one who wishes to keep his purpose secret, I

reached the door of the library--hesitated for a moment as my hand was

upon the latch--heard a suppressed step within--opened the door--and

found Miss Vernon alone.

Diana appeared surprised,--whether at my sudden entrance, or from some

other cause, I could not guess; but there was in her appearance a degree

of flutter, which I had never before remarked, and which I knew could

only be produced by unusual emotion. Yet she was calm in a moment; and

such is the force of conscience, that I, who studied to surprise her,

seemed myself the surprised, and was certainly the embarrassed person.

"Has anything happened?" said Miss Vernon--"has any one arrived at the

Hall?"

"No one that I know of," I answered, in some confusion; "I only sought

the Orlando."

"It lies there," said Miss Vernon, pointing to the table. In removing one

or two books to get at that which I pretended to seek, I was, in truth,

meditating to make a handsome retreat from an investigation to which I

felt my assurance inadequate, when I perceived a man's glove lying upon

the table. My eyes encountered those of Miss Vernon, who blushed deeply.

"It is one of my relics," she said with hesitation, replying not to my

words but to my looks; "it is one of the gloves of my grandfather, the

original of the superb Vandyke which you admire."

As if she thought something more than her bare assertion was necessary to

prove her statement true, she opened a drawer of the large oaken table,

and taking out another glove, threw it towards me.--When a temper

naturally ingenuous stoops to equivocate, or to dissemble, the anxious

pain with which the unwonted task is laboured, often induces the hearer

to doubt the authenticity of the tale. I cast a hasty glance on both

gloves, and then replied gravely--"The gloves resemble each other,

doubtless, in form and embroidery; but they cannot form a pair, since

they both belong to the right hand."

She bit her lip with anger, and again coloured deeply.

"You do right to expose me," she replied, with bitterness: "some friends

would have only judged from what I said, that I chose to give no

particular explanation of a circumstance which calls for none--at least

to a stranger. You have judged better, and have made me feel, not only

the meanness of duplicity, but my own inadequacy to sustain the task of a

dissembler. I now tell you distinctly, that that glove is not the fellow,

as you have acutely discerned, to the one which I just now produced;--it

belongs to a friend yet dearer to me than the original of Vandyke's

picture--a friend by whose counsels I have been, and will be,

guided--whom I honour--whom I"--she paused.

I was irritated at her manner, and filled up the blank in my own way--

"Whom she _loves_, Miss Vernon would say."

"And if I do say so," she replied haughtily, "by whom shall my affection

be called to account?"

[Illustration: Die Vernon and Frank in Library--234]

"Not by me, Miss Vernon, assuredly--I entreat you to hold me acquitted of

such presumption.--_But,_" I continued, with some emphasis, for I was now

piqued in return, "I hope Miss Vernon will pardon a friend, from whom she

seems disposed to withdraw the title, for observing"--

"Observe nothing, sir," she interrupted with some vehemence, except that

I will neither be doubted nor questioned. There does not exist one by

whom I will be either interrogated or judged; and if you sought this

unusual time of presenting yourself in order to spy upon my privacy, the

friendship or interest with which you pretend to regard me, is a poor

excuse for your uncivil curiosity."

"I relieve you of my presence," said I, with pride equal to her own; for

my temper has ever been a stranger to stooping, even in cases where my

feelings were most deeply interested--"I relieve you of my presence. I

awake from a pleasant, but a most delusive dream; and--but we understand

each other."

I had reached the door of the apartment, when Miss Vernon, whose

movements were sometimes so rapid as to seem almost instinctive, overtook

me, and, catching hold of my arm, stopped me with that air of authority

which she could so whimsically assume, and which, from the _naivete_ and

simplicity of her manner, had an effect so peculiarly interesting.

"Stop, Mr. Frank," she said, "you are not to leave me in that way

neither; I am not so amply provided with friends, that I can afford to

throw away even the ungrateful and the selfish. Mark what I say, Mr.

Francis Osbaldistone. You shall know nothing of this mysterious glove,"

and she held it up as she spoke--"nothing--no, not a single iota more

than you know already; and yet I will not permit it to be a gauntlet of

strife and defiance betwixt us. My time here," she said, sinking into a

tone somewhat softer, "must necessarily be very short; yours must be

still shorter: we are soon to part never to meet again; do not let us

quarrel, or make any mysterious miseries the pretext for farther

embittering the few hours we shall ever pass together on this side of

eternity."

I do not know, Tresham, by what witchery this fascinating creature

obtained such complete management over a temper which I cannot at all

times manage myself. I had determined on entering the library, to seek a

complete explanation with Miss Vernon. I had found that she refused it

with indignant defiance, and avowed to my face the preference of a rival;

for what other construction could I put on her declared preference of her

mysterious confidant? And yet, while I was on the point of leaving the

apartment, and breaking with her for ever, it cost her but a change of

look and tone, from that of real and haughty resentment to that of kind

and playful despotism, again shaded off into melancholy and serious

feeling, to lead me back to my seat, her willing subject, on her own hard

terms.

"What does this avail?" said I, as I sate down. "What can this avail,

Miss Vernon? Why should I witness embarrassments which I cannot relieve,

and mysteries which I offend you even by attempting to penetrate?

Inexperienced as you are in the world, you must still be aware that a

beautiful young woman can have but one male friend. Even in a male friend

I will be jealous of a confidence shared with a third party unknown and

concealed; but with _you,_ Miss Vernon"--

"You are, of course, jealous, in all the tenses and moods of that amiable

passion? But, my good friend, you have all this time spoke nothing but

the paltry gossip which simpletons repeat from play-books and romances,

till they give mere cant a real and powerful influence over their minds.

Boys and girls prate themselves into love; and when their love is like to

fall asleep, they prate and tease themselves into jealousy. But you and

I, Frank, are rational beings, and neither silly nor idle enough to talk

ourselves into any other relation than that of plain honest disinterested

friendship. Any other union is as far out of our reach as if I were man,

or you woman--To speak truth," she added, after a moment's hesitation,

"even though I am so complaisant to the decorum of my sex as to blush a

little at my own plain dealing, we cannot marry if we would; and we ought

not if we could."

And certainly, Tresham, she did blush most angelically, as she made this

cruel declaration. I was about to attack both her positions, entirely

forgetting those very suspicions which had been confirmed in the course

of the evening, but she proceeded with a cold firmness which approached

to severity--"What I say is sober and indisputable truth, on which I will

neither hear question nor explanation. We are therefore friends, Mr.

Osbaldistone--are we not?" She held out her hand, and taking mine,

added--"And nothing to each other now, or henceforward, except as

friends."

She let go my hand. I sunk it and my head at once, fairly _overcrowed,_

as Spenser would have termed it, by the mingled kindness and firmness of

her manner. She hastened to change the subject.

"Here is a letter," she said, "directed for you, Mr. Osbaldistone, very

duly and distinctly; but which, notwithstanding the caution of the person

who wrote and addressed it, might perhaps never have reached your hands,

had it not fallen into the possession of a certain Pacolet, or enchanted

dwarf of mine, whom, like all distressed damsels of romance, I retain in

my secret service."

I opened the letter and glanced over the contents. The unfolded sheet of

paper dropped from my hands, with the involuntary exclamation of

"Gracious Heaven! my folly and disobedience have ruined my father!"

Miss Vernon rose with looks of real and affectionate alarm--"You grow

pale--you are ill--shall I bring you a glass of water? Be a man, Mr.

Osbaldistone, and a firm one. Is your father--is he no more?"

"He lives," said I, "thank God! but to what distress and difficulty"--

"If that be all, despair not, May I read this letter?" she said, taking

it up.

I assented, hardly knowing what I said. She read it with great attention.

"Who is this Mr. Tresham, who signs the letter?"

"My father's partner"--(your own good father, Will)--"but he is little in

the habit of acting personally in the business of the house."

"He writes here," said Miss Vernon, "of various letters sent to you

previously."

"I have received none of them," I replied.

"And it appears," she continued, "that Rashleigh, who has taken the full

management of affairs during your father's absence in Holland, has some

time since left London for Scotland, with effects and remittances to take

up large bills granted by your father to persons in that country, and

that he has not since been heard of."

"It is but too true."

"And here has been," she added, looking at the letter, "a head-clerk, or

some such person,--Owenson--Owen--despatched to Glasgow, to find out

Rashleigh, if possible, and you are entreated to repair to the same

place, and assist him in his researches."

"It is even so, and I must depart instantly."

"Stay but one moment," said Miss Vernon. "It seems to me that the worst

which can come of this matter, will be the loss of a certain sum of

money;--and can that bring tears into your eyes? For shame, Mr.

Osbaldistone!"

"You do me injustice, Miss Vernon," I answered. "I grieve not for the

loss of the money, but for the effect which I know it will produce on the

spirits and health of my father, to whom mercantile credit is as honour;

and who, if declared insolvent, would sink into the grave, oppressed by a

sense of grief, remorse, and despair, like that of a soldier convicted of

cowardice or a man of honour who had lost his rank and character in

society. All this I might have prevented by a trifling sacrifice of the

foolish pride and indolence which recoiled from sharing the labours of

his honourable and useful profession. Good Heaven! how shall I redeem the

consequences of my error?"

"By instantly repairing to Glasgow, as you are conjured to do by the

friend who writes this letter."

"But if Rashleigh," said I, "has really formed this base and

unconscientious scheme of plundering his benefactor, what prospect is

there that I can find means of frustrating a plan so deeply laid?'

"The prospect," she replied, "indeed, may be uncertain; but, on the other

hand, there is no possibility of your doing any service to your father by

remaining here. Remember, had you been on the post destined for you, this

disaster could not have happened: hasten to that which is now pointed

out, and it may possibly be retrieved.--Yet stay--do not leave this room

until I return."

She left me in confusion and amazement; amid which, however, I could

find a lucid interval to admire the firmness, composure, and presence of

mind which Miss Vernon seemed to possess on every crisis, however sudden.

In a few minutes she returned with a sheet of paper in her hand, folded

and sealed like a letter, but without address. "I trust you," she said,

"with this proof of my friendship, because I have the most perfect

confidence in your honour. If I understand the nature of your distress

rightly, the funds in Rashleigh's possession must be recovered by a

certain day--the 12th of September, I think is named--in order that they

may be applied to pay the bills in question; and, consequently, that if

adequate funds be provided before that period, your father's credit is

safe from the apprehended calamity."

"Certainly--I so understand Mr. Tresham"--I looked at your father's

letter again, and added, "There cannot be a doubt of it."

"Well," said Diana, "in that case my little Pacolet may be of use to you.

You have heard of a spell contained in a letter. Take this packet; do not

open it until other and ordinary means have failed. If you succeed by

your own exertions, I trust to your honour for destroying it without

opening or suffering it to be opened;--but if not, you may break the seal

within ten days of the fated day, and you will find directions which may

possibly be of service to you. Adieu, Frank; we never meet more--but

sometimes think of your friend Die Vernon."

She extended her hand, but I clasped her to my bosom. She sighed as she

extricated herself from the embrace which she permitted--escaped to the

door which led to her own apartment--and I saw her no more.

END OF VOLUME ONE.

ROB ROY

By Sir Walter Scott

VOLUME TWO

[Illustration: Helen MacGregor--Frontispiece]

CHAPTER FIRST

And hurry, hurry, off they rode,

As fast as fast might be;

Hurra, hurra, the dead can ride,

Dost fear to ride with me?

Burger.

There is one advantage in an accumulation of evils, differing in cause

and character, that the distraction which they afford by their

contradictory operation prevents the patient from being overwhelmed under

either. I was deeply grieved at my separation from Miss Vernon, yet not

so much so as I should have been, had not my father's apprehended

distresses forced themselves on my attention; and I was distressed by the

news of Mr. Tresham, yet less so than if they had fully occupied my mind.

I was neither a false lover nor an unfeeling son; but man can give but a

certain portion of distressful emotions to the causes which demand them;

and if two operate at once, our sympathy, like the funds of a compounding

bankrupt, can only be divided between them. Such were my reflections when

I gained my apartment--it seems, from the illustration, they already

began to have a twang of commerce in them.

I set myself seriously to consider your father's letter. It was not very

distinct, and referred for several particulars to Owen, whom I was

entreated to meet with as soon as possible at a Scotch town called

Glasgow; being informed, moreover, that my old friend was to be heard of

at Messrs. MacVittie, MacFin, and Company, merchants in the Gallowgate of

the said town. It likewise alluded to several letters,--which, as it

appeared to me, must have miscarried or have been intercepted, and

complained of my obdurate silence, in terms which would have, been highly

unjust, had my letters reached their purposed destination. I was amazed

as I read. That the spirit of Rashleigh walked around me, and conjured up

these doubts and difficulties by which I was surrounded, I could not

doubt for one instant; yet it was frightful to conceive the extent of

combined villany and power which he must have employed in the

perpetration of his designs. Let me do myself justice in one respect. The

evil of parting from Miss Vernon, however distressing it might in other

respects and at another time have appeared to me, sunk into a subordinate

consideration when I thought of the dangers impending over my father. I

did not myself set a high estimation on wealth, and had the affectation

of most young men of lively imagination, who suppose that they can better

dispense with the possession of money, than resign their time and

faculties to the labour necessary to acquire it. But in my father's case,

I knew that bankruptcy would be considered as an utter and irretrievable

disgrace, to which life would afford no comfort, and death the speediest

and sole relief.

My mind, therefore, was bent on averting this catastrophe, with an

intensity which the interest could not have produced had it referred to

my own fortunes; and the result of my deliberation was a firm resolution

to depart from Osbaldistone Hall the next day and wend my way without

loss of time to meet Owen at Glasgow. I did not hold it expedient to

intimate my departure to my uncle, otherwise than by leaving a letter of

thanks for his hospitality, assuring him that sudden and important

business prevented my offering them in person. I knew the blunt old

knight would readily excuse ceremony; and I had such a belief in the

extent and decided character of Rashleigh's machinations, that I had some

apprehension of his having provided means to intercept a journey which

was undertaken with a view to disconcert them, if my departure were

publicly announced at Osbaldistone Hall.

I therefore determined to set off on my journey with daylight on the

ensuing morning, and to gain the neighbouring kingdom of Scotland before

any idea of my departure was entertained at the Hall. But one impediment

of consequence was likely to prevent that speed which was the soul of my

expedition. I did not know the shortest, nor indeed any road to Glasgow;

and as, in the circumstances in which I stood, despatch was of the

greatest consequence, I determined to consult Andrew Fairservice on the

subject, as the nearest and most authentic authority within my reach.

Late as it was, I set off with the intention of ascertaining this

important point, and after a few minutes' walk reached the dwelling of

the gardener.

Andrew's dwelling was situated at no great distance from the exterior

wall of the garden--a snug comfortable Northumbrian cottage, built of

stones roughly dressed with the hammer, and having the windows and doors

decorated with huge heavy architraves, or lintels, as they are called, of

hewn stone, and its roof covered with broad grey flags, instead of

slates, thatch, or tiles. A jargonelle pear-tree at one end of the

cottage, a rivulet and flower-plot of a rood in extent in front, and a

kitchen-garden behind; a paddock for a cow, and a small field, cultivated

with several crops of grain, rather for the benefit of the cottager than

for sale, announced the warm and cordial comforts which Old England, even

at her most northern extremity, extends to her meanest inhabitants.

As I approached the mansion of the sapient Andrew, I heard a noise,

which, being of a nature peculiarly solemn, nasal, and prolonged, led me

to think that Andrew, according to the decent and meritorious custom of

his countrymen, had assembled some of his neighbours to join in family

exercise, as he called evening devotion. Andrew had indeed neither wife,

child, nor female inmate in his family. "The first of his trade," he

said, "had had eneugh o'thae cattle." But, notwithstanding, he sometimes

contrived to form an audience for himself out of the neighbouring Papists

and Church-of-Englandmen--brands, as he expressed it, snatched out of the

burning, on whom he used to exercise his spiritual gifts, in defiance

alike of Father Vaughan, Father Docharty, Rashleigh, and all the world of

Catholics around him, who deemed his interference on such occasions an

act of heretical interloping. I conceived it likely, therefore, that the

well-disposed neighbours might have assembled to hold some chapel of ease

of this nature. The noise, however, when I listened to it more

accurately, seemed to proceed entirely from the lungs of the said Andrew;

and when I interrupted it by entering the house, I found Fairservice

alone, combating as he best could, with long words and hard names, and

reading aloud, for the purpose of his own edification, a volume of

controversial divinity.

"I was just taking a spell," said he, laying aside the huge folio volume

as I entered, "of the worthy Doctor Lightfoot."

"Lightfoot!" I replied, looking at the ponderous volume with some

surprise; "surely your author was unhappily named."

"Lightfoot was his name, sir; a divine he was, and another kind of a

divine than they hae now-adays. Always, I crave your pardon for keeping

ye standing at the door, but having been mistrysted (gude preserve us!)

with ae bogle the night already, I was dubious o' opening the yett till I

had gaen through the e'ening worship; and I had just finished the fifth

chapter of Nehemiah--if that winna gar them keep their distance, I wotna

what will."

"Trysted with a bogle!" said I; "what do you mean by that, Andrew?"

"I said mistrysted," replied Andrew; "that is as muckle as to say, fley'd

wi' a ghaist--Gude preserve us, I say again!"

"Flay'd by a ghost, Andrew! how am I to understand that?"

"I did not say flay'd," replied Andrew, "but _fley'd,_--that is, I got a

fleg, and was ready to jump out o' my skin, though naebody offered to

whirl it aff my body as a man wad bark a tree."

"I beg a truce to your terrors in the present case, Andrew, and I wish to

know whether you can direct me the nearest way to a town in your country

of Scotland, called Glasgow?"

"A town ca'd Glasgow!" echoed Andrew Fairservice. "Glasgow's a ceety,

man.--And is't the way to Glasgow ye were speering if I ken'd?--What suld

ail me to ken it?--it's no that dooms far frae my ain parish of

Dreepdaily, that lies a bittock farther to the west. But what may your

honour be gaun to Glasgow for?"

"Particular business," replied I.

"That's as muckle as to say, Speer nae questions, and I'll tell ye nae

lees.--To Glasgow?"--he made a short pause--"I am thinking ye wad be the

better o' some ane to show you the road."

"Certainly, if I could meet with any person going that way."

"And your honour, doubtless, wad consider the time and trouble?"

"Unquestionably--my business is pressing, and if you can find any guide

to accompany me, I'll pay him handsomely."

"This is no a day to speak o' carnal matters," said Andrew, casting his

eyes upwards; "but if it werena Sabbath at e'en, I wad speer what ye wad

be content to gie to ane that wad bear ye pleasant company on the road,

and tell ye the names of the gentlemen's and noblemen's seats and

castles, and count their kin to ye?"

"I tell you, all I want to know is the road I must travel; I will pay the

fellow to his satisfaction--I will give him anything in reason."

"Onything," replied Andrew, "is naething; and this lad that I am speaking

o' kens a' the short cuts and queer by-paths through the hills, and"--

"I have no time to talk about it, Andrew; do you make the bargain for me

your own way."

"Aha! that's speaking to the purpose," answered Andrew.--"I am thinking,

since sae be that sae it is, I'll be the lad that will guide you mysell."

"You, Andrew?--how will you get away from your employment?"

"I tell'd your honour a while syne, that it was lang that I hae been

thinking o' flitting, maybe as lang as frae the first year I came to

Osbaldistone Hall; and now I am o' the mind to gang in gude

earnest--better soon as syne--better a finger aff as aye wagging."

"You leave your service, then?--but will you not lose your wages?"

"Nae doubt there will be a certain loss; but then I hae siller o' the

laird's in my hands that I took for the apples in the auld orchyard--and

a sair bargain the folk had that bought them--a wheen green trash--and

yet Sir Hildebrand's as keen to hae the siller (that is, the steward is

as pressing about it) as if they had been a' gowden pippins--and then

there's the siller for the seeds--I'm thinking the wage will be in a

manner decently made up.--But doubtless your honour will consider my risk

of loss when we win to Glasgow--and ye'll be for setting out forthwith?"

"By day-break in the morning," I answered.

"That's something o' the suddenest--whare am I to find a naig?--Stay--I

ken just the beast that will answer me."

"At five in the morning, then, Andrew, you will meet me at the head of

the avenue."

"Deil a fear o' me (that I suld say sae) missing my tryste," replied

Andrew, very briskly; "and if I might advise, we wad be aff twa hours

earlier. I ken the way, dark or light, as weel as blind Ralph Ronaldson,

that's travelled ower every moor in the country-side, and disna ken the

colour of a heather-cowe when a's dune."

I highly approved of Andrew's amendment on my original proposal, and we

agreed to meet at the place appointed at three in the morning. At once,

however, a reflection came across the mind of my intended travelling

companion.

"The bogle! the bogle! what if it should come out upon us?--I downa

forgather wi' thae things twice in the four-and-twenty hours."

"Pooh! pooh!" I exclaimed, breaking away from him, "fear nothing from the

next world--the earth contains living fiends, who can act for themselves

without assistance, were the whole host that fell with Lucifer to return

to aid and abet them."

With these words, the import of which was suggested by my own situation,

I left Andrew's habitation, and returned to the Hall.

I made the few preparations which were necessary for my proposed journey,

examined and loaded my pistols, and then threw myself on my bed, to

obtain, if possible, a brief sleep before the fatigue of a long and

anxious journey. Nature, exhausted by the tumultuous agitations of the

day, was kinder to me than I expected, and I stink into a deep and

profound slumber, from which, however, I started as the old clock struck

two from a turret adjoining to my bedchamber. I instantly arose, struck a

light, wrote the letter I proposed to leave for my uncle, and leaving

behind me such articles of dress as were cumbrous in carriage, I

deposited the rest of my wardrobe in my valise, glided down stairs, and

gained the stable without impediment. Without being quite such a groom as

any of my cousins, I had learned at Osbaldistone Hall to dress and saddle

my own horse, and in a few minutes I was mounted and ready for my sally.

As I paced up the old avenue, on which the waning moon threw its light

with a pale and whitish tinge, I looked back with a deep and boding sigh

towards the walls which contained Diana Vernon, under the despondent

impression that we had probably parted to meet no more. It was

impossible, among the long and irregular lines of Gothic casements, which

now looked ghastly white in the moonlight, to distinguish that of the

apartment which she inhabited. "She is lost to me already," thought I, as

my eye wandered over the dim and indistinguishable intricacies of

architecture offered by the moonlight view of Osbaldistone Hall--"She is

lost to me already, ere I have left the place which she inhabits! What

hope is there of my maintaining any correspondence with her, when leagues

shall lie between?"

While I paused in a reverie of no very pleasing nature, the "iron tongue

of time told three upon the drowsy ear of night," and reminded me of the

necessity of keeping my appointment with a person of a less interesting

description and appearance--Andrew Fairservice.

At the gate of the avenue I found a horseman stationed in the shadow of

the wall, but it was not until I had coughed twice, and then called

"Andrew," that the horticulturist replied, "I'se warrant it's Andrew."

"Lead the way, then," said I, "and be silent if you can, till we are past

the hamlet in the valley."

Andrew led the way accordingly, and at a much brisker pace than I would

have recommended.--and so well did he obey my injunctions of keeping

silence, that he would return no answer to my repeated inquiries into the

cause of such unnecessary haste. Extricating ourselves by short cuts,

known to Andrew, from the numerous stony lanes and by-paths which

intersected each other in the vicinity of the Hall, we reached the open

heath and riding swiftly across it, took our course among the barren

hills which divide England from Scotland on what are called the Middle

Marches. The way, or rather the broken track which we occupied, was a

happy interchange of bog and shingles; nevertheless, Andrew relented

nothing of his speed, but trotted manfully forward at the rate of eight

or ten miles an hour. I was both surprised and provoked at the fellow's

obstinate persistence, for we made abrupt ascents and descents over

ground of a very break-neck character, and traversed the edge of

precipices, where a slip of the horse's feet would have consigned the

rider to certain death. The moon, at best, afforded a dubious and

imperfect light; but in some places we were so much under the shade of

the mountain as to be in total darkness, and then I could only trace

Andrew by the clatter of his horse's feet, and the fire which they struck

from the flints. At first, this rapid motion, and the attention which,

for the sake of personal safety, I was compelled to give to the conduct

of my horse, was of service, by forcibly diverting my thoughts from the

various painful reflections which must otherwise have pressed on my mind.

But at length, after hallooing repeatedly to Andrew to ride slower, I

became seriously incensed at his impudent perseverance in refusing either

to obey or to reply to me. My anger was, however, quite impotent. I

attempted once or twice to get up alongside of my self-willed guide, with

the purpose of knocking him off his horse with the butt-end of my whip;

but Andrew was better mounted than I, and either the spirit of the animal

which he bestrode, or more probably some presentiment of my kind

intentions towards him, induced him to quicken his pace whenever I

attempted to make up to him. On the other hand, I was compelled to exert

my spurs to keep him in sight, for without his guidance I was too well

aware that I should never find my way through the howling wilderness

which we now traversed at such an unwonted pace. I was so angry at

length, that I threatened to have recourse to my pistols, and send a

bullet after the Hotspur Andrew, which should stop his fiery-footed

career, if he did not abate it of his own accord. Apparently this threat

made some impression on the tympanum of his ear, however deaf to all my

milder entreaties; for he relaxed his pace upon hearing it, and,

suffering me to close up to him, observed, "There wasna muckle sense in

riding at sic a daft-like gate."

"And what did you mean by doing so at all, you self-willed scoundrel?"

replied I; for I was in a towering passion,--to which, by the way,

nothing contributes more than the having recently undergone a spice of

personal fear, which, like a few drops of water flung on a glowing fire,

is sure to inflame the ardour which it is insufficient to quench.

"What's your honour's wull?" replied Andrew, with impenetrable gravity.

"My will, you rascal?--I have been roaring to you this hour to ride

slower, and you have never so much as answered me--Are you drunk or mad

to behave so?"

"An it like your honour, I am something dull o' hearing; and I'll no deny

but I might have maybe taen a stirrup-cup at parting frae the auld

bigging whare I hae dwelt sae lang; and having naebody to pledge, nae

doubt I was obliged to do mysell reason, or else leave the end o' the

brandy stoup to thae papists--and that wad be a waste, as your honour

kens."

This might be all very true,--and my circumstances required that I should

be on good terms with my guide; I therefore satisfied myself with

requiring of him to take his directions from me in future concerning the

rate of travelling.

Andrew, emboldened by the mildness of my tone, elevated his own into the

pedantic, conceited octave, which was familiar to him on most occasions.

"Your honour winna persuade me, and naebody shall persuade me, that it's

either halesome or prudent to tak the night air on thae moors without a

cordial o' clow-gilliflower water, or a tass of brandy or aquavitae, or

sic-like creature-comfort. I hae taen the bent ower the Otterscrape-rigg

a hundred times, day and night, and never could find the way unless I had

taen my morning; mair by token that I had whiles twa bits o' ankers o'

brandy on ilk side o' me."--

"In other words, Andrew," said I, "you were a smuggler--how does a man of

your strict principles reconcile yourself to cheat the revenue?"

"It's a mere spoiling o' the Egyptians," replied Andrew; "puir auld

Scotland suffers eneugh by thae blackguard loons o' excisemen and

gaugers, that hae come down on her like locusts since the sad and

sorrowfu' Union; it's the part of a kind son to bring her a soup o'

something that will keep up her auld heart,--and that will they nill

they, the ill-fa'ard thieves!"

Upon more particular inquiry, I found Andrew had frequently travelled

these mountain-paths as a smuggler, both before and after his

establishment at Osbaldistone Hall--a circumstance which was so far of

importance to me, as it proved his capacity as a guide, notwithstanding

the escapade of which he had been guilty at his outset, Even now, though

travelling at a more moderate pace, the stirrup-cup, or whatever else had

such an effect in stimulating Andrew's motions, seemed not totally to

have lost its influence. He often cast a nervous and startled look behind

him; and whenever the road seemed at all practicable, showed symptoms of

a desire to accelerate his pace, as if he feared some pursuit from the

rear. These appearances of alarm gradually diminished as we reached the

top of a high bleak ridge, which ran nearly east and west for about a

mile, with a very steep descent on either side. The pale beams of the

morning were now enlightening the horizon, when Andrew cast a look behind

him, and not seeing the appearance of a living being on the moors which

he had travelled, his hard features gradually unbent, as he first

whistled, then sung, with much glee and little melody, the end of one of

his native songs--

"Jenny, lass! I think I hae her

Ower the muir amang the heather,

All their clan shall never get her."

He patted at the same time the neck of the horse which had carried him so

gallantly; and my attention being directed by that action to the animal,

I instantly recognised a favourite mare of Thorncliff Osbaldistone. "How

is this, sir?" said I sternly; "that is Mr. Thorncliff's mare!"

"I'll no say but she may aiblins hae been his honour's Squire

Thorncliff's in her day--but she's mine now."

"You have stolen her, you rascal."

"Na, na, sir--nae man can wyte me wi' theft. The thing stands this gate,

ye see. Squire Thorncliff borrowed ten punds o' me to gang to York

Races--deil a boddle wad he pay me back again, and spake o' raddling my

banes, as he ca'd it, when I asked him but for my ain back again;--now I

think it will riddle him or he gets his horse ower the Border

again--unless he pays me plack and bawbee, he sall never see a hair o'

her tail. I ken a canny chield at Loughmaben, a bit writer lad, that

will put me in the way to sort him. Steal the mear! na, na, far be the

sin o' theft frae Andrew Fairservice--I have just arrested her

_jurisdictionis fandandy causey._ Thae are bonny writer words--amaist

like the language o' huz gardeners and other learned men--it's a pity

they're sae dear;--thae three words were a' that Andrew got for a lang

law-plea and four ankers o' as gude brandy as was e'er coupit ower

craig--Hech, sirs! but law's a dear thing."

"You are likely to find it much dearer than you suppose, Andrew, if you

proceed in this mode of paying yourself, without legal authority."

"Hout tout, we're in Scotland now (be praised for't!) and I can find

baith friends and lawyers, and judges too, as weel as ony Osbaldistone o'

them a'. My mither's mither's third cousin was cousin to the Provost o'

Dumfries, and he winna see a drap o' her blude wranged. Hout awa! the

laws are indifferently administered here to a' men alike; it's no like on

yon side, when a chield may be whuppit awa' wi' ane o' Clerk Jobson's

warrants, afore he kens where he is. But they will hae little enough law

amang them by and by, and that is ae grand reason that I hae gi'en them

gude-day."

I was highly provoked at the achievement of Andrew, and considered it as

a hard fate, which a second time threw me into collision with a person of

such irregular practices. I determined, however, to buy the mare of him,

when he should reach the end of our journey, and send her back to my

cousin at Osbaldistone Hall; and with this purpose of reparation I

resolved to make my uncle acquainted from the next post-town. It was

needless, I thought, to quarrel with Andrew in the meantime, who had,

after all, acted not very unnaturally for a person in his circumstances.

I therefore smothered my resentment, and asked him what he meant by his

last expressions, that there would be little law in Northumberland by and

by?

"Law!" said Andrew, "hout, ay--there will be club-law eneugh. The priests

and the Irish officers, and thae papist cattle that hae been sodgering

abroad, because they durstna bide at hame, are a' fleeing thick in

Northumberland e'enow; and thae corbies dinna gather without they smell

carrion. As sure as ye live, his honour Sir Hildebrand is gaun to stick

his horn in the bog--there's naething but gun and pistol, sword and

dagger, amang them--and they'll be laying on, I'se warrant; for they're

fearless fules the young Osbaldistone squires, aye craving your honour's

pardon."

This speech recalled to my memory some suspicions that I myself had

entertained, that the Jacobites were on the eve of some desperate

enterprise. But, conscious it did not become me to be a spy on my uncle's

words and actions, I had rather avoided than availed myself of any

opportunity which occurred of remarking upon the signs of the times.--

Andrew Fairservice felt no such restraint, and doubtless spoke very truly

in stating his conviction that some desperate plots were in agitation, as

a reason which determined his resolution to leave the Hall.

"The servants," he stated, "with the tenantry and others, had been all

regularly enrolled and mustered, and they wanted me to take arms also.

But I'll ride in nae siccan troop--they little ken'd Andrew that asked

him. I'll fight when I like mysell, but it sall neither be for the hure

o' Babylon, nor any hure in England."

CHAPTER SECOND.

Where longs to fall yon rifted spire,

As weary of the insulting air,--

The poet's thoughts, the warrior's fire,

The lover's sighs, are sleeping there.

Langhorne.

At the first Scotch town which we reached, my guide sought out his friend

and counsellor, to consult upon the proper and legal means of converting

into his own lawful property the "bonny creature," which was at present

his own only by one of those sleight-of-hand arrangements which still

sometimes took place in that once lawless district. I was somewhat

diverted with the dejection of his looks on his return. He had, it seems,

been rather too communicative to his confidential friend, the attorney;

and learned with great dismay, in return for his unsuspecting frankness,

that Mr. Touthope had, during his absence, been appointed clerk to the

peace of the county, and was bound to communicate to justice all such

achievements as that of his friend Mr. Andrew Fairservice. There was a

necessity, this alert member of the police stated, for arresting the

horse, and placing him in Bailie Trumbull's stable, therein to remain at

livery, at the rate of twelve shillings (Scotch) per diem, until the

question of property was duly tried and debated. He even talked as if, in

strict and rigorous execution of his duty, he ought to detain honest

Andrew himself; but on my guide's most piteously entreating his

forbearance, he not only desisted from this proposal, but made a present

to Andrew of a broken-winded and spavined pony, in order to enable him to

pursue his journey. It is true, he qualified this act of generosity by

exacting from poor Andrew an absolute cession of his right and interest

in the gallant palfrey of Thorncliff Osbaldistone--a transference which

Mr. Touthope represented as of very little consequence, since his

unfortunate friend, as he facetiously observed, was likely to get nothing

of the mare excepting the halter.

Andrew seemed woeful and disconcerted, as I screwed out of him these

particulars; for his northern pride was cruelly pinched by being

compelled to admit that attorneys were attorneys on both sides of the

Tweed; and that Mr. Clerk Touthope was not a farthing more sterling coin

than Mr. Clerk Jobson.

"It wadna hae vexed him half sae muckle to hae been cheated out o' what

might amaist be said to be won with the peril o' his craig, had it

happened amang the Inglishers; but it was an unco thing to see hawks pike

out hawks' e'en, or ae kindly Scot cheat anither. But nae doubt things

were strangely changed in his country sin' the sad and sorrowfu' Union;"

an event to which Andrew referred every symptom of depravity or

degeneracy which he remarked among his countrymen, more especially the

inflammation of reckonings, the diminished size of pint-stoups, and other

grievances, which he pointed out to me during our journey.

For my own part, I held myself, as things had turned out, acquitted of

all charge of the mare, and wrote to my uncle the circumstances under

which she was carried into Scotland, concluding with informing him that

she was in the hands of justice, and her worthy representatives, Bailie

Trumbull and Mr. Clerk Touthope, to whom I referred him for farther

particulars. Whether the property returned to the Northumbrian

fox-hunter, or continued to bear the person of the Scottish attorney, it

is unnecessary for me at present to say.

We now pursued our journey to the north-westward, at a rate much slower

than that at which we had achieved our nocturnal retreat from England.

One chain of barren and uninteresting hills succeeded another, until the

more fertile vale of Clyde opened upon us; and, with such despatch as we

might, we gained the town, or, as my guide pertinaciously termed it, the

city, of Glasgow. Of late years, I understand, it has fully deserved the

name, which, by a sort of political second sight, my guide assigned to

it. An extensive and increasing trade with the West Indies and American

colonies, has, if I am rightly informed, laid the foundation of wealth

and prosperity, which, if carefully strengthened and built upon, may one

day support an immense fabric of commercial prosperity; but in the

earlier time of which I speak, the dawn of this splendour had not arisen.

The Union had, indeed, opened to Scotland the trade of the English

colonies; but, betwixt want of capital, and the national jealousy of the

English, the merchants of Scotland were as yet excluded, in a great

measure, from the exercise of the privileges which that memorable treaty

conferred on them. Glasgow lay on the wrong side of the island for

participating in the east country or continental trade, by which the

trifling commerce as yet possessed by Scotland chiefly supported itself.

Yet, though she then gave small promise of the commercial eminence to

which, I am informed, she seems now likely one day to attain, Glasgow, as

the principal central town of the western district of Scotland, was a

place of considerable rank and importance. The broad and brimming Clyde,

which flows so near its walls, gave the means of an inland navigation of

some importance. Not only the fertile plains in its immediate

neighbourhood, but the districts of Ayr and Dumfries regarded Glasgow as

their capital, to which they transmitted their produce, and received in

return such necessaries and luxuries as their consumption required.

The dusky mountains of the western Highlands often sent forth wilder

tribes to frequent the marts of St. Mungo's favourite city. Hordes of

wild shaggy, dwarfish cattle and ponies, conducted by Highlanders, as

wild, as shaggy, and sometimes as dwarfish, as the animals they had in

charge, often traversed the streets of Glasgow. Strangers gazed with

surprise on the antique and fantastic dress, and listened to the unknown

and dissonant sounds of their language, while the mountaineers, armed,

even while engaged in this peaceful occupation, with musket and pistol,

sword, dagger, and target, stared with astonishment on the articles of

luxury of which they knew not the use, and with an avidity which seemed

somewhat alarming on the articles which they knew and valued. It is

always with unwillingness that the Highlander quits his deserts, and at

this early period it was like tearing a pine from its rock, to plant him

elsewhere. Yet even then the mountain glens were over-peopled, although

thinned occasionally by famine or by the sword, and many of their

inhabitants strayed down to Glasgow--there formed settlements--there

sought and found employment, although different, indeed, from that of

their native hills. This supply of a hardy and useful population was of

consequence to the prosperity of the place, furnished the means of

carrying on the few manufactures which the town already boasted, and laid

the foundation of its future prosperity.

The exterior of the city corresponded with these promising circumstances.

The principal street was broad and important, decorated with public

buildings, of an architecture rather striking than correct in point of

taste, and running between rows of tall houses, built of stone, the

fronts of which were occasionally richly ornamented with mason-work--a

circumstance which gave the street an imposing air of dignity and

grandeur, of which most English towns are in some measure deprived, by

the slight, insubstantial, and perishable quality and appearance of the

bricks with which they are constructed.

In the western metropolis of Scotland, my guide and I arrived on a

Saturday evening, too late to entertain thoughts of business of any kind.

We alighted at the door of a jolly hostler-wife, as Andrew called

her,--the Ostelere of old father Chaucer,--by whom we were civilly

received.

On the following morning the bells pealed from every steeple, announcing

the sanctity of the day. Notwithstanding, however, what I had heard of

the severity with which the Sabbath is observed in Scotland, my first

impulse, not unnaturally, was to seek out Owen; but on inquiry I found

that my attempt would be in vain, "until kirk time was ower." Not only

did my landlady and guide jointly assure me that "there wadna be a living

soul either in the counting-house or dwelling-house of Messrs. MacVittie,

MacFin, and Company," to which Owen's letter referred me, but, moreover,

"far less would I find any of the partners there. They were serious men,

and wad be where a' gude Christians ought to be at sic a time, and that

was in the Barony Laigh Kirk."*

* [The Laigh Kirk or Crypt of the Cathedral of Glasgow served for more *

than two centuries as the church of the Barony Parish, and, for a time,

was * converted into a burial-place. In the restorations of this grand

building * the crypt was cleared out, and is now admired as one of the

richest specimens * of Early English architecture existing in Scotland.]

Andrew Fairservice, whose disgust at the law of his country had

fortunately not extended itself to the other learned professions of his

native land, now sung forth the praises of the preacher who was to

perform the duty, to which my hostess replied with many loud amens. The

result was, that I determined to go to this popular place of worship, as

much with the purpose of learning, if possible, whether Owen had arrived

in Glasgow, as with any great expectation of edification. My hopes were

exalted by the assurance, that if Mr. Ephraim MacVittie (worthy man) were

in the land of life, he would surely honour the Barony Kirk that day with

his presence; and if he chanced to have a stranger within his gates,

doubtless he would bring him to the duty along with him. This probability

determined my motions, and under the escort of my faithful Andrew, I set

forth for the Barony Kirk.

On this occasion, however, I had little need of his guidance; for the

crowd, which forced its way up a steep and rough-paved street, to hear

the most popular preacher in the west of Scotland, would of itself have

swept me along with it. On attaining the summit of the hill, we turned to

the left, and a large pair of folding doors admitted us, amongst others,

into the open and extensive burying-place which surrounds the Minster or

Cathedral Church of Glasgow. The pile is of a gloomy and massive, rather

than of an elegant, style of Gothic architecture; but its peculiar

character is so strongly preserved, and so well suited with the

accompaniments that surround it, that the impression of the first view

was awful and solemn in the extreme. I was indeed so much struck, that I

resisted for a few minutes all Andrew's efforts to drag me into the

interior of the building, so deeply was I engaged in surveying its

outward character.

Situated in a populous and considerable town, this ancient and massive

pile has the appearance of the most sequestered solitude. High walls

divide it from the buildings of the city on one side; on the other it is

bounded by a ravine, at the bottom of which, and invisible to the eye,

murmurs a wandering rivulet, adding, by its gentle noise, to the imposing

solemnity of the scene. On the opposite side of the ravine rises a steep

bank, covered with fir-trees closely planted, whose dusky shade extends

itself over the cemetery with an appropriate and gloomy effect. The

churchyard itself had a peculiar character; for though in reality

extensive, it is small in proportion to the number of respectable

inhabitants who are interred within it, and whose graves are almost all

covered with tombstones. There is therefore no room for the long rank

grass, which, in most cases, partially clothes the surface of those

retreats where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at

rest. The broad flat monumental stones are placed so close to each other,

that the precincts appear to be flagged with them, and, though roofed

only by the heavens, resemble the floor of one of our old English

churches, where the pavement is covered with sepulchral inscriptions. The

contents of these sad records of mortality, the vain sorrows which they

preserve, the stern lesson which they teach of the nothingness of

humanity, the extent of ground which they so closely cover, and their

uniform and melancholy tenor, reminded me of the roll of the prophet,

which was "written within and without, and there was written therein

lamentations and mourning and woe."

The Cathedral itself corresponds in impressive majesty with these

accompaniments. We feel that its appearance is heavy, yet that the effect

produced would be destroyed were it lighter or more ornamental. It is the

only metropolitan church in Scotland, excepting, as I am informed, the

Cathedral of Kirkwall, in the Orkneys, which remained uninjured at the

Reformation; and Andrew Fairservice, who saw with great pride the effect

which it produced upon my mind, thus accounted for its preservation--"Ah!

it's a brave kirk--nane o' yere whig-maleeries and curliewurlies and

opensteek hems about it--a' solid, weel-jointed mason-wark, that will

stand as lang as the warld, keep hands and gunpowther aff it. It had

amaist a douncome lang syne at the Reformation, when they pu'd doun the

kirks of St. Andrews and Perth, and thereawa', to cleanse them o' Papery,

and idolatry, and image worship, and surplices, and sic like rags o' the

muckle hure that sitteth on seven hills, as if ane wasna braid eneugh for

her auld hinder end. Sae the commons o' Renfrew, and o' the Barony, and

the Gorbals and a' about, they behoved to come into Glasgow no fair

morning, to try their hand on purging the High Kirk o' Popish

nick-nackets. But the townsmen o' Glasgow, they were feared their auld

edifice might slip the girths in gaun through siccan rough physic, sae

they rang the common bell, and assembled the train-bands wi' took o'

drum. By good luck, the worthy James Rabat was Dean o' Guild that

year--(and a gude mason he was himself, made him the keener to keep up

the auld bigging)--and the trades assembled, and offered downright

battle to the commons, rather than their kirk should coup the crans as

others had done elsewhere. It wasna for luve o' Paperie--na, na!--nane

could ever say that o' the trades o' Glasgow--Sae they sune came to an

agreement to take a' the idolatrous statues of sants (sorrow be on them)

out o' their neuks--and sae the bits o' stane idols were broken in

pieces by Scripture warrant, and flung into the Molendinar burn, and the

auld kirk stood as crouse as a cat when the flaes are kaimed aff her,

and a' body was alike pleased. And I hae heard wise folk say, that if

the same had been done in ilka kirk in Scotland, the Reform wad just hae

been as pure as it is e'en now, and we wad hae mair Christian-like

kirks; for I hae been sae lang in England, that naething will drived out

o' my head, that the dog-kennel at Osbaldistone Hall is better than mony

a house o' God in Scotland."

Thus saying, Andrew led the way into the place of worship.

CHAPTER THIRD.

--It strikes an awe

And terror on my aching sight; the tombs

And monumental caves of death look cold,

And shoot a chillness to the trembling heart.

Mourning Bride.

Notwithstanding the impatience of my conductor, I could not forbear to

pause and gaze for some minutes on the exterior of the building, rendered

more impressively dignified by the solitude which ensued when its

hitherto open gates were closed, after having, as it were, devoured the

multitude which had lately crowded the churchyard, but now, enclosed

within the building, were engaged, as the choral swell of voices from

within announced to us, in the solemn exercises of devotion. The sound of

so many voices united by the distance into one harmony, and freed from

those harsh discordances which jar the ear when heard more near,

combining with the murmuring brook, and the wind which sung among the old

firs, affected me with a sense of sublimity. All nature, as invoked by

the Psalmist whose verses they chanted, seemed united in offering that

solemn praise in which trembling is mixed with joy as she addressed her

Maker. I had heard the service of high mass in France, celebrated with

all the _e'clat_ which the choicest music, the richest dresses, the most

imposing ceremonies, could confer on it; yet it fell short in effect of

the simplicity of the Presbyterian worship. The devotion in which every

one took a share seemed so superior to that which was recited by

musicians as a lesson which they had learned by rote, that it gave the

Scottish worship all the advantage of reality over acting.

As I lingered to catch more of the solemn sound, Andrew, whose impatience

became ungovernable, pulled me by the sleeve--"Come awa', sir--come awa';

we maunna be late o' gaun in to disturb the worship; if we bide here the

searchers will be on us, and carry us to the guard-house for being idlers

in kirk-time."

Thus admonished, I followed my guide, but not, as I had supposed, into

the body of the cathedral. "This gate--this gate, sir," he exclaimed,

dragging me off as I made towards the main entrance of the

building--"There's but cauldrife law-work gaun on yonder--carnal

morality, as dow'd and as fusionless as rue leaves at Yule--Here's the

real savour of doctrine."

So saying, we entered a small low-arched door, secured by a wicket, which

a grave-looking person seemed on the point of closing, and descended

several steps as if into the funeral vaults beneath the church. It was

even so; for in these subterranean precincts,--why chosen for such a

purpose I knew not,--was established a very singular place of worship.

Conceive, Tresham, an extensive range of low-browed, dark, and twilight

vaults, such as are used for sepulchres in other countries, and had long

been dedicated to the same purpose in this, a portion of which was seated

with pews, and used as a church. The part of the vaults thus occupied,

though capable of containing a congregation of many hundreds, bore a

small proportion to the darker and more extensive caverns which yawned

around what may be termed the inhabited space. In those waste regions of

oblivion, dusky banners and tattered escutcheons indicated the graves of

those who were once, doubtless, "princes in Israel." Inscriptions, which

could only be read by the painful antiquary, in language as obsolete as

the act of devotional charity which they employed, invited the passengers

to pray for the souls of those whose bodies rested beneath. Surrounded by

these receptacles of the last remains of mortality, I found a numerous

congregation engaged in the act of prayer. The Scotch perform this duty

in a standing instead of a kneeling posture--more, perhaps, to take as

broad a distinction as possible from the ritual of Rome than for any

better reason; since I have observed, that in their family worship, as

doubtless in their private devotions, they adopt, in their immediate

address to the Deity, that posture which other Christians use as the

humblest and most reverential. Standing, therefore, the men being

uncovered, a crowd of several hundreds of both sexes, and all ages,

listened with great reverence and attention to the extempore, at least

the unwritten, prayer of an aged clergyman,* who was very popular in the

city.

* I have in vain laboured to discover this gentleman's name, and the

period of his incumbency. I do not, however, despair to see these points,

with some others which may elude my sagacity, satisfactorily elucidated

by one or other of the periodical publications which have devoted their

pages to explanatory commentaries on my former volumes; and whose

research and ingenuity claim my peculiar gratitude, for having discovered

many persons and circumstances connected with my narratives, of which I

myself never so much as dreamed.

Educated in the same religious persuasion, I seriously bent my mind to

join in the devotion of the day; and it was not till the congregation

resumed their seats, that my attention was diverted to the consideration

of the appearance of all around me.

At the conclusion of the prayer, most of the men put on their hats or

bonnets, and all who had the happiness to have seats sate down. Andrew

and I were not of this number, having been too late of entering the

church to secure such accommodation. We stood among a number of other

persons in the same situation, forming a sort of ring around the seated

part of the congregation. Behind and around us were the vaults I have

already described; before us the devout audience, dimly shown by the

light which streamed on their faces through one or two low Gothic

windows, such as give air and light to charnel-houses. By this were seen

the usual variety of countenances which are generally turned towards a

Scotch pastor on such occasions, almost all composed to attention, unless

where a father or mother here and there recalls the wandering eyes of a

lively child, or disturbs the slumbers of a dull one. The high-boned and

harsh countenance of the nation, with the expression of intelligence and

shrewdness which it frequently exhibits, is seen to more advantage in the

act of devotion, or in the ranks of war, than on lighter and more

cheerful occasions of assemblage. The discourse of the preacher was well

qualified to call forth the various feelings and faculties of his

audience.

Age and infirmities had impaired the powers of a voice originally strong

and sonorous. He read his text with a pronunciation somewhat

inarticulate; but when he closed the Bible, and commenced his sermon, his

tones gradually strengthened, as he entered with vehemence into the

arguments which he maintained. They related chiefly to the abstract

points of the Christian faith,--subjects grave, deep, and fathomless by

mere human reason, but for which, with equal ingenuity and propriety, he

sought a key in liberal quotations from the inspired writings. My mind

was unprepared to coincide in all his reasoning, nor was I sure that in

some instances I rightly comprehended his positions. But nothing could be

more impressive than the eager enthusiastic manner of the good old man,

and nothing more ingenious than his mode of reasoning. The Scotch, it is

well known, are more remarkable for the exercise of their intellectual

powers, than for the keenness of their feelings; they are, therefore,

more moved by logic than by rhetoric, and more attracted by acute and

argumentative reasoning on doctrinal points, than influenced by the

enthusiastic appeals to the heart and to the passions, by which popular

preachers in other countries win the favour of their hearers.

Among the attentive group which I now saw, might be distinguished various

expressions similar to those of the audience in the famous cartoon of

Paul preaching at Athens. Here sat a zealous and intelligent Calvinist,

with brows bent just as much as to indicate profound attention; lips

slightly compressed; eyes fixed on the minister with an expression of

decent pride, as if sharing the triumph of his argument; the forefinger

of the right hand touching successively those of the left, as the

preacher, from argument to argument, ascended towards his conclusion.

Another, with fiercer and sterner look, intimated at once his contempt of

all who doubted the creed of his pastor, and his joy at the appropriate

punishment denounced against them. A third, perhaps belonging to a

different congregation, and present only by accident or curiosity, had

the appearance of internally impeaching some link of the reasoning; and

you might plainly read, in the slight motion of his head, his doubts as

to the soundness of the preacher's argument. The greater part listened

with a calm, satisfied countenance, expressive of a conscious merit in

being present, and in listening to such an ingenious discourse, although

perhaps unable entirely to comprehend it. The women in general belonged

to this last division of the audience; the old, however, seeming more

grimly intent upon the abstract doctrines laid before them; while the

younger females permitted their eyes occasionally to make a modest

circuit around the congregation; and some of them, Tresham (if my vanity

did not greatly deceive me), contrived to distinguish your friend and

servant, as a handsome young stranger and an Englishman. As to the rest

of the congregation, the stupid gaped, yawned, or slept, till awakened by

the application of their more zealous neighbours' heels to their shins;

and the idle indicated their inattention by the wandering of their eyes,

but dared give no more decided token of weariness. Amid the Lowland

costume of coat and cloak, I could here and there discern a Highland

plaid, the wearer of which, resting on his basket-hilt, sent his eyes

among the audience with the unrestrained curiosity of savage wonder; and

who, in all probability, was inattentive to the sermon for a very

pardonable reason--because he did not understand the language in which it

was delivered. The martial and wild look, however, of these stragglers,

added a kind of character which the congregation could not have exhibited

without them. They were more numerous, Andrew afterwards observed, owing

to some cattle-fair in the neighbourhood.

Such was the group of countenances, rising tier on tier, discovered to my

critical inspection by such sunbeams as forced their way through the

narrow Gothic lattices of the Laigh Kirk of Glasgow; and, having

illuminated the attentive congregation, lost themselves in the vacuity of

the vaults behind, giving to the nearer part of their labyrinth a sort of

imperfect twilight, and leaving their recesses in an utter darkness,

which gave them the appearance of being interminable.

I have already said that I stood with others in the exterior circle, with

my face to the preacher, and my back to those vaults which I have so

often mentioned. My position rendered me particularly obnoxious to any

interruption which arose from any slight noise occurring amongst these

retiring arches, where the least sound was multiplied by a thousand

echoes. The occasional sound of rain-drops, which, admitted through some

cranny in the ruined roof, fell successively, and splashed upon the

pavement beneath, caused me to turn my head more than once to the place

from whence it seemed to proceed, and when my eyes took that direction, I

found it difficult to withdraw them; such is the pleasure our imagination

receives from the attempt to penetrate as far as possible into an

intricate labyrinth, imperfectly lighted, and exhibiting objects which

irritate our curiosity, only because they acquire a mysterious interest

from being undefined and dubious. My eyes became habituated to the gloomy

atmosphere to which I directed them, and insensibly my mind became more

interested in their discoveries than in the metaphysical subtleties which

the preacher was enforcing.

My father had often checked me for this wandering mood of mind, arising

perhaps from an excitability of imagination to which he was a stranger;

and the finding myself at present solicited by these temptations to

inattention, recalled the time when I used to walk, led by his hand, to

Mr. Shower's chapel, and the earnest injunctions which he then laid on me

to redeem the time, because the days were evil. At present, the picture

which my thoughts suggested, far from fixing my attention, destroyed the

portion I had yet left, by conjuring up to my recollection the peril in

which his affairs now stood. I endeavoured, in the lowest whisper I could

frame, to request Andrew to obtain information, whether any of the

gentlemen of the firm of MacVittie & Co. were at present in the

congregation. But Andrew, wrapped in profound attention to the sermon,

only replied to my suggestion by hard punches with his elbow, as signals

to me to remain silent. I next strained my eyes, with equally bad

success, to see if, among the sea of up-turned faces which bent their

eyes on the pulpit as a common centre, I could discover the sober and

business-like physiognomy of Owen. But not among the broad beavers of the

Glasgow citizens, or the yet broader brimmed Lowland bonnets of the

peasants of Lanarkshire, could I see anything resembling the decent

periwig, starched ruffles, or the uniform suit of light-brown garments

appertaining to the head-clerk of the establishment of Osbaldistone and

Tresham. My anxiety now returned on me with such violence as to overpower

not only the novelty of the scene around me, by which it had hitherto

been diverted, but moreover my sense of decorum. I pulled Andrew hard by

the sleeve, and intimated my wish to leave the church, and pursue my

investigation as I could. Andrew, obdurate in the Laigh Kirk of Glasgow

as on the mountains of Cheviot, for some time deigned me no answer; and

it was only when he found I could not otherwise be kept quiet, that he

condescended to inform me, that, being once in the church, we could not

leave it till service was over, because the doors were locked so soon as

the prayers began. Having thus spoken in a brief and peevish whisper,

Andrew again assumed the air of intelligent and critical importance, and

attention to the preacher's discourse.

While I endeavoured to make a virtue of necessity, and recall my

attention to the sermon, I was again disturbed by a singular

interruption. A voice from behind whispered distinctly in my ear, "You

are in danger in this city."--I turned round, as if mechanically.

One or two starched and ordinary-looking mechanics stood beside and

behind me,--stragglers, who, like ourselves, had been too late in

obtaining entrance. But a glance at their faces satisfied me, though I

could hardly say why, that none of these was the person who had spoken to

me. Their countenances seemed all composed to attention to the sermon,

and not one of them returned any glance of intelligence to the

inquisitive and startled look with which I surveyed them. A massive round

pillar, which was close behind us, might have concealed the speaker the

instant he uttered his mysterious caution; but wherefore it was given in

such a place, or to what species of danger it directed my attention, or

by whom the warning was uttered, were points on which my imagination lost

itself in conjecture. It would, however, I concluded, be repeated, and I

resolved to keep my countenance turned towards the clergyman, that the

whisperer might be tempted to renew his communication under the idea that

the first had passed unobserved.

My plan succeeded. I had not resumed the appearance of attention to the

preacher for five minutes, when the same voice whispered, "Listen, but do

not look back." I kept my face in the same direction. "You are in danger

in this place," the voice proceeded; "so am I--meet me to-night on the

Brigg, at twelve preceesely--keep at home till the gloaming, and avoid

observation."

Here the voice ceased, and I instantly turned my head. But the speaker

had, with still greater promptitude, glided behind the pillar, and

escaped my observation. I was determined to catch a sight of him, if

possible, and extricating myself from the outer circle of hearers, I also

stepped behind the column. All there was empty; and I could only see a

figure wrapped in a mantle, whether a Lowland cloak, or Highland plaid, I

could not distinguish, which traversed, like a phantom, the dreary

vacuity of vaults which I have described.

I made a mechanical attempt to pursue the mysterious form, which glided

away and vanished in the vaulted cemetery, like the spectre of one of the

numerous dead who rested within its precincts. I had little chance of

arresting the course of one obviously determined not to be spoken with;

but that little chance was lost by my stumbling and falling before I had

made three steps from the column. The obscurity which occasioned my

misfortune, covered my disgrace; which I accounted rather lucky, for the

preacher, with that stern authority which the Scottish ministers assume

for the purpose of keeping order in their congregations, interrupted his

discourse, to desire the "proper officer" to take into custody the causer

of this disturbance in the place of worship. As the noise, however, was

not repeated, the beadle, or whatever else he was called, did not think

it necessary to be rigorous in searching out the offender, so that I was

enabled, without attracting farther observation, to place myself by

Andrew's side in my original position. The service proceeded, and closed

without the occurrence of anything else worthy of notice.

As the congregation departed and dispersed, my friend Andrew exclaimed,

"See, yonder is worthy Mr. MacVittie, and Mrs. MacVittie, and Miss Alison

MacVittie, and Mr. Thamas MacFin, that they say is to marry Miss Alison,

if a' bowls row right--she'll hae a hantle siller, if she's no that

bonny."

My eyes took the direction he pointed out. Mr. MacVittie was a tall,

thin, elderly man, with hard features, thick grey eyebrows, light eyes,

and, as I imagined, a sinister expression of countenance, from which my

heart recoiled. I remembered the warning I had received in the church,

and hesitated to address this person, though I could not allege to myself

any rational ground of dislike or suspicion.

I was yet in suspense, when Andrew, who mistook my hesitation for

bashfulness, proceeded to exhort me to lay it aside. "Speak till

him--speak till him, Mr. Francis--he's no provost yet, though they say

he'll be my lord neist year. Speak till him, then--he'll gie ye a decent

answer for as rich as he is, unless ye were wanting siller frae

him--they say he's dour to draw his purse."

It immediately occurred to me, that if this merchant were really of the

churlish and avaricious disposition which Andrew intimated, there might

be some caution necessary in making myself known, as I could not tell how

accounts might stand between my father and him. This consideration came

in aid of the mysterious hint which I had received, and the dislike which

I had conceived at the man's countenance. Instead of addressing myself

directly to him, as I had designed to have done, I contented myself with

desiring Andrew to inquire at Mr. MacVittie's house the address of Mr.

Owen, an English gentleman; and I charged him not to mention the person

from whom he received the commission, but to bring me the result to the

small inn where we lodged. This Andrew promised to do. He said something

of the duty of my attending the evening service; but added with a

causticity natural to him, that "in troth, if folk couldna keep their

legs still, but wad needs be couping the creels ower through-stanes, as

if they wad raise the very dead folk wi' the clatter, a kirk wi' a

chimley in't was fittest for them."

CHAPTER FOURTH.

On the Rialto, every night at twelve,

I take my evening's walk of meditation:

There we two will meet.

Venice Preserved.

Full of sinister augury, for which, however, I could assign no

satisfactory cause, I shut myself up in my apartment at the inn, and

having dismissed Andrew, after resisting his importunity to accompany him

to St. Enoch's Kirk,* where, he said, "a soul-searching divine was to haud

forth," I set myself seriously to consider what were best to be done.

* This I believe to be an anachronism, as Saint Enoch's Church was not

built at the date of the story. [It was founded in 1780, and has since

been rebuilt.]

I never was what is properly called superstitious; but I suppose that all

men, in situations of peculiar doubt and difficulty, when they have

exercised their reason to little purpose, are apt, in a sort of despair,

to abandon the reins to their imagination, and be guided altogether by

chance, or by those whimsical impressions which take possession of the

mind, and to which we give way as if to involuntary impulses. There was

something so singularly repulsive in the hard features of the Scotch

trader, that I could not resolve to put myself into his hands without

transgressing every caution which could be derived from the rules of

physiognomy; while, at the same time, the warning voice, the form which

flitted away like a vanishing shadow through those vaults, which might be

termed "the valley of the shadow of death," had something captivating for

the imagination of a young man, who, you will farther please to remember,

was also a young poet.

If danger was around me, as the mysterious communication intimated, how

could I learn its nature, or the means of averting it, but by meeting my

unknown counsellor, to whom I could see no reason for imputing any other

than kind intentions. Rashleigh and his machinations occurred more than

once to my remembrance;--but so rapid had my journey been, that I could

not suppose him apprised of my arrival in Glasgow, much less prepared to

play off any stratagem against my person. In my temper also I was bold

and confident, strong and active in person, and in some measure

accustomed to the use of arms, in which the French youth of all kinds

were then initiated. I did not fear any single opponent; assassination

was neither the vice of the age nor of the country; the place selected

for our meeting was too public to admit any suspicion of meditated

violence. In a word, I resolved to meet my mysterious counsellor on the

bridge, as he had requested, and to be afterwards guided by

circumstances. Let me not conceal from you, Tresham, what at the time I

endeavoured to conceal from myself--the subdued, yet secretly-cherished

hope, that Diana Vernon might--by what chance I knew not--through what

means I could not guess--have some connection with this strange and

dubious intimation conveyed at a time and place, and in a manner so

surprising. She alone--whispered this insidious thought--she alone knew

of my journey; from her own account, she possessed friends and influence

in Scotland; she had furnished me with a talisman, whose power I was to

invoke when all other aid failed me; who then but Diana Vernon possessed

either means, knowledge, or inclination, for averting the dangers, by

which, as it seemed, my steps were surrounded? This flattering view of my

very doubtful case pressed itself upon me again and again. It insinuated

itself into my thoughts, though very bashfully, before the hour of

dinner; it displayed its attractions more boldly during the course of my

frugal meal, and became so courageously intrusive during the succeeding

half-hour (aided perhaps by the flavour of a few glasses of most

excellent claret), that, with a sort of desperate attempt to escape from

a delusive seduction, to which I felt the danger of yielding, I pushed my

glass from me, threw aside my dinner, seized my hat, and rushed into the

open air with the feeling of one who would fly from his own thoughts. Yet

perhaps I yielded to the very feelings from which I seemed to fly, since

my steps insensibly led me to the bridge over the Clyde, the place

assigned for the rendezvous by my mysterious monitor.

Although I had not partaken of my repast until the hours of evening

church-service were over,--in which, by the way, I complied with the

religious scruples of my landlady, who hesitated to dress a hot dinner

between sermons, and also with the admonition of my unknown friend, to

keep my apartment till twilight,--several hours had still to pass away

betwixt the time of my appointment and that at which I reached the

assigned place of meeting. The interval, as you will readily credit, was

wearisome enough; and I can hardly explain to you how it passed away.

Various groups of persons, all of whom, young and old, seemed impressed

with a reverential feeling of the sanctity of the day, passed along the

large open meadow which lies on the northern bank of the Clyde, and

serves at once as a bleaching-field and pleasure-walk for the

inhabitants, or paced with slow steps the long bridge which communicates

with the southern district of the county. All that I remember of them was

the general, yet not unpleasing, intimation of a devotional character

impressed on each little party--formally assumed perhaps by some, but

sincerely characterising the greater number--which hushed the petulant

gaiety of the young into a tone of more quiet, yet more interesting,

interchange of sentiments, and suppressed the vehement argument and

protracted disputes of those of more advanced age. Notwithstanding the

numbers who passed me, no general sound of the human voice was heard; few

turned again to take some minutes' voluntary exercise, to which the

leisure of the evening, and the beauty of the surrounding scenery, seemed

to invite them: all hurried to their homes and resting-places. To one

accustomed to the mode of spending Sunday evenings abroad, even among the

French Calvinists, there seemed something Judaical, yet, at the same time

striking and affecting, in this mode of keeping the Sabbath holy.

Insensibly I felt my mode of sauntering by the side of the river, and

crossing successively the various persons who were passing homeward, and

without tarrying or delay, must expose me to observation at least, if not

to censure; and I slunk out of the frequented path, and found a trivial

occupation for my mind in marshalling my revolving walk in such a manner

as should least render me obnoxious to observation. The different alleys

lined out through this extensive meadow, and which are planted with

trees, like the Park of St. James's in London, gave me facilities for

carrying into effect these childish manoeuvres.

As I walked down one of these avenues, I heard, to my surprise, the sharp

and conceited voice of Andrew Fairservice, raised by a sense of

self-consequence to a pitch somewhat higher than others seemed to think

consistent with the solemnity of the day. To slip behind the row of trees

under which I walked was perhaps no very dignified proceeding; but it was

the easiest mode of escaping his observation, and perhaps his impertinent

assiduity, and still more intrusive curiosity. As he passed, I heard him

communicate to a grave-looking man, in a black coat, a slouched hat, and

Geneva cloak, the following sketch of a character, which my self-love,

while revolting against it as a caricature, could not, nevertheless,

refuse to recognise as a likeness.

"Ay, ay, Mr. Hammorgaw, it's e'en as I tell ye. He's no a'thegither sae

void o' sense neither; he has a gloaming sight o' what's reasonable--that

is anes and awa'--a glisk and nae mair; but he's crack-brained and

cockle-headed about his nipperty-tipperty poetry nonsense--He'll glowr at

an auld-warld barkit aik-snag as if it were a queezmaddam in full

bearing; and a naked craig, wi' a bum jawing ower't, is unto him as a

garden garnisht with flowering knots and choice pot-herbs. Then he wad

rather claver wi' a daft quean they ca' Diana Vernon (weel I wet they

might ca' her Diana of the Ephesians, for she's little better than a

heathen--better? she's waur--a Roman, a mere Roman)--he'll claver wi'

her, or any ither idle slut, rather than hear what might do him gude a'

the days of his life, frae you or me, Mr. Hammorgaw, or ony ither sober

and sponsible person. Reason, sir, is what he canna endure--he's a' for

your vanities and volubilities; and he ance tell'd me (puir blinded

creature!) that the Psalms of David were excellent poetry! as if the holy

Psalmist thought o' rattling rhymes in a blether, like his ain silly

clinkum-clankum things that he ca's verse. Gude help him!--twa lines o'

Davie Lindsay would ding a' he ever clerkit."

While listening to this perverted account of my temper and studies, you

will not be surprised if I meditated for Mr. Fairservice the unpleasant

surprise of a broken pate on the first decent opportunity. His friend

only intimated his attention by "Ay, ay!" and "Is't e'en sae?" and

suchlike expressions of interest, at the proper breaks in Mr.

Fairservice's harangue, until at length, in answer to some observation of

greater length, the import of which I only collected from my trusty

guide's reply, honest Andrew answered, "Tell him a bit o'my mind, quoth

ye? Wha wad be fule then but Andrew? He's a red-wad deevil, man--He's

like Giles Heathertap's auld boar;--ye need but shake a clout at him to

make him turn and gore. Bide wi' him, say ye?--Troth, I kenna what for I

bide wi' him mysell. But the lad's no a bad lad after a'; and he needs

some carefu' body to look after him. He hasna the right grip o' his

hand--the gowd slips through't like water, man; and it's no that ill a

thing to be near him when his purse is in his hand, and it's seldom out

o't. And then he's come o' guid kith and kin--My heart warms to the poor

thoughtless callant, Mr. Hammorgaw--and then the penny fee"--

In the latter part of this instructive communication, Mr. Fairservice

lowered his voice to a tone better beseeming the conversation in a place

of public resort on a Sabbath evening, and his companion and he were soon

beyond my hearing. My feelings of hasty resentment soon subsided, under

the conviction that, as Andrew himself might have said, "A harkener

always hears a bad tale of himself," and that whoever should happen to

overhear their character discussed in their own servants'-hall, must

prepare to undergo the scalpel of some such anatomist as Mr. Fairservice.

The incident was so far useful, as, including the feelings to which it

gave rise, it sped away a part of the time which hung so heavily on my

hand.

Evening had now closed, and the growing darkness gave to the broad,

still, and deep expanse of the brimful river, first a hue sombre and

uniform--then a dismal and turbid appearance, partially lighted by a

waning and pallid moon. The massive and ancient bridge which stretches

across the Clyde was now but dimly visible, and resembled that which

Mirza, in his unequalled vision, has described as traversing the valley

of Bagdad. The low-browed arches, seen as imperfectly as the dusky

current which they bestrode, seemed rather caverns which swallowed up the

gloomy waters of the river, than apertures contrived for their passage.

With the advancing night the stillness of the scene increased. There was

yet a twinkling light occasionally seen to glide along by the stream,

which conducted home one or two of the small parties, who, after the

abstinence and religious duties of the day, had partaken of a social

supper--the only meal at which the rigid Presbyterians made some advance

to sociality on the Sabbath. Occasionally, also, the hoofs of a horse

were heard, whose rider, after spending the Sunday in Glasgow, was

directing his steps towards his residence in the country. These sounds

and sights became gradually of more rare occurrence; at length they

altogether ceased, and I was left to enjoy my solitary walk on the shores

of the Clyde in solemn silence, broken only by the tolling of the

successive hours from the steeples of the churches.

But as the night advanced my impatience at the uncertainty of the

situation in which I was placed increased every moment, and became nearly

ungovernable. I began to question whether I had been imposed upon by the

trick of a fool, the raving of a madman, or the studied machinations of a

villain, and paced the little quay or pier adjoining the entrance to the

bridge, in a state of incredible anxiety and vexation. At length the hour

of twelve o'clock swung its summons over the city from the belfry of the

metropolitan church of St. Mungo, and was answered and vouched by all the

others like dutiful diocesans. The echoes had scarcely ceased to repeat

the last sound, when a human form--the first I had seen for two

hours--appeared passing along the bridge from the southern shore of the

river. I advanced to meet him with a feeling as if my fate depended on

the result of the interview, so much had my anxiety been wound up by

protracted expectation. All that I could remark of the passenger as we

advanced towards each other, was that his frame was rather beneath than

above the middle size, but apparently strong, thick-set, and muscular;

his dress a horseman's wrapping coat. I slackened my pace, and almost

paused as I advanced in expectation that he would address me. But to my

inexpressible disappointment he passed without speaking, and I had no

pretence for being the first to address one who, notwithstanding his

appearance at the very hour of appointment, might nevertheless be an

absolute stranger. I stopped when he had passed me, and looked after

him, uncertain whether I ought not to follow him. The stranger walked on

till near the northern end of the bridge, then paused, looked back, and

turning round, again advanced towards me. I resolved that this time he

should not have the apology for silence proper to apparitions, who, it

is vulgarly supposed, cannot speak until they are spoken to. "You walk

late, sir," said I, as we met a second time.

"I bide tryste," was the reply; "and so I think do you, Mr.

Osbaldistone."

"You are then the person who requested to meet me here at this unusual

hour?"

"I am," he replied. "Follow me, and you shall know my reasons."

"Before following you, I must know your name and purpose," I answered.

"I am a man," was the reply; "and my purpose is friendly to you."

"A man!" I repeated;--"that is a very brief description."

"It will serve for one who has no other to give," said the stranger. "He

that is without name, without friends, without coin, without country, is

still at least a man; and he that has all these is no more."

"Yet this is still too general an account of yourself, to say the least

of it, to establish your credit with a stranger."

"It is all I mean to give, howsoe'er; you may choose to follow me, or to

remain without the information I desire to afford you."

"Can you not give me that information here?" I demanded.

"You must receive it from your eyes, not from my tongue--you must follow

me, or remain in ignorance of the information which I have to give you."

There was something short, determined, and even stern, in the man's

manner, not certainly well calculated to conciliate undoubting

confidence.

"What is it you fear?" he said impatiently. "To whom, think ye, is your

life of such consequence, that they should seek to bereave ye of it?"

"I fear nothing," I replied firmly, though somewhat hastily. "Walk on--I

attend you."

We proceeded, contrary to my expectation, to re-enter the town, and

glided like mute spectres, side by side, up its empty and silent streets.

The high and gloomy stone fronts, with the variegated ornaments and

pediments of the windows, looked yet taller and more sable by the

imperfect moonshine. Our walk was for some minutes in perfect silence. At

length my conductor spoke.

"Are you afraid?"

"I retort your own words," I replied: "wherefore should I fear?"

"Because you are with a stranger--perhaps an enemy, in a place where you

have no friends and many enemies."

"I neither fear you nor them; I am young, active, and armed."

"I am not armed," replied my conductor: "but no matter, a willing hand

never lacked weapon. You say you fear nothing; but if you knew who was by

your side, perhaps you might underlie a tremor."

"And why should I?" replied I. "I again repeat, I fear nought that you

can do."

"Nought that I can do?--Be it so. But do you not fear the consequences of

being found with one whose very name whispered in this lonely street

would make the stones themselves rise up to apprehend him--on whose head

half the men in Glasgow would build their fortune as on a found treasure,

had they the luck to grip him by the collar--the sound of whose

apprehension were as welcome at the Cross of Edinburgh as ever the news

of a field stricken and won in Flanders?"

"And who then are you, whose name should create so deep a feeling of

terror?" I replied.

"No enemy of yours, since I am conveying you to a place, where, were I

myself recognised and identified, iron to the heels and hemp to the craig

would be my brief dooming."

I paused and stood still on the pavement, drawing back so as to have the

most perfect view of my companion which the light afforded me, and which

was sufficient to guard against any sudden motion of assault.

"You have said," I answered, "either too much or too little--too much to

induce me to confide in you as a mere stranger, since you avow yourself a

person amenable to the laws of the country in which we are--and too

little, unless you could show that you are unjustly subjected to their

rigour."

As I ceased to speak, he made a step towards me. I drew back

instinctively, and laid my hand on the hilt of my sword.

"What!" said he--"on an unarmed man, and your friend?"

"I am yet ignorant if you are either the one or the other," I replied;

"and to say the truth, your language and manner might well entitle me to

doubt both."

"It is manfully spoken," replied my conductor; "and I respect him whose

hand can keep his head.--I will be frank and free with you--I am

conveying you to prison."

"To prison!" I exclaimed--"by what warrant or for what offence?--You

shall have my life sooner than my liberty--I defy you, and I will not

follow you a step farther."

"I do not," he said, "carry you there as a prisoner; I am," he added,

drawing himself haughtily up, "neither a messenger nor sheriff's officer.

I carry you to see a prisoner from whose lips you will learn the risk in

which you presently stand. Your liberty is little risked by the visit;

mine is in some peril; but that I readily encounter on your account, for

I care not for risk, and I love a free young blood, that kens no

protector but the cross o' the sword."

While he spoke thus, we had reached the principal street, and were

pausing before a large building of hewn stone, garnished, as I thought I

could perceive, with gratings of iron before the windows.

"Muckle," said the stranger, whose language became more broadly national

as he assumed a tone of colloquial freedom--"Muckle wad the provost and

bailies o' Glasgow gie to hae him sitting with iron garters to his hose

within their tolbooth that now stands wi' his legs as free as the

red-deer's on the outside on't. And little wad it avail them; for an if

they had me there wi' a stane's weight o' iron at every ankle, I would

show them a toom room and a lost lodger before to-morrow--But come on,

what stint ye for?"

As he spoke thus, he tapped at a low wicket, and was answered by a sharp

voice, as of one awakened from a dream or reverie,--"Fa's tat?--Wha's

that, I wad say?--and fat a deil want ye at this hour at e'en?--Clean

again rules--clean again rules, as they ca' them."

The protracted tone in which the last words were uttered, betokened that

the speaker was again composing himself to slumber. But my guide spoke in

a loud whisper--"Dougal, man! hae ye forgotten Ha nun Gregarach?"

"Deil a bit, deil a bit," was the ready and lively response, and I heard

the internal guardian of the prison-gate bustle up with great alacrity. A

few words were exchanged between my conductor and the turnkey in a

language to which I was an absolute stranger. The bolts revolved, but

with a caution which marked the apprehension that the noise might be

overheard, and we stood within the vestibule of the prison of Glasgow,--a

small, but strong guard-room, from which a narrow staircase led upwards,

and one or two low entrances conducted to apartments on the same level

with the outward gate, all secured with the jealous strength of wickets,

bolts, and bars. The walls, otherwise naked, were not unsuitably

garnished with iron fetters, and other uncouth implements, which might be

designed for purposes still more inhuman, interspersed with partisans,

guns, pistols of antique manufacture, and other weapons of defence and

offence.

At finding myself so unexpectedly, fortuitously, and, as it were, by

stealth, introduced within one of the legal fortresses of Scotland, I

could not help recollecting my adventure in Northumberland, and fretting

at the strange incidents which again, without any demerits of my own,

threatened to place me in a dangerous and disagreeable collision with the

laws of a country which I visited only in the capacity of a stranger.

CHAPTER FIFTH.

Look round thee, young Astolpho: Here's the place

Which men (for being poor) are sent to starve in;

Rude remedy, I trow, for sore disease.

Within these walls, stifled by damp and stench,

Doth Hope's fair torch expire; and at the snuff,

Ere yet 'tis quite extinct, rude, wild, and way-ward,

The desperate revelries of wild despair,

Kindling their hell-born cressets, light to deeds

That the poor captive would have died ere practised,

Till bondage sunk his soul to his condition.

The Prison, _Scene III. Act I._

At my first entrance I turned an eager glance towards my conductor; but

the lamp in the vestibule was too low in flame to give my curiosity any

satisfaction by affording a distinct perusal of his features. As the

turnkey held the light in his hand, the beams fell more full on his own

scarce less interesting figure. He was a wild shock-headed looking

animal, whose profusion of red hair covered and obscured his features,

which were otherwise only characterised by the extravagant joy that

affected him at the sight of my guide. In my experience I have met

nothing so absolutely resembling my idea of a very uncouth, wild, and

ugly savage, adoring the idol of his tribe. He grinned, he shivered, he

laughed, he was near crying, if he did not actually cry. He had a "Where

shall I go?--What can I do for you?" expression of face; the complete,

surrendered, and anxious subservience and devotion of which it is

difficult to describe, otherwise than by the awkward combination which I

have attempted. The fellow's voice seemed choking in his ecstasy, and

only could express itself in such interjections as "Oigh! oigh!--Ay!

ay!--it's lang since she's seen ye!" and other exclamations equally brief,

expressed in the same unknown tongue in which he had communicated with my

conductor while we were on the outside of the jail door. My guide

received all this excess of joyful gratulation much like a prince too

early accustomed to the homage of those around him to be much moved by

it, yet willing to requite it by the usual forms of royal courtesy. He

extended his hand graciously towards the turnkey, with a civil inquiry of

"How's a' wi' you, Dougal?"

"Oigh! oigh!" exclaimed Dougal, softening the sharp exclamations of his

surprise as he looked around with an eye of watchful alarm--"Oigh! to see

you here--to see you here!--Oigh!--what will come o' ye gin the bailies

suld come to get witting--ta filthy, gutty hallions, tat they are?"

My guide placed his finger on his lip, and said, "Fear nothing, Dougal;

your hands shall never draw a bolt on me."

"Tat sall they no," said Dougal; "she suld--she wad--that is, she wishes

them hacked aff by the elbows first--But when are ye gaun yonder again?

and ye'll no forget to let her ken--she's your puir cousin, God kens,

only seven times removed."

"I will let you ken, Dougal, as soon as my plans are settled."

"And, by her sooth, when you do, an it were twal o' the Sunday at e'en,

she'll fling her keys at the provost's head or she gie them anither turn,

and that or ever Monday morning begins--see if she winna."

My mysterious stranger cut his acquaintance's ecstasies short by again

addressing him, in what I afterwards understood to be the Irish, Earse,

or Gaelic, explaining, probably, the services which he required at his

hand. The answer, "Wi' a' her heart--wi' a' her soul," with a good deal

of indistinct muttering in a similar tone, intimated the turnkey's

acquiescence in what he proposed. The fellow trimmed his dying lamp, and

made a sign to me to follow him.

"Do you not go with us?" said I, looking to my conductor.

"It is unnecessary," he replied; "my company may be inconvenient for you,

and I had better remain to secure our retreat."

"I do not suppose you mean to betray me to danger," said I.

"To none but what I partake in doubly," answered the stranger, with a

voice of assurance which it was impossible to mistrust.

I followed the turnkey, who, leaving the inner wicket unlocked behind

him, led me up a _turnpike_ (so the Scotch call a winding stair), then

along a narrow gallery--then opening one of several doors which led into

the passage, he ushered me into a small apartment, and casting his eye on

the pallet-bed which occupied one corner, said with an under voice, as he

placed the lamp on a little deal table, "She's sleeping."

"She!--who?--can it be Diana Vernon in this abode of misery?"

I turned my eye to the bed, and it was with a mixture of disappointment

oddly mingled with pleasure, that I saw my first suspicion had deceived

me. I saw a head neither young nor beautiful, garnished with a grey beard

of two days' growth, and accommodated with a red nightcap. The first

glance put me at ease on the score of Diana Vernon; the second, as the

slumberer awoke from a heavy sleep, yawned, and rubbed his eyes,

presented me with features very different indeed--even those of my poor

friend Owen. I drew back out of view an instant, that he might have time

to recover himself; fortunately recollecting that I was but an intruder

on these cells of sorrow, and that any alarm might be attended with

unhappy consequences.

Meantime, the unfortunate formalist, raising himself from the pallet-bed

with the assistance of one hand, and scratching his cap with the other,

exclaimed in a voice in which as much peevishness as he was capable of

feeling, contended with drowsiness, "I'll tell you what, Mr. Dug-well, or

whatever your name may be, the sum-total of the matter is, that if my

natural rest is to be broken in this manner, I must complain to the lord

mayor."

"Shentlemans to speak wi' her," replied Dougal, resuming the true dogged

sullen tone of a turnkey, in exchange for the shrill clang of Highland

congratulation with which he had welcomed my mysterious guide; and,

turning on his heel, he left the apartment.

It was some time before I could prevail upon the unfortunate sleeper

awakening to recognise me; and when he did so, the distress of the worthy

creature was extreme, at supposing, which he naturally did, that I had

been sent thither as a partner of his captivity.

"O, Mr. Frank, what have you brought yourself and the house to?--I think

nothing of myself, that am a mere cipher, so to speak; but you, that was

your father's sum-total--his omnium,--you that might have been the first

man in the first house in the first city, to be shut up in a nasty Scotch

jail, where one cannot even get the dirt brushed off their clothes!"

He rubbed, with an air of peevish irritation, the once stainless brown

coat, which had now shared some of the impurities of the floor of his

prison-house,--his habits of extreme punctilious neatness acting

mechanically to increase his distress.--"O Heaven be gracious to us!" he

continued. "What news this will be on 'Change! There has not the like

come there since the battle of Almanza, where the total of the British

loss was summed up to five thousand men killed and wounded, besides a

floating balance of missing--but what will that be to the news that

Osbaldistone and Tresham have stopped!"

I broke in on his lamentations to acquaint him that I was no prisoner,

though scarce able to account for my being in that place at such an hour.

I could only silence his inquiries by persisting in those which his own

situation suggested; and at length obtained from him such information as

he was able to give me. It was none of the most distinct; for, however

clear-headed in his own routine of commercial business, Owen, you are

well aware, was not very acute in comprehending what lay beyond that

sphere.

The sum of his information was, that of two correspondents of my father's

firm at Glasgow, where, owing to engagements in Scotland formerly alluded

to, he transacted a great deal of business, both my father and Owen had

found the house of MacVittie, MacFin, and Company, the most obliging and

accommodating. They had deferred to the great English house on every

possible occasion; and in their bargains and transactions acted, without

repining, the part of the jackall, who only claims what the lion is

pleased to leave him. However small the share of profit allotted to them,

it was always, as they expressed it, "enough for the like of them;"

however large the portion of trouble, "they were sensible they could not

do too much to deserve the continued patronage and good opinion of their

honoured friends in Crane Alley."

The dictates of my father were to MacVittie and MacFin the laws of the

Medes and Persians, not to be altered, innovated, or even discussed; and

the punctilios exacted by Owen in their business transactions, for he was

a great lover of form, more especially when he could dictate it _ex

cathedra,_ seemed scarce less sanctimonious in their eyes. This tone of

deep and respectful observance went all currently down with Owen; but my

father looked a little closer into men's bosoms, and whether suspicious

of this excess of deference, or, as a lover of brevity and simplicity in

business, tired with these gentlemen's long-winded professions of regard,

he had uniformly resisted their desire to become his sole agents in

Scotland. On the contrary, he transacted many affairs through a

correspondent of a character perfectly different--a man whose good

opinion of himself amounted to self-conceit, and who, disliking the

English in general as much as my father did the Scotch, would hold no

communication but on a footing of absolute equality; jealous, moreover;

captious occasionally; as tenacious of his own opinions in point of form

as Owen could be of his; and totally indifferent though the authority of

all Lombard Street had stood against his own private opinion.

As these peculiarities of temper rendered it difficult to transact

business with Mr. Nicol Jarvie,--as they occasioned at times disputes and

coldness between the English house and their correspondent, which were

only got over by a sense of mutual interest,--as, moreover, Owen's

personal vanity sometimes suffered a little in the discussions to which

they gave rise, you cannot be surprised, Tresham, that our old friend

threw at all times the weight of his influence in favour of the civil,

discreet, accommodating concern of MacVittie and MacFin, and spoke of

Jarvie as a petulant, conceited Scotch pedlar, with whom there was no

dealing.

It was also not surprising, that in these circumstances, which I only

learned in detail some time afterwards, Owen, in the difficulties to

which the house was reduced by the absence of my father, and the

disappearance of Rashleigh, should, on his arrival in Scotland, which

took place two days before mine, have recourse to the friendship of those

correspondents, who had always professed themselves obliged, gratified,

and devoted to the service of his principal. He was received at Messrs.

MacVittie and MacFin's counting-house in the Gallowgate, with something

like the devotion a Catholic would pay to his tutelar saint. But, alas!

this sunshine was soon overclouded, when, encouraged by the fair hopes

which it inspired, he opened the difficulties of the house to his

friendly correspondents, and requested their counsel and assistance.

MacVittie was almost stunned by the communication; and MacFin, ere it was

completed, was already at the ledger of their firm, and deeply engaged in

the very bowels of the multitudinous accounts between their house and

that of Osbaldistone and Tresham, for the purpose of discovering on which

side the balance lay. Alas! the scale depressed considerably against the

English firm; and the faces of MacVittie and MacFin, hitherto only blank

and doubtful, became now ominous, grim, and lowering. They met Mr. Owen's

request of countenance and assistance with a counter-demand of instant

security against imminent hazard of eventual loss; and at length,

speaking more plainly, required that a deposit of assets, destined for

other purposes, should be placed in their hands for that purpose. Owen

repelled this demand with great indignation, as dishonourable to his

constituents, unjust to the other creditors of Osbaldistone and Tresham,

and very ungrateful on the part of those by whom it was made.

The Scotch partners gained, in the course of this controversy, what is

very convenient to persons who are in the wrong, an opportunity and

pretext for putting themselves in a violent passion, and for taking,

under the pretext of the provocation they had received, measures to which

some sense of decency, if not of conscience, might otherwise have

deterred them from resorting.

Owen had a small share, as I believe is usual, in the house to which he

acted as head-clerk, and was therefore personally liable for all its

obligations. This was known to Messrs. MacVittie and MacFin; and, with a

view of making him feel their power, or rather in order to force him, at

this emergency, into those measures in their favour, to which he had

expressed himself so repugnant, they had recourse to a summary process of

arrest and imprisonment,--which it seems the law of Scotland (therein

surely liable to much abuse) allows to a creditor, who finds his

conscience at liberty to make oath that the debtor meditates departing

from the realm. Under such a warrant had poor Owen been confined to

durance on the day preceding that when I was so strangely guided to his

prison-house.

Thus possessed of the alarming outline of facts, the question remained,

what was to be done and it was not of easy determination. I plainly

perceived the perils with which we were surrounded, but it was more

difficult to suggest any remedy. The warning which I had already received

seemed to intimate, that my own personal liberty might be endangered by

an open appearance in Owen's behalf. Owen entertained the same

apprehension, and, in the exaggeration of his terror, assured me that a

Scotchman, rather than run the risk of losing a farthing by an

Englishman, would find law for arresting his wife, children, man-servant,

maidservant, and stranger within his household. The laws concerning debt,

in most countries, are so unmercifully severe, that I could not

altogether disbelieve his statement; and my arrest, in the present

circumstances, would have been a _coup-de-grace_ to my father's affairs.

In this dilemma, I asked Owen if he had not thought of having recourse to

my father's other correspondent in Glasgow, Mr. Nicol Jarvie?

"He had sent him a letter," he replied, "that morning; but if the

smooth-tongued and civil house in the Gallowgate* had used him thus, what

was to be expected from the cross-grained crab-stock in the Salt-Market?

* [A street in the old town of Glasgow.]

You might as well ask a broker to give up his percentage, as expect a

favour from him without the _per contra._ He had not even," Owen said,

"answered his letter though it was put into his hand that morning as he

went to church." And here the despairing man-of-figures threw himself

down on his pallet, exclaiming,--"My poor dear master! My poor dear

master! O Mr. Frank, Mr. Frank, this is all your obstinacy!--But God

forgive me for saying so to you in your distress! It's God's disposing,

and man must submit."

My philosophy, Tresham, could not prevent my sharing in the honest

creature's distress, and we mingled our tears,--the more bitter on my

part, as the perverse opposition to my father's will, with which the

kind-hearted Owen forbore to upbraid me, rose up to my conscience as the

cause of all this affliction.

In the midst of our mingled sorrow, we were disturbed and surprised by a

loud knocking at the outward door of the prison. I ran to the top of the

staircase to listen, but could only hear the voice of the turnkey,

alternately in a high tone, answering to some person without, and in a

whisper, addressed to the person who had guided me hither--"She's

coming--she's coming," aloud; then in a low key, "O hon-a-ri! O hon-a-ri!

what'll she do now?--Gang up ta stair, and hide yourself ahint ta

Sassenach shentleman's ped.--She's coming as fast as she can.--Ahellanay!

it's my lord provosts, and ta pailies, and ta guard--and ta captain's

coming toon stairs too--Got press her! gang up or he meets her.--She's

coming--she's coming--ta lock's sair roosted."

While Dougal, unwillingly, and with as much delay as possible, undid the

various fastenings to give admittance to those without, whose impatience

became clamorous, my guide ascended the winding stair, and sprang into

Owen's apartment, into which I followed him. He cast his eyes hastily

round, as if looking for a place of concealment; then said to me, "Lend

me your pistols--yet it's no matter, I can do without them--Whatever you

see, take no heed, and do not mix your hand in another man's feud--This

gear's mine, and I must manage it as I dow; but I have been as hard

bested, and worse, than I am even now."

As the stranger spoke these words, he stripped from his person the

cumbrous upper coat in which he was wrapt, confronted the door of the

apartment, on which he fixed a keen and determined glance, drawing his

person a little back to concentrate his force, like a fine horse brought

up to the leaping-bar. I had not a moment's doubt that he meant to

extricate himself from his embarrassment, whatever might be the cause of

it, by springing full upon those who should appear when the doors opened,

and forcing his way through all opposition into the street;--and such was

the appearance of strength and agility displayed in his frame, and of

determination in his look and manner, that I did not doubt a moment but

that he might get clear through his opponents, unless they employed fatal

means to stop his purpose. It was a period of awful suspense betwixt the

opening of the outward gate and that of the door of the apartment, when

there appeared--no guard with bayonets fixed, or watch with clubs, bills,

or partisans, but a good-looking young woman, with grogram petticoats,

tucked up for trudging through the streets, and holding a lantern in her

hand. This female ushered in a more important personage, in form, stout,

short, and somewhat corpulent; and by dignity, as it soon appeared, a

magistrate, bob-wigged, bustling, and breathless with peevish impatience.

My conductor, at his appearance, drew back as if to escape observation;

but he could not elude the penetrating twinkle with which this dignitary

reconnoitered the whole apartment.

"A bonny thing it is, and a beseeming, that I should be kept at the door

half an hour, Captain Stanchells," said he, addressing the principal

jailor, who now showed himself at the door as if in attendance on the

great man, "knocking as hard to get into the tolbooth as onybody else wad

to get out of it, could that avail them, poor fallen creatures!--And

how's this?--how's this?--strangers in the jail after lock-up hours, and

on the Sabbath evening!--I shall look after this, Stanchells, you may

depend on't--Keep the door locked, and I'll speak to these gentlemen in a

gliffing--But first I maun hae a crack wi' an auld acquaintance here.--

Mr. Owen, Mr. Owen, how's a' wi' ye, man?"

"Pretty well in body, I thank you, Mr. Jarvie," drawled out poor Owen,

"but sore afflicted in spirit."

"Nae doubt, nae doubt--ay, ay--it's an awfu' whummle--and for ane that

held his head sae high too--human nature, human nature--Ay ay, we're a'

subject to a downcome. Mr. Osbaldistone is a gude honest gentleman; but I

aye said he was ane o' them wad make a spune or spoil a horn, as my

father the worthy deacon used to say. The deacon used to say to me,

'Nick--young Nick' (his name was Nicol as weel as mine; sae folk ca'd us

in their daffin', young Nick and auld Nick)--'Nick,' said he, 'never put

out your arm farther than ye can draw it easily back again.' I hae said

sae to Mr. Osbaldistone, and he didna seem to take it a'thegither sae

kind as I wished--but it was weel meant--weel meant."

This discourse, delivered with prodigious volubility, and a great

appearance of self-complacency, as he recollected his own advice and

predictions, gave little promise of assistance at the hands of Mr.

Jarvie. Yet it soon appeared rather to proceed from a total want of

delicacy than any deficiency of real kindness; for when Owen expressed

himself somewhat hurt that these things should be recalled to memory in

his present situation, the Glaswegian took him by the hand, and bade him

"Cheer up a gliff! D'ye think I wad hae comed out at twal o'clock at

night, and amaist broken the Lord's day, just to tell a fa'en man o' his

backslidings? Na, na, that's no Bailie Jarvie's gate, nor was't his

worthy father's the deacon afore him. Why, man! it's my rule never to

think on warldly business on the Sabbath, and though I did a' I could to

keep your note that I gat this morning out o' my head, yet I thought mair

on it a' day, than on the preaching--And it's my rule to gang to my bed

wi' the yellow curtains preceesely at ten o'clock--unless I were eating a

haddock wi' a neighbour, or a neighbour wi' me--ask the lass-quean there,

if it isna a fundamental rule in my household; and here hae I sitten up

reading gude books, and gaping as if I wad swallow St. Enox Kirk, till it

chappit twal, whilk was a lawfu' hour to gie a look at my ledger, just to

see how things stood between us; and then, as time and tide wait for no

man, I made the lass get the lantern, and came slipping my ways here to

see what can be dune anent your affairs. Bailie Jarvie can command

entrance into the tolbooth at ony hour, day or night;--sae could my

father the deacon in his time, honest man, praise to his memory."

Although Owen groaned at the mention of the ledger, leading me grievously

to fear that here also the balance stood in the wrong column; and

although the worthy magistrate's speech expressed much self-complacency,

and some ominous triumph in his own superior judgment, yet it was blended

with a sort of frank and blunt good-nature, from which I could not help

deriving some hopes. He requested to see some papers he mentioned,

snatched them hastily from Owen's hand, and sitting on the bed, to "rest

his shanks," as he was pleased to express the accommodation which that

posture afforded him, his servant girl held up the lantern to him, while,

pshawing, muttering, and sputtering, now at the imperfect light, now at

the contents of the packet, he ran over the writings it contained.

Seeing him fairly engaged in this course of study, the guide who had

brought me hither seemed disposed to take an unceremonious leave. He made

a sign to me to say nothing, and intimated, by his change of posture, an

intention to glide towards the door in such a manner as to attract the

least possible observation. But the alert magistrate (very different from

my old acquaintance, Mr. Justice Inglewood) instantly detected and

interrupted his purposes. "I say, look to the door, Stanchells--shut and

lock it, and keep watch on the outside."

The stranger's brow darkened, and he seemed for an instant again to

meditate the effecting his retreat by violence; but ere he had

determined, the door closed, and the ponderous bolt revolved. He muttered

an exclamation in Gaelic, strode across the floor, and then, with an air

of dogged resolution, as if fixed and prepared to see the scene to an

end, sate himself down on the oak table, and whistled a strathspey.

Mr. Jarvie, who seemed very alert and expeditious in going through

business, soon showed himself master of that which he had been

considering, and addressed himself to Mr. Owen in the following strain:--

"Weel, Mr. Owen, weel--your house are awin' certain sums to Messrs.

MacVittie and MacFin (shame fa' their souple snouts! they made that and

mair out o' a bargain about the aik-woods at Glen-Cailziechat, that they

took out atween my teeth--wi' help o' your gude word, I maun needs say,

Mr. Owen--but that makes nae odds now)--Weel, sir, your house awes them

this siller; and for this, and relief of other engagements they stand in

for you, they hae putten a double turn o' Stanchells' muckle key on ye.--

Weel, sir, ye awe this siller--and maybe ye awe some mair to some other

body too--maybe ye awe some to myself, Bailie Nicol Jarvie."

"I cannot deny, sir, but the balance may of this date be brought out

against us, Mr. Jarvie," said Owen; "but you'll please to consider"--

"I hae nae time to consider e'enow, Mr. Owen--Sae near Sabbath at e'en,

and out o' ane's warm bed at this time o' night, and a sort o' drow in

the air besides--there's nae time for considering--But, sir, as I was

saying, ye awe me money--it winna deny--ye awe me money, less or mair,

I'll stand by it. But then, Mr. Owen, I canna see how you, an active man

that understands business, can redd out the business ye're come down

about, and clear us a' aff--as I have gritt hope ye will--if ye're keepit

lying here in the tolbooth of Glasgow. Now, sir, if you can find caution

_judicio sisti,_--that is, that ye winna flee the country, but appear and

relieve your caution when ca'd for in our legal courts, ye may be set at

liberty this very morning."

"Mr. Jarvie," said Owen, "if any friend would become surety for me to

that effect, my liberty might be usefully employed, doubtless, both for

the house and all connected with it."

"Aweel, sir," continued Jarvie, "and doubtless such a friend wad expect

ye to appear when ca'd on, and relieve him o' his engagement."

"And I should do so as certainly, bating sickness or death, as that two

and two make four."

"Aweel, Mr. Owen," resumed the citizen of Glasgow, "I dinna misdoubt ye,

and I'll prove it, sir--I'll prove it. I am a carefu' man, as is weel

ken'd, and industrious, as the hale town can testify; and I can win my

crowns, and keep my crowns, and count my crowns, wi' onybody in the Saut

Market, or it may be in the Gallowgate. And I'm a prudent man, as my

father the deacon was before me;--but rather than an honest civil

gentleman, that understands business, and is willing to do justice to all

men, should lie by the heels this gate, unable to help himsell or onybody

else--why, conscience, man! I'll be your bail myself--But ye'll mind it's

a bail _judicio sisti,_ as our town-clerk says, not _judicatum solvi;_

ye'll mind that, for there's muckle difference."

Mr. Owen assured him, that as matters then stood, he could not expect any

one to become surety for the actual payment of the debt, but that there

was not the most distant cause for apprehending loss from his failing to

present himself when lawfully called upon.

"I believe ye--I believe ye. Eneugh said--eneugh said. We'se hae your

legs loose by breakfast-time.--And now let's hear what thir chamber

chiels o' yours hae to say for themselves, or how, in the name of unrule,

they got here at this time o' night."

[Illustration: Rob Roy in Prison--68]

CHAPTER SIXTH.

Hame came our gudeman at e'en,

And hame came he,

And there he saw a man

Where a man suldna be.

"How's this now, kimmer?

How's this?" quo he,--

"How came this carle here

Without the leave o' me?"

Old Song.

The magistrate took the light out of the servant-maid's hand, and

advanced to his scrutiny, like Diogenes in the street of Athens,

lantern-in-hand, and probably with as little expectation as that of the

cynic, that he was likely to encounter any especial treasure in the

course of his researches. The first whom he approached was my mysterious

guide, who, seated on a table as I have already described him, with his

eyes firmly fixed on the wall, his features arranged into the utmost

inflexibility of expression, his hands folded on his breast with an air

betwixt carelessness and defiance, his heel patting against the foot of

the table, to keep time with the tune which he continued to whistle,

submitted to Mr. Jarvie's investigation with an air of absolute

confidence and assurance which, for a moment, placed at fault the memory

and sagacity of the acute investigator.

"Ah!--Eh!--Oh!" exclaimed the Bailie. "My conscience!--it's

impossible!--and yet--no!--Conscience!--it canna be!--and yet

again--Deil hae me, that I suld say sae!--Ye robber--ye cateran--ye born

deevil that ye are, to a' bad ends and nae gude ane!--can this be you?"

"E'en as ye see, Bailie," was the laconic answer.

"Conscience! if I am na clean bumbaized--_you_, ye cheat-the-wuddy

rogue--_you_ here on your venture in the tolbooth o' Glasgow?--What d'ye

think's the value o' your head?"

"Umph!--why, fairly weighed, and Dutch weight, it might weigh down one

provost's, four bailies', a town-clerk's, six deacons', besides

stent-masters'"--

"Ah, ye reiving villain!" interrupted Mr. Jarvie. "But tell ower your

sins, and prepare ye, for if I say the word"--

"True, Bailie," said he who was thus addressed, folding his hands behind

him with the utmost _nonchalance,_ "but ye will never say that word."

"And why suld I not, sir?" exclaimed the magistrate--"Why suld I not?

Answer me that--why suld I not?"

"For three sufficient reasons, Bailie Jarvie.--First, for auld langsyne;

second, for the sake of the auld wife ayont the fire at Stuckavrallachan,

that made some mixture of our bluids, to my own proper shame be it

spoken! that has a cousin wi' accounts, and yarn winnles, and looms and

shuttles, like a mere mechanical person; and lastly, Bailie, because if I

saw a sign o' your betraying me, I would plaster that wa' with your harns

ere the hand of man could rescue you!"

"Ye're a bauld desperate villain, sir," retorted the undaunted Bailie;

"and ye ken that I ken ye to be sae, and that I wadna stand a moment for

my ain risk."

"I ken weel," said the other, "ye hae gentle bluid in your veins, and I

wad be laith to hurt my ain kinsman. But I'll gang out here as free as I

came in, or the very wa's o' Glasgow tolbooth shall tell o't these ten

years to come."

"Weel, weel," said Mr. Jarvie, "bluid's thicker than water; and it liesna

in kith, kin, and ally, to see motes in ilka other's een if other een see

them no. It wad be sair news to the auld wife below the Ben of

Stuckavrallachan, that you, ye Hieland limmer, had knockit out my harns,

or that I had kilted you up in a tow. But ye'll own, ye dour deevil, that

were it no your very sell, I wad hae grippit the best man in the

Hielands."

"Ye wad hae tried, cousin," answered my guide, "that I wot weel; but I

doubt ye wad hae come aff wi' the short measure; for we gang-there-out

Hieland bodies are an unchancy generation when you speak to us o'

bondage. We downa bide the coercion of gude braid-claith about our

hinderlans, let a be breeks o' free-stone, and garters o' iron."

"Ye'll find the stane breeks and the airn garters--ay, and the hemp

cravat, for a' that, neighbour," replied the Bailie.

"Nae man in a civilised country ever played the pliskies ye hae done--but

e'en pickle in your ain pock-neuk--I hae gi'en ye wanting."

"Well, cousin," said the other, "ye'll wear black at my burial."

"Deil a black cloak will be there, Robin, but the corbies and the

hoodie-craws, I'se gie ye my hand on that. But whar's the gude thousand

pund Scots that I lent ye, man, and when am I to see it again?"

"Where it is," replied my guide, after the affectation of considering for

a moment, "I cannot justly tell--probably where last year's snaw is."

"And that's on the tap of Schehallion, ye Hieland dog," said Mr. Jarvie;

"and I look for payment frae you where ye stand."

"Ay," replied the Highlander, "but I keep neither snaw nor dollars in my

sporran. And as to when you'll see it--why, just when the king enjoys his

ain again, as the auld sang says."

"Warst of a', Robin," retorted the Glaswegian,--"I mean, ye disloyal

traitor--Warst of a'!--Wad ye bring popery in on us, and arbitrary power,

and a foist and a warming-pan, and the set forms, and the curates, and

the auld enormities o' surplices and cerements? Ye had better stick

to your auld trade o' theft-boot, black-mail, spreaghs, and

gillravaging--better stealing nowte than ruining nations."

"Hout, man--whisht wi' your whiggery," answered the Celt; "we hae ken'd

ane anither mony a lang day. I'se take care your counting-room is no

cleaned out when the Gillon-a-naillie* come to redd up the Glasgow

buiths, and clear them o' their auld shop-wares.

* The lads with the kilts or petticoats.

And, unless it just fa' in the preceese way o' your duty, ye maunna see

me oftener, Nicol, than I am disposed to be seen."

"Ye are a dauring villain, Rob," answered the Bailie; "and ye will be

hanged, that will be seen and heard tell o'; but I'se ne'er be the ill

bird and foul my nest, set apart strong necessity and the skreigh of

duty, which no man should hear and be inobedient. And wha the deevil's

this?" he continued, turning to me--"Some gillravager that ye hae listed,

I daur say. He looks as if he had a bauld heart to the highway, and a

lang craig for the gibbet."

"This, good Mr. Jarvie," said Owen, who, like myself, had been struck

dumb during this strange recognition, and no less strange dialogue, which

took place betwixt these extraordinary kinsmen--"This, good Mr. Jarvie,

is young Mr. Frank Osbaldistone, only child of the head of our house, who

should have been taken into our firm at the time Mr. Rashleigh

Osbaldistone, his cousin, had the luck to be taken into it"--(Here Owen

could not suppress a groan)--"But howsoever"--

"Oh, I have heard of that smaik," said the Scotch merchant, interrupting

him; "it is he whom your principal, like an obstinate auld fule, wad make

a merchant o', wad he or wad he no,--and the lad turned a strolling

stage-player, in pure dislike to the labour an honest man should live by.

Weel, sir, what say you to your handiwork? Will Hamlet the Dane, or

Hamlet's ghost, be good security for Mr. Owen, sir?"

"I don't deserve your taunt," I replied, "though I respect your motive,

and am too grateful for the assistance you have afforded Mr. Owen, to

resent it. My only business here was to do what I could (it is perhaps

very little) to aid Mr. Owen in the management of my father's affairs. My

dislike of the commercial profession is a feeling of which I am the best

and sole judge."

"I protest," said the Highlander, "I had some respect for this callant

even before I ken'd what was in him; but now I honour him for his

contempt of weavers and spinners, and sic-like mechanical persons and

their pursuits."

"Ye're mad, Rob," said the Bailie--"mad as a March hare--though wherefore

a hare suld be mad at March mair than at Martinmas, is mair than I can

weel say. Weavers! Deil shake ye out o' the web the weaver craft made.

Spinners! ye'll spin and wind yourself a bonny pirn. And this young

birkie here, that ye're hoying and hounding on the shortest road to the

gallows and the deevil, will his stage-plays and his poetries help him

here, dye think, ony mair than your deep oaths and drawn dirks, ye

reprobate that ye are?--Will _Tityre tu patulae,_ as they ca' it, tell

him where Rashleigh Osbaldistone is? or Macbeth, and all his kernes and

galla-glasses, and your awn to boot, Rob, procure him five thousand

pounds to answer the bills which fall due ten days hence, were they a'

rouped at the Cross,--basket-hilts, Andra-Ferraras, leather targets,

brogues, brochan, and sporrans?"

"Ten days," I answered, and instinctively drew out Diana Vernon's packet;

and the time being elapsed during which I was to keep the seal sacred, I

hastily broke it open. A sealed letter fell from a blank enclosure, owing

to the trepidation with which I opened the parcel. A slight current of

wind, which found its way through a broken pane of the window, wafted the

letter to Mr. Jarvie's feet, who lifted it, examined the address with

unceremonious curiosity, and, to my astonishment, handed itto his

Highland kinsman, saying, "Here's a wind has blown a letter to its right

owner, though there were ten thousand chances against its coming to

hand."

The Highlander, having examined the address, broke the letter open

without the least ceremony. I endeavoured to interrupt his proceeding.

"You must satisfy me, sir," said I, "that the letter is intended for you

before I can permit you to peruse it."

"Make yourself quite easy, Mr. Osbaldistone," replied the mountaineer

with great composure.--"remember Justice Inglewood, Clerk Jobson, Mr.

Morris--above all, remember your vera humble servant, Robert Cawmil, and

the beautiful Diana Vernon. Remember all this, and doubt no longer that

the letter is for me."

I remained astonished at my own stupidity.--Through the whole night, the

voice, and even the features of this man, though imperfectly seen,

haunted me with recollections to which I could assign no exact local or

personal associations. But now the light dawned on me at once; this man

was Campbell himself. His whole peculiarities flashed on me at once,--the

deep strong voice--the inflexible, stern, yet considerate cast of

features--the Scottish brogue, with its corresponding dialect and

imagery, which, although he possessed the power at times of laying them

aside, recurred at every moment of emotion, and gave pith to his sarcasm,

or vehemence to his expostulation. Rather beneath the middle size than

above it, his limbs were formed upon the very strongest model that is

consistent with agility, while from the remarkable ease and freedom of

his movements, you could not doubt his possessing the latter quality in a

high degree of perfection. Two points in his person interfered with the

rules of symmetry; his shoulders were so broad in proportion to his

height, as, notwithstanding the lean and lathy appearance of his frame,

gave him something the air of being too square in respect to his stature;

and his arms, though round, sinewy, and strong, were so very long as to

be rather a deformity. I afterwards heard that this length of arm was a

circumstance on which he prided himself; that when he wore his native

Highland garb, he could tie the garters of his hose without stooping; and

that it gave him great advantage in the use of the broad-sword, at which

he was very dexterous. But certainly this want of symmetry destroyed the

claim he might otherwise have set up, to be accounted a very handsome

man; it gave something wild, irregular, and, as it were, unearthly, to

his appearance, and reminded me involuntarily of the tales which Mabel

used to tell of the old Picts who ravaged Northumberland in ancient

times, who, according to her tradition, were a sort of half-goblin

half-human beings, distinguished, like this man, for courage, cunning,

ferocity, the length of their arms, and the squareness of their

shoulders.

When, however, I recollected the circumstances in which we formerly met,

I could not doubt that the billet was most probably designed for him. He

had made a marked figure among those mysterious personages over whom

Diana seemed to exercise an influence, and from whom she experienced an

influence in her turn. It was painful to think that the fate of a being

so amiable was involved in that of desperadoes of this man's

description;--yet it seemed impossible to doubt it. Of what use, however,

could this person be to my father's affairs?--I could think only of one.

Rashleigh Osbaldistone had, at the instigation of Miss Vernon, certainly

found means to produce Mr. Campbell when his presence was necessary to

exculpate me from Morris's accusation--Was it not possible that her

influence, in like manner, might prevail on Campbell to produce

Rashleigh? Speaking on this supposition, I requested to know where my

dangerous kinsman was, and when Mr. Campbell had seen him. The answer was

indirect.

"It's a kittle cast she has gien me to play; but yet it's fair play, and

I winna baulk her. Mr. Osbaldistone, I dwell not very far from hence--my

kinsman can show you the way--Leave Mr. Owen to do the best he can in

Glasgow--do you come and see me in the glens, and it's like I may

pleasure you, and stead your father in his extremity. I am but a poor

man; but wit's better than wealth--and, cousin" (turning from me to

address Mr. Jarvie), "if ye daur venture sae muckle as to eat a dish of

Scotch collops, and a leg o' red-deer venison wi' me, come ye wi' this

Sassenach gentleman as far as Drymen or Bucklivie,--or the Clachan of

Aberfoil will be better than ony o' them,--and I'll hae somebody waiting

to weise ye the gate to the place where I may be for the time--What say

ye, man? There's my thumb, I'll ne'er beguile thee."

"Na, na, Robin," said the cautious burgher, "I seldom like to leave the

Gorbals;* I have nae freedom to gang among your wild hills, Robin, and

your kilted red-shanks--it disna become my place, man."

* [The _Gorbals_ or "suburbs" are situate on the south side of the

River.]

"The devil damn your place and you baith!" reiterated Campbell. "The only

drap o' gentle bluid that's in your body was our great-grand-uncle's that

was justified* at Dumbarton, and you set yourself up to say ye wad

derogate frae your place to visit me!

* [Executed for treason.]

Hark thee, man--I owe thee a day in harst--I'll pay up your thousan pund

Scots, plack and bawbee, gin ye'll be an honest fallow for anes, and just

daiker up the gate wi' this Sassenach."

"Hout awa' wi' your gentility," replied the Bailie; "carry your gentle

bluid to the Cross, and see what ye'll buy wi't. But, if I _were_ to

come, wad ye really and soothfastly pay me the siller?"

"I swear to ye," said the Highlander, "upon the halidome of him that

sleeps beneath the grey stane at Inch-Cailleach."*

* Inch-Cailleach is an island in Lochlomond, where the clan of MacGregor

were wont to be interred, and where their sepulchres may still be seen.

It formerly contained a nunnery: hence the name of Inch-Cailleach, or the

island of Old Women.

"Say nae mair, Robin--say nae mair--We'll see what may be dune. But ye

maunna expect me to gang ower the Highland line--I'll gae beyond the line

at no rate. Ye maun meet me about Bucklivie or the Clachan of

Aberfoil,--and dinna forget the needful."

"Nae fear--nae fear," said Campbell; "I'll be as true as the steel blade

that never failed its master. But I must be budging, cousin, for the air

o' Glasgow tolbooth is no that ower salutary to a Highlander's

constitution."

"Troth," replied the merchant, "and if my duty were to be dune, ye

couldna change your atmosphere, as the minister ca's it, this ae wee

while.--Ochon, that I sud ever be concerned in aiding and abetting an

escape frae justice! it will be a shame and disgrace to me and mine, and

my very father's memory, for ever."

"Hout tout, man! let that flee stick in the wa'," answered his kinsman;

"when the dirt's dry it will rub out--Your father, honest man, could look

ower a friend's fault as weel as anither."

"Ye may be right, Robin," replied the Bailie, after a moment's

reflection; "he was a considerate man the deacon; he ken'd we had a' our

frailties, and he lo'ed his friends--Ye'll no hae forgotten him, Robin?"

This question he put in a softened tone, conveying as much at least of

the ludicrous as the pathetic.

"Forgotten him!" replied his kinsman--"what suld ail me to forget him?--a

wapping weaver he was, and wrought my first pair o' hose.--But come awa',

kinsman,

Come fill up my cap, come fill up my cann,

Come saddle my horses, and call up my man;

Come open your gates, and let me gae free,

I daurna stay langer in bonny Dundee."

"Whisht, sir!" said the magistrate, in an authoritative tone--"lilting

and singing sae near the latter end o' the Sabbath! This house may hear

ye sing anither tune yet--Aweel, we hae a' backslidings to answer

for--Stanchells, open the door."

The jailor obeyed, and we all sallied forth. Stanchells looked with some

surprise at the two strangers, wondering, doubtless, how they came into

these premises without his knowledge; but Mr. Jarvie's "Friends o' mine,

Stanchells--friends o' mine," silenced all disposition to inquiries. We

now descended into the lower vestibule, and hallooed more than once for

Dougal, to which summons no answer was returned; when Campbell observed

with a sardonic smile, "That if Dougal was the lad he kent him, he would

scarce wait to get thanks for his ain share of the night's wark, but was

in all probability on the full trot to the pass of Ballamaha"--

"And left us--and, abune a', me, mysell, locked up in the tolbooth a'

night!" exclaimed the Bailie, in ire and perturbation. "Ca' for

forehammers, sledge-hammers, pinches, and coulters; send for Deacon

Yettlin, the smith, an let him ken that Bailie Jarvie's shut up in the

tolbooth by a Highland blackguard, whom he'll hang up as high as Haman"--

"When ye catch him," said Campbell, gravely; "but stay--the door is

surely not locked."

Indeed, on examination, we found that the door was not only left open,

but that Dougal in his retreat had, by carrying off the keys along with

him, taken care that no one should exercise his office of porter in a

hurry.

"He has glimmerings o' common sense now, that creature Dougal," said

Campbell.--"he ken'd an open door might hae served me at a pinch."

We were by this time in the street.

"I tell you, Robin," said the magistrate, "in my puir mind, if ye live

the life ye do, ye suld hae ane o' your gillies door-keeper in every jail

in Scotland, in case o' the warst."

"Ane o' my kinsmen a bailie in ilka burgh will just do as weel, cousin

Nicol--So, gude-night or gude-morning to ye; and forget not the Clachan

of Aberfoil."

And without waiting for an answer, he sprung to the other side of the

street, and was lost in darkness. Immediately on his disappearance, we

heard him give a low whistle of peculiar modulation, which was instantly

replied to.

"Hear to the Hieland deevils," said Mr. Jarvie; "they think themselves on

the skirts of Benlomond already, where they may gang whewingand whistling

about without minding Sunday or Saturday." Here he was interrupted by

something which fell with a heavy clash on the street before us--"Gude

guide us what's this mair o't?--Mattie, haud up the lantern--Conscience

if it isna the keys!--Weel, that's just as weel--they cost the burgh

siller, and there might hae been some clavers about the loss o' them. O,

an Bailie Grahame were to get word o' this night's job, it would be a

sair hair in my neck!"

As we were still but a few steps from the tolbooth door, we carried back

these implements of office, and consigned them to the head jailor, who,

in lieu of the usual mode of making good his post by turning the keys,

was keeping sentry in the vestibule till the arrival of some assistant,

whom he had summoned in order to replace the Celtic fugitive Dougal.

Having discharged this piece of duty to the burgh, and my road lying the

same way with the honest magistrate's, I profited by the light of his

lantern, and he by my arm, to find our way through the streets, which,

whatever they may now be, were then dark, uneven, and ill-paved. Age is

easily propitiated by attentions from the young. The Bailie expressed

himself interested in me, and added, "That since I was nane o' that

play-acting and play-ganging generation, whom his saul hated, he wad be

glad if I wad eat a reisted haddock or a fresh herring, at breakfast wi'

him the morn, and meet my friend, Mr. Owen, whom, by that time, he would

place at liberty."

"My dear sir," said I, when I had accepted of the invitation with thanks,

"how could you possibly connect me with the stage?"

"I watna," replied Mr. Jarvie;--"it was a bletherin' phrasin' chield they

ca' Fairservice, that cam at e'en to get an order to send the crier

through the toun for ye at skreigh o' day the morn. He tell't me whae ye

were, and how ye were sent frae your father's house because ye wadna be a

dealer, and that ye mightna disgrace your family wi' ganging on the

stage. Ane Hammorgaw, our precentor, brought him here, and said he was an

auld acquaintance; but I sent them both away wi' a flae in their lug for

bringing me sic an errand, on sic a night. But I see he's a fule-creature

a'thegither, and clean mistaen about ye. I like ye, man," he continued;

"I like a lad that will stand by his friends in trouble--I aye did it

mysell, and sae did the deacon my father, rest and bless him! But ye

suldna keep ower muckle company wi' Hielandmen and thae wild cattle. Can

a man touch pitch and no be defiled?--aye mind that. Nae doubt, the best

and wisest may err--Once, twice, and thrice have I backslidden, man, and

dune three things this night--my father wadna hae believed his een if he

could hae looked up and seen me do them."

He was by this time arrived at the door of his own dwelling. He paused,

however, on the threshold, and went on in a solemn tone of deep

contrition,--"Firstly, I hae thought my ain thoughts on the

Sabbath--secondly, I hae gi'en security for an Englishman--and, in the

third and last place, well-a-day! I hae let an ill-doer escape from the

place of imprisonment--But there's balm in Gilead, Mr. Osbaldistone--

Mattie, I can let mysell in--see Mr. Osbaldistone to Luckie Flyter's, at

the corner o' the wynd.--Mr. Osbaldistone"--in a whisper--"ye'll offer

nae incivility to Mattie--she's an honest man's daughter, and a near

cousin o' the Laird

o' Limmerfield's."

CHAPTER SEVENTH.

"Will it please your worship to accept of my poor service? I beseech

that I may feed upon your bread, though it be the brownest, and

drink of your drink, though it be of the smallest; for I will do

your Worship as much service for forty shillings as another man

shall for three pounds."

Greene's _Tu Quoque._

I remembered the honest Bailie's parting charge, but did not conceive

there was any incivility in adding a kiss to the half-crown with which I

remunerated Mattie's attendance;--nor did her "Fie for shame, sir!"

express any very deadly resentment of the affront. Repeated knocking at

Mrs. Flyter's gate awakened in due order, first, one or two stray dogs,

who began to bark with all their might; next two or three night-capped

heads, which were thrust out of the neighbouring windows to reprehend me

for disturbing the solemnity of the Sunday night by that untimely noise.

While I trembled lest the thunders of their wrath might dissolve in

showers like that of Xantippe, Mrs. Flyter herself awoke, and began, in a

tone of objurgation not unbecoming the philosophical spouse of Socrates,

to scold one or two loiterers in her kitchen, for not hastening to the

door to prevent a repetition of my noisy summons.

These worthies were, indeed, nearly concerned in the fracas which their

laziness occasioned, being no other than the faithful Mr. Fairservice,

with his friend Mr. Hammorgaw, and another person, whom I afterwards

found to be the town-crier, who were sitting over a cog of ale, as they

called it (at my expense, as my bill afterwards informed me), in order to

devise the terms and style of a proclamation to be made through the

streets the next day, in order that "the unfortunate young gentleman," as

they had the impudence to qualify me, might be restored to his friends

without farther delay. It may be supposed that I did not suppress my

displeasure at this impertinent interference with my affairs; but Andrew

set up such ejaculations of transport at my arrival, as fairly drowned my

expressions of resentment. His raptures, perchance, were partly

political; and the tears of joy which he shed had certainly their source

in that noble fountain of emotion, the tankard. However, the tumultuous

glee which he felt, or pretended to feel, at my return, saved Andrew the

broken head which I had twice destined him;--first, on account of the

colloquy he had held with the precentor on my affairs; and secondly, for

the impertinent history he had thought proper to give of me to Mr.

Jarvie. I however contented myself with slapping the door of my bedroom

in his face as he followed me, praising Heaven for my safe return, and

mixing his joy with admonitions to me to take care how I walked my own

ways in future. I then went to bed, resolving my first business in the

morning should be to discharge this troublesome, pedantic, self-conceited

coxcomb, who seemed so much disposed to constitute himself rather a

preceptor than a domestic.

Accordingly in the morning I resumed my purpose, and calling Andrew into

my, apartment, requested to know his charge for guiding and attending me

as far as Glasgow. Mr. Fairservice looked very blank at this demand,

justly considering it as a presage to approaching dismission.

"Your honour," he said, after some hesitation, "wunna think--wunna

think"--

"Speak out, you rascal, or I'll break your head," said I, as Andrew,

between the double risk of losing all by asking too much, or a part, by

stating his demand lower than what I might be willing to pay, stood

gasping in the agony of doubt and calculation.

Out it came with a bolt, however, at my threat; as the kind violence of a

blow on the back sometimes delivers the windpipe from an intrusive

morsel.--"Aughteen pennies sterling per diem--that is, by the day--your

honour wadna think unconscionable."

"It is double what is usual, and treble what you merit, Andrew; but

there's a guinea for you, and get about your business."

"The Lord forgi'e us! Is your honour mad?" exclaimed Andrew.

"No; but I think you mean to make me so--I give you a third above your

demand, and you stand staring and expostulating there as if I were

cheating you. Take your money, and go about your business."

"Gude safe us!" continued Andrew, "in what can I hae offended your

honour? Certainly a' flesh is but as the flowers of the field; but if a

bed of camomile hath value in medicine, of a surety the use of Andrew

Fairservice to your honour is nothing less evident--it's as muckle as

your life's worth to part wi' me."

"Upon my honour," replied I, "it is difficult to say whether you are more

knave or fool. So you intend then to remain with me whether I like it or

no?"

"Troth, I was e'en thinking sae," replied Andrew, dogmatically; "for if

your honour disna ken when ye hae a gude servant, I ken when I hae a gude

master, and the deil be in my feet gin I leave ye--and there's the brief

and the lang o't besides I hae received nae regular warning to quit my

place."

"Your place, sir!" said I;--"why, you are no hired servant of mine,--you

are merely a guide, whose knowledge of the country I availed myself of on

my road."

"I am no just a common servant, I admit, sir," remonstrated Mr.

Fairservice; "but your honour kens I quitted a gude place at an hour's

notice, to comply wi' your honour's solicitations. A man might make

honestly, and wi' a clear conscience, twenty sterling pounds per annum,

weel counted siller, o' the garden at Osbaldistone Hall, and I wasna

likely to gi'e up a' that for a guinea, I trow--I reckoned on staying wi'

your honour to the term's end at the least o't; and I account my wage,

board-wage, fee and bountith,--ay, to that length o't at the least."

"Come, come, sir," replied I, "these impudent pretensions won't serve

your turn; and if I hear any more of them, I shall convince you that

Squire Thorncliff is not the only one of my name that can use his

fingers."

While I spoke thus, the whole matter struck me as so ridiculous, that,

though really angry, I had some difficulty to forbear laughing at the

gravity with which Andrew supported a plea so utterly extravagant. The

rascal, aware of the impression he had made on my muscles, was encouraged

to perseverance. He judged it safer, however, to take his pretensions a

peg lower, in case of overstraining at the same time both his plea and my

patience.

"Admitting that my honour could part with a faithful servant, that had

served me and mine by day and night for twenty years, in a strange place,

and at a moment's warning, he was weel assured," he said, "it wasna in my

heart, nor in no true gentleman's, to pit a puir lad like himself, that

had come forty or fifty, or say a hundred miles out o' his road purely to

bear my honour company, and that had nae handing but his penny-fee, to

sic a hardship as this comes to."

I think it was you, Will, who once told me, that, to be an obstinate man,

I am in certain things the most gullable and malleable of mortals. The

fact is, that it is only contradiction which makes me peremptory, and

when I do not feel myself called on to give battle to any proposition, I

am always willing to grant it, rather than give myself much trouble. I

knew this fellow to be a greedy, tiresome, meddling coxcomb; still,

however, I must have some one about me in the quality of guide and

domestic, and I was so much used to Andrew's humour, that on some

occasions it was rather amusing. In the state of indecision to which

these reflections led me, I asked Fairservice if he knew the roads,

towns, etc., in the north of Scotland, to which my father's concerns with

the proprietors of Highland forests were likely to lead me. I believe if

I had asked him the road to the terrestrial paradise, he would have at

that moment undertaken to guide me to it; so that I had reason afterwards

to think myself fortunate in finding that his actual knowledge did not

fall very much short of that which he asserted himself to possess. I

fixed the amount of his wages, and reserved to myself the privilege of

dismissing him when I chose, on paying him a week in advance. I gave him

finally a severe lecture on his conduct of the preceding day, and then

dismissed him rejoicing at heart, though somewhat crestfallen in

countenance, to rehearse to his friend the precentor, who was taking his

morning draught in the kitchen, the mode in which he had "cuitled up the

daft young English squire."

Agreeable to appointment, I went next to Bailie Nicol Jarvie's, where a

comfortable morning's repast was arranged in the parlour, which served as

an apartment of all hours, and almost all work, to that honest gentleman.

The bustling and benevolent magistrate had been as good as his word. I

found my friend Owen at liberty, and, conscious of the refreshments and

purification of brush and basin, was of course a very different person

from Owen a prisoner, squalid, heart-broken, and hopeless. Yet the sense

of pecuniary difficulties arising behind, before, and around him, had

depressed his spirit, and the almost paternal embrace which the good man

gave me, was embittered by a sigh of the deepest anxiety. And when he

sate down, the heaviness in his eye and manner, so different from the

quiet composed satisfaction which they usually exhibited, indicated that

he was employing his arithmetic in mentally numbering up the days, the

hours, the minutes, which yet remained as an interval between the

dishonour of bills and the downfall of the great commercial establishment

of Osbaldistone and Tresham. It was left to me, therefore, to do honour

to our landlord's hospitable cheer--to his tea, right from China, which

he got in a present from some eminent ship's-husband at Wapping--to his

coffee, from a snug plantation of his own, as he informed us with a wink,

called Saltmarket Grove, in the island of Jamaica--to his English toast

and ale, his Scotch dried salmon, his Lochfine herrings, and even to the

double-damask table-cloth, "wrought by no hand, as you may guess," save

that of his deceased father the worthy Deacon Jarvie.

Having conciliated our good-humoured host by those little attentions

which are great to most men, I endeavoured in my turn to gain from him

some information which might be useful for my guidance, as well as for

the satisfaction of my curiosity. We had not hitherto made the least

allusion to the transactions of the preceding night, a circumstance which

made my question sound somewhat abrupt, when, without any previous

introduction of the subject, I took advantage of a pause when the history

of the table-cloth ended, and that of the napkins was about to commence,

to inquire, "Pray, by the by, Mr. Jarvie, who may this Mr. Robert

Campbell be, whom we met with last night?"

The interrogatory seemed to strike the honest magistrate, to use the

vulgar phrase, "all of a heap," and instead of answering, he returned the

question--"Whae's Mr. Robert Campbell?--ahem! ahay! Whae's Mr. Robert

Campbell, quo' he?"

"Yes," said I, "I mean who and what is he?"

"Why, he's--ahay!--he's--ahem!--Where did ye meet with Mr. Robert

Campbell, as ye ca' him?"

"I met him by chance," I replied, "some months ago in the north of

England."

"Ou then, Mr. Osbaldistone," said the Bailie, doggedly, "ye'll ken as

muckle about him as I do."

"I should suppose not, Mr. Jarvie," I replied;--"you are his relation, it

seems, and his friend."

"There is some cousin-red between us, doubtless," said the Bailie

reluctantly; "but we hae seen little o' ilk other since Rob gae tip the

cattle-line o' dealing, poor fallow! he was hardly guided by them might

hae used him better--and they haena made their plack a bawbee o't

neither. There's mony ane this day wad rather they had never chased puir

Robin frae the Cross o' Glasgow--there's mony ane wad rather see him

again at the tale o' three hundred kyloes, than at the head o' thirty

waur cattle."

"All this explains nothing to me, Mr. Jarvie, of Mr. Campbell's rank,

habits of life, and means of subsistence," I replied.

"Rank?" said Mr. Jarvie; "he's a Hieland gentleman, nae doubt--better

rank need nane to be;--and for habit, I judge he wears the Hieland habit

amang the hills, though he has breeks on when he comes to Glasgow;--and

as for his subsistence, what needs we care about his subsistence, sae

lang as he asks naething frae us, ye ken? But I hae nae time for

clavering about him e'en now, because we maun look into your father's

concerns wi' all speed."

So saying, he put on his spectacles, and sate down to examine Mr. Owen's

states, which the other thought it most prudent to communicate to him

without reserve. I knew enough of business to be aware that nothing could

be more acute and sagacious than the views which Mr. Jarvie entertained

of the matters submitted to his examination; and, to do him justice, it

was marked by much fairness, and even liberality. He scratched his ear

indeed repeatedly on observing the balance which stood at the debit of

Osbaldistone and Tresham in account with himself personally.

"It may be a dead loss," he observed; "and, conscience! whate'er ane o'

your Lombard Street goldsmiths may say to it, it's a snell ane in the

Saut-Market* o' Glasgow. It will be a heavy deficit--a staff out o' my

bicker, I trow.

* [The Saltmarket. This ancient street, situate in the heart of Glasgow,

has of late been almost entirely renovated.]

But what then?--I trust the house wunna coup the crane for a' that's come

and gane yet; and if it does, I'll never bear sae base a mind as thae

corbies in the Gallowgate--an I am to lose by ye, I'se ne'er deny I hae

won by ye mony a fair pund sterling--Sae, an it come to the warst, I'se

een lay the head o' the sow to the tail o' the grice."*

* _Anglice,_ the head of the sow to the tail of the pig.

I did not altogether understand the proverbial arrangement with which Mr.

Jarvie consoled himself, but I could easily see that he took a kind and

friendly interest in the arrangement of my father's affairs, suggested

several expedients, approved several plans proposed by Owen, and by his

countenance and counsel greatly abated the gloom upon the brow of that

afflicted delegate of my father's establishment.

As I was an idle spectator on this occasion, and, perhaps, as I showed

some inclination more than once to return to the prohibited, and

apparently the puzzling subject of Mr. Campbell, Mr. Jarvie dismissed me

with little formality, with an advice to "gang up the gate to the

college, where I wad find some chields could speak Greek and Latin

weel--at least they got plenty o' siller for doing deil haet else, if they

didna do that; and where I might read a spell o' the worthy Mr. Zachary

Boyd's translation o' the Scriptures--better poetry need nane to be, as

he had been tell'd by them that ken'd or suld hae ken'd about sic

things." But he seasoned this dismission with a kind and hospitable

invitation "to come back and take part o' his family-chack at ane

preceesely--there wad be a leg o' mutton, and, it might be, a tup's head,

for they were in season;" but above all, I was to return at "ane o'clock

preceesely--it was the hour he and the deacon his father aye dined

at--they pat it off for naething nor for naebody."

CHAPTER EIGHTH.

So stands the Thracian herdsman with his spear

Full in the gap, and hopes the hunted bear;

And hears him in the rustling wood, and sees

His course at distance by the bending trees,

And thinks--Here comes my mortal enemy,

And either he must fall in fight, or I.

Palamon and Arcite.

I took the route towards the college, as recommended by Mr. Jarvie, less

with the intention of seeking for any object of interest or amusement,

than to arrange my own ideas, and meditate on my future conduct. I

wandered from one quadrangle of old-fashioned buildings to another, and

from thence to the College-yards, or walking ground, where, pleased with

the solitude of the place, most of the students being engaged in their

classes, I took several turns, pondering on the waywardness of my own

destiny.

I could not doubt, from the circumstances attending my first meeting with

this person Campbell, that he was engaged in some strangely desperate

courses; and the reluctance with which Mr. Jarvie alluded to his person

or pursuits, as well as all the scene of the preceding night, tended to

confirm these suspicions. Yet to this man Diana Vernon had not, it would

seem, hesitated to address herself in my behalf; and the conduct of the

magistrate himself towards him showed an odd mixture of kindness, and

even respect, with pity and censure. Something there must be uncommon in

Campbell's situation and character; and what was still more

extraordinary, it seemed that his fate was doomed to have influence over,

and connection with, my own. I resolved to bring Mr. Jarvie to close

quarters on the first proper opportunity, and learn as much as was

possible on the subject of this mysterious person, in order that I might

judge whether it was possible for me, without prejudice to my reputation,

to hold that degree of farther correspondence with him to which he seemed

to invite.

While I was musing on these subjects, my attention was attracted by three

persons who appeared at the upper end of the walk through which I was

sauntering, seemingly engaged in very earnest conversation. That

intuitive impression which announces to us the approach of whomsoever we

love or hate with intense vehemence, long before a more indifferent eye

can recognise their persons, flashed upon my mind the sure conviction

that the midmost of these three men was Rashleigh Osbaldistone. To

address him was my first impulse;--my second was, to watch him until he

was alone, or at least to reconnoitre his companions before confronting

him. The party was still at such distance, and engaged in such deep

discourse, that I had time to step unobserved to the other side of a

small hedge, which imperfectly screened the alley in which I was walking.

It was at this period the fashion of the young and gay to wear, in their

morning walks, a scarlet cloak, often laced and embroidered, above their

other dress, and it was the trick of the time for gallants occasionally

to dispose it so as to muffle a part of the face. The imitating this

fashion, with the degree of shelter which I received from the hedge,

enabled me to meet my cousin, unobserved by him or the others, except

perhaps as a passing stranger. I was not a little startled at recognising

in his companions that very Morris on whose account I had been summoned

before Justice Inglewood, and Mr. MacVittie the merchant, from whose

starched and severe aspect I had recoiled on the preceding day.

A more ominous conjunction to my own affairs, and those of my father,

could scarce have been formed. I remembered Morris's false accusation

against me, which he might be as easily induced to renew as he had been

intimidated to withdraw; I recollected the inauspicious influence of

MacVittie over my father's affairs, testified by the imprisonment of

Owen;--and I now saw both these men combined with one, whose talent for

mischief I deemed little inferior to those of the great author of all

ill, and my abhorrence of whom almost amounted to dread.

When they had passed me for some paces, I turned and followed them

unobserved. At the end of the walk they separated, Morris and MacVittie

leaving the gardens, and Rashleigh returning alone through the walks. I

was now determined to confront him, and demand reparation for the

injuries he had done my father, though in what form redress was likely to

be rendered remained to be known. This, however, I trusted to chance; and

flinging back the cloak in which I was muffled, I passed through a gap of

the low hedge, and presented myself before Rashleigh, as, in a deep

reverie, he paced down the avenue.

Rashleigh was no man to be surprised or thrown off his guard by sudden

occurrences. Yet he did not find me thus close to him, wearing

undoubtedly in my face the marks of that indignation which was glowing in

my bosom, without visibly starting at an apparition so sudden and

menacing.

"You are well met, sir," was my commencement; "I was about to take a long

and doubtful journey in quest of you."

"You know little of him you sought then," replied Rashleigh, with his

usual undaunted composure. "I am easily found by my friends--still more

easily by my foes;--your manner compels me to ask in which class I must

rank Mr. Francis Osbaldistone?"

"In that of your foes, sir," I answered--"in that of your mortal foes,

unless you instantly do justice to your benefactor, my father, by

accounting for his property."

"And to whom, Mr. Osbaldistone," answered Rashleigh, "am I, a member of

your father's commercial establishment, to be compelled to give any

account of my proceedings in those concerns, which are in every respect

identified with my own?--Surely not to a young gentleman whose exquisite

taste for literature would render such discussions disgusting and

unintelligible."

"Your sneer, sir, is no answer; I will not part with you until I have

full satisfaction concerning the fraud you meditate--you shall go with me

before a magistrate."

"Be it so," said Rashleigh, and made a step or two as if to accompany me;

then pausing, proceeded--"Were I inclined to do so as you would have me,

you should soon feel which of us had most reason to dread the presence of

a magistrate. But I have no wish to accelerate your fate. Go, young man!

amuse yourself in your world of poetical imaginations, and leave the

business of life to those who understand and can conduct it."

His intention, I believe, was to provoke me, and he succeeded. "Mr.

Osbaldistone," I said, "this tone of calm insolence shall not avail you.

You ought to be aware that the name we both bear never submitted to

insult, and shall not in my person be exposed to it."

"You remind me," said Rashleigh, with one of his blackest looks, "that it

was dishonoured in my person!--and you remind me also by whom! Do you

think I have forgotten the evening at Osbaldistone Hall when you cheaply

and with impunity played the bully at my expense? For that insult--never

to be washed out but by blood!--for the various times you have crossed my

path, and always to my prejudice--for the persevering folly with which

you seek to traverse schemes, the importance of which you neither know

nor are capable of estimating,--for all these, sir, you owe me a long

account, for which there shall come an early day of reckoning."

"Let it come when it will," I replied, "I shall be willing and ready to

meet it. Yet you seem to have forgotten the heaviest article--that I had

the pleasure to aid Miss Vernon's good sense and virtuous feeling in

extricating her from your infamous toils."

I think his dark eyes flashed actual fire at this home-taunt, and yet his

voice retained the same calm expressive tone with which he had hitherto

conducted the conversation.

"I had other views with respect to you, young man," was his answer: "less

hazardous for you, and more suitable to my present character and former

education. But I see you will draw on yourself the personal chastisement

your boyish insolence so well merits. Follow me to a more remote spot,

where we are less likely to be interrupted."

I followed him accordingly, keeping a strict eye on his motions, for I

believed him capable of the very worst actions. We reached an open spot

in a sort of wilderness, laid out in the Dutch taste, with clipped

hedges, and one or two statues. I was on my guard, and it was well with

me that I was so; for Rashleigh's sword was out and at my breast ere I

could throw down my cloak, or get my weapon unsheathed, so that I only

saved my life by springing a pace or two backwards. He had some advantage

in the difference of our weapons; for his sword, as I recollect, was

longer than mine, and had one of those bayonet or three-cornered blades

which are now generally worn; whereas mine was what we then called a

Saxon blade--narrow, flat, and two-edged, and scarcely so manageable as

that of my enemy. In other respects we were pretty equally matched: for

what advantage I might possess in superior address and agility, was fully

counterbalanced by Rashleigh's great strength and coolness. He fought,

indeed, more like a fiend than a man--with concentrated spite and desire

of blood, only allayed by that cool consideration which made his worst

actions appear yet worse from the air of deliberate premeditation which

seemed to accompany them. His obvious malignity of purpose never for a

moment threw him off his guard, and he exhausted every feint and

stratagem proper to the science of defence; while, at the same time, he

meditated the most desperate catastrophe to our rencounter.

On my part, the combat was at first sustained with more moderation. My

passions, though hasty, were not malevolent; and the walk of two or three

minutes' space gave me time to reflect that Rashleigh was my father's

nephew, the son of an uncle, who after his fashion had been kind to me,

and that his falling by my hand could not but occasion much family

distress. My first resolution, therefore, was to attempt to disarm my

antagonist--a manoeuvre in which, confiding in my superiority of skill

and practice, I anticipated little difficulty. I found, however, I had

met my match; and one or two foils which I received, and from the

consequences of which I narrowly escaped, obliged me to observe more

caution in my mode of fighting. By degrees I became exasperated at the

rancour with which Rashleigh sought my life, and returned his passes with

an inveteracy resembling in some degree his own; so that the combat had

all the appearance of being destined to have a tragic issue. That issue

had nearly taken place at my expense. My foot slipped in a full lounge

which I made at my adversary, and I could not so far recover myself as

completely to parry the thrust with which my pass was repaid. Yet it took

but partial effect, running through my waistcoat, grazing my ribs, and

passing through my coat behind. The hilt of Rashleigh's sword, so great

was the vigour of his thrust, struck against my breast with such force as

to give me great pain, and confirm me in the momentary belief that I was

mortally wounded. Eager for revenge, I grappled with my enemy, seizing

with my left hand the hilt of his sword, and shortening my own with the

purpose of running him through the body. Our death-grapple was

interrupted by a man who forcibly threw himself between us, and pushing

us separate from each other, exclaimed, in a loud and commanding voice,

"What! the sons of those fathers who sucked the same breast shedding each

others bluid as it were strangers'!--By the hand of my father, I will

cleave to the brisket the first man that mints another stroke!"

I looked up in astonishment. The speaker was no other than Campbell. He

had a basket-hilted broadsword drawn in his hand, which he made to

whistle around his head as he spoke, as if for the purpose of enforcing

his mediation. Rashleigh and I stared in silence at this unexpected

intruder, who proceeded to exhort us alternately:--"Do you, Maister

Francis, opine that ye will re-establish your father's credit by cutting

your kinsman's thrapple, or getting your ain sneckit instead thereof in

the College-yards of Glasgow?--Or do you, Mr Rashleigh, think men will

trust their lives and fortunes wi' ane, that, when in point of trust and

in point of confidence wi' a great political interest, gangs about

brawling like a drunken gillie?--Nay, never look gash or grim at me,

man--if ye're angry, ye ken how to turn the buckle o' your belt behind

you."

"You presume on my present situation," replied Rashleigh, "or you would

have hardly dared to interfere where my honour is concerned."

[Illustration: Rob Roy Parting the Duelists--100]

"Hout! tout! tout!--Presume? And what for should it be presuming?--Ye may

be the richer man, Mr. Osbaldistone, as is maist likely; and ye may be

the mair learned man, whilk I dispute not: but I reckon ye are neither a

prettier man nor a better gentleman than mysell--and it will be news to

me when I hear ye are as gude. And _dare_ too? Muckle daring there's

about it--I trow, here I stand, that hae slashed as het a haggis as ony

o' the twa o' ye, and thought nae muckle o' my morning's wark when it was

dune. If my foot were on the heather as it's on the causeway, or this

pickle gravel, that's little better, I hae been waur mistrysted than if I

were set to gie ye baith your ser'ing o't."

Rashleigh had by this time recovered his temper completely. "My kinsman,"

he said, "will acknowledge he forced this quarrel on me. It was none of

my seeking. I am glad we are interrupted before I chastised his

forwardness more severely."

"Are ye hurt, lad?" inquired Campbell of me, with some appearance of

interest.

"A very slight scratch," I answered, "which my kind cousin would not long

have boasted of had not you come between us."

"In troth, and that's true, Maister Rashleigh," said Campbell; "for the

cauld iron and your best bluid were like to hae become acquaint when I

mastered Mr. Frank's right hand. But never look like a sow playing upon a

trump for the luve of that, man--come and walk wi' me. I hae news to tell

ye, and ye'll cool and come to yourself, like MacGibbon's crowdy, when he

set it out at the window-bole."

"Pardon me, sir," said I. "Your intentions have seemed friendly to me on

more occasions than one; but I must not, and will not, quit sight of this

person until he yields up to me those means of doing justice to my

father's engagements, of which he has treacherously possessed himself."

"Ye're daft, man," replied Campbell; "it will serve ye naething to follow

us e'enow; ye hae just enow o' ae man--wad ye bring twa on your head, and

might bide quiet?"

"Twenty," I replied, "if it be necessary."

I laid my hand on Rashleigh's collar, who made no resistance, but said,

with a sort of scornful smile, "You hear him, MacGregor! he rushes on his

fate--will it be my fault if he falls into it?--The warrants are by this

time ready, and all is prepared."

The Scotchman was obviously embarrassed. He looked around, and before,

and behind him, and then said--"The ne'er a bit will I yield my consent

to his being ill-guided for standing up for the father that got him--and

I gie God's malison and mine to a' sort o' magistrates, justices,

bailies., sheriffs, sheriff-officers, constables, and sic-like black

cattle, that hae been the plagues o' puir auld Scotland this hunder

year.--it was a merry warld when every man held his ain gear wi' his ain

grip, and when the country side wasna fashed wi' warrants and poindings

and apprizings, and a' that cheatry craft. And ance mair I say it, my

conscience winna see this puir thoughtless lad ill-guided, and especially

wi' that sort o' trade. I wad rather ye fell till't again, and fought it

out like douce honest men."

"Your conscience, MacGregor!" said Rashleigh; "you forget how long you

and I have known each other."

"Yes, my conscience," reiterated Campbell, or MacGregor, or whatever was

his name; "I hae such a thing about me, Maister Osbaldistone; and therein

it may weel chance that I hae the better o' you. As to our knowledge of

each other,--if ye ken what I am, ye ken what usage it was made me what I

am; and, whatever you may think, I would not change states with the

proudest of the oppressors that hae driven me to tak the heather-bush for

a beild. What _you_ are, Maister Rashleigh, and what excuse ye hae for

being _what_ you are, is between your ain heart and the lang day.--And

now, Maister Francis, let go his collar; for he says truly, that ye are

in mair danger from a magistrate than he is, and were your cause as

straight as an arrow, he wad find a way to put you wrang--So let go his

craig, as I was saying."

He seconded his words with an effort so sudden and unexpected, that he

freed Rashleigh from my hold, and securing me, notwithstanding my

struggles, in his own Herculean gripe, he called out--"Take the bent, Mr.

Rashleigh--Make ae pair o' legs worth twa pair o' hands; ye hae dune that

before now."

"You may thank this gentleman, kinsman," said Rashleigh, "if I leave any

part of my debt to you unpaid; and if I quit you now, it is only in the

hope we shall soon meet again without the possibility of interruption."

He took up his sword, wiped it, sheathed it, and was lost among the

bushes.

The Scotchman, partly by force, partly by remonstrance, prevented my

following him; indeed I began to be of opinion my doing so would be to

little purpose.

"As I live by bread," said Campbell, when, after one or two struggles in

which he used much forbearance towards me, he perceived me inclined to

stand quiet, "I never saw sae daft a callant! I wad hae gien the best man

in the country the breadth o' his back gin he had gien me sic a kemping

as ye hae dune. What wad ye do?--Wad ye follow the wolf to his den? I

tell ye, man, he has the auld trap set for ye--He has got the

collector-creature Morris to bring up a' the auld story again,

and ye maun look for nae help frae me here, as ye got at Justice

Inglewood's;--it isna good for my health to come in the gate o' the

whigamore bailie bodies. Now gang your ways hame, like a gude

bairn--jouk and let the jaw gae by--Keep out o' sight o' Rashleigh, and

Morris, and that MacVittie animal--Mind the Clachan of Aberfoil, as I

said before, and by the word of a gentleman, I wunna see ye wranged. But

keep a calm sough till we meet again--I maun gae and get Rashleigh out

o' the town afore waur comes o't, for the neb o' him's never out o'

mischief--Mind the Clachan of Aberfoil."

He turned upon his heel, and left me to meditate on the singular events

which had befallen me. My first care was to adjust my dress and reassume

my cloak, disposing it so as to conceal the blood which flowed down my

right side. I had scarcely accomplished this, when, the classes of the

college being dismissed, the gardens began to be filled with parties of

the students. I therefore left them as soon as possible; and in my way

towards Mr. Jarvie's, whose dinner hour was now approaching, I stopped at

a small unpretending shop, the sign of which intimated the indweller to

be Christopher Neilson, surgeon and apothecary. I requested of a little

boy who was pounding some stuff in a mortar, that he would procure me an

audience of this learned pharmacopolist. He opened the door of the back

shop, where I found a lively elderly man, who shook his head

incredulously at some idle account I gave him of having been wounded

accidentally by the button breaking off my antagonist's foil while I was

engaged in a fencing match. When he had applied some lint and somewhat

else he thought proper to the trifling wound I had received, he

observed--"There never was button on the foil that made this hurt. Ah!

young blood! young blood!--But we surgeons are a secret generation--If

it werena for hot blood and ill blood, what wad become of the twa

learned faculties?"

With which moral reflection he dismissed me; and I experienced very

little pain or inconvenience afterwards from the scratch I had received.

CHAPTER NINTH.

An iron race the mountain-cliffs maintain,

Foes to the gentler genius of the plain.

*******

Who while their rocky ramparts round they see,

The rough abode of want and liberty,

As lawless force from confidence will grow,

Insult the plenty of the vales below.

Gray.

"What made ye sae late?" said Mr. Jarvie, as I entered the dining-parlour

of that honest gentleman; "it is chappit ane the best feek o' five

minutes by-gane. Mattie has been twice at the door wi' the dinner, and

weel for you it was a tup's head, for that canna suffer by delay. A

sheep's head ower muckle boiled is rank poison, as my worthy father used

to say--he likit the lug o' ane weel, honest man."

I made a suitable apology for my breach of punctuality, and was soon

seated at table, where Mr. Jarvie presided with great glee and

hospitality, compelling, however, Owen and myself to do rather more

justice to the Scottish dainties with which his board was charged, than

was quite agreeable to our southern palates. I escaped pretty well, from

having those habits of society which enable one to elude this species of

well-meant persecution. But it was ridiculous enough to see Owen, whose

ideas of politeness were more rigorous and formal, and who was willing,

in all acts of lawful compliance, to evince his respect for the friend of

the firm, eating with rueful complaisance mouthful after mouthful of

singed wool, and pronouncing it excellent, in a tone in which disgust

almost overpowered civility.

When the cloth was removed, Mr. Jarvie compounded with his own hands a

very small bowl of brandy-punch, the first which I had ever the fortune

to see.

"The limes," he assured us, "were from his own little farm yonder-awa"

(indicating the West Indies with a knowing shrug of his shoulders), "and

he had learned the art of composing the liquor from auld Captain

Coffinkey, who acquired it," he added in a whisper, "'as maist folk

thought, among the Buccaniers. But it's excellent liquor," said he,

helping us round; "and good ware has aften come frae a wicked market. And

as for Captain Coffinkey, he was a decent man when I kent him, only he

used to swear awfully--But he's dead, and gaen to his account, and I

trust he's accepted--I trust he's accepted."

We found the liquor exceedingly palatable, and it led to a long

conversation between Owen and our host on the opening which the Union had

afforded to trade between Glasgow and the British Colonies in America and

the West Indies, and on the facilities which Glasgow possessed of making

up sortable cargoes for that market. Mr. Jarvie answered some objection

which Owen made on the difficulty of sorting a cargo for America, without

buying from England, with vehemence and volubility.

"Na, na, sir, we stand on our ain bottom--we pickle in our ain

pock-neuk--We hae our Stirling serges, Musselburgh stuffs, Aberdeen hose,

Edinburgh shalloons, and the like, for our woollen or worsted goods--and

we hae linens of a' kinds better and cheaper than you hae in Lunnon

itsell--and we can buy your north o' England wares, as Manchester wares,

Sheffield wares, and Newcastle earthenware, as cheap as you can at

Liverpool--And we are making a fair spell at cottons and muslins--Na, na!

let every herring hing by its ain head, and every sheep by its ain shank,

and ye'll find, sir, us Glasgow folk no sae far ahint but what we may

follow.--This is but poor entertainment for you, Mr. Osbaldistone"

(observing that I had been for some time silent); "but ye ken cadgers

maun aye be speaking about cart-saddles."

I apologised, alleging the painful circumstances of my own situation, and

the singular adventures of the morning, as the causes of my abstraction

and absence of mind. In this manner I gained what I sought--an

opportunity of telling my story distinctly and without interruption. I

only omitted mentioning the wound I had received, which I did not think

worthy of notice. Mr. Jarvie listened with great attention and apparent

interest, twinkling his little grey eyes, taking snuff, and only

interrupting me by brief interjections. When I came to the account of the

rencounter, at which Owen folded his hands and cast up his eyes to

Heaven, the very image of woeful surprise, Mr. Jarvie broke in upon the

narration with "Wrang now--clean wrang--to draw a sword on your kinsman

is inhibited by the laws o' God and man; and to draw a sword on the

streets of a royal burgh is punishable by fine and imprisonment--and the

College-yards are nae better privileged--they should be a place of peace

and quietness, I trow. The College didna get gude L600 a year out o'

bishops' rents (sorrow fa' the brood o' bishops and their rents too!),

nor yet a lease o' the archbishopric o' Glasgow the sell o't, that they

suld let folk tuilzie in their yards, or the wild callants bicker there

wi' snaw-ba's as they whiles do, that when Mattie and I gae through, we

are fain to make a baik and a bow, or run the risk o' our harns being

knocked out--it suld be looked to.*--But come awa'wi' your tale--what

fell neist?"

* The boys in Scotland used formerly to make a sort of Saturnalia in a

snow-storm, by pelting passengers with snowballs. But those exposed to

that annoyance were excused from it on the easy penalty of a baik

(courtesy) from a female, or a bow from a man. It was only the refractory

who underwent the storm.

On my mentioning the appearance of Mr. Campbell, Jarvie arose in great

surprise, and paced the room, exclaiming, "Robin again!--Robert's

mad--clean wud, and waur--Rob will be hanged, and disgrace a' his

kindred, and that will be seen and heard tell o'. My father the deacon

wrought him his first hose--Od, I am thinking Deacon Threeplie, the

rape-spinner, will be twisting his last cravat. Ay, ay, puir Robin is in

a fair way o' being hanged--But come awa', come awa'--let's hear the

lave o't."

I told the whole story as pointedly as I could; but Mr. Jarvie still

found something lacking to make it clear, until I went back, though with

considerable reluctance, on the whole story of Morris, and of my meeting

with Campbell at the house of Justice Inglewood. Mr. Jarvie inclined a

serious ear to all this, and remained silent for some time after I had

finished my narrative.

"Upon all these matters I am now to ask your advice, Mr. Jarvie, which, I

have no doubt, will point out the best way to act for my father's

advantage and my own honour."

"Ye're right, young man--ye're right," said the Bailie. "Aye take the

counsel of those who are aulder and wiser than yourself, and binna like

the godless Rehoboam, who took the advice o' a wheen beardless callants,

neglecting the auld counsellors who had sate at the feet o' his father

Solomon, and, as it was weel put by Mr. Meiklejohn, in his lecture on the

chapter, were doubtless partakers of his sapience. But I maun hear

naething about honour--we ken naething here but about credit. Honour is a

homicide and a bloodspiller, that gangs about making frays in the street;

but Credit is a decent honest man, that sits at hame and makes the pat

play."

"Assuredly, Mr. Jarvie," said our friend Owen, "credit is the sum total;

and if we can but save that, at whatever discount"--

"Ye are right, Mr. Owen--ye are right; ye speak weel and wisely; and I

trust bowls will row right, though they are a wee ajee e'enow. But

touching Robin, I am of opinion he will befriend this young man if it is

in his power. He has a gude heart, puir Robin; and though I lost a matter

o' twa hundred punds wi' his former engagements, and haena muckle

expectation ever to see back my thousand punds Scots that he promises me

e'enow, yet I will never say but what Robin means fair by men."

"I am then to consider him," I replied, "as an honest man?"

"Umph!" replied Jarvie, with a precautionary sort of cough--"Ay, he has a

kind o' Hieland honesty--he's honest after a sort, as they say. My father

the deacon used aye to laugh when he tauld me how that by-word came up.

Ane Captain Costlett was cracking crouse about his loyalty to King

Charles, and Clerk Pettigrew (ye'll hae heard mony a tale about him)

asked him after what manner he served the king, when he was fighting

again him at Wor'ster in Cromwell's army; and Captain Costlett was a

ready body, and said that he served him _after a sort._ My honest father

used to laugh weel at that sport--and sae the by-word came up."

"But do you think," I said, "that this man will be able to serve me after

a sort, or should I trust myself to this place of rendezvous which he has

given me?"

"Frankly and fairly, it's worth trying. Ye see yourself there's some risk

in your staying here. This bit body Morris has gotten a custom-house

place doun at Greenock--that's a port on the Firth doun by here; and tho'

a' the world kens him to be but a twa-leggit creature, wi' a goose's head

and a hen's heart, that goes about on the quay plaguing folk about

permits, and cockits, and dockits, and a' that vexatious trade, yet if he

lodge an information--ou, nae doubt a man in magisterial duty maun attend

to it, and ye might come to be clapped up between four wa's, whilk wad be

ill-convenient to your father's affairs."

"True," I observed; "yet what service am I likely to render him by

leaving Glasgow, which, it is probable, will be the principal scene of

Rashleigh's machinations, and committing myself to the doubtful faith of

a man of whom I know little but that he fears justice, and has doubtless

good reasons for doing so; and that, for some secret, and probably

dangerous purpose, he is in close league and alliance with the very

person who is like to be the author of our ruin?"

"Ah, but ye judge Rob hardly," said the Bailie, "ye judge him hardly,

puir chield; and the truth is, that ye ken naething about our hill

country, or Hielands, as we ca' them. They are clean anither set frae the

like o' huz;--there's nae bailie-courts amang them--nae magistrates that

dinna bear the sword in vain, like the worthy deacon that's awa', and, I

may say't, like mysell and other present magistrates in this city--But

it's just the laird's command, and the loon maun loup; and the never

another law hae they but the length o' their dirks--the broadsword's

pursuer, or plaintiff, as you Englishers ca' it, and the target is

defender; the stoutest head bears langest out;--and there's a Hieland

plea for ye."

Owen groaned deeply; and I allow that the description did not greatly

increase my desire to trust myself in a country so lawless as he

described these Scottish mountains.

"Now, sir," said Jarvie, "we speak little o' thae things, because they

are familiar to oursells; and where's the use o' vilifying ane's country,

and bringing a discredit on ane's kin, before southrons and strangers?

It's an ill bird that files its ain nest."

"Well, sir, but as it is no impertinent curiosity of mine, but real

necessity, that obliges me to make these inquiries, I hope you will not

be offended at my pressing for a little farther information. I have to

deal, on my father's account, with several gentlemen of these wild

countries, and I must trust your good sense and experience for the

requisite lights upon the subject."

This little morsel of flattery was not thrown out in vain. "Experience!"

said the Bailie--"I hae had experience, nae doubt, and I hae made some

calculations--Ay, and to speak quietly amang oursells, I hae made some

perquisitions through Andrew Wylie, my auld clerk; he's wi' MacVittie &

Co. now--but he whiles drinks a gill on the Saturday afternoons wi' his

auld master. And since ye say ye are willing to be guided by the Glasgow

weaver-body's advice, I am no the man that will refuse it to the son of

an auld correspondent, and my father the deacon was nane sic afore me. I

have whiles thought o' letting my lights burn before the Duke of Argyle,

or his brother Lord Ilay (for wherefore should they be hidden under a

bushel?), but the like o' thae grit men wadna mind the like o' me, a puir

wabster body--they think mair o' wha says a thing, than o' what the thing

is that's said. The mair's the pity--mair's the pity. Not that I wad

speak ony ill of this MacCallum More--'Curse not the rich in your

bedchamber,' saith the son of Sirach, 'for a bird of the air shall carry

the clatter, and pint-stoups hae lang lugs.'"

I interrupted these prolegomena, in which Mr. Jarvie was apt to be

somewhat diffuse, by praying him to rely upon Mr. Owen and myself as

perfectly secret and safe confidants.

"It's no for that," he replied, "for I fear nae man--what for suld I?--I

speak nae treason--Only thae Hielandmen hae lang grips, and I whiles gang

a wee bit up the glens to see some auld kinsfolks, and I wadna willingly

be in bad blude wi' ony o' their clans. Howsumever, to proceed--ye maun

understand I found my remarks on figures, whilk as Mr. Owen here weel

kens, is the only true demonstrable root of human knowledge."

Owen readily assented to a proposition so much in his own way, and our

orator proceeded.

"These Hielands of ours, as we ca' them, gentlemen, are but a wild kind

of warld by themsells, full of heights and howes, woods, caverns, lochs,

rivers, and mountains, that it wad tire the very deevil's wings to flee

to the tap o' them. And in this country, and in the isles, whilk are

little better, or, to speak the truth, rather waur than the mainland,

there are about twa hunder and thirty parochines, including the Orkneys,

where, whether they speak Gaelic or no I wotna, but they are an

uncivilised people. Now, sirs, I sall haud ilk parochine at the moderate

estimate of eight hunder examinable persons, deducting children under

nine years of age, and then adding one-fifth to stand for bairns of nine

years auld, and under, the whole population will reach to the sum of--let

us add one-fifth to 800 to be the multiplier, and 230 being the

multiplicand"--

"The product," said Mr. Owen, who entered delightedly into these

statistics of Mr. Jarvie, "will be 230,000."

"Right, sir--perfectly right; and the military array of this Hieland

country, were a' the men-folk between aughteen and fifty-six brought out

that could bear arms, couldna come weel short of fifty-seven thousand

five hundred men. Now, sir, it's a sad and awfu' truth, that there is

neither wark, nor the very fashion nor appearance of wark, for the tae

half of thae puir creatures; that is to say, that the agriculture, the

pasturage, the fisheries, and every species of honest industry about the

country, cannot employ the one moiety of the population, let them work as

lazily as they like, and they do work as if a pleugh or a spade burnt

their fingers. Aweel, sir, this moiety of unemployed bodies, amounting

to"--

"To one hundred and fifteen thousand souls," said Owen, "being the half

of the above product."

"Ye hae't, Mr. Owen--ye hae't--whereof there may be twenty-eight thousand

seven hundred able-bodied gillies fit to bear arms, and that do bear

arms, and will touch or look at nae honest means of livelihood even if

they could get it--which, lack-a-day! they cannot."

"But is it possible," said I, "Mr. Jarvie, that this can be a just

picture of so large a portion of the island of Britain?"

"Sir, I'll make it as plain as Peter Pasley's pike-staff. I will allow

that ilk parochine, on an average, employs fifty pleughs, whilk is a

great proportion in sic miserable soil as thae creatures hae to labour,

and that there may be pasture enough for pleugh-horses, and owsen, and

forty or fifty cows; now, to take care o' the pleughs and cattle, we'se

allow seventy-five families of six lives in ilk family, and we'se add

fifty mair to make even numbers, and ye hae five hundred souls, the tae

half o' the population, employed and maintained in a sort o' fashion, wi'

some chance of sour-milk and crowdie; but I wad be glad to ken what the

other five hunder are to do?"

"In the name of God!" said I, "what _do_ they do, Mr. Jarvie? It makes me

shudder to think of their situation."

"Sir," replied the Bailie, "ye wad maybe shudder mair if ye were living

near hand them. For, admitting that the tae half of them may make some

little thing for themsells honestly in the Lowlands by shearing in harst,

droving, hay-making, and the like; ye hae still mony hundreds and

thousands o' lang-legged Hieland gillies that will neither work nor want,

and maun gang thigging and sorning* about on their acquaintance, or live

by doing the laird's bidding, be't right or be't wrang.

* _Thigging_ and _sorning_ was a kind of genteel begging, or rather

something between begging and robbing, by which the needy in Scotland

used to extort cattle, or the means of subsistence, from those who had

any to give.

And mair especially, mony hundreds o' them come down to the borders of

the low country, where there's gear to grip, and live by stealing,

reiving, lifting cows, and the like depredations--a thing deplorable in

ony Christian country!--the mair especially, that they take pride in it,

and reckon driving a spreagh (whilk is, in plain Scotch, stealing a herd

of nowte) a gallant, manly action, and mair befitting of pretty* men (as

sic reivers will ca' themselves), than to win a day's wage by ony honest

thrift.

* The word _pretty_ is or was used in Scotch, in the sense of the German

_prachtig,_ and meant a gallant, alert fellow, prompt and ready at his

weapons.

And the lairds are as bad as the loons; for if they dinna bid them gae

reive and harry, the deil a bit they forbid them; and they shelter them,

or let them shelter themselves, in their woods and mountains, and

strongholds, whenever the thing's dune. And every ane o' them will

maintain as mony o' his ane name, or his clan, as we say, as he can rap

and rend means for; or, whilk's the same thing, as mony as can in ony

fashion, fair or foul, mainteen themsells. And there they are wi' gun and

pistol, dirk and dourlach, ready to disturb the peace o' the country

whenever the laird likes; and that's the grievance of the Hielands, whilk

are, and hae been for this thousand years by-past, a bike o' the maist

lawless unchristian limmers that ever disturbed a douce, quiet,

God-fearing neighbourhood, like this o' ours in the west here."

"And this kinsman of yours, and friend of mine, is he one of those great

proprietors who maintain the household troops you speak of?" I inquired.

"Na, na," said Bailie Jarvie; "he's nane o' your great grandees o'

chiefs, as they ca' them, neither. Though he is weel born, and lineally

descended frae auld Glenstrae--I ken his lineage--indeed he is a near

kinsman, and, as I said, of gude gentle Hieland blude, though ye may

think weel that I care little about that nonsense--it's a' moonshine in

water--waste threads and thrums, as we say--But I could show ye letters

frae his father, that was the third aff Glenstrae, to my father Deacon

Jarvie (peace be wi' his memory!) beginning, Dear Deacon, and ending,

your loving kinsman to command,--they are amaist a' about borrowed

siller, sae the gude deacon, that's dead and gane, keepit them as

documents and evidents--He was a carefu' man."

"But if he is not," I resumed, "one of their chiefs or patriarchal

leaders, whom I have heard my father talk of, this kinsman of yours has,

at least, much to say in the Highlands, I presume?"

"Ye may say that--nae name better ken'd between the Lennox and

Breadalbane. Robin was ance a weel-doing, painstaking drover, as ye wad

see amang ten thousand--It was a pleasure to see him in his belted plaid

and brogues, wi' his target at his back, and claymore and dirk at his

belt, following a hundred Highland stots, and a dozen o' the gillies, as

rough and ragged as the beasts they drave. And he was baith civil and

just in his dealings; and if he thought his chapman had made a hard

bargain, he wad gie him a luck-penny to the mends. I hae ken'd him gie

back five shillings out o' the pund sterling."

"Twenty-five per cent," said Owen--"a heavy discount."

"He wad gie it though, sir, as I tell ye; mair especially if he thought

the buyer was a puir man, and couldna stand by a loss. But the times cam

hard, and Rob was venturesome. It wasna my faut--it wasna my faut; he

canna wyte me--I aye tauld him o't--And the creditors, mair especially

some grit neighbours o' his, gripped to his living and land; and they say

his wife was turned out o' the house to the hill-side, and sair misguided

to the boot. Shamefu'! shamefu'!--I am a peacefu' man and a magistrate,

but if ony ane had guided sae muckle as my servant quean, Mattie, as it's

like they guided Rob's wife, I think it suld hae set the shabble* that my

father the deacon had at Bothwell brig a-walking again.

* Cutlass.

Weel, Rob cam hame, and fand desolation, God pity us! where he left

plenty; he looked east, west, south, north, and saw neither hauld nor

hope--neither beild nor shelter; sae he e'en pu'd the bonnet ower his

brow, belted the broadsword to his side, took to the brae-side, and

became a broken man."*

* An outlaw.

The voice of the good citizen was broken by his contending feelings. He

obviously, while he professed to contemn the pedigree of his Highland

kinsman, attached a secret feeling of consequence to the connection, and

he spoke of his friend in his prosperity with an overflow of affection,

which deepened his sympathy for his misfortunes, and his regret for their

consequences.

"Thus tempted and urged by despair," said I, seeing Mr. Jarvie did not

proceed in his narrative, "I suppose your kinsman became one of those

depredators you have described to us?"

"No sae bad as that," said the Glaswegian,--"no a'thegither and outright

sae bad as that; but he became a levier of black-mail, wider and farther

than ever it was raised in our day, a through the Lennox and Menteith,

and up to the gates o' Stirling Castle."

"Black-mail?--I do not understand the phrase," I remarked.

"Ou, ye see, Rob soon gathered an unco band o' blue-bonnets at his back,

for he comes o' a rough name when he's kent by his ain, and a name that's

held its ain for mony a lang year, baith again king and parliament, and

kirk too, for aught I ken--an auld and honourable name, for as sair as it

has been worried and hadden down and oppressed. My mother was a

MacGregor--I carena wha kens it--And Rob had soon a gallant band; and as

it grieved him (he said) to see sic _hership_ and waste and depredation

to the south o' the Hieland line, why, if ony heritor or farmer wad pay

him four punds Scots out of each hundred punds of valued rent, whilk

was doubtless a moderate consideration, Rob engaged to keep them

scaithless;--let them send to him if they lost sae muckle as a single

cloot by thieving, and Rob engaged to get them again, or pay the

value--and he aye keepit his word--I canna deny but he keepit his

word--a' men allow Rob keeps his word."

"This is a very singular contract of assurance," said Mr. Owen.

"It's clean again our statute law, that must be owned," said Jarvie,

"clean again law; the levying and the paying black-mail are baith

punishable: but if the law canna protect my barn and byre, whatfor suld I

no engage wi' a Hieland gentleman that can?--answer me that."

"But," said I, "Mr. Jarvie, is this contract of black-mail, as you call

it, completely voluntary on the part of the landlord or farmer who pays

the insurance? or what usually happens, in case any one refuses payment

of this tribute?"

"Aha, lad!" said the Bailie, laughing, and putting his finger to his

nose, "ye think ye hae me there. Troth, I wad advise ony friends o' mine

to gree wi' Rob; for, watch as they like, and do what they like, they are

sair apt to be harried* when the lang nights come on.

* Plundered.

Some o' the Grahame and Cohoon gentry stood out; but what then?--they

lost their haill stock the first winter; sae maist folks now think it

best to come into Rob's terms. He's easy wi' a' body that will be easy

wi' him; but if ye thraw him, ye had better thraw the deevil."

"And by his exploits in these vocations," I continued, "I suppose he has

rendered himself amenable to the laws of the country?"

"Amenable?--ye may say that; his craig wad ken the weight o' his hurdies

if they could get haud o' Rob. But he has gude friends amang the grit

folks; and I could tell ye o' ae grit family that keeps him up as far as

they decently can, to be a them in the side of another. And then he's sic

an auld-farran lang-headed chield as never took up the trade o' cateran

in our time; mony a daft reik he has played--mair than wad fill a book,

and a queer ane it wad be--as gude as Robin Hood, or William Wallace--a'

fu' o' venturesome deeds and escapes, sic as folk tell ower at a winter

ingle in the daft days. It's a queer thing o' me, gentlemen, that am a

man o' peace mysell, and a peacefu man's son--for the deacon my father

quarrelled wi' nane out o the town-council--it's a queer thing, I say,

but I think the Hieland blude o' me warms at thae daft tales, and whiles

I like better to hear them than a word o' profit, gude forgie me! But

they are vanities--sinfu' vanities--and, moreover, again the statute

law--again the statute and gospel law."

I now followed up my investigation, by inquiring what means of influence

this Mr. Robert Campbell could possibly possess over my affairs, or those

of my father.

"Why, ye are to understand," said Mr. Jarvie in a very subdued tone--"I

speak amang friends, and under the rose--Ye are to understand, that the

Hielands hae been keepit quiet since the year aughty-nine--that was

Killiecrankie year. But how hae they been keepit quiet, think ye? By

siller, Mr. Owen--by siller, Mr. Osbaldistone. King William caused

Breadalbane distribute twenty thousand oude punds sterling amang them,

and it's said the auld Hieland Earl keepit a lang lug o't in his ain

sporran. And then Queen Anne, that's dead, gae the chiefs bits o'

pensions, sae they had wherewith to support their gillies and caterans

that work nae wark, as I said afore; and they lay by quiet eneugh, saying

some spreagherie on the Lowlands, whilk is their use and wont, and some

cutting o' thrapples amang themsells, that nae civilised body kens or

cares onything anent.--Weel, but there's a new warld come up wi' this

King George (I say, God bless him, for ane)--there's neither like to be

siller nor pensions gaun amang them; they haena the means o' mainteening

the clans that eat them up, as ye may guess frae what I said before;

their credit's gane in the Lowlands; and a man that can whistle ye up a

thousand or feifteen hundred linking lads to do his will, wad hardly get

fifty punds on his band at the Cross o' Glasgow--This canna stand

lang--there will be an outbreak for the Stuarts--there will be an

outbreak--they will come down on the low country like a flood, as they

did in the waefu' wars o' Montrose, and that will be seen and heard tell

o' ere a twalmonth gangs round."

"Yet still," I said, "I do not see how this concerns Mr. Campbell, much

less my father's affairs."

"Rob can levy five hundred men, sir, and therefore war suld concern him

as muckle as maist folk," replied the Bailie; "for it is a faculty that

is far less profitable in time o' peace. Then, to tell ye the truth, I

doubt he has been the prime agent between some o' our Hieland chiefs and

the gentlemen in the north o' England. We a' heard o' the public money

that was taen frae the chield Morris somewhere about the fit o' Cheviot

by Rob and ane o' the Osbaldistone lads; and, to tell ye the truth, word

gaed that it was yoursell Mr. Francis,--and sorry was I that your

father's son suld hae taen to sic practices--Na, ye needna say a word

about it--I see weel I was mistaen; but I wad believe onything o' a

stage-player, whilk I concluded ye to be. But now, I doubtna, it has been

Rashleigh himself or some other o' your cousins--they are a' tarred wi'

the same stick--rank Jacobites and papists, and wad think the government

siller and government papers lawfu' prize. And the creature Morris is sic

a cowardly caitiff, that to this hour he daurna say that it was Rob took

the portmanteau aff him; and troth he's right, for your custom-house and

excise cattle are ill liket on a' sides, and Rob might get a back-handed

lick at him, before the Board, as they ca't, could help him."

"I have long suspected this, Mr. Jarvie," said I, "and perfectly agree

with you. But as to my father's affairs"--

"Suspected it?--it's certain--it's certain--I ken them that saw some of

the papers that were taen aff Morris--it's needless to say where. But to

your father's affairs--Ye maun think that in thae twenty years by-gane,

some o' the Hieland lairds and chiefs hae come to some sma' sense o'

their ain interest--your father and others hae bought the woods of

Glen-Disseries, Glen Kissoch, Tober-na-Kippoch, and mony mair besides,

and your father's house has granted large bills in payment,--and as the

credit o' Osbaldistone and Tresham was gude--for I'll say before Mr.

Owen's face, as I wad behind his back, that, bating misfortunes o' the

Lord's sending, nae men could be mair honourable in business--the Hieland

gentlemen, holders o' thae bills, hae found credit in Glasgow and

Edinburgh--(I might amaist say in Glasgow wholly, for it's little the

pridefu' Edinburgh folk do in real business)--for all, or the greater

part of the contents o' thae bills. So that--Aha! d'ye see me now?"

I confessed I could not quite follow his drift.

"Why," said he, "if these bills are not paid, the Glasgow merchant comes

on the Hieland lairds, whae hae deil a boddle o' siller, and will like

ill to spew up what is item a' spent--They will turn desperate--five

hundred will rise that might hae sitten at hame--the deil will gae ower

Jock Wabster--and the stopping of your father's house will hasten the

outbreak that's been sae lang biding us."

"You think, then," said I, surprised at this singular view of the case,

"that Rashleigh Osbaldistone has done this injury to my father, merely to

accelerate a rising in the Highlands, by distressing the gentlemen to whom

these bills were originally granted?"

"Doubtless--doubtless--it has been one main reason, Mr. Osbaldistone. I

doubtna but what the ready money he carried off wi' him might be another.

But that makes comparatively but a sma' part o' your father's loss,

though it might make the maist part o' Rashleigh's direct gain. The

assets he carried off are of nae mair use to him than if he were to light

his pipe wi' them. He tried if MacVittie & Co. wad gie him siller on

them--that I ken by Andro Wylie--but they were ower auld cats to draw

that strae afore them--they keepit aff, and gae fair words. Rashleigh

Osbaldistone is better ken'd than trusted in Glasgow, for he was here

about some jacobitical papistical troking in seventeen hundred and seven,

and left debt ahint him. Na, na--he canna pit aff the paper here; folk

will misdoubt him how he came by it. Na, na--he'll hae the stuff safe at

some o' their haulds in the Hielands, and I daur say my cousin Rob could

get at it gin he liked."

"But would he be disposed to serve us in this pinch, Mr. Jarvie?" said I.

"You have described him as an agent of the Jacobite party, and deeply

connected in their intrigues: will he be disposed for my sake, or, if you

please, for the sake of justice, to make an act of restitution, which,

supposing it in his power, would, according to your view of the case,

materially interfere with their plans?"

"I canna preceesely speak to that: the grandees among them are doubtfu'

o' Rob, and he's doubtfu' o' them.--And he's been weel friended wi' the

Argyle family, wha stand for the present model of government. If he was

freed o' his hornings and captions, he would rather be on Argyle's side

than he wad be on Breadalbane's, for there's auld ill-will between the

Breadalbane family and his kin and name. The truth is, that Rob is for

his ain hand, as Henry Wynd feught*--he'll take the side that suits him

best; if the deil was laird, Rob wad be for being tenant; and ye canna

blame him, puir fallow, considering his circumstances.

* Two great clans fought out a quarrel with thirty men of a side, in

presence ot the king, on the North Inch of Perth, on or about the year

1392; a man was amissing on one side, whose room was filled by a little

bandy-legged citizen of Perth. This substitute, Henry Wynd--or, as the

Highlanders called him, _Gow Chrom,_ that is, the bandy-legged

smith--fought well, and contributed greatly to the fate of the battle,

without knowing which side he fought on;--so, "To fight for your own

hand, like Henry Wynd," passed into a proverb. [This incident forms a

conspicuous part of the subsequent novel, "The Fair Maid of Perth."]

But there's ae thing sair again ye--Rob has a grey mear in his stable at

hame."

"A grey mare?" said I. "What is that to the purpose?"

"The wife, man--the wife,--an awfu' wife she is. She downa bide the sight

o' a kindly Scot, if he come frae the Lowlands, far less of an Inglisher,

and she'll be keen for a' that can set up King James, and ding down King

George."

"It is very singular," I replied, "that the mercantile transactions of

London citizens should become involved with revolutions and rebellions."

"Not at a', man--not at a'," returned Mr. Jarvie; "that's a' your silly

prejudications. I read whiles in the lang dark nights, and I hae read in

Baker's Chronicle* that the merchants o'London could gar the Bank of

Genoa break their promise to advance a mighty sum to the King o' Spain,

whereby the sailing of the Grand Spanish Armada was put aff for a haill

year--What think you of that, sir?"

* [_The Chronicle of the Kings of England,_ by Sir Richard Baker, with

continuations, passed through several editions between 1641 and 1733.

Whether any of them contain the passage alluded to is doubtful.]

"That the merchants did their country golden service, which ought to be

honourably remembered in our histories."

"I think sae too; and they wad do weel, and deserve weal baith o' the

state and o' humanity, that wad save three or four honest Hieland

gentlemen frae louping heads ower heels into destruction, wi' a' their

puir sackless* followers, just because they canna pay back the siller

they had reason to count upon as their ain--and save your father's

credit--and my ain gude siller that Osbaldistone and Tresham awes me into

the bargain.

* Sackless, that is, innocent.

I say, if ane could manage a' this, I think it suld be done and said unto

him, even if he were a puir ca'-the-shuttle body, as unto one whom the

king delighteth to honour."

"I cannot pretend to estimate the extent of public gratitude," I replied;

"but our own thankfulness, Mr. Jarvie, would be commensurate with the

extent of the obligation."

"Which," added Mr. Owen, "we would endeavour to balance with a _per

contra,_ the instant our Mr. Osbaldistone returns from Holland."

"I doubtna--I doubtna--he is a very worthy gentleman, and a sponsible,

and wi' some o' my lights might do muckle business in Scotland--Weel,

sir, if these assets could be redeemed out o' the hands o' the

Philistines, they are gude paper--they are the right stuff when they are

in the right hands, and that's yours, Mr. Owen. And I'se find ye three

men in Glasgow, for as little as ye may think o' us, Mr. Owen--that's

Sandie Steenson in the Trade's-Land, and John Pirie in Candleriggs, and

another that sall be nameless at this present, sall advance what soums

are sufficient to secure the credit of your house, and seek nae better

security."

Owen's eyes sparkled at this prospect of extrication; but his countenance

instantly fell on recollecting how improbable it was that the recovery of

the assets, as he technically called them, should be successfully

achieved.

"Dinna despair, sir--dinna despair," said Mr. Jarvie; "I hae taen sae

muckle concern wi' your affairs already, that it maun een be ower shoon

ower boots wi' me now. I am just like my father the deacon (praise be wi'

him!) I canna meddle wi' a friend's business, but I aye end wi' making it

my ain--Sae, I'll e'en pit on my boots the morn, and be jogging ower

Drymen Muir wi' Mr. Frank here; and if I canna mak Rob hear reason, and

his wife too, I dinna ken wha can--I hae been a kind freend to them afore

now, to say naething o' ower-looking him last night, when naming his name

wad hae cost him his life--I'll be hearing o' this in the council maybe

frae Bailie Grahame. and MacVittie, and some o' them. They hae coost up

my kindred to Rob to me already--set up their nashgabs! I tauld them I

wad vindicate nae man's faults; but set apart what he had done again the

law o' the country, and the hership o' the Lennox, and the misfortune o'

some folk losing life by him, he was an honester man than stood on ony o'

their shanks--And whatfor suld I mind their clavers? If Rob is an outlaw,

to himsell be it said--there is nae laws now about reset of

inter-communed persons, as there was in the ill times o' the last

Stuarts--I trow I hae a Scotch tongue in my head--if they speak, I'se

answer."

It was with great pleasure that I saw the Bailie gradually surmount the

barriers of caution, under the united influence of public spirit and

good-natured interest in our affairs, together with his natural wish to

avoid loss and acquire gain, and not a little harmless vanity. Through

the combined operation of these motives, he at length arrived at the

doughty resolution of taking the field in person, to aid in the recovery

of my father's property. His whole information led me to believe, that if

the papers were in possession of this Highland adventurer, it might be

possible to induce him to surrender what he could not keep with any

prospect of personal advantage; and I was conscious that the presence of

his kinsman was likely to have considerable weight with him. I therefore

cheerfully acquiesced in Mr. Jarvie's proposal that we should set out

early next morning.

That honest gentleman was indeed as vivacious and alert in preparing to

carry his purpose into execution, as he had been slow and cautious in

forming it. He roared to Mattie to "air his trot-cosey, to have his

jack-boots greased and set before the kitchen-fire all night, and to see

that his beast be corned, and a' his riding gear in order." Having agreed

to meet him at five o'clock next morning, and having settled that Owen,

whose presence could be of no use to us upon this expedition, should

await our return at Glasgow, we took a kind farewell of this unexpectedly

zealous friend. I installed Owen in an apartment in my lodgings,

contiguous to my own, and, giving orders to Andrew Fairservice to attend

me next morning at the hour appointed, I retired to rest with better

hopes than it had lately been my fortune to entertain.

CHAPTER TENTH.

Far as the eye could reach no tree was seen,

Earth, clad in russet, scorned the lively green;

No birds, except as birds of passage flew;

No bee was heard to hum, no dove to coo;

No streams, as amber smooth-as amber clear,

Were seen to glide, or heard to warble here.

Prophecy of Famine.

It was in the bracing atmosphere of a harvest morning, that I met by

appointment Fairservice, with the horses, at the door of Mr. Jarvie's

house, which was but little space distant from Mrs. Flyter's hotel. The

first matter which caught my attention was, that whatever were the

deficiencies of the pony which Mr. Fairservice's legal adviser, Clerk

Touthope, generously bestowed upon him in exchange for Thorncliff's mare,

he had contrived to part with it, and procure in its stead an animal with

so curious and complete a lameness, that it seemed only to make use of

three legs for the purpose of progression, while the fourth appeared as

if meant to be flourished in the air by way of accompaniment. "What do

you mean by bringing such a creature as that here, sir? and where is the

pony you rode to Glasgow upon?" were my very natural and impatient

inquiries.

"I sell't it, sir. It was a slink beast, and wad hae eaten its head aff,

standing at Luckie Flyter's at livery. And I hae bought this on your

honour's account. It's a grand bargain--cost but a pund sterling the

foot--that's four a'thegither. The stringhalt will gae aff when it's gaen

a mile; it's a weel-ken'd ganger; they call it Souple Tam."

"On my soul, sir," said I, "you will never rest till my supple-jack and

your shoulders become acquainted, If you do not go instantly and procure

the other brute, you shall pay the penalty of your ingenuity."

Andrew, notwithstanding my threats, continued to battle the point, as he

said it would cost him a guinea of rue-bargain to the man who had bought

his pony, before he could get it back again. Like a true Englishman,

though sensible I was duped by the rascal, I was about to pay his

exaction rather than lose time, when forth sallied Mr. Jarvie, cloaked,

mantled, hooded, and booted, as if for a Siberian winter, while two

apprentices, under the immediate direction of Mattie, led forth the

decent ambling steed which had the honour on such occasions to support

the person of the Glasgow magistrate. Ere he "clombe to the saddle," an

expression more descriptive of the Bailie's mode of mounting than that of

the knights-errant to whom Spenser applies it, he inquired the cause of

the dispute betwixt my servant and me. Having learned the nature of

honest Andrew's manoeuvre he instantly cut short all debate, by

pronouncing, that if Fairservice did not forthwith return the

three-legged palfrey, and produce the more useful quadruped which he had

discarded, he would send him to prison, and amerce him in half his wages.

"Mr. Osbaldistone," said he, "contracted for the service of both your

horse and you--twa brutes at ance--ye unconscionable rascal!--but I'se

look weel after you during this journey."

"It will be nonsense fining me," said Andrew, doughtily, "that hasna a

grey groat to pay a fine wi'--it's ill taking the breeks aff a

Hielandman."

"If ye hae nae purse to fine, ye hae flesh to pine," replied the Bailie,

"and I will look weel to ye getting your deserts the tae way or the

tither."

To the commands of Mr. Jarvie, therefore, Andrew was compelled to submit,

only muttering between his teeth, "Ower mony maisters,--ower mony

maisters, as the paddock said to the harrow, when every tooth gae her a

tig."

Apparently he found no difficulty in getting rid of Supple Tam, and

recovering possession of his former Bucephalus, for he accomplished the

exchange without being many minutes absent; nor did I hear further of his

having paid any smart-money for breach of bargain.

We now set forward, but had not reached the top of the street in which

Mr. Jarvie dwelt, when a loud hallooing and breathless call of "Stop,

stop!" was heard behind us. We stopped accordingly, and were overtaken by

Mr. Jarvie's two lads, who bore two parting tokens of Mattie's care for

her master. The first was conveyed in the form of a voluminous silk

handkerchief, like the mainsail of one of his own West-Indiamen, which

Mrs. Mattie particularly desired he would put about his neck, and which,

thus entreated, he added to his other integuments. The second youngster

brought only a verbal charge (I thought I saw the rogue disposed to laugh

as he delivered it) on the part of the housekeeper, that her master would

take care of the waters. "Pooh! pooh! silly hussy," answered Mr. Jarvie;

but added, turning to me, "it shows a kind heart though--it shows a kind

heart in sae young a quean--Mattie's a carefu' lass." So speaking, he

pricked the sides of his palfrey, and we left the town without farther

interruption.

While we paced easily forward, by a road which conducted us

north-eastward from the town, I had an opportunity to estimate and admire

the good qualities of my new friend. Although, like my father, he

considered commercial transactions the most important objects of human

life, he was not wedded to them so as to undervalue more general

knowledge. On the contrary, with much oddity and vulgarity of

manner,--with a vanity which he made much more ridiculous by disguising

it now and then under a thin veil of humility, and devoid as he was of

all the advantages of a learned education, Mr. Jarvie's conversation

showed tokens of a shrewd, observing, liberal, and, to the extent of its

opportunities, a well-improved mind. He was a good local antiquary, and

entertained me, as we passed along, with an account of remarkable events

which had formerly taken place in the scenes through which we passed.

And as he was well acquainted with the ancient history of his district,

he saw with the prospective eye of an enlightened patriot, the buds of

many of those future advantages which have only blossomed and ripened

within these few years. I remarked also, and with great pleasure, that

although a keen Scotchman, and abundantly zealous for the honour of his

country, he was disposed to think liberally of the sister kingdom. When

Andrew Fairservice (whom, by the way, the Bailie could not abide) chose

to impute the accident of one of the horses casting his shoe to the

deteriorating influence of the Union, he incurred a severe rebuke from

Mr. Jarvie.

"Whisht, sir!--whisht! it's ill-scraped tongues like yours, that make

mischief atween neighbourhoods and nations. There's naething sae gude on

this side o' time but it might hae been better, and that may be said o'

the Union. Nane were keener against it than the Glasgow folk, wi' their

rabblings and their risings, and their mobs, as they ca' them now-a-days.

But it's an ill wind blaws naebody gude--Let ilka ane roose the ford as

they find it--I say let Glasgow flourish! whilk is judiciously and

elegantly putten round the town's arms, by way of by-word.--Now, since

St. Mungo catched herrings in the Clyde, what was ever like to gar us

flourish like the sugar and tobacco trade? Will onybody tell me that, and

grumble at the treaty that opened us a road west-awa' yonder?"

Andrew Fairservice was far from acquiescing in these arguments of

expedience, and even ventured to enter a grumbling protest, "That it was

an unco change to hae Scotland's laws made in England; and that, for his

share, he wadna for a' the herring-barrels in Glasgow, and a' the

tobacco-casks to boot, hae gien up the riding o' the Scots Parliament, or

sent awa' our crown, and our sword, and our sceptre, and Mons Meg,* to be

keepit by thae English pock-puddings in the Tower o' Lunnon.

* Note G. Mons Meg.

What wad Sir William Wallace, or auld Davie Lindsay, hae said to the

Union, or them that made it?"

The road which we travelled, while diverting the way with these

discussions, had become wild and open, as soon as we had left Glasgow a

mile or two behind us, and was growing more dreary as we advanced. Huge

continuous heaths spread before, behind, and around us, in hopeless

barrenness--now level and interspersed with swamps, green with

treacherous verdure, or sable with turf, or, as they call them in

Scotland, peat-bogs,--and now swelling into huge heavy ascents, which

wanted the dignity and form of hills, while they were still more toilsome

to the passenger. There were neither trees nor bushes to relieve the eye

from the russet livery of absolute sterility. The very heath was of that

stinted imperfect kind which has little or no flower, and affords the

coarsest and meanest covering, which, as far as my experience enables me

to judge, mother Earth is ever arrayed in. Living thing we saw none,

except occasionally a few straggling sheep of a strange diversity of

colours, as black, bluish, and orange. The sable hue predominated,

however, in their faces and legs. The very birds seemed to shun these

wastes, and no wonder, since they had an easy method of escaping from

them;--at least I only heard the monotonous and plaintive cries of the

lapwing and curlew, which my companions denominated the peasweep and

whaup.

At dinner, however, which we took about noon, at a most miserable

alehouse, we had the good fortune to find that these tiresome screamers

of the morass were not the only inhabitants of the moors. The goodwife

told us, that "the gudeman had been at the hill;" and well for us that he

had been so, for we enjoyed the produce of his _chasse_ in the shape of

some broiled moor-game,--a dish which gallantly eked out the ewe-milk

cheese, dried salmon, and oaten bread, being all besides that the house

afforded. Some very indifferent two-penny ale, and a glass of excellent

brandy, crowned our repast; and as our horses had, in the meantime,

discussed their corn, we resumed our journey with renovated vigour.

I had need of all the spirits a good dinner could give, to resist the

dejection which crept insensibly on my mind, when I combined the strange

uncertainty of my errand with the disconsolate aspect of the country

through which it was leading me. Our road continued to be, if possible,

more waste and wild than that we had travelled in the forenoon. The few

miserable hovels that showed some marks of human habitation, were now of

still rarer occurrence; and at length, as we began to ascend an

uninterrupted swell of moorland, they totally disappeared. The only

exercise which my imagination received was, when some particular turn of

the road gave us a partial view, to the left, of a large assemblage of

dark-blue mountains stretching to the north and north-west, which

promised to include within their recesses a country as wild perhaps, but

certainly differing greatly in point of interest, from that which we now

travelled. The peaks of this screen of mountains were as wildly varied

and distinguished, as the hills which we had seen on the right were tame

and lumpish; and while I gazed on this Alpine region, I felt a longing to

explore its recesses, though accompanied with toil and danger, similar to

that which a sailor feels when he wishes for the risks and animation of a

battle or a gale, in exchange for the insupportable monotony of a

protracted calm. I made various inquiries of my friend Mr. Jarvie

respecting the names and positions of these remarkable mountains; but it

was a subject on which he had no information, or did not choose to be

communicative. "They're the Hieland hills--the Hieland hills--Ye'll see

and hear eneugh about them before ye see Glasgow Cross again--I downa

look at them--I never see them but they gar me grew. It's no for fear--no

for fear, but just for grief, for the puir blinded half-starved creatures

that inhabit them--but say nae mair about it--it's ill speaking o'

Hielandmen sae near the line. I hae ken'd mony an honest man wadna hae

ventured this length without he had made his last will and

testament--Mattie had ill-will to see me set awa' on this ride, and grat

awee, the sillie tawpie; but it's nae mair ferlie to see a woman greet

than to see a goose gang barefit."

I next attempted to lead the discourse on the character and history of

the person whom we were going to visit; but on this topic Mr. Jarvie was

totally inaccessible, owing perhaps in part to the attendance of Mr.

Andrew Fairservice, who chose to keep so close in our rear that his ears

could not fail to catch every word which was spoken, while his tongue

assumed the freedom of mingling in our conversation as often as he saw an

opportunity. For this he occasionally incurred Mr. Jarvie's reproof.

"Keep back, sir, as best sets ye," said the Bailie, as Andrew pressed

forward to catch the answer to some question I had asked about Campbell.

--"ye wad fain ride the fore-horse, an ye wist how.--That chield's aye

for being out o' the cheese-fat he was moulded in.--Now, as for your

questions, Mr. Osbaldistone, now that chield's out of ear-shot, I'll just

tell you it's free to you to speer, and it's free to me to answer, or

no--Gude I canna say muckle o' Rob, puir chield; ill I winna say o' him,

for, forby that he's my cousin, we're coming near his ain country, and

there may be ane o' his gillies ahint every whin-bush, for what I

ken--And if ye'll be guided by my advice, the less ye speak about him, or

where we are gaun, or what we are gaun to do, we'll be the mair likely to

speed us in our errand. For it's like we may fa' in wi' some o' his

unfreends--there are e'en ower mony o' them about--and his bonnet sits

even on his brow yet for a' that; but I doubt they'll be upsides wi' Rob

at the last--air day or late day, the fox's hide finds aye the flaying

knife."

"I will certainly," I replied, "be entirely guided by your experience."

"Right, Mr. Osbaldistone--right. But I maun speak to this gabbling skyte

too, for bairns and fules speak at the Cross what they hear at the

ingle-side.--D'ye hear, you, Andrew--what's your name?--Fairservice!"

Andrew, who at the last rebuff had fallen a good way behind, did not

choose to acknowledge the summons.

"Andrew, ye scoundrel!" repeated Mr. Jarvie; "here, sir here!"

"Here is for the dog." said Andrew, coming up sulkily.

"I'll gie you dog's wages, ye rascal, if ye dinna attend to what I say

t'ye--We are gaun into the Hielands a bit"--

"I judged as muckle," said Andrew.

"Haud your peace, ye knave, and hear what I have to say till ye--We are

gaun a bit into the Hielands"--

"Ye tauld me sae already," replied the incorrigible Andrew.

"I'll break your head," said the Bailie, rising in wrath, "if ye dinna

haud your tongue."

"A hadden tongue," replied Andrew, "makes a slabbered mouth."

It was now necessary I should interfere, which I did by commanding

Andrew, with an authoritative tone, to be silent at his peril.

"I am silent," said Andrew. "I'se do a' your lawfu' bidding without a

nay-say. My puir mother used aye to tell me,

Be it better, be it worse,

Be ruled by him that has the purse.

Sae ye may e'en speak as lang as ye like, baith the tane and the tither

o' you, for Andrew."

Mr. Jarvie took the advantage of his stopping after quoting the above

proverb, to give him the requisite instructions. "Now, sir, it's as

muckle as your life's worth--that wad be dear o' little siller, to be

sure--but it is as muckle as a' our lives are worth, if ye dinna mind

what I sae to ye. In this public whar we are gaun to, and whar it is like

we may hae to stay a' night, men o' a' clans and kindred--Hieland and

Lawland--tak up their quarters--And whiles there are mair drawn dirks

than open Bibles amang them, when the usquebaugh gets uppermost. See ye

neither meddle nor mak, nor gie nae offence wi' that clavering tongue o'

yours, but keep a calm sough, and let ilka cock fight his ain battle."

"Muckle needs to tell me that," said Andrew, contemptuously, "as if I had

never seen a Hielandman before, and ken'd nae how to manage them. Nae man

alive can cuitle up Donald better than mysell--I hae bought wi' them,

sauld wi' them, eaten wi' them, drucken wi' them"--

"Did ye ever fight wi' them?" said Mr. Jarvie.

"Na, na," answered Andrew, "I took care o' that: it wad ill hae set me,

that am an artist and half a scholar to my trade, to be fighting amang a

wheen kilted loons that dinna ken the name o' a single herb or flower in

braid Scots, let abee in the Latin tongue."

"Then," said Mr. Jarvie, "as ye wad keep either your tongue in your

mouth, or your lugs in your head (and ye might miss them, for as saucy

members as they are), I charge ye to say nae word, gude or bad, that ye

can weel get by, to onybody that may be in the Clachan. And ye'll

specially understand that ye're no to be bleezing and blasting about your

master's name and mine, or saying that this is Mr. Bailie Nicol Jarvie o'

the Saut Market, son o' the worthy Deacon Nicol Jarvie, that a' body has

heard about; and this is Mr. Frank Osbaldistone, son of the managing

partner of the great house of Osbaldistone and Tresham, in the City."

"Eneueh said," answered Andrew--"eneueh said. What need ye think I wad be

speaking about your names for?--I hae mony things o' mair importance to

speak about, I trow."

"It's thae very things of importance that I am feared for, ye blethering

goose; ye maunna speak ony thing, gude or bad, that ye can by any

possibility help."

"If ye dinna think me fit," replied Andrew, in a huff, "to speak like

ither folk, gie me my wages and my board-wages, and I'se gae back to

Glasgow--There's sma' sorrow at our parting, as the auld mear said to the

broken cart."

Finding Andrew's perverseness again rising to a point which threatened to

occasion me inconvenience, I was under the necessity of explaining to

him, that he might return if he thought proper, but that in that case I

would not pay him a single farthing for his past services. The argument

_ad crumenam,_ as it has been called by jocular logicians, has weight

with the greater part of mankind, and Andrew was in that particular far

from affecting any trick of singularity. He "drew in his horns," to use

the Bailie's phrase, on the instant, professed no intention whatever to

disoblige, and a resolution to be guided by my commands, whatever they

might be.

Concord being thus happily restored to our small party, we continued to

pursue our journey. The road, which had ascended for six or seven English

miles, began now to descend for about the same space, through a country

which neither in fertility nor interest could boast any advantage over

that which we had passed already, and which afforded no variety, unless

when some tremendous peak of a Highland mountain appeared at a distance.

We continued, however, to ride on without pause and even when night fell

and overshadowed the desolate wilds which we traversed, we were, as I

understood from Mr. Jarvie, still three miles and a bittock distant from

the place where we were to spend the night.

CHAPTER ELEVENTH.

Baron of Bucklivie,

May the foul fiend drive ye,

And a' to pieces rive ye,

For building sic a town,

Where there's neither horse meat,

Nor man's meat,

Nor a chair to sit down.

Scottish Popular Rhymes on a bad Inn.

The night was pleasant, and the moon afforded us good light for our

journey. Under her rays, the ground over which we passed assumed a more

interesting appearance than during the broad daylight, which discovered

the extent of its wasteness. The mingled light and shadows gave it an

interest which naturally did not belong to it; and, like the effect of a

veil flung over a plain woman, irritated our curiosity on a subject which

had in itself nothing gratifying.

The descent, however, still continued, turned, winded, left the more open

heaths, and got into steeper ravines, which promised soon to lead us to

the banks of some brook or river, and ultimately made good their presage.

We found ourselves at length on the bank of a stream, which rather

resembled one of my native English rivers than those I had hitherto seen

in Scotland. It was narrow, deep, still, and silent; although the

imperfect light, as it gleamed on its placid waters, showed also that we

were now among the lofty mountains which formed its cradle. "That's the

Forth," said the Bailie, with an air of reverence, which I have observed

the Scotch usually pay to their distinguished rivers. The Clyde, the

Tweed, the Forth, the Spey, are usually named by those who dwell on their

banks with a sort of respect and pride, and I have known duels occasioned

by any word of disparagement. I cannot say I have the least quarrel with

this sort of harmless enthusiasm. I received my friend's communication

with the importance which he seemed to think appertained to it. In fact,

I was not a little pleased, after so long and dull a journey, to approach

a region which promised to engage the imagination. My faithful squire,

Andrew, did not seem to be quite of the same opinion, for he received the

solemn information, "That is the Forth," with a "Umph!--an he had said

that's the public-house, it wad hae been mair to the purpose."

The Forth, however, as far as the imperfect light permitted me to judge,

seemed to merit the admiration of those who claimed an interest in its

stream. A beautiful eminence of the most regular round shape, and clothed

with copsewood of hazels, mountain-ash, and dwarf-oak, intermixed with a

few magnificent old trees, which, rising above the underwood, exposed

their forked and bared branches to the silver moonshine, seemed to

protect the sources from which the river sprung. If I could trust the

tale of my companion, which, while professing to disbelieve every word of

it, he told under his breath, and with an air of something like

intimidation, this hill, so regularly formed, so richly verdant, and

garlanded with such a beautiful variety of ancient trees and thriving

copsewood, was held by the neighbourhood to contain, within its unseen

caverns, the palaces of the fairies--a race of airy beings, who formed an

intermediate class between men and demons, and who, if not positively

malignant to humanity, were yet to be avoided and feared, on account of

their capricious, vindictive, and irritable disposition.*

* Note H. Fairy Superstition.

"They ca' them," said Mr. Jarvie, in a whisper, "_Daoine Schie,_--whilk

signifies, as I understand, men of peace; meaning thereby to make their

gudewill. And we may e'en as weel ca' them that too, Mr. Osbaldistone,

for there's nae gude in speaking ill o' the laird within his ain bounds."

But he added presently after, on seeing one or two lights which twinkled

before us, "It's deceits o' Satan, after a', and I fearna to say it--for

we are near the manse now, and yonder are the lights in the Clachan of

Aberfoil."

I own I was well pleased at the circumstance to which Mr. Jarvie alluded;

not so much that it set his tongue at liberty, in his opinion, with all

safety to declare his real sentiments with respect to the _Daoine Schie,_

or fairies, as that it promised some hours' repose to ourselves and our

horses, of which, after a ride of fifty miles and upwards, both stood in

some need.

We crossed the infant Forth by an old-fashioned stone bridge, very high

and very narrow. My conductor, however, informed me, that to get through

this deep and important stream, and to clear all its tributary

dependencies, the general pass from the Highlands to the southward lay by

what was called the Fords of Frew, at all times deep and difficult of

passage, and often altogether unfordable. Beneath these fords, there was

no pass of general resort until so far east as the bridge of Stirling; so

that the river of Forth forms a defensible line between the Highlands and

Lowlands of Scotland, from its source nearly to the Firth, or inlet of

the ocean, in which it terminates. The subsequent events which we

witnessed led me to recall with attention what the shrewdness of Bailie

Jarvie suggested in his proverbial expression, that "Forth bridles the

wild Highlandman."

About half a mile's riding, after we crossed the bridge, placed us at the

door of the public-house where we were to pass the evening. It was a

hovel rather worse than better than that in which we had dined; but its

little windows were lighted up, voices were heard from within, and all

intimated a prospect of food and shelter, to which we were by no means

indifferent. Andrew was the first to observe that there was a peeled

willow-wand placed across the half-open door of the little inn. He hung

back and advised us not to enter. "For," said Andrew, "some of their

chiefs and grit men are birling at the usquebaugh in by there, and dinna

want to be disturbed; and the least we'll get, if we gang ramstam in on

them, will be a broken head, to learn us better havings, if we dinna come

by the length of a cauld dirk in our wame, whilk is just as likely."

I looked at the Bailie, who acknowledged, in a whisper, "that the gowk

had some reason for singing, ance in the year."

Meantime a staring half-clad wench or two came out of the inn and the

neighbouring cottages, on hearing the sound of our horses' feet. No one

bade us welcome, nor did any one offer to take our horses, from which we

had alighted; and to our various inquiries, the hopeless response of "Ha

niel Sassenach," was the only answer we could extract. The Bailie,

however, found (in his experience) a way to make them speak English. "If

I gie ye a bawbee," said he to an urchin of about ten years old, with a

fragment of a tattered plaid about him, "will you understand Sassenach?"

"Ay, ay, that will I," replied the brat, in very decent English. "Then

gang and tell your mammy, my man, there's twa Sassenach gentlemen come to

speak wi' her."

The landlady presently appeared, with a lighted piece of split fir

blazing in her hand. The turpentine in this species of torch (which is

generally dug from out the turf-bogs) makes it blaze and sparkle readily,

so that it is often used in the Highlands in lieu of candles. On this

occasion such a torch illuminated the wild and anxious features of a

female, pale, thin, and rather above the usual size, whose soiled and

ragged dress, though aided by a plaid or tartan screen, barely served the

purposes of decency, and certainly not those of comfort. Her black hair,

which escaped in uncombed elf-locks from under her coif, as well as the

strange and embarrassed look with which she regarded us, gave me the idea

of a witch disturbed in the midst of her unlawful rites. She plainly

refused to admit us into the house. We remonstrated anxiously, and

pleaded the length of our journey, the state of our horses, and the

certainty that there was not another place where we could be received

nearer than Callander, which the Bailie stated to be seven Scots miles

distant. How many these may exactly amount to in English measurement, I

have never been able to ascertain, but I think the double _ratio_ may be

pretty safely taken as a medium computation. The obdurate hostess treated

our expostulation with contempt. "Better gang farther than fare waur,"

she said, speaking the Scottish Lowland dialect, and being indeed a

native of the Lennox district--"Her house was taen up wi' them wadna like

to be intruded on wi' strangers. She didna ken wha mair might be

there--red-coats, it might be, frae the garrison." (These last words she

spoke under her breath, and with very strong emphasis.) "The night," she

said, "was fair abune head--a night amang the heather wad caller our

bloods--we might sleep in our claes, as mony a gude blade does in the

scabbard--there wasna muckle flowmoss in the shaw, if we took up our

quarters right, and we might pit up our horses to the hill, naebody wad

say naething against it."

"But, my good woman," said I, while the Bailie groaned and remained

undecided, "it is six hours since we dined, and we have not taken a

morsel since. I am positively dying with hunger, and I have no taste for

taking up my abode supperless among these mountains of yours. I

positively must enter; and make the best apology you can to your guests

for adding a stranger or two to their number. Andrew, you will see the

horses put up."

The Hecate looked at me with surprise, and then ejaculated--"A wilfu' man

will hae his way--them that will to Cupar maun to Cupar!--To see thae

English belly-gods! he has had ae fu' meal the day already, and he'll

venture life and liberty, rather than he'll want a het supper! Set

roasted beef and pudding on the opposite side o' the pit o' Tophet, and

an Englishman will mak a spang at it--But I wash my hands o't--Follow me

sir" (to Andrew), "and I'se show ye where to pit the beasts."

I own I was somewhat dismayed at my landlady's expressions, which seemed

to be ominous of some approaching danger. I did not, however, choose to

shrink back after having declared my resolution, and accordingly I boldly

entered the house; and after narrowly escaping breaking my shins over a

turf back and a salting tub, which stood on either side of the narrow

exterior passage, I opened a crazy half-decayed door, constructed not of

plank, but of wicker, and, followed by the Bailie, entered into the

principal apartment of this Scottish caravansary.

The interior presented a view which seemed singular enough to southern

eyes. The fire, fed with blazing turf and branches of dried wood, blazed

merrily in the centre; but the smoke, having no means to escape but

through a hole in the roof, eddied round the rafters of the cottage, and

hung in sable folds at the height of about five feet from the floor. The

space beneath was kept pretty clear by innumerable currents of air which

rushed towards the fire from the broken panel of basket-work which served

as a door--from two square holes, designed as ostensible windows, through

one of which was thrust a plaid, and through the other a tattered

great-coat--and moreover, through various less distinguishable apertures

in the walls of the tenement, which, being built of round stones and

turf, cemented by mud, let in the atmosphere at innumerable crevices.

At an old oaken table, adjoining to the fire, sat three men, guests

apparently, whom it was impossible to regard with indifference. Two were

in the Highland dress; the one, a little dark-complexioned man, with a

lively, quick, and irritable expression of features, wore the trews, or

close pantaloons wove out of a sort of chequered stocking stuff. The

Bailie whispered me, that "he behoved to be a man of some consequence,

for that naebody but their Duinhe'wassels wore the trews--they were ill

to weave exactly to their Highland pleasure."

The other mountaineer was a very tall, strong man, with a quantity of

reddish hair, freckled face, high cheek-bones, and long chin--a sort of

caricature of the national features of Scotland. The tartan which he wore

differed from that of his companion, as it had much more scarlet in it,

whereas the shades of black and dark-green predominated in the chequers

of the other. The third, who sate at the same table, was in the Lowland

dress,--a bold, stout-looking man, with a cast of military daring in his

eye and manner, his riding-dress showily and profusely laced, and his

cocked hat of formidable dimensions. His hanger and a pair of pistols lay

on the table before him. Each of the Highlanders had their naked dirks

stuck upright in the board beside him,--an emblem, I was afterwards

informed, but surely a strange one, that their computation was not to be

interrupted by any brawl. A mighty pewter measure, containing about an

English quart of usquebaugh, a liquor nearly as strong as brandy, which

the Highlanders distil from malt, and drink undiluted in excessive

quantities, was placed before these worthies. A broken glass, with a

wooden foot, served as a drinking cup to the whole party, and circulated

with a rapidity, which, considering the potency of the liquor, seemed

absolutely marvellous. These men spoke loudly and eagerly together,

sometimes in Gaelic, at other times in English. Another Highlander, wrapt

in his plaid, reclined on the floor, his head resting on a stone, from

which it was only separated by a wisp of straw, and slept or seemed to

sleep, without attending to what was going on around him, He also was

probably a stranger, for he lay in full dress, and accoutred with the

sword and target, the usual arms of his countrymen when on a journey.

Cribs there were of different dimensions beside the walls, formed, some

of fractured boards, some of shattered wicker-work or plaited boughs, in

which slumbered the family of the house, men, women, and children, their

places of repose only concealed by the dusky wreaths of vapour which

arose above, below, and around them.

Our entrance was made so quietly, and the carousers I have described were

so eagerly engaged in their discussions, that we escaped their notice for

a minute or two. But I observed the Highlander who lay beside the fire

raise himself on his elbow as we entered, and, drawing his plaid over the

lower part of his face, fix his look on us for a few seconds, after which

he resumed his recumbent posture, and seemed again to betake himself to

the repose which our entrance had interrupted,

We advanced to the fire, which was an agreeable spectacle after our late

ride, during the chillness of an autumn evening among the mountains, and

first attracted the attention of the guests who had preceded us, by

calling for the landlady. She approached, looking doubtfully and timidly,

now at us, now at the other party, and returned a hesitating and doubtful

answer to our request to have something to eat.

"She didna ken," she said, "she wasna sure there was onything in the

house," and then modified her refusal with the qualification--"that is,

onything fit for the like of us."

I assured her we were indifferent to the quality of our supper; and

looking round for the means of accommodation, which were not easily to be

found, I arranged an old hen-coop as a seat for Mr. Jarvie, and turned

down a broken tub to serve for my own. Andrew Fairservice entered

presently afterwards, and took a place in silence behind our backs. The

natives, as I may call them, continued staring at us with an air as if

confounded by our assurance, and we, at least I myself, disguised as well

as we could, under an appearance of indifference, any secret anxiety we

might feel concerning the mode in which we were to be received by those

whose privacy we had disturbed.

At length, the lesser Highlander, addressing himself to me said, in very

good English, and in a tone of great haughtiness, "Ye make yourself at

home, sir, I see."

"I usually do so," I replied, "when I come into a house of public

entertainment."

"And did she na see," said the taller man, "by the white wand at the

door, that gentlemans had taken up the public-house on their ain

business?"

"I do not pretend to understand the customs of this country but I am yet

to learn," I replied, "how three persons should be entitled to exclude

all other travellers from the only place of shelter and refreshment for

miles round."

"There's nae reason for't, gentlemen," said the Bailie; "we mean nae

offence--but there's neither law nor reason for't; but as far as a stoup

o' gude brandy wad make up the quarrel, we, being peaceable folk, wad be

willing."

"Damn your brandy, sir!" said the Lowlander, adjusting his cocked hat

fiercely upon his head; "we desire neither your brandy nor your company,"

and up he rose from his seat. His companions also arose, muttering to

each other, drawing up their plaids, and snorting and snuffing the air

after the mariner of their countrymen when working themselves into a

passion.

"I tauld ye what wad come, gentlemen," said the landlady, "an ye wad hae

been tauld:--get awa' wi' ye out o' my house, and make nae disturbance

here--there's nae gentleman be disturbed at Jeanie MacAlpine's an she can

hinder. A wheen idle English loons, gaun about the country under cloud o'

night, and disturbing honest peaceable gentlemen that are drinking their

drap drink at the fireside!"

At another time I should have thought of the old Latin adage,

"Dat veniam corvis, vexat censure columbas"--

But I had not any time for classical quotation, for there was obviously a

fray about to ensue, at which, feeling myself indiginant at the

inhospitable insolence with which I was treated, I was totally

indifferent, unless on the Bailie's account, whose person and qualities

were ill qualified for such an adventure. I started up, however, on

seeing the others rise, and dropped my. cloak from my shoulders, that I

might be ready to stand on the defensive.

"We are three to three," said the lesser Highlander, glancing his eyes at

our party: "if ye be pretty men, draw!" and unsheathing his broadsword,

he advanced on me. I put myself in a posture of defence, and aware of the

superiority of my weapon, a rapier or small-sword, was little afraid of

the issue of the contest. The Bailie behaved with unexpected mettle. As

he saw the gigantic Highlander confront him with his weapon drawn, he

tugged for a second or two at the hilt of his _shabble,_ as he called it;

but finding it loth to quit the sheath, to which it had long been secured

by rust and disuse, he seized, as a substitute, on the red-hot coulter of

a plough which had been employed in arranging the fire by way of a poker,

and brandished it with such effect, that at the first pass he set the

Highlander's plaid on fire, and compelled him to keep a respectful

distance till he could get it extinguished. Andrew, on the contrary, who

ought to have faced the Lowland champion, had, I grieve to say it,

vanished at the very commencement of the fray. But his antagonist, crying

"Fair play, fair play!" seemed courteously disposed to take no share in

the scuffle. Thus we commenced our rencontre on fair terms as to numbers.

My own aim was, to possess myself, if possible, of my antagonist's

weapon; but I was deterred from closing, for fear of the dirk which he

held in his left hand, and used in parrying the thrusts of my rapier.

Meantime the Bailie, notwithstanding the success of his first onset, was

sorely bested. The weight of his weapon, the corpulence of his person,

the very effervescence of his own passions, were rapidly exhausting both

his strength and his breath, and he was almost at the mercy of his

antagonist, when up started the sleeping Highlander from the floor on

which he reclined, with his naked sword and target in his hand, and threw

himself between the discomfited magistrate and his assailant, exclaiming,

"Her nainsell has eaten the town pread at the Cross o' Glasgow, and py

her troth she'll fight for Bailie Sharvie at the Clachan of Aberfoil--tat

will she e'en!" And seconding his words with deeds, this unexpected

auxiliary made his sword whistle about the ears of his tall countryman,

who, nothing abashed, returned his blows with interest. But being both

accoutred with round targets made of wood, studded with brass, and

covered with leather, with which they readily parried each other's

strokes, their combat was attended with much more noise and clatter than

serious risk of damage. It appeared, indeed, that there was more of

bravado than of serious attempt to do us any injury; for the Lowland

gentleman, who, as I mentioned, had stood aside for want of an antagonist

when the brawl commenced, was now pleased to act the part of moderator

and peacemaker.

[Illustration: Fray at Jeannie MacAlpine's--154]

"Hand your hands! haud your hands!--eneugh done!--eneugh done! the

quarrel's no mortal. The strange gentlemen have shown themselves men of

honour, and gien reasonable satisfaction. I'll stand on mine honour as

kittle as ony man, but I hate unnecessary bloodshed."

It was not, of course, my wish to protract the fray--my adversary seemed

equally disposed to sheathe his sword--the Bailie, gasping for breath,

might be considered as _hors de combat,_ and our two sword-and-buckler

men gave up their contest with as much indifference as they had entered

into it.

"And now," said the worthy gentleman who acted as umpire, "let us drink

and gree like honest fellows--The house will haud us a'. I propose that

this good little gentleman, that seems sair forfoughen, as I may say, in

this tuilzie, shall send for a tass o' brandy and I'll pay for another,

by way of archilowe,* and then we'll birl our bawbees a' round about,

like brethren."

"And fa's to pay my new ponnie plaid," said the larger Highlander, "wi' a

hole burnt in't ane might put a kail-pat through? Saw ever onybody a

decent gentleman fight wi' a firebrand before?"

"Let that be nae hinderance," said the Bailie, who had now recovered his

breath, and was at once disposed to enjoy the triumph of having behaved

with spirit, and avoid the necessity of again resorting to such hard and

doubtful arbitrament--"Gin I hae broken the head," he said, "I sall find

the plaister. A new plaid sall ye hae, and o' the best--your ain

clan-colours, man,--an ye will tell me where it can be sent t'ye frae

Glasco."

"I needna name my clan--I am of a king's clan, as is weel ken'd," said

the Highlander; "but ye may tak a bit o' the plaid--figh! she smells like

a singit sheep's head!--and that'll learn ye the sett--and a gentleman,

that's a cousin o' my ain, that carries eggs doun frae Glencroe, will ca'

for't about Martimas, an ye will tell her where ye bide. But, honest

gentleman, neist time ye fight, an ye hae ony respect for your

athversary, let it be wi' your sword, man, since ye wear ane, and no wi'

thae het culters and fireprands, like a wild Indian."

"Conscience!" replied the Bailie, "every man maun do as he dow. My sword

hasna seen the light since Bothwell Brigg, when my father that's dead and

gane, ware it; and I kenna weel if it was forthcoming then either, for

the battle was o' the briefest--At ony rate, it's glued to the scabbard

now beyond my power to part them; and, finding that, I e'en grippit at

the first thing I could make a fend wi'. I trow my fighting days is done,

though I like ill to take the scorn, for a' that.--But where's the honest

lad that tuik my quarrel on himself sae frankly?--I'se bestow a gill o'

aquavitae on him, an I suld never ca' for anither."

* Archilowe, of unknown derivation, signifies a peace-offering.

The champion for whom he looked around was, however, no longer to be

seen. He had escaped unobserved by the Bailie, immediately when the brawl

was ended, yet not before I had recognised, in his wild features and

shaggy red hair, our acquaintance Dougal, the fugitive turnkey of the

Glasgow jail. I communicated this observation in a whisper to the Bailie,

who answered in the same tone, "Weel, weel,--I see that him that ye ken

o' said very right; there _is_ some glimmering o' common sense about that

creature Dougal; I maun see and think o' something will do him some

gude."

Thus saying, he sat down, and fetching one or two deep aspirations, by

way of recovering his breath, called to the landlady--"I think, Luckie,

now that I find that there's nae hole in my wame, whilk I had muckle

reason to doubt frae the doings o' your house, I wad be the better o'

something to pit intill't."

The dame, who was all officiousness so soon as the storm had blown over,

immediately undertook to broil something comfortable for our supper.

Indeed, nothing surprised me more, in the course of the whole matter,

than the extreme calmness with which she and her household seemed to

regard the martial tumult that had taken place. The good woman was only

heard to call to some of her assistants--"Steek the door! steek the door!

kill or be killed, let naebody pass out till they hae paid the lawin."

And as for the slumberers in those lairs by the wall, which served the

family for beds, they only raised their shirtless bodies to look at the

fray, ejaculated, "Oigh! oigh!" in the tone suitable to their respective

sex and ages, and were, I believe, fast asleep again, ere our swords were

well returned to their scabbards.

Our landlady, however, now made a great bustle to get some victuals

ready, and, to my surprise, very soon began to prepare for us in the

frying-pan a savoury mess of venison collops, which she dressed in a

manner that might well satisfy hungry men, if not epicures. In the

meantime the brandy was placed on the table, to which the Highlanders,

however partial to their native strong waters, showed no objection, but

much the contrary; and the Lowland gentleman, after the first cup had

passed round, became desirous to know our profession, and the object of

our journey.

"We are bits o' Glasgow bodies, if it please your honour," said the

Bailie, with an affectation of great humility, "travelling to Stirling to

get in some siller that is awing us."

I was so silly as to feel a little disconcerted at the unassuming account

which he chose to give of us; but I recollected my promise to be silent,

and allow the Bailie to manage the matter his own way. And really, when I

recollected, Will, that I had not only brought the honest man a long

journey from home, which even in itself had been some inconvenience (if I

were to judge from the obvious pain and reluctance with which he took his

seat, or arose from it), but had also put him within a hair's-breadth of

the loss of his life, I could hardly refuse him such a compliment. The

spokesman of the other party, snuffing up his breath through his nose,

repeated the words with a sort of sneer;--"You Glasgow tradesfolks hae

naething to do but to gang frae the tae end o' the west o' Scotland to

the ither, to plague honest folks that may chance to be awee ahint the

hand, like me."

"If our debtors were a' sic honest gentlemen as I believe you to be,

Garschattachin," replied the Bailie, "conscience! we might save ourselves

a labour, for they wad come to seek us."

"Eh! what! how!" exclaimed the person whom he had addressed,--"as I shall

live by bread (not forgetting beef and brandy), it's my auld friend Nicol

Jarvie, the best man that ever counted doun merks on a band till a

distressed gentleman. Were ye na coming up my way?--were ye na coming up

the Endrick to Garschattachin?"

"Troth no, Maister Galbraith," replied the Bailie, "I had other eggs on

the spit--and I thought ye wad be saying I cam to look about the annual

rent that's due on the bit heritable band that's between us."

"Damn the annual rent!" said the laird, with an appearance of great

heartiness--"Deil a word o' business will you or I speak, now that ye're

so near my country. To see how a trot-cosey and a joseph can disguise a

man--that I suldna ken my auld feal friend the deacon!"

"The Bailie, if ye please," resumed my companion; "but I ken what gars ye

mistak--the band was granted to my father that's happy, and he was

deacon; but his name was Nicol as weel as mine. I dinna mind that there's

been a payment of principal sum or annual rent on it in my day, and

doubtless that has made the mistake."

"Weel, the devil take the mistake and all that occasioned it!" replied

Mr. Galbraith. "But I am glad ye are a bailie. Gentlemen, fill a

brimmer--this is my excellent friend, Bailie Nicol Jarvie's health--I

ken'd him and his father these twenty years. Are ye a' cleared kelty

aff?--Fill anither. Here's to his being sune provost--I say

provost--Lord Provost Nicol Jarvie!--and them that affirms there's a man

walks the Hie-street o' Glasgow that's fitter for the office, they will

do weel not to let me, Duncan Galbraith of Garschattachin, hear them say

sae--that's all." And therewith Duncan Galbraith martially cocked his

hat, and placed it on one side of his head with an air of defiance.

The brandy was probably the best recommendation of there complimentary

toasts to the two Highlanders, who drank them without appearing anxious

to comprehend their purport. They commenced a conversation with Mr.

Galbraith in Gaelic, which he talked with perfect fluency, being, as I

afterwards learned, a near neighbour to the Highlands.

"I ken'd that Scant-o'-grace weel eneugh frae the very outset," said the

Bailie, in a whisper to me; "but when blude was warm, and swords were out

at ony rate, wha kens what way he might hae thought o' paying his debts?

it will be lang or he does it in common form. But he's an honest lad, and

has a warm heart too; he disna come often to the Cross o' Glasgow, but

mony a buck and blackcock he sends us doun frae the hills. And I can want

my siller weel eneugh. My father the deacon had a great regard for the

family of Garschattachin."

Supper being now nearly ready, I looked round for Andrew Fairservice; but

that trusty follower had not been seen by any one since the beginning of

the rencontre. The hostess, however, said that she believed our servant

had gone into the stable, and offered to light me to the place, saying

that "no entreaties of the bairns or hers could make him give any answer;

and that truly she caredna to gang into the stable herself at this hour.

She was a lone woman, and it was weel ken'd how the Brownie of

Ben-ye-gask guided the gudewife of Ardnagowan; and it was aye judged

there was a Brownie in our stable, which was just what garr'd me gie ower

keeping an hostler."

As, however, she lighted me towards the miserable hovel into which they

had crammed our unlucky steeds, to regale themselves on hay, every fibre

of which was as thick as an ordinary goose-quill, she plainly showed me

that she had another reason for drawing me aside from the company than

that which her words implied. "Read that," she said, slipping a piece of

paper into my hand, as we arrived at the door of the shed; "I bless God I

am rid o't. Between sogers and Saxons, and caterans and cattle-lifters,

and hership and bluidshed, an honest woman wad live quieter in hell than

on the Hieland line."

So saying, she put the pine-torch into my hand, and returned into the

house,

CHAPTER TWELFTH.

Bagpipes, not lyres, the Highland hills adorn,

MacLean's loud hollo, and MacGregor's horn.

John Cooper's Reply to Allan Ramsay.

I stopped in the entrance of the stable, if indeed a place be entitled to

that name where horses were stowed away along with goats, poultry, pigs,

and cows, under the same roof with the mansion-house; although, by a

degree of refinement unknown to the rest of the hamlet, and which I

afterwards heard was imputed to an overpride on the part of Jeanie

MacAlpine, our landlady, the apartment was accommodated with an entrance

different from that used by her biped customers. By the light of my

torch, I deciphered the following billet, written on a wet, crumpled, and

dirty piece of paper, and addressed--"For the honoured hands of Mr. F.

O., a Saxon young gentleman--These." The contents were as follows:--

"Sir,

"There are night-hawks abroad, so that I cannot give you and my respected

kinsman, B. N. J., the meeting at the Clachan of Aberfoil, whilk was my

purpose. I pray you to avoid unnecessary communication with those you may

find there, as it may give future trouble. The person who gives you this

is faithful and may be trusted, and will guide you to a place where, God

willing, I may safely give you the meeting, when I trust my kinsman and

you will visit my poor house, where, in despite of my enemies, I can

still promise sic cheer as ane Hielandman may gie his friends, and where

we will drink a solemn health to a certain D. V., and look to certain

affairs whilk I hope to be your aidance in; and I rest, as is wont among

gentlemen,

your servant to command,

R. M. C."

I was a good deal mortified at the purport of this letter, which seemed

to adjourn to a more distant place and date the service which I had hoped

to receive from this man Campbell. Still, however, it was some comfort to

know that he continued to be in my interest, since without him I could

have no hope of recovering my father's papers. I resolved, therefore, to

obey his instructions; and, observing all caution before the guests, to

take the first good opportunity I could find to procure from the landlady

directions how I was to obtain a meeting with this mysterious person.

My next business was to seek out Andrew Fairservice, whom I called

several times by name, without receiving any answer, surveying the stable

all round, at the same time, not without risk of setting the premises on

fire, had not the quantity of wet litter and mud so greatly

counterbalanced two or three bunches of straw and hay. At length my

repeated cries of "Andrew Fairservice! Andrew! fool!--ass! where are

you?" produced a doleful "Here," in a groaning tone, which might have

been that of the Brownie itself. Guided by this sound, I advanced to the

corner of a shed, where, ensconced in the angle of the wall, behind a

barrel full of the feathers of all the fowls which had died in the cause

of the public for a month past, I found the manful Andrew; and partly by

force, partly by command and exhortation, compelled him forth into the

open air. The first words he spoke were, "I am an honest lad, sir."

"Who the devil questions your honesty?" said I, "or what have we to do

with it at present? I desire you to come and attend us at supper."

"Yes," reiterated Andrew, without apparently understanding what I said to

him, "I am an honest lad, whatever the Bailie may say to the contrary. I

grant the warld and the warld's gear sits ower near my heart whiles, as

it does to mony a ane--But I am an honest lad; and, though I spak o'

leaving ye in the muir, yet God knows it was far frae my purpose, but

just like idle things folk says when they're driving a bargain, to get it

as far to their ain side as they can--And I like your honour weel for sae

young a lad, and I wadna part wi' ye lightly."

"What the deuce are you driving at now?" I replied. "Has not everything

been settled again and again to your satisfaction? And are you to talk of

leaving me every hour, without either rhyme or reason?"

"Ay,--but I was only making fashion before," replied Andrew; "but it's

come on me in sair earnest now--Lose or win, I daur gae nae farther wi'

your honour; and if ye'll tak my foolish advice, ye'll bide by a broken

tryste, rather than gang forward yoursell. I hae a sincere regard for ye,

and I'm sure ye'll be a credit to your friends if ye live to saw out your

wild aits, and get some mair sense and steadiness--But I can follow ye

nae farther, even if ye suld founder and perish from the way for lack of

guidance and counsel. To gang into Rob Roy's country is a mere tempting

o' Providence."

"Rob Roy?" said I, in some surprise; "I know no such person. What new

trick is this, Andrew?"

"It's hard," said Andrew--"very hard, that a man canna be believed when

he speaks Heaven's truth, just because he's whiles owercome, and tells

lees a little when there is necessary occasion. Ye needna ask whae Rob

Roy is, the reiving lifter that he is--God forgie me! I hope naebody

hears us--when ye hae a letter frae him in your pouch. I heard ane o' his

gillies bid that auld rudas jaud of a gudewife gie ye that. They thought

I didna understand their gibberish; but, though I canna speak it muckle,

I can gie a gude guess at what I hear them say--I never thought to hae

tauld ye that, but in a fright a' things come out that suld be keepit in.

O, Maister Frank! a' your uncle's follies, and a' your cousin's pliskies,

were naething to this! Drink clean cap out, like Sir Hildebrand; begin

the blessed morning with brandy sops, like Squire Percy; swagger, like

Squire Thorncliff; rin wud amang the lasses, like Squire John; gamble,

like Richard; win souls to the Pope and the deevil, like Rashleigh; rive,

rant, break the Sabbath, and do the Pope's bidding, like them a' put

thegither--But, merciful Providence! take care o' your young bluid, and

gang nae near Rob Roy!"

Andrew's alarm was too sincere to permit me to suppose he counterfeited.

I contented myself, however, with telling him, that I meant to remain in

the alehouse that night, and desired to have the horses well looked

after. As to the rest, I charged him to observe the strictest silence

upon the subject of his alarm, and he might rely upon it I would not

incur any serious danger without due precaution. He followed me with a

dejected air into the house, observing between his teeth, "Man suld be

served afore beast--I haena had a morsel in my mouth, but the rough legs

o' that auld muircock, this haill blessed day."

The harmony of the company seemed to have suffered some interruption

since my departure, for I found Mr. Galbraith and my friend the Bailie

high in dispute.

"I'll hear nae sic language," said Mr. Jarvie, as I entered, "respecting

the Duke o' Argyle and the name o' Campbell. He's a worthy

public-spirited nobleman, and a credit to the country, and a friend and

benefactor to the trade o' Glasgow."

"I'll sae naething against MacCallum More and the Slioch-nan-Diarmid,"

said the lesser Highlander, laughing. "I live on the wrang side of

Glencroe to quarrel with Inverara."

"Our loch ne'er saw the Cawmil lymphads,"* said the bigger Highlander.

* _Lymphads._ The galley which the family of Argyle and others of the *

Clan Campbell carry in their arms.

"She'll speak her mind and fear naebody--She doesna value a Cawmil mair

as a Cowan, and ye may tell MacCallum More that Allan Iverach said sae--

It's a far cry to Lochow."*

* Lochow and the adjacent districts formed the original seat of the *

Campbells. The expression of a "far cry to Lochow" was proverbial.

Mr. Galbraith, on whom the repeated pledges which he had quaffed had

produced some influence, slapped his hand on the table with great force,

and said, in a stern voice, "There's a bloody debt due by that family,

and they will pay it one day--The banes of a loyal and a gallant Grahame

hae lang rattled in their coffin for vengeance on thae Dukes of Guile and

Lords for Lorn. There ne'er was treason in Scotland but a Cawmil was at

the bottom o't; and now that the wrang side's uppermost, wha but the

Cawmils for keeping down the right? But this warld winna last lang, and

it will be time to sharp the maiden* for shearing o' craigs and

thrapples. I hope to see the auld rusty lass linking at a bluidy harst

again."

* A rude kind of guillotine formerly used in Scotland.

"For shame, Garschattachin!" exclaimed the Bailie; "fy for shame, sir!

Wad ye say sic things before a magistrate, and bring yoursell into

trouble?--How d'ye think to mainteen your family and satisfy your

creditors (mysell and others), if ye gang on in that wild way, which

cannot but bring you under the law, to the prejudice of a' that's

connected wi' ye?"

"D--n my creditors!" retorted the gallant Galbraith, "and you if ye be

ane o' them! I say there will be a new warld sune--And we shall hae nae

Cawmils cocking their bonnet sae hie, and hounding their dogs where they

daurna come themsells, nor protecting thieves, nor murderers, and

oppressors, to harry and spoil better men and mair loyal clans than

themsells."

The Bailie had a great mind to have continued the dispute, when the

savoury vapour of the broiled venison, which our landlady now placed

before us, proved so powerful a mediator, that he betook himself to his

trencher with great eagerness, leaving the strangers to carry on the

dispute among themselves.

"And tat's true," said the taller Highlander--whose name I found was

Stewart--"for we suldna be plagued and worried here wi' meetings to pit

down Rob Roy, if the Cawmils didna gie him refutch. I was ane o' thirty

o' my ain name--part Glenfinlas, and part men that came down frae Appine.

We shased the MacGregors as ye wad shase rae-deer, till we came into

Glenfalloch's country, and the Cawmils raise, and wadna let us pursue nae

farder, and sae we lost our labour; but her wad gie twa and a plack to be

as near Rob as she was tat day."

It seemed to happen very unfortunately, that in every topic of discourse

which these warlike gentlemen introduced, my friend the Bailie found some

matter of offence. "Ye'll forgie me speaking my mind, sir; but ye wad

maybe hae gien the best bowl in your bonnet to hae been as far awae frae

Rob as ye are e'en now--Od! my het pleugh-culter wad hae been naething to

his claymore."

"She had better speak nae mair about her culter, or, by G--! her will gar

her eat her words, and twa handfuls o' cauld steel to drive them ower

wi'!" And, with a most inauspicious and menacing look, the mountaineer

laid his hand on his dagger.

"We'll hae nae quarrelling, Allan," said his shorter companion; "and if

the Glasgow gentleman has ony regard for Rob Roy, he'll maybe see him in

cauld irons the night, and playing tricks on a tow the morn; for this

country has been owre lang plagued wi' him, and his race is near-hand

run--And it's time, Allan, we were ganging to our lads."

"Hout awa, Inverashalloch," said Galbraith;--"Mind the auld saw, man--

It's a bauld moon, quoth Bennygask--another pint, quoth Lesley;--we'll no

start for another chappin."

"I hae had chappins eneugh," said Inverashalloch; "I'll drink my quart of

usquebaugh or brandy wi' ony honest fellow, but the deil a drap mair when

I hae wark to do in the morning. And, in my puir thinking,

Garschattachin, ye had better be thinking to bring up your horsemen to

the Clachan before day, that we may ay start fair."

"What the deevil are ye in sic a hurry for?" said Garschattachin; "meat

and mass never hindered wark. An it had been my directing, deil a bit o'

me wad hae fashed ye to come down the glens to help us. The garrison and

our ain horse could hae taen Rob Roy easily enough. There's the hand," he

said, holding up his own, "should lay him on the green, and never ask a

Hielandman o' ye a' for his help."

"Ye might hae loot us bide still where we were, then," said

Inverashalloch. "I didna come sixty miles without being sent for. But an

ye'll hae my opinion, I redd ye keep your mouth better steekit, if ye

hope to speed. Shored folk live lang, and sae may him ye ken o'. The way

to catch a bird is no to fling your bannet at her. And also thae

gentlemen hae heard some things they suldna hae heard, an the brandy

hadna been ower bauld for your brain, Major Galbraith. Ye needna cock

your hat and bully wi' me, man, for I will not bear it."

"I hae said it," said Galbraith, with a solemn air of drunken gravity,

"that I will quarrel no more this night either with broadcloth or tartan.

When I am off duty I'll quarrel with you or ony man in the Hielands or

Lowlands, but not on duty--no--no. I wish we heard o' these red-coats. If

it had been to do onything against King James, we wad hae seen them lang

syne--but when it's to keep the peace o' the country they can lie as

lound as their neighbours."

As he spoke we heard the measured footsteps of a body of infantry on the

march; and an officer, followed by two or three files of soldiers,

entered the apartment. He spoke in an English accent, which was very

pleasant to my ears, now so long accustomed to the varying brogue of the

Highland and Lowland Scotch.--"You are, I suppose, Major Galbraith, of

the squadron of Lennox Militia, and these are the two Highland gentlemen

with whom I was appointed to meet in this place?"

They assented, and invited the officer to take some refreshments, which

he declined.--"I have been too late, gentlemen, and am desirous to make

up time. I have orders to search for and arrest two persons guilty of

treasonable practices."

"We'll wash our hands o' that," said Inverashalloch. "I came here wi' my

men to fight against the red MacGregor that killed my cousin, seven times

removed, Duncan MacLaren, in Invernenty;* but I will hae nothing to do

touching honest gentlemen that may be gaun through the country on their

ain business."

* This, as appears from the introductory matter to this Tale, is an

anachronism. The slaughter of MacLaren, a retainer of the chief of

Appine, by the MacGregors, did not take place till after Rob Roy's death,

since it happened in 1736.

"Nor I neither," said Iverach.

Major Galbraith took up the matter more solemnly, and, premising his

oration with a hiccup, spoke to the following purpose:--

"I shall say nothing against King George, Captain, because, as it

happens, my commission may rin in his name--But one commission being

good, sir, does not make another bad; and some think that James may be

just as good a name as George. There's the king that is--and there's the

king that suld of right be--I say, an honest man may and suld be loyal to

them both, Captain. But I am of the Lord Lieutenant's opinion for the

time, as it becomes a militia officer and a depute-lieutenant--and about

treason and all that, it's lost time to speak of it--least said is sunest

mended."

"I am sorry to see how you have been employing your time, sir," replied

the English officer--as indeed the honest gentleman's reasoning had a

strong relish of the liquor he had been drinking--"and I could wish, sir,

it had been otherwise on an occasion of this consequence. I would

recommend to you to try to sleep for an hour.--Do these gentlemen belong

to your party?"--looking at the Bailie and me, who, engaged in eating our

supper, had paid little attention to the officer on his entrance.

"Travellers, sir," said Galbraith--"lawful travellers by sea and land, as

the prayer-book hath it."

"My instructions." said the Captain, taking a light to survey us closer,

"are to place under arrest an elderly and a young person--and I think

these gentlemen answer nearly the description."

"Take care what you say, sir," said Mr. Jarvie; "it shall not be your red

coat nor your laced hat shall protect you, if you put any affront on me.

I'se convene ye baith in an action of scandal and false imprisonment--I

am a free burgess and a magistrate o' Glasgow; Nicol Jarvie is my name,

sae was my father's afore me--I am a bailie, be praised for the honour,

and my father was a deacon."

"He was a prick-eared cur," said Major Galbraith, "and fought agane the

King at Bothwell Brigg."

"He paid what he ought and what he bought, Mr. Galbraith," said the

Bailie, "and was an honester man than ever stude on your shanks."

"I have no time to attend to all this," said the officer; "I must

positively detain you, gentlemen, unless you can produce some respectable

security that you are loyal subjects."

"I desire to be carried before some civil magistrate," said the

Bailie--"the sherra or the judge of the bounds;--I am not obliged to

answer every red-coat that speers questions at me."

"Well, sir, I shall know how to manage you if you are silent--And you,

sir" (to me), "what may your name be?"

"Francis Osbaldistone, sir."

"What, a son of Sir Hildebrand Osbaldistone of Northumberland?"

"No, sir," interrupted the Bailie; "a son of the great William

Osbaldistone of the House of Osbaldistone and Tresham, Crane-Alley,

London."

"I am afraid, sir," said the officer, "your name only increases the

suspicions against you, and lays me under the necessity of requesting

that you will give up what papers you have in charge."

I observed the Highlanders look anxiously at each other when this

proposal was made.

"I had none," I replied, "to surrender."

The officer commanded me to be disarmed and searched. To have resisted

would have been madness. I accordingly gave up my arms, and submitted to

a search, which was conducted as civilly as an operation of the kind well

could. They found nothing except the note which I had received that night

through the hand of the landlady.

"This is different from what I expected," said the officer; "but it

affords us good grounds for detaining you. Here I find you in written

communication with the outlawed robber, Robert MacGregor Campbell, who

has been so long the plague of this district--How do you account for

that?"

"Spies of Rob!" said Inverashalloch. "We wad serve them right to strap

them up till the neist tree."

"We are gaun to see after some gear o' our ain, gentlemen," said the

Bailie, "that's fa'en into his hands by accident--there's nae law agane a

man looking after his ain, I hope?"

"How did you come by this letter?" said the officer, addressing himself

to me.

I could not think of betraying the poor woman who had given it to me, and

remained silent.

"Do you know anything of it, fellow?" said the officer, looking at

Andrew, whose jaws were chattering like a pair of castanets at the

threats thrown out by the Highlander.

"O ay, I ken a' about it--it was a Hieland loon gied the letter to that

lang-tongued jaud the gudewife there; I'll be sworn my maister ken'd

naething about it. But he's wilfu' to gang up the hills and speak wi'

Rob; and oh, sir, it wad be a charity just to send a wheen o' your

red-coats to see him safe back to Glasgow again whether he will or

no--And ye can keep Mr. Jarvie as lang as ye like--He's responsible

enough for ony fine ye may lay on him--and so's my master for that

matter; for me, I'm just a puir gardener lad, and no worth your

steering."

"I believe," said the officer, "the best thing I can do is to send these

persons to the garrison under an escort. They seem to be in immediate

correspondence with the enemy, and I shall be in no respect answerable

for suffering them to be at liberty. Gentlemen, you will consider

yourselves as my prisoners. So soon as dawn approaches, I will send you

to a place of security. If you be the persons you describe yourselves, it

will soon appear, and you will sustain no great inconvenience from being

detained a day or two. I can hear no remonstrances," he continued,

turning away from the Bailie, whose mouth was open to address him; "the

service I am on gives me no time for idle discussions."

"Aweel, aweel, sir," said the Bailie, "you're welcome to a tune on your

ain fiddle; but see if I dinna gar ye dance till't afore a's dune."

An anxious consultation now took place between the officer and the

Highlanders, but carried on in so low a tone, that it was impossible to

catch the sense. So soon as it was concluded they all left the house. At

their departure, the Bailie thus expressed himself:--"Thae Hielandmen are

o' the westland clans, and just as light-handed as their neighbours, an

a' tales be true, and yet ye see they hae brought them frae the head o'

Argyleshire to make war wi' puir Rob for some auld ill-will that they hae

at him and his sirname. And there's the Grahames, and the Buchanans, and

the Lennox gentry, a' mounted and in order--It's weel ken'd their

quarrel; and I dinna blame them--naebody likes to lose his kye. And then

there's sodgers, puir things, hoyed out frae the garrison at a' body's

bidding--Puir Rob will hae his hands fu' by the time the sun comes ower

the hill. Weel--it's wrang for a magistrate to be wishing onything agane

the course o' justice, but deil o' me an I wad break my heart to hear

that Rob had gien them a' their paiks!"

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

--General,

Hear me, and mark me well, and look upon me

Directly in my face--my woman's face--

See if one fear, one shadow of a terror,

One paleness dare appear, but from my anger,

To lay hold on your mercies.

Bonduca.

We were permitted to slumber out the remainder of the night in the best

manner that the miserable accommodations of the alehouse permitted. The

Bailie, fatigued with his journey and the subsequent scenes--less

interested also in the event of our arrest, which to him could only be a

matter of temporary inconvenience--perhaps less nice than habit had

rendered me about the cleanliness or decency of his couch,--tumbled

himself into one of the cribs which I have already described, and soon

was heard to snore soundly. A broken sleep, snatched by intervals, while

I rested my head upon the table, was my only refreshment. In the course

of the night I had occasion to observe that there seemed to be some doubt

and hesitation in the motions of the soldiery. Men were sent out, as if

to obtain intelligence, and returned apparently without bringing any

satisfactory information to their commanding officer. He was obviously

eager and anxious, and again despatched small parties of two or three

men, some of whom, as I could understand from what the others whispered

to each other, did not return again to the Clachan.

The morning had broken, when a corporal and two men rushed into the hut,

dragging after them, in a sort of triumph, a Highlander, whom I

immediately recognised as my acquaintance the ex-turnkey. The Bailie, who

started up at the noise with which they entered, immediately made the

same discovery, and exclaimed--"Mercy on us! they hae grippit the puir

creature Dougal.--Captain, I will put in bail--sufficient bail, for that

Dougal creature."

To this offer, dictated undoubtedly by a grateful recollection of the

late interference of the Highlander in his behalf, the Captain only

answered by requesting Mr. Jarvie to "mind his own affairs, and remember

that he was himself for the present a prisoner."

"I take you to witness, Mr. Osbaldistone," said the Bailie, who was

probably better acquainted with the process in civil than in military

cases, "that he has refused sufficient bail. It's my opinion that the

creature Dougal will have a good action of wrongous imprisonment and

damages agane him, under the Act seventeen hundred and one, and I'll see

the creature righted."

The officer, whose name I understood was Thornton, paying no attention to

the Bailie's threats or expostulations, instituted a very close inquiry

into Dougal's life and conversation, and compelled him to admit, though

with apparent reluctance, the successive facts,--that he knew Rob Roy

MacGregor--that he had seen him within these twelve months--within these

six months--within this month--within this week; in fine, that he had

parted from him only an hour ago. All this detail came like drops of

blood from the prisoner, and was, to all appearance, only extorted by the

threat of a halter and the next tree, which Captain Thornton assured him

should be his doom, if he did not give direct and special information.

"And now, my friend," said the officer, "you will please inform me how

many men your master has with him at present."

Dougal looked in every direction except at the querist, and began to

answer, "She canna just be sure about that."

"Look at me, you Highland dog," said the officer, "and remember your life

depends on your answer. How many rogues had that outlawed scoundrel with

him when you left him?"

"Ou, no aboon sax rogues when I was gane."

"And where are the rest of his banditti?"

"Gane wi' the Lieutenant agane ta westland carles."

"Against the westland clans?" said the Captain. "Umph--that is likely

enough; and what rogue's errand were you despatched upon?"

"Just to see what your honour and ta gentlemen red-coats were doing doun

here at ta Clachan."

"The creature will prove fause-hearted, after a'," said the Bailie, who

by this time had planted himself close behind me; "it's lucky I didna pit

mysell to expenses anent him."

"And now, my friend," said the Captain, "let us understand each other.

You have confessed yourself a spy, and should string up to the next

tree--But come, if you will do me one good turn, I will do you another.

You, Donald--you shall just, in the way of kindness, carry me and a small

party to the place where you left your master, as I wish to speak a few

words with him on serious affairs; and I'll let you go about your

business, and give you five guineas to boot."

"Oigh! oigh!" exclaimed Dougal, in the extremity of distress and

perplexity; "she canna do tat--she canna do tat; she'll rather be

hanged."

"Hanged, then, you shall be, my friend" said the officer; "and your blood

be upon your own head. Corporal Cramp, do you play Provost-Marshal--away

with him!"

The corporal had confronted poor Dougal for some time, ostentatiously

twisting a piece of cord which he had found in the house into the form of

a halter. He now threw it about the culprit's neck, and, with the

assistance of two soldiers, had dragged Dougal as far as the door, when,

overcome with the terror of immediate death, he exclaimed, "Shentlemans,

stops--stops! She'll do his honour's bidding--stops!"

"Awa' wi' the creature!" said the Bailie, "he deserves hanging mair now

than ever; awa' wi' him, corporal. Why dinna ye tak him awa'?"

"It's my belief and opinion, honest gentleman," said the corporal, "that

if you were going to be hanged yourself, you would be in no such d--d

hurry."

This by-dialogue prevented my hearing what passed between the prisoner

and Captain Thornton; but I heard the former snivel out, in a very

subdued tone, "And ye'll ask her to gang nae farther than just to show ye

where the MacGregor is?--Ohon! ohon!"

"Silence your howling, you rascal--No; I give you my word I will ask you

to go no farther.--Corporal, make the men fall in, in front of the

houses. Get out these gentlemen's horses; we must carry them with us. I

cannot spare any men to guard them here. Come, my lads, get under arms."

The soldiers bustled about, and were ready to move. We were led out,

along with Dougal, in the capacity of prisoners. As we left the hut, I

heard our companion in captivity remind the Captain of "ta foive

kuineas."

"Here they are for you," said the officer, putting gold into his hand;

"but observe, that if you attempt to mislead me, I will blow your brains

out with my own hand."

"The creature," said the Bailie, "is waur than I judged him--it is a

warldly and a perfidious creature. O the filthy lucre of gain that men

gies themsells up to! My father the deacon used to say, the penny siller

slew mair souls than the naked sword slew bodies."

The landlady now approached, and demanded payment of her reckoning,

including all that had been quaffed by Major Galbraith and his Highland

friends. The English officer remonstrated, but Mrs. MacAlpine declared,

if "she hadna trusted to his honour's name being used in their company,

she wad never hae drawn them a stoup o' liquor; for Mr. Galbraith, she

might see him again, or she might no, but weel did she wot she had sma'

chance of seeing her siller--and she was a puir widow, had naething but

her custom to rely on."

Captain Thornton put a stop to her remonstrances by paying the charge,

which was only a few English shillings, though the amount sounded very

formidable in Scottish denominations. The generous officer would have

included Mr. Jarvie and me in this general acquittance; but the Bailie,

disregarding an intimation from the landlady to "make as muckle of the

Inglishers as we could, for they were sure to gie us plague eneugh," went

into a formal accounting respecting our share of the reckoning, and paid

it accordingly. The Captain took the opportunity to make us some slight

apology for detaining us. "If we were loyal and peaceable subjects," he

said, "we would not regret being stopt for a day, when it was essential

to the king's service; if otherwise, he was acting according to his

duty."

We were compelled to accept an apology which it would have served no

purpose to refuse, and we sallied out to attend him on his march.

I shall never forget the delightful sensation with which I exchanged the

dark, smoky, smothering atmosphere of the Highland hut, in which we had

passed the night so uncomfortably, for the refreshing fragrance of the

morning air, and the glorious beams of the rising sun, which, from a

tabernacle of purple and golden clouds, were darted full on such a scene

of natural romance and beauty as had never before greeted my eyes. To the

left lay the valley, down which the Forth wandered on its easterly

course, surrounding the beautiful detached hill, with all its garland of

woods. On the right, amid a profusion of thickets, knolls, and crags, lay

the bed of a broad mountain lake, lightly curled into tiny waves by the

breath of the morning breeze, each glittering in its course under the

influence of the sunbeams. High hills, rocks, and banks, waving with

natural forests of birch and oak, formed the borders of this enchanting

sheet of water; and, as their leaves rustled to the wind and twinkled in

the sun, gave to the depth of solitude a sort of life and vivacity. Man

alone seemed to be placed in a state of inferiority, in a scene where all

the ordinary features of nature were raised and exalted. The miserable

little _bourocks,_ as the Bailie termed them, of which about a dozen

formed the village called the Clachan of Aberfoil, were composed of loose

stones, cemented by clay instead of mortar, and thatched by turfs, laid

rudely upon rafters formed of native and unhewn birches and oaks from the

woods around. The roofs approached the ground so nearly, that Andrew

Fairservice observed we might have ridden over the village the night

before, and never found out we were near it, unless our horses' feet had

"gane through the riggin'."

From all we could see, Mrs. MacAlpine's house, miserable as were the

quarters it afforded, was still by far the best in the hamlet; and I dare

say (if my description gives you any curiosity to see it) you will hardly

find it much improved at the present day, for the Scotch are not a people

who speedily admit innovation, even when it comes in the shape of

improvement.*

* Note I. Clachan of Aberfoil.

The inhabitants of these miserable dwellings were disturbed by the noise

of our departure; and as our party of about twenty soldiers drew up in

rank before marching off, we were reconnoitred by many a beldam from the

half-opened door of her cottage. As these sibyls thrust forth their grey

heads, imperfectly covered with close caps of flannel, and showed their

shrivelled brows, and long skinny arms, with various gestures, shrugs,

and muttered expressions in Gaelic addressed to each other, my

imagination recurred to the witches of Macbeth, and I imagined I read in

the features of these crones the malevolence of the weird sisters. The

little children also, who began to crawl forth, some quite naked, and

others very imperfectly covered with tatters of tartan stuff, clapped

their tiny hands, and grinned at the English soldiers, with an expression

of national hate and malignity which seemed beyond their years. I

remarked particularly that there were no men, nor so much as a boy of ten

or twelve years old, to be seen among the inhabitants of a village which

seemed populous in proportion to its extent; and the idea certainly

occurred to me, that we were likely to receive from them, in the course

of our journey, more effectual tokens of ill-will than those which

lowered on the visages, and dictated the murmurs, of the women and

children. It was not until we commenced our march that the malignity of

the elder persons of the community broke forth into expressions. The last

file of men had left the village, to pursue a small broken track, formed

by the sledges in which the natives transported their peats and turfs,

and which led through the woods that fringed the lower end of the lake,

when a shrilly sound of female exclamation broke forth, mixed with the

screams of children, the whooping of boys, and the clapping of hands,

with which the Highland dames enforce their notes, whether of rage or

lamentation. I asked Andrew, who looked as pale as death, what all this

meant.

"I doubt we'll ken that ower sune," said he. "Means? It means that the

Highland wives are cursing and banning the red-coats, and wishing

ill-luck to them, and ilka ane that ever spoke the Saxon tongue. I have

heard wives flyte in England and Scotland--it's nae marvel to hear them

flyte ony gate; but sic ill-scrapit tongues as thae Highland

carlines'--and sic grewsome wishes, that men should be slaughtered like

sheep--and that they may lapper their hands to the elbows in their

heart's blude--and that they suld dee the death of Walter Cuming of

Guiyock,* wha hadna as muckle o' him left thegither as would supper a

messan-dog--sic awsome language as that I ne'er heard out o' a human

thrapple;--and, unless the deil wad rise amang them to gie them a

lesson, I thinkna that their talent at cursing could be amended.

* A great feudal oppressor, who, riding on some cruel purpose through the

forest of Guiyock, was thrown from his horse, and his foot being caught

in the stirrup, was dragged along by the frightened animal till he was

torn to pieces. The expression, "Walter of Guiyock's curse," is

proverbial.

The warst o't is, they bid us aye gang up the loch, and see what we'll

land in."

Adding Andrew's information to what I had myself observed, I could scarce

doubt that some attack was meditated upon our party. The road, as we

advanced, seemed to afford every facility for such an unpleasant

interruption. At first it winded apart from the lake through marshy

meadow ground, overgrown with copsewood, now traversing dark and close

thickets which would have admitted an ambuscade to be sheltered within a

few yards of our line of march, and frequently crossing rough mountain

torrents, some of which took the soldiers up to the knees, and ran with

such violence, that their force could only be stemmed by the strength of

two or three men holding fast by each other's arms. It certainly appeared

to me, though altogether unacquainted with military affairs, that a sort

of half-savage warriors, as I had heard the Highlanders asserted to be,

might, in such passes as these, attack a party of regular forces with

great advantage. The Bailie's good sense and shrewd observation had led

him to the same conclusion, as I understood from his requesting to speak

with the captain, whom he addressed nearly in the following terms:--

"Captain, it's no to fleech ony favour out o' ye, for I scorn it--and

it's under protest that I reserve my action and pleas of oppression and

wrongous imprisonment;--but, being a friend to King George and his army,

I take the liberty to speer--Dinna ye think ye might tak a better time to

gang up this glen? If ye are seeking Rob Roy, he's ken'd to be better

than half a hunder men strong when he's at the fewest; an if he brings in

the Glengyle folk, and the Glenfinlas and Balquhidder lads, he may come

to gie you your kail through the reek; and it's my sincere advice, as a

king's friend, ye had better tak back again to the Clachan, for thae

women at Aberfoil are like the scarts and seamaws at the Cumries--there's

aye foul weather follows their skirting."

"Make yourself easy, sir," replied Captain Thornton; "I am in the

execution of my orders. And as you say you are a friend to King George,

you will be glad to learn that it is impossible that this gang of

ruffians, whose license has disturbed the country so long, can escape the

measures now taken to suppress them. The horse squadron of militia,

commanded by Major Galbraith, is already joined by two or more troops of

cavalry, which will occupy all the lower passes of this wild country;

three hundred Highlanders, under the two gentlemen you saw at the inn,

are in possession of the upper part, and various strong parties from the

garrison are securing the hills and glens in different directions. Our

last accounts of Rob Roy correspond with what this fellow has confessed,

that, finding himself surrounded on all sides, he had dismissed the

greater part of his followers, with the purpose either of lying

concealed, or of making his escape through his superior knowledge of the

passes."

"I dinna ken," said the Bailie; "there's mair brandy than brains in

Garschattachin's head this morning--And I wadna, an I were you, Captain,

rest my main dependence on the Hielandmen--hawks winna pike out hawks'

een. They may quarrel among themsells, and gie ilk ither ill names, and

maybe a slash wi' a claymore; but they are sure to join in the lang run,

against a' civilised folk, that wear breeks on their hinder ends, and hae

purses in their pouches."

Apparently these admonitions were not altogether thrown away on Captain

Thornton. He reformed his line of march, commanded his soldiers to

unsling their firelocks and fix their bayonets, and formed an advanced

and rear-guard, each consisting of a non-commissioned officer and two

soldiers, who received strict orders to keep an alert look-out. Dougal

underwent another and very close examination, in which he steadfastly

asserted the truth of what he had before affirmed; and being rebuked on

account of the suspicious and dangerous appearance of the route by which

he was guiding them, he answered with a sort of testiness that seemed

very natural, "Her nainsell didna mak ta road; an shentlemans likit grand

roads, she suld hae pided at Glasco."

All this passed off well enough, and we resumed our progress.

Our route, though leading towards the lake, had hitherto been so much

shaded by wood, that we only from time to time obtained a glimpse of that

beautiful sheet of water. But the road now suddenly emerged from the

forest ground, and, winding close by the margin of the loch, afforded us

a full view of its spacious mirror, which now, the breeze having totally

subsided, reflected in still magnificence the high dark heathy mountains,

huge grey rocks, and shaggy banks, by which it is encircled. The hills

now sunk on its margin so closely, and were so broken and precipitous, as

to afford no passage except just upon the narrow line of the track which

we occupied, and which was overhung with rocks, from which we might have

been destroyed merely by rolling down stones, without much possibility of

offering resistance. Add to this, that, as the road winded round every

promontory and bay which indented the lake, there was rarely a

possibility of seeing a hundred yards before us. Our commander appeared

to take some alarm at the nature of the pass in which he was engaged,

which displayed itself in repeated orders to his soldiers to be on the

alert, and in many threats of instant death to Dougal, if he should be

found to have led them into danger. Dougal received these threats with an

air of stupid impenetrability, which might arise either from conscious

innocence, or from dogged resolution.

"If shentlemans were seeking ta Red Gregarach," he said, "to be sure they

couldna expect to find her without some wee danger."

Just as the Highlander uttered these words, a halt was made by the

corporal commanding the advance, who sent back one of the file who formed

it, to tell the Captain that the path in front was occupied by

Highlanders, stationed on a commanding point of particular difficulty.

Almost at the same instant a soldier from the rear came to say, that they

heard the sound of a bagpipe in the woods through which we had just

passed. Captain Thornton, a man of conduct as well as courage, instantly

resolved to force the pass in front, without waiting till he was assailed

from the rear; and, assuring his soldiers that the bagpipes which they

heard were those of the friendly Highlanders who were advancing to their

assistance, he stated to them the importance of advancing and securing

Rob Roy, if possible, before these auxiliaries should come up to divide

with them the honour, as well as the reward which was placed on the head

of this celebrated freebooter. He therefore ordered the rearguard to join

the centre, and both to close up to the advance, doubling his files so as

to occupy with his column the whole practicable part of the road, and to

present such a front as its breadth admitted. Dougal, to whom he said in

a whisper, "You dog, if you have deceived me, you shall die for it!" was

placed in the centre, between two grenadiers, with positive orders to

shoot him if he attempted an escape. The same situation was assigned to

us, as being the safest, and Captain Thornton, taking his half-pike from

the soldier who carried it, placed himself at the head of his little

detachment, and gave the word to march forward.

The party advanced with the firmness of English soldiers. Not so Andrew

Fairservice, who was frightened out of his wits; and not so, if truth

must be told, either the Bailie or I myself, who, without feeling the

same degree of trepidation, could not with stoical indifference see our

lives exposed to hazard in a quarrel with which we had no concern. But

there was neither time for remonstrance nor remedy.

We approached within about twenty yards of the spot where the advanced

guard had seen some appearance of an enemy. It was one of those

promontories which run into the lake, and round the base of which the

road had hitherto winded in the manner I have described. In the present

case, however, the path, instead of keeping the water's edge, sealed the

promontory by one or two rapid zigzags, carried in a broken track along

the precipitous face of a slaty grey rock, which would otherwise have

been absolutely inaccessible. On the top of this rock, only to be

approached by a road so broken, so narrow, and so precarious, the

corporal declared he had seen the bonnets and long-barrelled guns of

several mountaineers, apparently couched among the long heath and

brushwood which crested the eminence. Captain Thornton ordered him to

move forward with three files, to dislodge the supposed ambuscade, while,

at a more slow but steady pace, he advanced to his support with the rest

of his party.

The attack which he meditated was prevented by the unexpected apparition

of a female upon the summit of the rock.

"Stand!" she said, with a commanding tone, "and tell me what ye seek in

MacGregor's country?"

I have seldom seen a finer or more commanding form than this woman. She

might be between the term of forty and fifty years, and had a countenance

which must once have been of a masculine cast of beauty; though now,

imprinted with deep lines by exposure to rough weather, and perhaps by

the wasting influence of grief and passion, its features were only

strong, harsh, and expressive. She wore her plaid, not drawn around her

head and shoulders, as is the fashion of the women in Scotland, but

disposed around her body as the Highland soldiers wear theirs. She had a

man's bonnet, with a feather in it, an unsheathed sword in her hand, and

a pair of pistols at her girdle.

"It's Helen Campbell, Rob's wife," said the Bailie, in a whisper of

considerable alarm; "and there will be broken heads amang us or it's

lang."

"What seek ye here?" she asked again of Captain Thornton, who had himself

advanced to reconnoitre.

"We seek the outlaw, Rob Roy MacGregor Campbell," answered the officer,

"and make no war on women; therefore offer no vain opposition to the

king's troops, and assure yourself of civil treatment."

"Ay," retorted the Amazon, "I am no stranger to your tender mercies. Ye

have left me neither name nor fame--my mother's bones will shrink aside

in their grave when mine are laid beside them--Ye have left me neither

house nor hold, blanket nor bedding, cattle to feed us, or flocks to

clothe us--Ye have taken from us all--all!--The very name of our

ancestors have ye taken away, and now ye come for our lives."

"I seek no man's life," replied the Captain; "I only execute my orders.

If you are alone, good woman, you have nought to fear--if there are any

with you so rash as to offer useless resistance, their own blood be on

their own heads. Move forward, sergeant."

"Forward! march!" said the non-commissioned officer. "Huzza, my boys, for

Rob Roy's head and a purse of gold."

He quickened his pace into a run, followed by the six soldiers; but as

they attained the first traverse of the ascent, the flash of a dozen of

firelocks from various parts of the pass parted in quick succession and

deliberate aim. The sergeant, shot through the body, still struggled to

gain the ascent, raised himself by his hands to clamber up the face of

the rock, but relaxed his grasp, after a desperate effort, and falling,

rolled from the face of the cliff into the deep lake, where he perished.

Of the soldiers, three fell, slain or disabled; the others retreated on

their main body, all more or less wounded.

"Grenadiers, to the front!" said Captain Thornton.--You are to recollect,

that in those days this description of soldiers actually carried that

destructive species of firework from which they derive their name. The

four grenadiers moved to the front accordingly. The officer commanded the

rest of the party to be ready to support them, and only saying to us,

"Look to your safety, gentlemen," gave, in rapid succession, the word to

the grenadiers--"Open your pouches--handle your grenades--blow your

matches--fall on."

The whole advanced with a shout, headed by Captain Thornton,--the

grenadiers preparing to throw their grenades among the bushes where the

ambuscade lay, and the musketeers to support them by an instant and close

assault. Dougal, forgotten in the scuffle, wisely crept into the thicket

which overhung that part of the road where we had first halted, which he

ascended with the activity of a wild cat. I followed his example,

instinctively recollecting that the fire of the Highlanders would sweep

the open track. I clambered until out of breath; for a continued

spattering fire, in which every shot was multiplied by a thousand echoes,

the hissing of the kindled fusees of the grenades, and the successive

explosion of those missiles, mingled with the huzzas of the soldiers, and

the yells and cries of their Highland antagonists, formed a contrast

which added--I do not shame to own it--wings to my desire to reach a

place of safety. The difficulties of the ascent soon increased so much,

that I despaired of reaching Dougal, who seemed to swing himself from

rock to rock, and stump to stump, with the facility of a squirrel, and I

turned down my eyes to see what had become of my other companions. Both

were brought to a very awkward standstill.

The Bailie, to whom I suppose fear had given a temporary share of

agility, had ascended about twenty feet from the path, when his foot

slipping, as he straddled from one huge fragment of rock to another, he

would have slumbered with his father the deacon, whose acts and words he

was so fond of quoting, but for a projecting branch of a ragged thorn,

which, catching hold of the skirts of his riding-coat, supported him in

mid-air, where he dangled not unlike to the sign of the Golden Fleece

over the door of a mercer in the Trongate of his native city.

As for Andrew Fairservice, he had advanced with better success, until he

had attained the top of a bare cliff, which, rising above the wood,

exposed him, at least in his own opinion, to all the dangers of the

neighbouring skirmish, while, at the same time, it was of such a

precipitous and impracticable nature, that he dared neither to advance

nor retreat. Footing it up and down upon the narrow space which the top

of the cliff afforded (very like a fellow at a country-fair dancing upon

a trencher), he roared for mercy in Gaelic and English alternately,

according to the side on which the scale of victory seemed to

predominate, while his exclamations were only answered by the groans of

the Bailie, who suffered much, not only from apprehension, but from the

pendulous posture in which he hung suspended by the loins.

On perceiving the Bailie's precarious situation, my first idea was to

attempt to render him assistance; but this was impossible without the

concurrence of Andrew, whom neither sign, nor entreaty, nor command, nor

expostulation, could inspire with courage to adventure the descent from

his painful elevation, where, like an unskilful and obnoxious minister of

state, unable to escape from the eminence to which he had presumptuously

ascended, he continued to pour forth piteous prayers for mercy, which no

one heard, and to skip to and fro, writhing his body into all possible

antic shapes to avoid the balls which he conceived to be whistling around

him.

In a few minutes this cause of terror ceased, for the fire, at first so

well sustained, now sunk at once--a sure sign that the conflict was

concluded. To gain some spot from which I could see how the day had gone

was now my object, in order to appeal to the mercy of the victors, who, I

trusted (whichever side might be gainers), would not suffer the honest

Bailie to remain suspended, like the coffin of Mahomet, between heaven

and earth, without lending a hand to disengage him. At length, by dint of

scrambling, I found a spot which commanded a view of the field of battle.

It was indeed ended; and, as my mind already augured, from the place and

circumstances attending the contest, it had terminated in the defeat of

Captain Thornton. I saw a party of Highlanders in the act of disarming

that officer, and the scanty remainder of his party. They consisted of

about twelve men most of whom were wounded, who, surrounded by treble

their number, and without the power either to advance or retreat, exposed

to a murderous and well-aimed fire, which they had no means of returning

with effect, had at length laid down their arms by the order of their

officer, when he saw that the road in his rear was occupied, and that

protracted resistance would be only wasting the lives of his brave

followers. By the Highlanders, who fought under cover, the victory was

cheaply bought, at the expense of one man slain and two wounded by the

grenades. All this I learned afterwards. At present I only comprehended

the general result of the day, from seeing the English officer, whose

face was covered with blood, stripped of his hat and arms, and his men,

with sullen and dejected countenances which marked their deep regret,

enduring, from the wild and martial figures who surrounded them, the

severe measures to which the laws of war subject the vanquished for

security of the victors.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

"Woe to the vanquished!" was stern Brenno's word,

When sunk proud Rome beneath the Gallic sword--

"Woe to the vanquished!" when his massive blade

Bore down the scale against her ransom weigh'd;

And on the field of foughten battle still,

Woe knows no limits save the victor's will.

The Gaulliad.

I anxiously endeavoured to distinguish Dougal among the victors. I had

little doubt that the part he had played was assumed, on purpose to lead

the English officer into the defile, and I could not help admiring the

address with which the ignorant, and apparently half-brutal savage, had

veiled his purpose, and the affected reluctance with which he had

suffered to be extracted from him the false information which it must

have been his purpose from the beginning to communicate. I foresaw we

should incur some danger on approaching the victors in the first flush of

their success, which was not unstained with cruelty; for one or two of

the soldiers, whose wounds prevented them from rising, were poniarded by

the victors, or rather by some ragged Highland boys who had mingled with

them. I concluded, therefore, it would be unsafe to present ourselves

without some mediator; and as Campbell, whom I now could not but identify

with the celebrated freebooter Rob Roy, was nowhere to be seen, I

resolved to claim the protection of his emissary, Dougal.

After gazing everywhere in vain, I at length retraced my steps to see

what assistance I could individually render to my unlucky friend, when,

to my great joy, I saw Mr. Jarvie delivered from his state of suspense;

and though very black in the face, and much deranged in the garments,

safely seated beneath the rock, in front of which he had been so lately

suspended. I hastened to join him and offer my congratulations, which he

was at first far from receiving in the spirit of cordiality with which

they were offered. A heavy fit of coughing scarce permitted him breath

enough to express the broken hints which he threw out against my

sincerity.

"Uh! uh! uh! uh!--they say a friend--uh! uh!--a friend sticketh closer

than a brither--uh! uh! uh! When I came up here, Maister Osbaldistone, to

this country, cursed of God and man--uh! uh--Heaven forgie me for

swearing--on nae man's errand but yours, d'ye think it was fair--uh! uh!

uh!--to leave me, first, to be shot or drowned atween red-wad Highlanders

and red-coats; and next to be hung up between heaven and earth, like an

auld potato-bogle, without sae muckle as trying--uh! uh!--sae muckle as

trying to relieve me?"

I made a thousand apologies, and laboured so hard to represent the

impossibility of my affording him relief by my own unassisted exertions,

that at length I succeeded, and the Bailie, who was as placable as hasty

in his temper, extended his favour to me once more. I next took the

liberty of asking him how he had contrived to extricate himself.

"Me extricate! I might hae hung there till the day of judgment or I could

hae helped mysell, wi' my head hinging down on the tae side, and my heels

on the tother, like the yarn-scales in the weigh-house. It was the

creature Dougal that extricated me, as he did yestreen; he cuttit aff the

tails o' my coat wi' his durk, and another gillie and him set me on my

legs as cleverly as if I had never been aff them. But to see what a thing

gude braid claith is! Had I been in ony o' your rotten French camlets

now, or your drab-de-berries, it would hae screeded like an auld rag wi'

sic a weight as mine. But fair fa' the weaver that wrought the weft

o't--I swung and bobbit yonder as safe as a gabbart* that's moored by a

three-ply cable at the Broomielaw."

* A kind of lighter used in the river Clyde,--probably from the French *

_abare._

I now inquired what had become of his preserver.

"The creature," so he continued to call the Highlandman, "contrived to

let me ken there wad be danger in gaun near the leddy till he came back,

and bade me stay here. I am o' the mind," he continued, "that he's

seeking after you--it's a considerate creature--and troth, I wad swear he

was right about the leddy, as he ca's her, too--Helen Campbell was nane

o' the maist douce maidens, nor meekest wives neither, and folk say that

Rob himsell stands in awe o' her. I doubt she winna ken me, for it's mony

years since we met--I am clear for waiting for the Dougal creature or we

gang near her."

I signified my acquiescence in this reasoning; but it was not the will of

fate that day that the Bailie's prudence should profit himself or any one

else.

Andrew Fairservice, though he had ceased to caper on the pinnacle upon

the cessation of the firing, which had given occasion for his whimsical

exercise, continued, as perched on the top of an exposed cliff, too

conspicuous an object to escape the sharp eyes of the Highlanders, when

they had time to look a little around them. We were apprized he was

discovered, by a wild and loud halloo set up among the assembled victors,

three or four of whom instantly plunged into the copsewood, and ascended

the rocky side of the hill in different directions towards the place

where they had discovered this whimsical apparition.

Those who arrived first within gunshot of poor Andrew, did not trouble

themselves to offer him any assistance in the ticklish posture of his

affairs, but levelling their long Spanish-barrelled guns, gave him to

understand, by signs which admitted of no misconstruction, that he must

contrive to come down and submit himself to their mercy, or to be marked

at from beneath, like a regimental target set up for ball-practice. With

such a formidable hint for venturous exertion, Andrew Fairservice could

no longer hesitate; the more imminent peril overcame his sense of that

which seemed less inevitable, and he began to descend the cliff at all

risks, clutching to the ivy and oak stumps, and projecting fragments of

rock, with an almost feverish anxiety, and never failing, as

circumstances left him a hand at liberty, to extend it to the plaided

gentry below in an attitude of supplication, as if to deprecate the

discharge of their levelled firearms. In a word, the fellow, under the

influence of a counteracting motive for terror, achieved a safe descent

from his perilous eminence, which, I verily believe, nothing but the fear

of instant death could have moved him to attempt. The awkward mode of

Andrew's descent greatly amused the Highlanders below, who fired a shot

or two while he was engaged in it, without the purpose of injuring him,

as I believe, but merely to enhance the amusement they derived from his

extreme terror, and the superlative exertions of agility to which it

excited him.

At length he attained firm and comparatively level ground--or rather, to

speak more correctly, his foot slipping at the last point of descent, he

fell on the earth at his full length, and was raised by the assistance of

the Highlanders, who stood to receive him, and who, ere he gained his

legs, stripped him not only of the whole contents of his pockets, but of

periwig, hat, coat, doublet, stockings, and shoes, performing the feat

with such admirable celerity, that, although he fell on his back a

well-clothed and decent burgher-seeming serving-man, he arose a forked,

uncased, bald-pated, beggarly-looking scarecrow. Without respect to the

pain which his undefended toes experienced from the sharp encounter of

the rocks over which they hurried him, those who had detected Andrew

proceeded to drag him downward towards the road through all the

intervening obstacles.

In the course of their descent, Mr. Jarvie and I became exposed to their

lynx-eyed observation, and instantly half-a-dozen of armed Highlanders

thronged around us, with drawn dirks and swords pointed at our faces and

throats, and cocked pistols presented against our bodies. To have offered

resistance would have been madness, especially as we had no weapons

capable of supporting such a demonstration. We therefore submitted to our

fate; and with great roughness on the part of those who assisted at our

toilette, were in the act of being reduced to as unsophisticated a state

(to use King Lear's phrase) as the plume-less biped Andrew Fairservice,

who stood shivering between fear and cold at a few yards' distance. Good

chance, however, saved us from this extremity of wretchedness; for, just

as I had yielded up my cravat (a smart Steinkirk, by the way, and richly

laced), and the Bailie had been disrobed of the fragments of his

riding-coat--enter Dougal, and the scene was changed. By a high tone of

expostulation, mixed with oaths and threats, as far as I could conjecture

the tenor of his language from the violence of his gestures, he compelled

the plunderers, however reluctant, not only to give up their further

depredations on our property, but to restore the spoil they had already

appropriated. He snatched my cravat from the fellow who had seized it,

and twisted it (in the zeal of his restitution) around my neck with such

suffocating energy as made me think that he had not only been, during his

residence at Glasgow, a substitute of the jailor, but must moreover have

taken lessons as an apprentice of the hangman. He flung the tattered

remnants of Mr. Jarvie's coat around his shoulders, and as more

Highlanders began to flock towards us from the high road, he led the way

downwards, directing and commanding the others to afford us, but

particularly the Bailie, the assistance necessary to our descending with

comparative ease and safety. It was, however, in vain that Andrew

Fairservice employed his lungs in obsecrating a share of Dougal's

protection, or at least his interference to procure restoration of his

shoes.

"Na, na," said Dougal in reply, "she's nae gentle pody, I trow; her

petters hae ganged parefoot, or she's muckle mista'en." And, leaving

Andrew to follow at his leisure, or rather at such leisure as the

surrounding crowd were pleased to indulge him with, he hurried us down to

the pathway in which the skirmish had been fought, and hastened to

present us as additional captives to the female leader of his band.

We were dragged before her accordingly, Dougal fighting, struggling,

screaming, as if he were the party most apprehensive of hurt, and

repulsing, by threats and efforts, all those who attempted to take a

nearer interest in our capture than he seemed to do himself. At length we

were placed before the heroine of the day, whose appearance, as well as

those of the savage, uncouth, yet martial figures who surrounded us,

struck me, to own the truth, with considerable apprehension. I do not

know if Helen MacGregor had personally mingled in the fray, and indeed I

was afterwards given to understand the contrary; but the specks of blood

on her brow, her hands and naked arms, as well as on the blade of her

sword which she continued to hold in her hand--her flushed countenance,

and the disordered state of the raven locks which escaped from under the

red bonnet and plume that formed her head-dress, seemed all to intimate

that she had taken an immediate share in the conflict. Her keen black

eyes and features expressed an imagination inflamed by the pride of

gratified revenge, and the triumph of victory. Yet there was nothing

positively sanguinary, or cruel, in her deportment; and she reminded me,

when the immediate alarm of the interview was over, of some of the

paintings I had seen of the inspired heroines in the Catholic churches of

France. She was not, indeed, sufficiently beautiful for a Judith, nor had

she the inspired expression of features which painters have given to

Deborah, or to the wife of Heber the Kenite, at whose feet the strong

oppressor of Israel, who dwelled in Harosheth of the Gentiles, bowed

down, fell, and lay a dead man. Nevertheless, the enthusiasm by which she

was agitated gave her countenance and deportment, wildly dignified in

themselves, an air which made her approach nearly to the ideas of those

wonderful artists who gave to the eye the heroines of Scripture history.

I was uncertain in what terms to accost a personage so uncommon, when Mr.

Jarvie, breaking the ice with a preparatory cough (for the speed with

which he had been brought into her presence had again impeded his

respiration), addressed her as follows:--"Uh! uh! &c. &c. I am very happy

to have this _joyful_ opportunity" (a quaver in his voice strongly belied

the emphasis which he studiously laid on the word joyful)--"this joyful

occasion," he resumed, trying to give the adjective a more suitable

accentuation, "to wish my kinsman Robin's wife a very good morning--Uh!

uh!--How's a' wi' ye?" (by this time he had talked himself into his usual

jog-trot manner, which exhibited a mixture of familiarity and

self-importance)--"How's a' wi' ye this lang time? Ye'll hae forgotten

me, Mrs. MacGregor Campbell, as your cousin--uh! uh!--but ye'll mind my

father, Deacon Nicol Jarvie, in the Saut Market o' Glasgow?--an honest

man he was, and a sponsible, and respectit you and yours. Sae, as I said

before, I am right glad to see you, Mrs. MacGregor Campbell, as my

kinsman's wife. I wad crave the liberty of a kinsman to salute you, but

that your gillies keep such a dolefu' fast haud o' my arms, and, to speak

Heaven's truth and a magistrate's, ye wadna be the waur of a cogfu' o'

water before ye welcomed your friends."

There was something in the familiarity of this introduction which ill

suited the exalted state of temper of the person to whom it was

addressed, then busied with distributing dooms of death, and warm from

conquest in a perilous encounter.

"What fellow are you," she said, "that dare to claim kindred with the

MacGregor, and neither wear his dress nor speak his language?--What are

you, that have the tongue and the habit of the hound, and yet seek to lie

down with the deer?"

"I dinna ken," said the undaunted Bailie, "if the kindred has ever been

weel redd out to you yet, cousin--but it's ken'd, and can be prov'd. My

mother, Elspeth MacFarlane, was the wife of my father, Deacon Nicol

Jarvie--peace be wi' them baith!--and Elspeth was the daughter of Parlane

MacFarlane, at the Sheeling o' Loch Sloy. Now, this Parlane MacFarlane,

as his surviving daughter Maggy MacFarlane, _alias_ MacNab, wha married

Duncan MacNab o' Stuckavrallachan, can testify, stood as near to your

gudeman, Robert MacGregor, as in the fourth degree of kindred, for"--

The virago lopped the genealogical tree, by demanding haughtily, "If a

stream of rushing water acknowledged any relation with the portion

withdrawn from it for the mean domestic uses of those who dwelt on its

banks?"

"Vera true, kinswoman," said the Bailie; "but for a' that, the burn wad

be glad to hae the milldam back again in simmer, when the chuckie-stanes

are white in the sun. I ken weel eneugh you Hieland folk haud us Glasgow

people light and cheap for our language and our claes;--but everybody

speaks their native tongue that they learned in infancy; and it would be

a daft-like thing to see me wi' my fat wame in a short Hieland coat, and

my puir short houghs gartered below the knee, like ane o' your

lang-legged gillies. Mair by token, kinswoman," he continued, in defiance

of various intimations by which Dougal seemed to recommend silence, as

well as of the marks of impatience which the Amazon evinced at his

loquacity, "I wad hae ye to mind that the king's errand whiles comes in

the cadger's gate, and that, for as high as ye may think o' the gudeman,

as it's right every wife should honour her husband--there's Scripture

warrant for that--yet as high as ye haud him, as I was saying, I hae been

serviceable to Rob ere now;--forbye a set o' pearlins I sent yourself

when ye was gaun to be married, and when Rob was an honest weel-doing

drover, and nane o' this unlawfu' wark, wi' fighting, and flashes, and

fluff-gibs, disturbing the king's peace and disarming his soldiers."

He had apparently touched on a key which his kinswoman could not brook.

She drew herself up to her full height, and betrayed the acuteness of her

feelings by a laugh of mingled scorn and bitterness.

"Yes," she said, "you, and such as you, might claim a relation to us,

when we stooped to be the paltry wretches fit to exist under your

dominion, as your hewers of wood and drawers of water--to find cattle for

your banquets, and subjects for your laws to oppress and trample on. But

now we are free--free by the very act which left us neither house nor

hearth, food nor covering--which bereaved me of all--of all--and makes me

groan when I think I must still cumber the earth for other purposes than

those of vengeance. And I will carry on the work, this day has so well

commenced, by a deed that shall break all bands between MacGregor and the

Lowland churls. Here Allan--Dougal--bind these Sassenachs neck and heel

together, and throw them into the Highland Loch to seek for their

Highland kinsfolk."

The Bailie, alarmed at this mandate, was commencing an expostulation,

which probably would have only inflamed the violent passions of the

person whom he addressed, when Dougal threw himself between them, and in

his own language, which he spoke with a fluency and rapidity strongly

contrasted by the slow, imperfect, and idiot-like manner in which he

expressed himself in English, poured forth what I doubt not was a very

animated pleading in our behalf.

His mistress replied to him, or rather cut short his harangue, by

exclaiming in English (as if determined to make us taste in anticipation

the full bitterness of death)--"Base dog, and son of a dog, do you

dispute my commands? Should I tell ye to cut out their tongues and put

them into each other's throats, to try which would there best knap

Southron, or to tear out their hearts and put them into each other's

breasts, to see which would there best plot treason against the

MacGregor--and such things have been done of old in the day of revenge,

when our fathers had wrongs to redress--Should I command you to do this,

would it be your part to dispute my orders?"

"To be sure, to be sure," Dougal replied, with accents of profound

submission; "her pleasure suld be done--tat's but reason; but an it

were--tat is, an it could be thought the same to her to coup the

ill-faured loon of ta red-coat Captain, and hims corporal Cramp, and twa

three o' the red-coats, into the loch, herself wad do't wi' muckle mair

great satisfaction than to hurt ta honest civil shentlemans as were

friends to the Gregarach, and came up on the Chiefs assurance, and not

to do no treason, as herself could testify."

The lady was about to reply, when a few wild strains of a pibroch were

heard advancing up the road from Aberfoil, the same probably which had

reached the ears of Captain Thornton's rear-guard, and determined him to

force his way onward rather than return to the village, on finding the

pass occupied. The skirmish being of very short duration, the armed men

who followed this martial melody, had not, although quickening their

march when they heard the firing, been able to arrive in time sufficient

to take any share in the rencontre. The victory, therefore, was complete

without them, and they now arrived only to share in the triumph of their

countrymen.

There was a marked difference betwixt the appearance of these new comers

and that of the party by which our escort had been defeated--and it was

greatly in favour of the former. Among the Highlanders who surrounded the

Chieftainess, if I may presume to call her so without offence to grammar,

were men in the extremity of age, boys scarce able to bear a sword, and

even women--all, in short, whom the last necessity urges to take up arms;

and it added a shade of bitter shame to the defection which clouded

Thornton's manly countenance, when he found that the numbers and position

of a foe, otherwise so despicable, had enabled them to conquer his brave

veterans. But the thirty or forty Highlanders who now joined the others,

were all men in the prime of youth or manhood, active clean-made fellows,

whose short hose and belted plaids set out their sinewy limbs to the best

advantage. Their arms were as superior to those of the first party as

their dress and appearance. The followers of the female Chief had axes,

scythes, and other antique weapons, in aid of their guns; and some had

only clubs, daggers, and long knives. But of the second party, most had

pistols at the belt, and almost all had dirks hanging at the pouches

which they wore in front. Each had a good gun in his hand, and a

broadsword by his side, besides a stout round target, made of light wood,

covered with leather, and curiously studded with brass, and having a

steel spike screwed into the centre. These hung on their left shoulder

during a march, or while they were engaged in exchanging fire with the

enemy, and were worn on their left arm when they charged with sword in

hand.

But it was easy to see that this chosen band had not arrived from a

victory such as they found their ill-appointed companions possessed of.

The pibroch sent forth occasionally a few wailing notes expressive of a

very different sentiment from triumph; and when they appeared before the

wife of their Chieftain, it was in silence, and with downcast and

melancholy looks. They paused when they approached her, and the pipes

again sent forth the same wild and melancholy strain.

Helen rushed towards them with a countenance in which anger was mingled

with apprehension.--"What means this, Alaster?" she said to the

minstrel--"why a lament in the moment of victory?--Robert--Hamish--where's

the MacGregor?--where's your father?"

Her sons, who led the band, advanced with slow and irresolute steps

towards her, and murmured a few words in Gaelic, at hearing which she set

up a shriek that made the rocks ring again, in which all the women and

boys joined, clapping their hands and yelling as if their lives had been

expiring in the sound. The mountain echoes, silent since the military

sounds of battle had ceased, had now to answer these frantic and

discordant shrieks of sorrow, which drove the very night-birds from their

haunts in the rocks, as if they were startled to hear orgies more hideous

and ill-omened than their own, performed in the face of open day.

"Taken!" repeated Helen, when the clamour had subsided--"Taken!--

captive!--and you live to say so?--Coward dogs! did I nurse you for this,

that you should spare your blood on your father's enemies? or see him

prisoner, and come back to tell it?"

The sons of MacGregor, to whom this expostulation was addressed, were

youths, of whom the eldest had hardly attained his twentieth year.

_Hamish,_ or James, the elder of these youths, was the tallest by a head,

and much handsomer than his brother; his light-blue eyes, with a

profusion of fair hair, which streamed from under his smart blue bonnet,

made his whole appearance a most favourable specimen of the Highland

youth. The younger was called Robert; but, to distinguish him from his

father, the Highlanders added the epithet _Oig,_ or the young. Dark hair,

and dark features, with a ruddy glow of health and animation, and a form

strong and well-set beyond his years, completed the sketch of the young

mountaineer.

Both now stood before their mother with countenances clouded with grief

and shame, and listened, with the most respectful submission, to the

reproaches with which she loaded them. At length when her resentment

appeared in some degree to subside, the eldest, speaking in English,

probably that he might not be understood by their followers, endeavoured

respectfully to vindicate himself and his brother from his mother's

reproaches. I was so near him as to comprehend much of what he said; and,

as it was of great consequence to me to be possessed of information in

this strange crisis, I failed not to listen as attentively as I could.

"The MacGregor," his son stated, "had been called out upon a trysting

with a Lowland hallion, who came with a token from"--he muttered the name

very low, but I thought it sounded like my own. "The MacGregor," he said,

"accepted of the invitation, but commanded the Saxon who brought the

message to be detained, as a hostage that good faith should be observed

to him. Accordingly he went to the place of appointment" (which had some

wild Highland name that I cannot remember), "attended only by Angus Breck

and Little Rory, commanding no one to follow him. Within half an hour

Angus Breck came back with the doleful tidings that the MacGregor had

been surprised and made prisoner by a party of Lennox militia, under

Galbraith of Garschattachin." He added, "that Galbraith, on being

threatened by MacGregor, who upon his capture menaced him with

retaliation on the person of the hostage, had treated the threat with

great contempt, replying, 'Let each side hang his man; we'll hang the

thief, and your catherans may hang the gauger, Rob, and the country will

be rid of two damned things at once, a wild Highlander and a revenue

officer.' Angus Breck, less carefully looked to than his master,

contrived to escape from the hands of the captors, after having been in

their custody long enough to hear this discussion, and to bring off the

news."

"And did you learn this, you false-hearted traitor," said the wife of

MacGregor, "and not instantly rush to your father's rescue, to bring him

off, or leave your body on the place?"

The young MacGregor modestly replied, by representing the very superior

force of the enemy, and stated, that as they made no preparation for

leaving the country, he had fallen back up the glen with the purpose of

collecting a band sufficient to attempt a rescue with some tolerable

chance of success. At length he said, "the militiamen would quarter, he

understood, in the neighbouring house of Gartartan, or the old castle in

the port of Monteith, or some other stronghold, which, although strong

and defensible, was nevertheless capable of being surprised, could they

but get enough of men assembled for the purpose."

I understood afterwards that the rest of the freebooter's followers were

divided into two strong bands, one destined to watch the remaining

garrison of Inversnaid, a party of which, under Captain Thornton, had

been defeated; and another to show front to the Highland clans who had

united with the regular troops and Lowlanders in this hostile and

combined invasion of that mountainous and desolate territory, which lying

between the lakes of Loch Lomond, Loch Katrine, and Loch Ard, was at this

time currently called Rob Roy's, or the MacGregor country. Messengers

were despatched in great haste, to concentrate, as I supposed, their

forces, with a view to the purposed attack on the Lowlanders; and the

dejection and despair, at first visible on each countenance, gave place

to the hope of rescuing their leader, and to the thirst of vengeance. It

was under the burning influence of the latter passion that the wife of

MacGregor commanded that the hostage exchanged for his safety should be

brought into her presence. I believe her sons had kept this unfortunate

wretch out of her sight, for fear of the consequences; but if it was so,

their humane precaution only postponed his fate. They dragged forward at

her summons a wretch already half dead with terror, in whose agonised

features I recognised, to my horror and astonishment, my old acquaintance

Morris.

He fell prostrate before the female Chief with an effort to clasp her

knees, from which she drew back, as if his touch had been pollution, so

that all he could do in token of the extremity of his humiliation, was to

kiss the hem of her plaid. I never heard entreaties for life poured forth

with such agony of spirit. The ecstasy of fear was such, that instead of

paralysing his tongue, as on ordinary occasions, it even rendered him

eloquent; and, with cheeks pale as ashes, hands compressed in agony, eyes

that seemed to be taking their last look of all mortal objects, he

protested, with the deepest oaths, his total ignorance of any design on

the person of Rob Roy, whom he swore he loved and honoured as his own

soul. In the inconsistency of his terror, he said he was but the agent of

others, and he muttered the name of Rashleigh. He prayed but for

life--for life he would give all he had in the world: it was but life he

asked--life, if it were to be prolonged under tortures and privations:

he asked only breath, though it should be drawn in the damps of the

lowest caverns of their hills.

It is impossible to describe the scorn, the loathing, and contempt, with

which the wife of MacGregor regarded this wretched petitioner for the

poor boon of existence.

"I could have bid ye live," she said, "had life been to you the same

weary and wasting burden that it is to me--that it is to every noble and

generous mind. But you--wretch! you could creep through the world

unaffected by its various disgraces, its ineffable miseries, its

constantly accumulating masses of crime and sorrow: you could live and

enjoy yourself, while the noble-minded are betrayed--while nameless and

birthless villains tread on the neck of the brave and the long-descended:

you could enjoy yourself, like a butcher's dog in the shambles, battening

on garbage, while the slaughter of the oldest and best went on around

you! This enjoyment you shall not live to partake of!--you shall die,

base dog! and that before yon cloud has passed over the sun."

She gave a brief command in Gaelic to her attendants, two of whom seized

upon the prostrate suppliant, and hurried him to the brink of a cliff

which overhung the flood. He set up the most piercing and dreadful cries

that fear ever uttered--I may well term them dreadful, for they haunted

my sleep for years afterwards. As the murderers, or executioners, call

them as you will, dragged him along, he recognised me even in that moment

of horror, and exclaimed, in the last articulate words I ever heard him

utter, "Oh, Mr. Osbaldistone, save me!--save me!"

I was so much moved by this horrid spectacle, that, although in momentary

expectation of sharing his fate, I did attempt to speak in his behalf,

but, as might have been expected, my interference was sternly

disregarded. The victim was held fast by some, while others, binding a

large heavy stone in a plaid, tied it round his neck, and others again

eagerly stripped him of some part of his dress. Half-naked, and thus

manacled, they hurled him into the lake, there about twelve feet deep,

with a loud halloo of vindictive triumph,--above which, however, his last

death-shriek, the yell of mortal agony, was distinctly heard. The heavy

burden splashed in the dark-blue waters, and the Highlanders, with their

pole-axes and swords, watched an instant to guard, lest, extricating

himself from the load to which he was attached, the victim might have

struggled to regain the shore. But the knot had been securely bound--the

wretched man sunk without effort; the waters, which his fall had

disturbed, settled calmly over him, and the unit of that life for which

he had pleaded so strongly, was for ever withdrawn from the sum of human

existence.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

And be he safe restored ere evening set,

Or, if there's vengeance in an injured heart,

And power to wreak it in an armed hand,

Your land shall ache for't.

Old Play.

I know not why it is that a single deed of violence and cruelty affects

our nerves more than when these are exercised on a more extended scale. I

had seen that day several of my brave countrymen fall in battle: it

seemed to me that they met a lot appropriate to humanity, and my bosom,

though thrilling with interest, was affected with nothing of that

sickening horror with which I beheld the unfortunate Morris put to death

without resistance, and in cold blood. I looked at my companion, Mr.

Jarvie, whose face reflected the feelings which were painted in mine.

Indeed he could not so suppress his horror, but that the words escaped

him in a low and broken whisper,--

"I take up my protest against this deed, as a bloody and cruel murder--it

is a cursed deed, and God will avenge it in his due way and time."

"Then you do not fear to follow?" said the virago, bending on him a look

of death, such as that with which a hawk looks at his prey ere he

pounces.

"Kinswoman," said the Bailie, "nae man willingly wad cut short his thread

of life before the end o' his pirn was fairly measured off on the

yarn-winles--And I hae muckle to do, an I be spared, in this

warld--public and private business, as weel that belonging to the

magistracy as to my ain particular; and nae doubt I hae some to depend

on me, as puir Mattie, wha is an orphan--She's a far-awa' cousin o' the

Laird o' Limmerfield. Sae that, laying a' this thegither--skin for skin,

yea all that a man hath, will he give for his life."

"And were I to set you at liberty," said the imperious dame, "what name

could you give to the drowning of that Saxon dog?"

"Uh! uh!--hem! hem!" said the Bailie, clearing his throat as well as he

could, "I suld study to say as little on that score as might be--least

said is sunest mended."

"But if you were called on by the courts, as you term them, of justice,"

she again demanded, "what then would be your answer?"

The Bailie looked this way and that way, like a person who meditates an

escape, and then answered in the tone of one who, seeing no means of

accomplishing a retreat, determines to stand the brunt of battle--"I see

what you are driving me to the wa' about. But I'll tell you't plain,

kinswoman,--I behoved just to speak according to my ain conscience; and

though your ain gudeman, that I wish had been here for his ain sake and

mine, as wool as the puir Hieland creature Dougal, can tell ye that Nicol

Jarvie can wink as hard at a friend's failings as onybody, yet I'se tell

ye, kinswoman, mine's ne'er be the tongue to belie my thought; and sooner

than say that yonder puir wretch was lawfully slaughtered, I wad consent

to be laid beside him--though I think ye are the first Hieland woman wad

mint sic a doom to her husband's kinsman but four times removed."

It is probable that the tone and firmness assumed by the Bailie in his

last speech was better suited to make an impression on the hard heart of

his kinswoman than the tone of supplication he had hitherto assumed, as

gems can be cut with steel, though they resist softer metals. She

commanded us both to be placed before her. "Your name," she said to me,

"is Osbaldistone?--the dead dog, whose death you have witnessed, called

you so."

"My name _is_ Osbaldistone," was my answer.

"Rashleigh, then, I suppose, is your Christian name?" she pursued.

"No,--my name is Francis."

"But you know Rashleigh Osbaldistone," she continued. "He is your

brother, if I mistake not,--at least your kinsman and near friend."

"He is my kinsman," I replied, "but not my friend. We were lately engaged

together in a rencontre, when we were separated by a person whom I

understand to be your husband. My blood is hardly yet dried on his sword,

and the wound on my side is yet green. I have little reason to

acknowledge him as a friend."

"Then," she replied, "if a stranger to his intrigues, you can go in

safety to Garschattachin and his party without fear of being detained,

and carry them a message from the wife of the MacGregor?"

I answered that I knew no reasonable cause why the militia gentlemen

should detain me; that I had no reason, on my own account, to fear being

in their hands; and that if my going on her embassy would act as a

protection to my friend and servant, who were here prisoners, "I was

ready to set out directly." I took the opportunity to say, "That I had

come into this country on her husband's invitation, and his assurance

that he would aid me in some important matters in which I was interested;

that my companion, Mr. Jarvie, had accompanied me on the same errand."

"And I wish Mr. Jarvie's boots had been fu' o' boiling water when he drew

them on for sic a purpose," interrupted the Bailie.

"You may read your father," said Helen MacGregor, turning to her sons,

"in what this young Saxon tells us--Wise only when the bonnet is on his

head, and the sword is in his hand, he never exchanges the tartan for the

broad-cloth, but he runs himself into the miserable intrigues of the

Lowlanders, and becomes again, after all he has suffered, their

agent--their tool--their slave."

"Add, madam," said I, "and their benefactor."

"Be it so," she said; "for it is the most empty title of them all, since

he has uniformly sown benefits to reap a harvest of the most foul

ingratitude.--But enough of this. I shall cause you to be guided to the

enemy's outposts. Ask for their commander, and deliver him this message

from me, Helen MacGregor;--that if they injure a hair of MacGregor's

head, and if they do not set him at liberty within the space of twelve

hours, there is not a lady in the Lennox but shall before Christmas cry

the coronach for them she will be loath to lose,--there is not a farmer

but shall sing well-a-wa over a burnt barnyard and an empty byre,--there

is not a laird nor heritor shall lay his head on the pillow at night with

the assurance of being a live man in the morning,--and, to begin as we

are to end, so soon as the term is expired, I will send them this Glasgow

Bailie, and this Saxon Captain, and all the rest of my prisoners, each

bundled in a plaid, and chopped into as many pieces as there are checks

in the tartan."

As she paused in her denunciation, Captain Thornton, who was within

hearing, added, with great coolness, "Present my compliments--Captain

Thornton's of the Royals, compliments--to the commanding officer, and

tell him to do his duty and secure his prisoner, and not waste a thought

upon me. If I have been fool enough to have been led into an ambuscade by

these artful savages, I am wise enough to know how to die for it without

disgracing the service. I am only sorry for my poor fellows," he said,

"that have fallen into such butcherly hands."

"Whist! whist!" exclaimed the Bailie; "are ye weary o' your life?--Ye'll

gie _my_ service to the commanding officer, Mr. Osbaldistone--Bailie

Nicol Jarvie's service, a magistrate o' Glasgow, as his father the deacon

was before him--and tell him, here are a wheen honest men in great

trouble, and like to come to mair; and the best thing he can do for the

common good, will be just to let Rob come his wa's up the glen, and nae

mair about it. There's been some ill dune here already; but as it has

lighted chiefly on the gauger, it winna be muckle worth making a stir

about."

With these very opposite injunctions from the parties chiefly interested

in the success of my embassy, and with the reiterated charge of the wife

of MacGregor to remember and detail every word of her injunctions, I was

at length suffered to depart; and Andrew Fairservice, chiefly, I believe,

to get rid of his clamorous supplications, was permitted to attend me.

Doubtful, however, that I might use my horse as a means of escape from my

guides, or desirous to retain a prize of some value, I was given to

understand that I was to perform my journey on foot, escorted by Hamish

MacGregor, the elder brother, who, with two followers, attended, as well

to show me the way, as to reconnoitre the strength and position of the

enemy. Dougal had been at first ordered on this party, but he contrived

to elude the service, with the purpose, as we afterwards understood, of

watching over Mr. Jarvie, whom, according to his wild principles of

fidelity, he considered as entitled to his good offices, from having once

acted in some measure as his patron or master.

After walking with great rapidity about an hour, we arrived at an

eminence covered with brushwood, which gave us a commanding prospect down

the valley, and a full view of the post which the militia occupied. Being

chiefly cavalry, they had judiciously avoided any attempt to penetrate

the pass which had been so unsuccessfully essayed by Captain Thornton.

They had taken up their situation with some military skill, on a rising

ground in the centre of the little valley of Aberfoil, through which the

river Forth winds its earliest course, and which is formed by two ridges

of hills, faced with barricades of limestone rock, intermixed with huge

masses of breecia, or pebbles imbedded in some softer substance which has

hardened around them like mortar; and surrounded by the more lofty

mountains in the distance. These ridges, however, left the valley of

breadth enough to secure the cavalry from any sudden surprise by the

mountaineers and they had stationed sentinels and outposts at proper

distances from this main body, in every direction, so that they might

secure full time to mount and get under arms upon the least alarm. It was

not, indeed, expected at that time, that Highlanders would attack cavalry

in an open plain, though late events have shown that they may do so with

success.*

* The affairs of Prestonpans and Falkirk are probably alluded to, which *

marks the time of writing the Memoirs as subsequent to 1745.

When I first knew the Highlanders, they had almost a superstitious dread

of a mounted trooper, the horse being so much more fierce and imposing in

his appearance than the little shelties of their own hills, and moreover

being trained, as the more ignorant mountaineers believed, to fight with

his feet and his teeth. The appearance of the piequeted horses, feeding

in this little vale--the forms of the soldiers, as they sate, stood, or

walked, in various groups in the vicinity of the beautiful river, and of

the bare yet romantic ranges of rock which hedge in the landscape on

either side,--formed a noble foreground; while far to the eastward the

eye caught a glance of the lake of Menteith; and Stirling Castle, dimly

seen along with the blue and distant line of the Ochil Mountains, closed

the scene.

After gazing on this landscape with great earnestness, young MacGregor

intimated to me that I was to descend to the station of the militia and

execute my errand to their commander,--enjoining me at the same time,

with a menacing gesture, neither to inform them who had guided me to that

place, nor where I had parted from my escort. Thus tutored, I descended

towards the military post, followed by Andrew, who, only retaining his

breeches and stockings of the English costume, without a hat,

bare-legged, with brogues on his feet, which Dougal had given him out of

compassion, and having a tattered plaid to supply the want of all upper

garments, looked as if he had been playing the part of a Highland

Tom-of-Bedlam. We had not proceeded far before we became visible to one

of the videttes, who, riding towards us, presented his carabine and

commanded me to stand. I obeyed, and when the soldier came up, desired to

be conducted to his commanding-officer. I was immediately brought where a

circle of officers, sitting upon the grass, seemed in attendance upon one

of superior rank. He wore a cuirass of polished steel, over which were

drawn the insignia of the ancient Order of the Thistle. My friend

Garschattachin, and many other gentlemen, some in uniform, others in

their ordinary dress, but all armed and well attended, seemed to receive

their orders from this person of distinction. Many servants in rich

liveries, apparently a part of his household, were also in waiting.

Having paid to this nobleman the respect which his rank appeared to

demand, I acquainted him that I had been an involuntary witness to the

king's soldiers having suffered a defeat from the Highlanders at the pass

of Loch-Ard (such I had learned was the name of the place where Mr.

Thornton was made prisoner), and that the victors threatened every

species of extremity to those who had fallen into their power, as well as

to the Low Country in general, unless their Chief, who had that morning

been made prisoner, were returned to them uninjured. The Duke (for he

whom I addressed was of no lower rank) listened to me with great

composure, and then replied, that he should be extremely sorry to expose

the unfortunate gentlemen who had been made prisoners to the cruelty of

the barbarians into whose hands they had fallen, but that it was folly to

suppose that he would deliver up the very author of all these disorders

and offences, and so encourage his followers in their license. "You may

return to those who sent you," he proceeded, "and inform them, that I

shall certainly cause Rob Roy Campbell, whom they call MacGregor, to be

executed, by break of day, as an outlaw taken in arms, and deserving

death by a thousand acts of violence; that I should be most justly held

unworthy of my situation and commission did I act otherwise; that I shall

know how to protect the country against their insolent threats of

violence; and that if they injure a hair of the head of any of the

unfortunate gentlemen whom an unlucky accident has thrown into their

power, I will take such ample vengeance, that the very stones of their

glens shall sing woe for it this hundred years to come!"

I humbly begged leave to remonstrate respecting the honourable mission

imposed on me, and touched upon the obvious danger attending it, when the

noble commander replied, "that such being the case, I might send my

servant."

"The deil be in my feet," said Andrew, without either having respect to

the presence in which he stood, or waiting till I replied--"the deil be

in my feet, if I gang my tae's length. Do the folk think I hae another

thrapple in my pouch after John Highlandman's sneeked this ane wi' his

joctaleg? or that I can dive doun at the tae side of a Highland loch and

rise at the tother, like a shell-drake? Na, na--ilk ane for himsell, and

God for us a'. Folk may just make a page o' their ain age, and serve

themsells till their bairns grow up, and gang their ain errands for

Andrew. Rob Roy never came near the parish of Dreepdaily, to steal either

pippin or pear frae me or mine."

Silencing my follower with some difficulty, I represented to the Duke the

great danger Captain Thornton and Mr. Jarvie would certainly be exposed

to, and entreated he would make me the bearer of such modified terms as

might be the means of saving their lives. I assured him I should decline

no danger if I could be of service; but from what I had heard and seen, I

had little doubt they would be instantly murdered should the chief of the

outlaws suffer death.

The Duke was obviously much affected. "It was a hard case," he said, "and

he felt it as such; but he had a paramount duty to perform to the

country--Rob Roy must die!"

I own it was not without emotion that I heard this threat of instant

death to my acquaintance Campbell, who had so often testified his

good-will towards me. Nor was I singular in the feeling, for many of

those around the Duke ventured to express themselves in his favour. "It

would be more advisable," they said, "to send him to Stirling Castle, and

there detain him a close prisoner, as a pledge for the submission and

dispersion of his gang. It were a great pity to expose the country to be

plundered, which, now that the long nights approached, it would be found

very difficult to prevent, since it was impossible to guard every point,

and the Highlanders were sure to select those that were left exposed."

They added, that there was great hardship in leaving the unfortunate

prisoners to the almost certain doom of massacre denounced against them,

which no one doubted would be executed in the first burst of revenge.

Garschattachin ventured yet farther, confiding in the honour of the

nobleman whom he addressed, although he knew he had particular reasons

for disliking their prisoner. "Rob Roy," he said, "though a kittle

neighbour to the Low Country, and particularly obnoxious to his Grace,

and though he maybe carried the catheran trade farther than ony man o'

his day, was an auld-farrand carle, and there might be some means of

making him hear reason; whereas his wife and sons were reckless fiends,

without either fear or mercy about them, and, at the head of a' his

limmer loons, would be a worse plague to the country than ever he had

been."

"Pooh! pooh!" replied his Grace, "it is the very sense and cunning of

this fellow which has so long maintained his reign--a mere Highland

robber would have been put down in as many weeks as he has flourished

years. His gang, without him, is no more to be dreaded as a permanent

annoyance--it will no longer exist--than a wasp without its head, which

may sting once perhaps, but is instantly crushed into annihilation."

Garschattachin was not so easily silenced. "I am sure, my Lord Duke," he

replied, "I have no favour for Rob, and he as little for me, seeing he

has twice cleaned out my ain byres, beside skaith amang my tenants; but,

however"--

"But, however, Garschattachin," said the Duke, with a smile of peculiar

expression, "I fancy you think such a freedom may be pardoned in a

friend's friend, and Rob's supposed to be no enemy to Major Galbraith's

friends over the water."

"If it be so, my lord," said Garschattachin, in the same tone of

jocularity, "it's no the warst thing I have heard of him. But I wish we

heard some news from the clans, that we have waited for sae lang. I vow

to God they'll keep a Hielandman's word wi' us--I never ken'd them

better--it's ill drawing boots upon trews."

"I cannot believe it," said the Duke. "These gentlemen are known to be

men of honour, and I must necessarily suppose they are to keep their

appointment. Send out two more horse-men to look for our friends. We

cannot, till their arrival, pretend to attack the pass where Captain

Thornton has suffered himself to be surprised, and which, to my

knowledge, ten men on foot might make good against a regiment of the best

horse in Europe--Meanwhile let refreshments be given to the men."

I had the benefit of this last order, the more necessary and acceptable,

as I had tasted nothing since our hasty meal at Aberfoil the evening

before. The videttes who had been despatched returned without tidings of

the expected auxiliaries, and sunset was approaching, when a Highlander

belonging to the clans whose co-operation was expected, appeared as the

bearer of a letter, which he delivered to the Duke with a most profound

conge'.

"Now will I wad a hogshead of claret," said Garschattachin, "that this is

a message to tell us that these cursed Highlandmen, whom we have fetched

here at the expense of so much plague and vexation, are going to draw

off, and leave us to do our own business if we can."

"It is even so, gentlemen," said the Duke, reddening with indignation,

after having perused the letter, which was written upon a very dirty

scrap of paper, but most punctiliously addressed, "For the much-honoured

hands of Ane High and Mighty Prince, the Duke," &c. &c. &c. "Our allies,"

continued the Duke, "have deserted us, gentlemen, and have made a

separate peace with the enemy."

"It's just the fate of all alliances," said Garschattachin, "the Dutch

were gaun to serve us the same gate, if we had not got the start of them

at Utrecht."

"You are facetious, air," said the Duke, with a frown which showed how

little he liked the pleasantry; "but our business is rather of a grave

cut just now.--I suppose no gentleman would advise our attempting to

penetrate farther into the country, unsupported either by friendly

Highlanders, or by infantry from Inversnaid?"

A general answer announced that the attempt would be perfect madness.

"Nor would there be great wisdom," the Duke added, "in remaining exposed

to a night-attack in this place. I therefore propose that we should

retreat to the house of Duchray and that of Gartartan, and keep safe and

sure watch and ward until morning. But before we separate, I will examine

Rob Roy before you all, and make you sensible, by your own eyes and ears,

of the extreme unfitness of leaving him space for farther outrage." He

gave orders accordingly, and the prisoner was brought before him, his

arms belted down above the elbow, and secured to his body by a

horse-girth buckled tight behind him. Two non-commissioned officers had

hold of him, one on each side, and two file of men with carabines and

fixed bayonets attended for additional security.

I had never seen this man in the dress of his country, which set in a

striking point of view the peculiarities of his form. A shock-head of red

hair, which the hat and periwig of the Lowland costume had in a great

measure concealed, was seen beneath the Highland bonnet, and verified the

epithet of _Roy,_ or Red, by which he was much better known in the Low

Country than by any other, and is still, I suppose, best remembered. The

justice of the appellation was also vindicated by the appearance of that

part of his limbs, from the bottom of his kilt to the top of his short

hose, which the fashion of his country dress left bare, and which was

covered with a fell of thick, short, red hair, especially around his

knees, which resembled in this respect, as well as from their sinewy

appearance of extreme strength, the limbs of a red-coloured Highland

bull. Upon the whole, betwixt the effect produced by the change of dress,

and by my having become acquainted with his real and formidable

character, his appearance had acquired to my eyes something so much

wilder and more striking than it before presented, that I could scarce

recognise him to be the same person.

His manner was bold, unconstrained unless by the actual bonds, haughty,

and even dignified. He bowed to the Duke, nodded to Garschattachin and

others, and showed some surprise at seeing me among the party.

"It is long since we have met, Mr. Campbell," said the Duke.

"It is so, my Lord Duke; I could have wished it had been" (looking at the

fastening on his arms) "when I could have better paid the compliments I

owe to your Grace;--but there's a gude time coming."

"No time like the time present, Mr. Campbell," answered the Duke, "for

the hours are fast flying that must settle your last account with all

mortal affairs. I do not say this to insult your distress; but you must

be aware yourself that you draw near the end of your career. I do not

deny that you may sometimes have done less harm than others of your

unhappy trade, and that you may occasionally have exhibited marks of

talent, and even of a disposition which promised better things. But you

are aware how long you have been the terror and the oppressor of a

peaceful neighbourhood, and by what acts of violence you have maintained

and extended your usurped authority. You know, in short, that you have

deserved death, and that you must prepare for it."

"My Lord," said Rob Roy, "although I may well lay my misfortunes at your

Grace's door, yet I will never say that you yourself have been the wilful

and witting author of them. My Lord, if I had thought sae, your Grace

would not this day have been sitting in judgment on me; for you have been

three times within good rifle distance of me when you were thinking but

of the red deer, and few people have ken'd me miss my aim. But as for

them that have abused your Grace's ear, and set you up against a man that

was ance as peacefu' a man as ony in the land, and made your name the

warrant for driving me to utter extremity,--I have had some amends of

them, and, for a' that your Grace now says, I expect to live to hae

mair."

"I know," said the Duke, in rising anger, "that you are a determined and

impudent villain, who will keep his oath if he swears to mischief; but it

shall be my care to prevent you. You have no enemies but your own wicked

actions."

"Had I called myself Grahame, instead of Campbell, I might have heard

less about them," answered Rob Roy, with dogged resolution.

"You will do well, sir," said the Duke, "to warn your wife and family and

followers, to beware how they use the gentlemen now in their hands, as I

will requite tenfold on them, and their kin and allies, the slightest

injury done to any of his Majesty's liege subjects."

"My Lord," said Roy in answer, "none of my enemies will allege that I

have been a bloodthirsty man, and were I now wi' my folk, I could rule

four or five hundred wild Hielanders as easy as your Grace those eight or

ten lackeys and foot-boys--But if your Grace is bent to take the head

away from a house, ye may lay your account there will be misrule amang

the members.--However, come o't what like, there's an honest man, a

kinsman o' my ain, maun come by nae skaith. Is there ony body here wad do

a gude deed for MacGregor?--he may repay it, though his hands be now

tied."

The Highlander who had delivered the letter to the Duke replied, "I'll do

your will for you, MacGregor; and I'll gang back up the glen on purpose."

He advanced, and received from the prisoner a message to his wife, which,

being in Gaelic, I did not understand, but I had little doubt it related

to some measures to be taken for the safety of Mr. Jarvie.

"Do you hear the fellow's impudence?" said the Duke; "he confides in his

character of a messenger. His conduct is of a piece with his master's,

who invited us to make common cause against these freebooters, and have

deserted us so soon as the MacGregors have agreed to surrender the

Balquhidder lands they were squabbling about.

No truth in plaids, no faith in tartan trews!

Chameleon-like, they change a thousand hues."

"Your great ancestor never said so, my Lord," answered Major

Galbraith;--"and, with submission, neither would your Grace have

occasion to say it, wad ye but be for beginning justice at the

well-head--Gie the honest man his mear again--Let every head wear it's

ane bannet, and the distractions o' the Lennox wad be mended wi' them

o'the land."

"Hush! hush! Garschattachin," said the Duke; "this is language dangerous

for you to talk to any one, and especially to me; but I presume you

reckon yourself a privileged person. Please to draw off your party

towards Gartartan; I shall myself see the prisoner escorted to Duchray,

and send you orders tomorrow. You will please grant no leave of absence

to any of your troopers."

"Here's auld ordering and counter-ordering," muttered Garschattachin

between his teeth. "But patience! patience!--we may ae day play at change

seats, the king's coming."

The two troops of cavalry now formed, and prepared to march off the

ground, that they might avail themselves of the remainder of daylight to

get to their evening quarters. I received an intimation, rather than an

invitation, to attend the party; and I perceived, that, though no longer

considered as a prisoner, I was yet under some sort of suspicion. The

times were indeed so dangerous,--the great party questions of Jacobite

and Hanoverian divided the country so effectually,--and the constant

disputes and jealousies between the Highlanders and Lowlanders, besides a

number of inexplicable causes of feud which separated the great leading

families in Scotland from each other, occasioned such general suspicion,

that a solitary and unprotected stranger was almost sure to meet with

something disagreeable in the course of his travels.

I acquiesced, however, in my destination with the best grace I could,

consoling myself with the hope that I might obtain from the captive

freebooter some information concerning Rashleigh and his machinations. I

should do myself injustice did I not add, that my views were not merely

selfish. I was too much interested in my singular acquaintance not to be

desirous of rendering him such services as his unfortunate situation

might demand, or admit of his receiving.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

And when he came to broken brigg,

He bent his bow and swam;

And when he came to grass growing,

Set down his feet and ran.

Gil Morrice.

The echoes of the rocks and ravines, on either side, now rang to the

trumpets of the cavalry, which, forming themselves into two distinct

bodies, began to move down the valley at a slow trot. That commanded by

Major Galbraith soon took to the right hand, and crossed the Forth, for

the purpose of taking up the quarters assigned them for the night, when

they were to occupy, as I understood, an old castle in the vicinity. They

formed a lively object while crossing the stream, but were soon lost in

winding up the bank on the opposite side, which was clothed with wood.

We continued our march with considerable good order. To ensure the safe

custody of the prisoner, the Duke had caused him to be placed on

horseback behind one of his retainers, called, as I was informed, Ewan of

Brigglands, one of the largest and strongest men who were present. A

horse-belt, passed round the bodies of both, and buckled before the

yeoman's breast, rendered it impossible for Rob Roy to free himself from

his keeper. I was directed to keep close beside them, and accommodated

for the purpose with a troop-horse. We were as closely surrounded by the

soldiers as the width of the road would permit, and had always at least

one, if not two, on each side, with pistol in hand. Andrew Fairservice,

furnished with a Highland pony, of which they had made prey somewhere or

other, was permitted to ride among the other domestics, of whom a great

number attended the line of march, though without falling into the ranks

of the more regularly trained troopers.

In this manner we travelled for a certain distance, until we arrived at a

place where we also were to cross the river. The Forth, as being the

outlet of a lake, is of considerable depth, even where less important in

point of width, and the descent to the ford was by a broken precipitous

ravine, which only permitted one horseman to descend at once. The rear

and centre of our small body halting on the bank while the front files

passed down in succession, produced a considerable delay, as is usual on

such occasions, and even some confusion; for a number of those riders,

who made no proper part of the squadron, crowded to the ford without

regularity, and made the militia cavalry, although tolerably well

drilled, partake in some degree of their own disorder.

[Illustration: Escape of Rob Roy at the Ford--232]

It was while we were thus huddled together on the bank that I heard Rob

Roy whisper to the man behind whom he was placed on horseback, "Your

father, Ewan, wadna hae carried an auld friend to the shambles, like a

calf, for a' the Dukes in Christendom."

Ewan returned no answer, but shrugged, as one who would express by that

sign that what he was doing was none of his own choice.

"And when the MacGregors come down the glen, and ye see toom faulds, a

bluidy hearthstone, and the fire flashing out between the rafters o' your

house, ye may be thinking then, Ewan, that were your friend Rob to the

fore, you would have had that safe which it will make your heart sair to

lose."

Ewan of Brigglands again shrugged and groaned, but remained silent.

"It's a sair thing," continued Rob, sliding his insinuations so gently

into Ewan's ear that they reached no other but mine, who certainly saw

myself in no shape called upon to destroy his prospects of escape--"It's

a sair thing, that Ewan of Brigglands, whom Roy MacGregor has helped with

hand, sword, and purse, suld mind a gloom from a great man mair than a

friend's life."

Ewan seemed sorely agitated, but was silent.--We heard the Duke's voice

from the opposite bank call, "Bring over the prisoner."

Ewan put his horse in motion, and just as I heard Roy say, "Never weigh a

MacGregor's bluid against a broken whang o' leather, for there will be

another accounting to gie for it baith here and hereafter," they passed

me hastily, and dashing forward rather precipitately, entered the water.

"Not yet, sir--not yet," said some of the troopers to me, as I was about

to follow, while others pressed forward into the stream.

I saw the Duke on the other side, by the waning light, engaged in

commanding his people to get into order, as they landed dispersedly, some

higher, some lower. Many had crossed, some were in the water, and the

rest were preparing to follow, when a sudden splash warned me that

MacGregor's eloquence had prevailed on Ewan to give him freedom and a

chance for life. The Duke also heard the sound, and instantly guessed its

meaning. "Dog!" he exclaimed to Ewan as he landed, "where is your

prisoner?" and, without waiting to hear the apology which the terrified

vassal began to falter forth, he fired a pistol at his head, whether

fatally I know not, and exclaimed, "Gentlemen, disperse and pursue the

villain--An hundred guineas for him that secures Rob Roy!"

All became an instant scene of the most lively confusion. Rob Roy,

disengaged from his bonds, doubtless by Ewan's slipping the buckle of his

belt, had dropped off at the horse's tail, and instantly dived, passing

under the belly of the troop-horse which was on his left hand. But as he

was obliged to come to the surface an instant for air, the glimpse of his

tartan plaid drew the attention of the troopers, some of whom plunged

into the river, with a total disregard to their own safety, rushing,

according to the expression of their country, through pool and stream,

sometimes swimming their horses, sometimes losing them and struggling for

their own lives. Others, less zealous or more prudent, broke off in

different directions, and galloped up and down the banks, to watch the

places at which the fugitive might possibly land. The hollowing, the

whooping, the calls for aid at different points, where they saw, or

conceived they saw, some vestige of him they were seeking,--the frequent

report of pistols and carabines, fired at every object which excited the

least suspicion,--the sight of so many horsemen riding about, in and out

of the river, and striking with their long broadswords at whatever

excited their attention, joined to the vain exertions used by their

officers to restore order and regularity,--and all this in so wild a

scene, and visible only by the imperfect twilight of an autumn evening,

made the most extraordinary hubbub I had hitherto witnessed. I was indeed

left alone to observe it, for our whole cavalcade had dispersed in

pursuit, or at least to see the event of the search. Indeed, as I partly

suspected at the time, and afterwards learned with certainty, many of

those who seemed most active in their attempts to waylay and recover the

fugitive, were, in actual truth, least desirous that he should be taken,

and only joined in the cry to increase the general confusion, and to give

Rob Roy a better opportunity of escaping.

Escape, indeed, was not difficult for a swimmer so expert as the

freebooter, as soon as he had eluded the first burst of pursuit. At one

time he was closely pressed, and several blows were made which flashed in

the water around him; the scene much resembling one of the otter-hunts

which I had seen at Osbaldistone Hall, where the animal is detected by

the hounds from his being necessitated to put his nose above the stream

to vent or breathe, while he is enabled to elude them by getting under

water again so soon as he has refreshed himself by respiration.

MacGregor, however, had a trick beyond the otter; for he contrived, when

very closely pursued, to disengage himself unobserved from his plaid, and

suffer it to float down the stream, where in its progress it quickly

attracted general attention; many of the horsemen were thus put upon a

false scent, and several shots or stabs were averted from the party for

whom they were designed.

Once fairly out of view, the recovery of the prisoner became almost

impossible, since, in so many places, the river was rendered inaccessible

by the steepness of its banks, or the thickets of alders, poplars, and

birch, which, overhanging its banks, prevented the approach of horsemen.

Errors and accidents had also happened among the pursuers, whose task the

approaching night rendered every moment more hopeless. Some got

themselves involved in the eddies of the stream, and required the

assistance of their companions to save them from drowning. Others, hurt

by shots or blows in the confused mele'e, implored help or threatened

vengeance, and in one or two instances such accidents led to actual

strife. The trumpets, therefore, sounded the retreat, announcing that the

commanding officer, with whatsoever unwillingness, had for the present

relinquished hopes of the important prize which had thus unexpectedly

escaped his grasp, and the troopers began slowly, reluctantly, and

brawling with each other as they returned, again to assume their ranks. I

could see them darkening, as they formed on the southern bank of the

river,--whose murmurs, long drowned by the louder cries of vengeful

pursuit, were now heard hoarsely mingling with the deep, discontented,

and reproachful voices of the disappointed horsemen.

Hitherto I had been as it were a mere spectator, though far from an

uninterested one, of the singular scene which had passed. But now I heard

a voice suddenly exclaim, "Where is the English stranger?--It was he gave

Rob Roy the knife to cut the belt."

"Cleeve the pock-pudding to the chafts!" cried one voice.

"Weize a brace of balls through his harn-pan!" said a second.

"Drive three inches of cauld airn into his brisket!" shouted a third.

And I heard several horses galloping to and fro, with the kind purpose,

doubtless, of executing these denunciations. I was immediately awakened

to the sense of my situation, and to the certainty that armed men, having

no restraint whatever on their irritated and inflamed passions, would

probably begin by shooting or cutting me down, and afterwards investigate

the justice of the action. Impressed by this belief, I leaped from my

horse, and turning him loose, plunged into a bush of alder-trees, where,

considering the advancing obscurity of the night, I thought there was

little chance of my being discovered. Had I been near enough to the Duke

to have invoked his personal protection, I would have done so; but he had

already commenced his retreat, and I saw no officer on the left bank of

the river, of authority sufficient to have afforded protection, in case

of my surrendering myself. I thought there was no point of honour which

could require, in such circumstances, an unnecessary exposure of my life.

My first idea, when the tumult began to be appeased, and the clatter of

the horses' feet was heard less frequently in the immediate vicinity of

my hiding-place, was to seek out the Duke's quarters when all should be

quiet, and give myself up to him, as a liege subject, who had nothing to

fear from his justice, and a stranger, who had every right to expect

protection and hospitality. With this purpose I crept out of my

hiding-place, and looked around me.

The twilight had now melted nearly into darkness; a few or none of the

troopers were left on my side of the Forth, and of those who were already

across it, I only heard the distant trample of the horses' feet, and the

wailing and prolonged sound of their trumpets, which rung through the

woods to recall stragglers, Here, therefore, I was left in a situation of

considerable difficulty. I had no horse, and the deep and wheeling stream

of the river, rendered turbid by the late tumult of which its channel had

been the scene, and seeming yet more so under the doubtful influence of

an imperfect moonlight, had no inviting influence for a pedestrian by no

means accustomed to wade rivers, and who had lately seen horsemen

weltering, in this dangerous passage, up to the very saddle-laps. At the

same time, my prospect, if I remained on the side of the river on which I

then stood, could be no other than of concluding the various fatigues of

this day and the preceding night, by passing that which was now closing

in, _al fresco_ on the side of a Highland hill.

After a moment's reflection, I began to consider that Fairservice, who

had doubtless crossed the river with the other domestics, according to

his forward and impertinent custom of putting himself always among the

foremost, could not fail to satisfy the Duke, or the competent

authorities, respecting my rank and situation; and that, therefore, my

character did not require my immediate appearance, at the risk of being

drowned in the river--of being unable to trace the march of the squadron

in case of my reaching the other side in safety--or, finally, of being

cut down, right or wrong, by some straggler, who might think such a piece

of good service a convenient excuse for not sooner rejoining his ranks. I

therefore resolved to measure my steps back to the little inn, where I

had passed the preceding night. I had nothing to apprehend from Rob Roy.

He was now at liberty, and I was certain, in case of my falling in with

any of his people, the news of his escape would ensure me protection. I

might thus also show, that I had no intention to desert Mr. Jarvie in the

delicate situation in which he had engaged himself chiefly on my account.

And lastly, it was only in this quarter that I could hope to learn

tidings concerning Rashleigh and my father's papers, which had been the

original cause of an expedition so fraught with perilous adventure. I

therefore abandoned all thoughts of crossing the Forth that evening; and,

turning my back on the Fords of Frew, began to retrace my steps towards

the little village of Aberfoil.

A sharp frost-wind, which made itself heard and felt from time to time,

removed the clouds of mist which might otherwise have slumbered till

morning on the valley; and, though it could not totally disperse the

clouds of vapour, yet threw them in confused and changeful masses, now

hovering round the heads of the mountains, now filling, as with a dense

and voluminous stream of smoke, the various deep gullies where masses of

the composite rock, or breccia, tumbling in fragments from the cliffs,

have rushed to the valley, leaving each behind its course a rent and torn

ravine resembling a deserted water-course. The moon, which was now high,

and twinkled with all the vivacity of a frosty atmosphere, silvered the

windings of the river and the peaks and precipices which the mist left

visible, while her beams seemed as it were absorbed by the fleecy

whiteness of the mist, where it lay thick and condensed; and gave to the

more light and vapoury specks, which were elsewhere visible, a sort of

filmy transparency resembling the lightest veil of silver gauze. Despite

the uncertainty of my situation, a view so romantic, joined to the active

and inspiring influence of the frosty atmosphere, elevated my spirits

while it braced my nerves. I felt an inclination to cast care away, and

bid defiance to danger, and involuntarily whistled, by way of cadence to

my steps, which my feeling of the cold led me to accelerate, and I felt

the pulse of existence beat prouder and higher in proportion as I felt

confidence in my own strength, courage, and resources. I was so much lost

in these thoughts, and in the feelings which they excited, that two

horsemen came up behind me without my hearing their approach, until one

was on each side of me, when the left-hand rider, pulling up his horse,

addressed me in the English tongue--"So ho, friend! whither so late?"

"To my supper and bed at Aberfoil," I replied.

"Are the passes open?" he inquired, with the same commanding tone of

voice.

"I do not know," I replied; "I shall learn when I get there. But," I

added, the fate of Morris recurring to my recollection, "if you are an

English stranger, I advise you to turn back till daylight; there has been

some disturbance in this neighbourhood, and I should hesitate to say it

is perfectly safe for strangers."

"The soldiers had the worst?--had they not?" was the reply.

"They had indeed; and an officer's party were destroyed or made

prisoners."

"Are you sure of that?" replied the horseman.

"As sure as that I hear you speak," I replied. "I was an unwilling

spectator of the skirmish."

"Unwilling!" continued the interrogator. "Were you not engaged in it

then?"

"Certainly no," I replied; "I was detained by the king's officer."

"On what suspicion? and who are you? or what is your name?" he continued.

"I really do not know, sir," said I, "why I should answer so many

questions to an unknown stranger. I have told you enough to convince you

that you are going into a dangerous and distracted country. If you choose

to proceed, it is your own affair; but as I ask you no questions

respecting your name and business, you will oblige me by making no

inquiries after mine."

"Mr. Francis Osbaldistone," said the other rider, in a voice the tones of

which thrilled through every nerve of my body, "should not whistle his

favourite airs when he wishes to remain undiscovered."

And Diana Vernon--for she, wrapped in a horseman's cloak, was the last

speaker--whistled in playful mimicry the second part of the tune which

was on my lips when they came up.

"Good God!" I exclaimed, like one thunderstruck, "can it be you, Miss

Vernon, on such a spot--at such an hour--in such a lawless country--in

such"--

"In such a masculine dress, you would say.--But what would you have? The

philosophy of the excellent Corporal Nym is the best after all; things

must be as they may--_pauca verba._"

While she was thus speaking, I eagerly took advantage of an unusually

bright gleam of moonshine, to study the appearance of her companion; for

it may be easily supposed, that finding Miss Vernon in a place so

solitary, engaged in a journey so dangerous, and under the protection of

one gentleman only, were circumstances to excite every feeling of

jealousy, as well as surprise. The rider did not speak with the deep

melody of Rashleigh's voice; his tones were more high and commanding; he

was taller, moreover, as he sate on horseback, than that first-rate

object of my hate and suspicion. Neither did the stranger's address

resemble that of any of my other cousins; it had that indescribable tone

and manner by which we recognise a man of sense and breeding, even in the

first few sentences he speaks.

The object of my anxiety seemed desirous to get rid of my investigation.

"Diana," he said, in a tone of mingled kindness and authority, "give your

cousin his property, and let us not spend time here."

Miss Vernon had in the meantime taken out a small case, and leaning down

from her horse towards me, she said, in a tone in which an effort at her

usual quaint lightness of expression contended with a deeper and more

grave tone of sentiment, "You see, my dear coz, I was born to be your

better angel. Rashleigh has been compelled to yield up his spoil, and had

we reached this same village of Aberfoil last night, as we purposed, I

should have found some Highland sylph to have wafted to you all these

representatives of commercial wealth. But there were giants and dragons

in the way; and errant-knights and damsels of modern times, bold though

they be, must not, as of yore, run into useless danger--Do not you do so

either, my dear coz."

"Diana," said her companion, "let me once more warn you that the evening

waxes late, and we are still distant from our home."

"I am coming, sir, I am coming--Consider," she added, with a sigh, "how

lately I have been subjected to control--besides, I have not yet given my

cousin the packet, and bid him fare-well--for ever. Yes, Frank," she

said, "for ever!--there is a gulf between us--a gulf of absolute

perdition;--where we go, you must not follow--what we do, you must not

share in--Farewell--be happy!"

[Illustration: Parting of Die and Frank on the Moor --242]

In the attitude in which she bent from her horse, which was a Highland

pony, her face, not perhaps altogether unwillingly, touched mine. She

pressed my hand, while the tear that trembled in her eye found its

way to my cheek instead of her own. It was a moment never to be

forgotten--inexpressibly bitter, yet mixed with a sensation of pleasure

so deeply soothing and affecting, as at once to unlock all the

flood-gates of the heart. It was _but_ a moment, however; for, instantly

recovering from the feeling to which she had involuntarily given way,

she intimated to her companion she was ready to attend him, and putting

their horses to a brisk pace, they were soon far distant from the place

where I stood.

Heaven knows, it was not apathy which loaded my frame and my tongue so

much, that I could neither return Miss Vernon's half embrace, nor even

answer her farewell. The word, though it rose to my tongue, seemed to

choke in my throat like the fatal _guilty,_ which the delinquent who

makes it his plea, knows must be followed by the doom of death. The

surprise--the sorrow, almost stupified me. I remained motionless with the

packet in my hand, gazing after them, as if endeavouring to count the

sparkles which flew from the horses' hoofs. I continued to look after

even these had ceased to be visible, and to listen for their footsteps

long after the last distant trampling had died in my ears. At length,

tears rushed to my eyes, glazed as they were by the exertion of straining

after what was no longer to be seen. I wiped them mechanically, and

almost without being aware that they were flowing--but they came thicker

and thicker; I felt the tightening of the throat and breast--the

_hysterica passio_ of poor Lear; and sitting down by the wayside, I shed

a flood of the first and most bitter tears which had flowed from my eyes

since childhood.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

_Dangle._--Egad, I think the interpreter is the harder to be

understood of the two.

Critic.

I had scarce given vent to my feelings in this paroxysm, ere was ashamed

of my weakness. I remembered that I had been for some time endeavouring

to regard Diana Vernon, when her idea intruded itself on my remembrance,

as a friend, for whose welfare I should indeed always be anxious, but

with whom I could have little further communication. But the almost

unrepressed tenderness of her manner, joined to the romance of our sudden

meeting where it was so little to have been expected, were circumstances

which threw me entirely off my guard. I recovered, however, sooner than

might have been expected, and without giving myself time accurately to

examine my motives. I resumed the path on which I had been travelling

when overtaken by this strange and unexpected apparition.

"I am not," was my reflection, "transgressing her injunction so

pathetically given, since I am but pursuing my own journey by the only

open route.--If I have succeeded in recovering my father's property, it

still remains incumbent on me to see my Glasgow friend delivered from the

situation in which he has involved himself on my account; besides, what

other place of rest can I obtain for the night excepting at the little

inn of Aberfoil? They also must stop there, since it is impossible for

travellers on horseback to go farther--Well, then, we shall meet

again--meet for the last time perhaps--But I shall see and hear her--I

shall learn who this happy man is who exercises over her the authority

of a husband--I shall learn if there remains, in the difficult course in

which she seems engaged, any difficulty which my efforts may remove, or

aught that I can do to express my gratitude for her generosity--for her

disinterested friendship."

As I reasoned thus with myself, colouring with every plausible pretext

which occurred to my ingenuity my passionate desire once more to see and

converse with my cousin, I was suddenly hailed by a touch on the

shoulder; and the deep voice of a Highlander, who, walking still faster

than I, though I was proceeding at a smart pace, accosted me with, "A

braw night, Maister Osbaldistone--we have met at the mirk hour before

now."

There was no mistaking the tone of MacGregor; he had escaped the pursuit

of his enemies, and was in full retreat to his own wilds and to his

adherents. He had also contrived to arm himself, probably at the house of

some secret adherent, for he had a musket on his shoulder, and the usual

Highland weapons by his side. To have found myself alone with such a

character in such a situation, and at this late hour in the evening,

might not have been pleasant to me in any ordinary mood of mind; for,

though habituated to think of Rob Roy in rather a friendly point of view,

I will confess frankly that I never heard him speak but that it seemed to

thrill my blood. The intonation of the mountaineers gives a habitual

depth and hollowness to the sound of their words, owing to the guttural

expression so common in their native language, and they usually speak

with a good deal of emphasis. To these national peculiarities Rob Roy

added a sort of hard indifference of accent and manner, expressive of a

mind neither to be daunted, nor surprised, nor affected by what passed

before him, however dreadful, however sudden, however afflicting.

Habitual danger, with unbounded confidence in his own strength and

sagacity, had rendered him indifferent to fear, and the lawless and

precarious life he led had blunted, though its dangers and errors had not

destroyed, his feelings for others. And it was to be remembered that I

had very lately seen the followers of this man commit a cruel slaughter

on an unarmed and suppliant individual.

Yet such was the state of my mind, that I welcomed the company of the

outlaw leader as a relief to my own overstrained and painful thoughts;

and was not without hopes that through his means I might obtain some clew

of guidance through the maze in which my fate had involved me. I

therefore answered his greeting cordially, and congratulated him on his

late escape in circumstances when escape seemed impossible.

"Ay," he replied, "there is as much between the craig and the woodie* as

there is between the cup and the lip. But my peril was less than you may

think, being a stranger to this country.

* _i.e._ The throat and the withy. Twigs of willow, such as bind faggots,

were often used for halters in Scotland and Ireland, being a sage economy

of hemp.

Of those that were summoned to take me, and to keep me, and to retake me

again, there was a moiety, as cousin Nicol Jarvie calls it, that had nae

will that I suld be either taen, or keepit fast, or retaen; and of tother

moiety, there was as half was feared to stir me; and so I had only like

the fourth part of fifty or sixty men to deal withal."

"And enough, too, I should think," replied I.

"I dinna ken that," said he; "but I ken, that turn every ill-willer that

I had amang them out upon the green before the Clachan of Aberfoil, I wad

find them play with broadsword and target, one down and another come on."

He now inquired into my adventures since we entered his country, and

laughed heartily at my account of the battle we had in the inn, and at

the exploits of the Bailie with the red-hot poker.

"Let Glasgow Flourish!" he exclaimed. "The curse of Cromwell on me, if I

wad hae wished better sport than to see cousin Nicol Jarvie singe

Iverach's plaid, like a sheep's head between a pair of tongs. But my

cousin Jarvie," he added, more gravely, "has some gentleman's bluid in

his veins, although he has been unhappily bred up to a peaceful and

mechanical craft, which could not but blunt any pretty man's spirit.--Ye

may estimate the reason why I could not receive you at the Clachan of

Aberfoil as I purposed. They had made a fine hosenet for me when I was

absent twa or three days at Glasgow, upon the king's business--But I

think I broke up the league about their lugs--they'll no be able to hound

one clan against another as they hae dune. I hope soon to see the day

when a' Hielandmen will stand shouther to shouther. But what chanced

next?"

I gave him an account of the arrival of Captain Thornton and his party,

and the arrest of the Bailie and myself under pretext of our being

suspicious persons; and upon his more special inquiry, I recollected the

officer had mentioned that, besides my name sounding suspicious in his

ears, he had orders to secure an old and young person, resembling our

description. This again moved the outlaw's risibility.

"As man lives by bread," he said, "the buzzards have mistaen my friend

the Bailie for his Excellency, and you for Diana Vernon--O, the most

egregious night-howlets!"

"Miss Vernon?" said I, with hesitation, and trembling for the

answer--"Does she still bear that name? She passed but now, along with

a gentleman who seemed to use a style of authority."

"Ay, ay," answered Rob, "she's under lawfu' authority now; and full time,

for she was a daft hempie--But she's a mettle quean. It's a pity his

Excellency is a thought eldern. The like o' yourself, or my son Hamish,

wad be mair sortable in point of years."

Here, then, was a complete downfall of those castles of cards which my

fancy had, in despite of my reason, so often amused herself with

building. Although in truth I had scarcely anything else to expect, since

I could not suppose that Diana could be travelling in such a country, at

such an hour, with any but one who had a legal title to protect her, I

did not feel the blow less severely when it came; and MacGregor's voice,

urging me to pursue my story, sounded in my ears without conveying any

exact import to my mind.

"You are ill," he said at length, after he had spoken twice without

receiving an answer; "this day's wark has been ower muckle for ane

doubtless unused to sic things."

The tone of kindness in which this was spoken, recalling me to myself,

and to the necessities of my situation, I continued my narrative as well

as I could. Rob Roy expressed great exultation at the successful skirmish

in the pass.

"They say," he observed, "that king's chaff is better than other folk's

corn; but I think that canna be said o' king's soldiers, if they let

themselves be beaten wi' a wheen auld carles that are past fighting, and

bairns that are no come till't, and wives wi' their rocks and distaffs,

the very wally-draigles o' the countryside. And Dougal Gregor, too--wha

wad hae thought there had been as muckle sense in his tatty-pow, that

ne'er had a better covering than his ain shaggy hassock of hair!--But say

away--though I dread what's to come neist--for my Helen's an incarnate

devil when her bluid's up--puir thing, she has ower muckle reason."

I observed as much delicacy as I could in communicating to him the usage

we had received, but I obviously saw the detail gave him great pain.

"I wad rather than a thousand merks," he said, "that I had been at hame!

To misguide strangers, and forbye a', my ain natural cousin, that had

showed me sic kindness--I wad rather they had burned half the Lennox in

their folly! But this comes o' trusting women and their bairns, that have

neither measure nor reason in their dealings. However, it's a' owing to

that dog of a gauger, wha betrayed me by pretending a message from your

cousin Rashleigh, to meet him on the king's affairs, whilk I thought was

very like to be anent Garschattachin and a party of the Lennox declaring

themselves for King James. Faith! but I ken'd I was clean beguiled when I

heard the Duke was there; and when they strapped the horse-girth ower my

arms, I might hae judged what was biding me; for I ken'd your kinsman,

being, wi' pardon, a slippery loon himself, is prone to employ those of

his ain kidney--I wish he mayna hae been at the bottom o' the ploy

himsell--I thought the chield Morris looked devilish queer when I

determined he should remain a wad, or hostage, for my safe back-coming.

But I _am_ come back, nae thanks to him, or them that employed him; and

the question is, how the collector loon is to win back himsell--I promise

him it will not be without a ransom."

"Morris," said I, "has already paid the last ransom which mortal man can

owe."

"Eh! What?" exclaimed my companion hastily; "what d'ye say? I trust it

was in the skirmish he was killed?"

"He was slain in cold blood after the fight was over, Mr. Campbell."

"Cold blood?--Damnation!" he said, muttering betwixt his teeth--"How fell

that, sir? Speak out, sir, and do not Maister or Campbell me--my foot is

on my native heath, and my name is MacGregor!"

His passions were obviously irritated; but without noticing the rudeness

of his tone, I gave him a short and distinct account of the death of

Morris. He struck the butt of his gun with great vehemence against the

ground, and broke out--"I vow to God, such a deed might make one forswear

kin, clan, country, wife, and bairns! And yet the villain wrought long

for it. And what is the difference between warsling below the water wi' a

stane about your neck, and wavering in the wind wi' a tether round

it?--it's but choking after a', and he drees the doom he ettled for me. I

could have wished, though, they had rather putten a ball through him, or

a dirk; for the fashion of removing him will give rise to mony idle

clavers--But every wight has his weird, and we maun a' dee when our day

comes--And naebody will deny that Helen MacGregor has deep wrongs to

avenge."

So saying, he seemed to dismiss the theme altogether from his mind, and

proceeded to inquire how I got free from the party in whose hands he had

seen me.

My story was soon told; and I added the episode of my having recovered

the papers of my father, though I dared not trust my voice to name the

name of Diana.

"I was sure ye wad get them," said MacGregor;--"the letter ye brought me

contained his Excellency's pleasure to that effect and nae doubt it was

my will to have aided in it. And I asked ye up into this glen on the very

errand. But it's like his Excellency has foregathered wi' Rashleigh

sooner than I expected."

The first part of this answer was what most forcibly struck me.

"Was the letter I brought you, then, from this person you call his

Excellency? Who is he? and what is his rank and proper name?"

"I am thinking," said MacGregor, "that since ye dinna ken them already

they canna be o' muckle consequence to you, and sae I shall say naething

on that score. But weel I wot the letter was frae his ain hand, or,

having a sort of business of my ain on my hands, being, as ye weel may

see, just as much as I can fairly manage, I canna say I would hae fashed

mysell sae muckle about the matter."

I now recollected the lights seen in the library--the various

circumstances which had excited my jealousy--the glove--the agitation of

the tapestry which covered the secret passage from Rashleigh's apartment;

and, above all, I recollected that Diana retired in order to write, as I

then thought, the billet to which I was to have recourse in case of the

last necessity. Her hours, then, were not spent in solitude, but in

listening to the addresses of some desperate agent of Jacobitical

treason, who was a secret resident within the mansion of her uncle! Other

young women have sold themselves for gold, or suffered themselves to be

seduced from their first love from vanity; but Diana had sacrificed my

affections and her own to partake the fortunes of some desperate

adventurer--to seek the haunts of freebooters through midnight deserts,

with no better hopes of rank or fortune than that mimicry of both which

the mock court of the Stuarts at St. Germains had in their power to

bestow.

"I will see her," I said internally, "if it be possible, once more. I

will argue with her as a friend--as a kinsman--on the risk she is

incurring, and I will facilitate her retreat to France, where she may,

with more comfort and propriety, as well as safety, abide the issue of

the turmoils which the political trepanner, to whom she has united her

fate, is doubtless busied in putting into motion."

"I conclude, then," I said to MacGregor, after about five minutes'

silence on both sides, "that his Excellency, since you give me no other

name for him, was residing in Osbaldistone Hall at the same time with

myself?"

"To be sure--to be sure--and in the young lady's apartment, as best

reason was." This gratuitous information was adding gall to bitterness.

"But few," added MacGregor, "ken'd he was derned there, save Rashleigh

and Sir Hildebrand; for you were out o' the question; and the young lads

haena wit eneugh to ca' the cat frae the cream--But it's a bra'

auld-fashioned house, and what I specially admire is the abundance o'

holes and bores and concealments--ye could put twenty or thirty men in ae

corner, and a family might live a week without finding them out--whilk,

nae doubt, may on occasion be a special convenience. I wish we had the

like o' Osbaldistone Hall on the braes o' Craig-Royston--But we maun gar

woods and caves serve the like o' us puir Hieland bodies."

"I suppose his Excellency," said I, "was privy to the first accident

which befell"--

I could not help hesitating a moment.

"Ye were going to say Morris," said Rob Roy coolly, for he was too much

accustomed to deeds of violence for the agitation he had at first

expressed to be of long continuance. "I used to laugh heartily at that

reik; but I'll hardly hae the heart to do't again, since the ill-far'd

accident at the Loch. Na, na--his Excellency ken'd nought o' that

ploy--it was a' managed atween Rashleigh and mysell. But the sport that

came after--and Rashleigh's shift o' turning the suspicion aff himself

upon you, that he had nae grit favour to frae the beginning--and then

Miss Die, she maun hae us sweep up a' our spiders' webs again, and set

you out o' the Justice's claws--and then the frightened craven Morris,

that was scared out o' his seven senses by seeing the real man when he

was charging the innocent stranger--and the gowk of a clerk--and the

drunken carle of a justice--Ohon! ohon!--mony a laugh that job's gien

me--and now, a' that I can do for the puir devil is to get some messes

said for his soul."

"May I ask," said I, "how Miss Vernon came to have so much influence over

Rashleigh and his accomplices as to derange your projected plan?"

"Mine! it was none of mine. No man can say I ever laid my burden on other

folk's shoulders--it was a' Rashleigh's doings. But, undoubtedly, she had

great influence wi' us baith on account of his Excellency's affection, as

weel as that she ken'd far ower mony secrets to be lightlied in a matter

o' that kind.--Deil tak him," he ejaculated, by way of summing up, "that

gies women either secret to keep or power to abuse--fules shouldna hae

chapping-sticks."

We were now within a quarter of a mile from the village, when three

Highlanders, springing upon us with presented arms, commanded us to stand

and tell our business. The single word _Gregaragh,_ in the deep and

commanding voice of my companion, was answered by a shout, or rather

yell, of joyful recognition. One, throwing down his firelock, clasped his

leader so fast round the knees, that he was unable to extricate himself,

muttering, at the same time, a torrent of Gaelic gratulation, which every

now and then rose into a sort of scream of gladness. The two others,

after the first howling was over, set off literally with the speed of

deers, contending which should first carry to the village, which a strong

party of the MacGregors now occupied, the joyful news of Rob Roy's escape

and return. The intelligence excited such shouts of jubilation, that the

very hills rung again, and young and old, men, women, and children,

without distinction of sex or age, came running down the vale to meet us,

with all the tumultuous speed and clamour of a mountain torrent. When I

heard the rushing noise and yells of this joyful multitude approach us, I

thought it a fitting precaution to remind MacGregor that I was a

stranger, and under his protection. He accordingly held me fast by the

hand, while the assemblage crowded around him with such shouts of devoted

attachment, and joy at his return, as were really affecting; nor did he

extend to his followers what all eagerly sought, the grasp, namely, of

his hand, until he had made them understand that I was to be kindly and

carefully used.

The mandate of the Sultan of Delhi could not have been more promptly

obeyed. Indeed, I now sustained nearly as much inconvenience from their

well-meant attentions as formerly from their rudeness. They would hardly

allow the friend of their leader to walk upon his own legs, so earnest

were they in affording me support and assistance upon the way; and at

length, taking advantage of a slight stumble which I made over a stone,

which the press did not permit me to avoid, they fairly seized upon me,

and bore me in their arms in triumph towards Mrs. MacAlpine's.

On arrival before her hospitable wigwam, I found power and popularity had

its inconveniences in the Highlands, as everywhere else; for, before

MacGregor could be permitted to enter the house where he was to obtain

rest and refreshment, he was obliged to relate the story of his escape at

least a dozen times over, as I was told by an officious old man, who

chose to translate it at least as often for my edification, and to whom I

was in policy obliged to seem to pay a decent degree of attention. The

audience being at length satisfied, group after group departed to take

their bed upon the heath, or in the neighbouring huts, some cursing the

Duke and Garschattachin, some lamenting the probable danger of Ewan of

Brigglands, incurred by his friendship to MacGregor, but all agreeing

that the escape of Rob Roy himself lost nothing in comparison with the

exploit of any one of their chiefs since the days of Dougal Ciar, the

founder of his line.

The friendly outlaw, now taking me by the arm, conducted me into the

interior of the hut. My eyes roved round its smoky recesses in quest of

Diana and her companion; but they were nowhere to be seen, and I felt as

if to make inquiries might betray some secret motives, which were best

concealed. The only known countenance upon which my eyes rested was that

of the Bailie, who, seated on a stool by the fireside, received with a

sort of reserved dignity, the welcomes of Rob Roy, the apologies which he

made for his indifferent accommodation, and his inquiries after his

health.

"I am pretty weel, kinsman," said the Bailie--"indifferent weel, I thank

ye; and for accommodations, ane canna expect to carry about the Saut

Market at his tail, as a snail does his caup;--and I am blythe that ye

hae gotten out o' the hands o' your unfreends."

"Weel, weel, then," answered Roy, "what is't ails ye, man--a's weel that

ends weel!--the warld will last our day--Come, take a cup o' brandy--your

father the deacon could take ane at an orra time."

"It might be he might do sae, Robin, after fatigue--whilk has been my lot

mair ways than ane this day. But," he continued, slowly filling up a

little wooden stoup which might hold about three glasses, "he was a

moderate man of his bicker, as I am mysell--Here's wussing health to ye,

Robin" (a sip), "and your weelfare here and hereafter" (another taste),

"and also to my cousin Helen--and to your twa hopefu' lads, of whom mair

anon."

So saying, he drank up the contents of the cup with great gravity and

deliberation, while MacGregor winked aside to me, as if in ridicule of

the air of wisdom and superior authority which the Bailie assumed towards

him in their intercourse, and which he exercised when Rob was at the head

of his armed clan, in full as great, or a greater degree, than when he

was at the Bailie's mercy in the Tolbooth of Glasgow. It seemed to me,

that MacGregor wished me, as a stranger, to understand, that if he

submitted to the tone which his kinsman assumed, it was partly out of

deference to the rights of hospitality, but still more for the jest's

sake.

As the Bailie set down his cup he recognised me, and giving me a cordial

welcome on my return, he waived farther communication with me for the

present.--"I will speak to your matters anon; I maun begin, as in reason,

wi' those of my kinsman.--I presume, Robin, there's naebody here will

carry aught o' what I am gaun to say, to the town-council or elsewhere,

to my prejudice or to yours?"

"Make yourself easy on that head, cousin Nicol," answered MacGregor; "the

tae half o' the gillies winna ken what ye say, and the tother winna

care--besides that, I wad stow the tongue out o' the head o' any o' them

that suld presume to say ower again ony speech held wi' me in their

presence."

"Aweel, cousin, sic being the case, and Mr. Osbaldistone here being a

prudent youth, and a safe friend--I'se plainly tell ye, ye are breeding

up your family to gang an ill gate." Then, clearing his voice with a

preliminary hem, he addressed his kinsman, checking, as Malvolio proposed

to do when seated in his state, his familiar smile with an austere regard

of control.--"Ye ken yourself ye haud light by the law--and for my cousin

Helen, forbye that her reception o' me this blessed day--whilk I excuse

on account of perturbation of mind, was muckle on the north side o'

_friendly,_ I say (outputting this personal reason of complaint) I hae

that to say o' your wife"--

"Say _nothing_ of her, kinsman," said Rob, in a grave and stern tone,

"but what is befitting a friend to say, and her husband to hear. Of me

you are welcome to say your full pleasure."

"Aweel, aweel," said the Bailie, somewhat disconcerted, "we'se let that

be a pass-over--I dinna approve of making mischief in families. But here

are your twa sons, Hamish and Robin, whilk signifies, as I'm gien to

understand, James and Robert--I trust ye will call them sae in

future--there comes nae gude o' Hamishes, and Eachines, and Angusses,

except that they're the names ane aye chances to see in the indictments

at the Western Circuits for cow-lifting, at the instance of his

majesty's advocate for his majesty's interest. Aweel, but the twa lads,

as I was saying, they haena sae muckle as the ordinar grunds, man, of

liberal education--they dinna ken the very multiplication table itself,

whilk is the root of a' usefu' knowledge, and they did naething but

laugh and fleer at me when I tauld them my mind on their ignorance--It's

my belief they can neither read, write, nor cipher, if sic a thing could

be believed o' ane's ain connections in a Christian land."

"If they could, kinsman," said MacGregor, with great indifference, "their

learning must have come o' free will, for whar the deil was I to get them

a teacher?--wad ye hae had me put on the gate o' your Divinity Hall at

Glasgow College, 'Wanted, a tutor for Rob Roy's bairns?'"

"Na, kinsman," replied Mr. Jarvie, "but ye might hae sent the lads whar

they could hae learned the fear o' God, and the usages of civilised

creatures. They are as ignorant as the kyloes ye used to drive to market,

or the very English churls that ye sauld them to, and can do naething

whatever to purpose."

"Umph!" answered Rob; "Hamish can bring doun a black-cock when he's on

the wing wi' a single bullet, and Rob can drive a dirk through a twa-inch

board."

"Sae muckle the waur for them, cousin!--sae muckle the waur for them

baith!" answered the Glasgow merchant in a tone of great decision; "an

they ken naething better than that, they had better no ken that neither.

Tell me yourself, Rob, what has a' this cutting, and stabbing, and

shooting, and driving of dirks, whether through human flesh or fir deals,

dune for yourself?--and werena ye a happier man at the tail o' your

nowte-bestial, when ye were in an honest calling, than ever ye hae been

since, at the head o' your Hieland kernes and gally-glasses?"

I observed that MacGregor, while his well-meaning kinsman spoke to him in

this manner, turned and writhed his body like a man who indeed suffers

pain, but is determined no groan shall escape his lips; and I longed for

an opportunity to interrupt the well-meant, but, as it was obvious to me,

quite mistaken strain, in which Jarvie addressed this extraordinary

person. The dialogue, however, came to an end without my interference.

"And sae," said the Bailie, "I hae been thinking, Rob, that as it may be

ye are ower deep in the black book to win a pardon, and ower auld to mend

yourself, that it wad be a pity to bring up twa hopefu' lads to sic a

godless trade as your ain, and I wad blythely tak them for prentices at

the loom, as I began mysell, and my father the deacon afore me, though,

praise to the Giver, I only trade now as wholesale dealer--And--and"--

He saw a storm gathering on Rob's brow, which probably induced him to

throw in, as a sweetener of an obnoxious proposition, what he had

reserved to crown his own generosity, had it been embraced as an

acceptable one;--"and Robin, lad, ye needna look sae glum, for I'll pay

the prentice-fee, and never plague ye for the thousand merks neither."

"_Ceade millia diaoul,_ hundred thousand devils!" exclaimed Rob,

rising and striding through the hut, "My sons weavers!--_Millia

molligheart!_--but I wad see every loom in Glasgow, beam, traddles,

and shuttles, burnt in hell-fire sooner!"

With some difficulty I made the Bailie, who was preparing a reply,

comprehend the risk and impropriety of pressing our host on this topic,

and in a minute he recovered, or reassumed, his serenity of temper.

"But ye mean weel--ye mean weel," said he; "so gie me your hand, Nicol,

and if ever I put my sons apprentice, I will gie you the refusal o' them.

And, as you say, there's the thousand merks to be settled between us.--

Here, Eachin MacAnaleister, bring me my sporran."

The person he addressed, a tall, strong mountaineer, who seemed to act as

MacGregor's lieutenant, brought from some place of safety a large

leathern pouch, such as Highlanders of rank wear before them when in full

dress, made of the skin of the sea-otter, richly garnished with silver

ornaments and studs.

"I advise no man to attempt opening this sporran till he has my secret,"

said Rob Roy; and then twisting one button in one direction, and another

in another, pulling one stud upward, and pressing another downward, the

mouth of the purse, which was bound with massive silver plate, opened and

gave admittance to his hand. He made me remark, as if to break short the

subject on which Bailie Jarvie had spoken, that a small steel pistol was

concealed within the purse, the trigger of which was connected with the

mounting, and made part of the machinery, so that the weapon would

certainly be discharged, and in all probability its contents lodged in

the person of any one, who, being unacquainted with the secret, should

tamper with the lock which secured his treasure. "This," said he touching

the pistol--"this is the keeper of my privy purse."

The simplicity of the contrivance to secure a furred pouch, which could

have been ripped open without any attempt on the spring, reminded me of

the verses in the Odyssey, where Ulysses, in a yet ruder age, is content

to secure his property by casting a curious and involved complication of

cordage around the sea-chest in which it was deposited.

The Bailie put on his spectacles to examine the mechanism, and when he

had done, returned it with a smile and a sigh, observing--"Ah! Rob, had

ither folk's purses been as weel guarded, I doubt if your sporran wad hae

been as weel filled as it kythes to be by the weight."

"Never mind, kinsman," said Rob, laughing; "it will aye open for a

friend's necessity, or to pay a just due--and here," he added, pulling

out a rouleau of gold, "here is your ten hundred merks--count them, and

see that you are full and justly paid."

Mr. Jarvie took the money in silence, and weighing it in his hand for an

instant, laid it on the table, and replied, "Rob, I canna tak it--I downa

intromit with it--there can nae gude come o't--I hae seen ower weel the

day what sort of a gate your gowd is made in--ill-got gear ne'er

prospered; and, to be plain wi' you, I winna meddle wi't--it looks as

there might be bluid on't."

"Troutsho!" said the outlaw, affecting an indifference which perhaps he

did not altogether feel; "it's gude French gowd, and ne'er was in

Scotchman's pouch before mine. Look at them, man--they are a'

louis-d'ors, bright and bonnie as the day they were coined."

"The waur, the waur--just sae muckle the waur, Robin," replied the

Bailie, averting his eyes from the money, though, like Caesar on the

Lupercal, his fingers seemed to itch for it--"Rebellion is waur than

witchcraft, or robbery either; there's gospel warrant for't."

"Never mind the warrant, kinsman," said the freebooter; "you come by the

gowd honestly, and in payment of a just debt--it came from the one king,

you may gie it to the other, if ye like; and it will just serve for a

weakening of the enemy, and in the point where puir King James is weakest

too, for, God knows, he has hands and hearts eneugh, but I doubt he wants

the siller."

"He'll no get mony Hielanders then, Robin," said Mr. Jarvie, as, again

replacing his spectacles on his nose, he undid the rouleau, and began to

count its contents.

"Nor Lowlanders neither," said MacGregor, arching his eyebrow, and, as he

looked at me, directing a glance towards Mr. Jarvie, who, all unconscious

of the ridicule, weighed each piece with habitual scrupulosity; and

having told twice over the sum, which amounted to the discharge of his

debt, principal and interest, he returned three pieces to buy his

kinswoman a gown, as he expressed himself, and a brace more for the twa

bairns, as he called them, requesting they might buy anything they liked

with them except gunpowder. The Highlander stared at his kinsman's

unexpected generosity, but courteously accepted his gift, which he

deposited for the time in his well-secured pouch.

The Bailie next produced the original bond for the debt, on the back of

which he had written a formal discharge, which, having subscribed

himself, he requested me to sign as a witness. I did so, and Bailie

Jarvie was looking anxiously around for another, the Scottish law

requiring the subscription of two witnesses to validate either a bond or

acquittance. "You will hardly find a man that can write save ourselves

within these three miles," said Rob, "but I'll settle the matter as

easily;" and, taking the paper from before his kinsman, he threw it in

the fire. Bailie Jarvie stared in his turn, but his kinsman continued,

"That's a Hieland settlement of accounts. The time might come, cousin,

were I to keep a' these charges and discharges, that friends might be

brought into trouble for having dealt with me."

The Bailie attempted no reply to this argument, and our supper now

appeared in a style of abundance, and even delicacy, which, for the

place, might be considered as extraordinary. The greater part of the

provisions were cold, intimating they had been prepared at some distance;

and there were some bottles of good French wine to relish pasties of

various sorts of game, as well as other dishes. I remarked that

MacGregor, while doing the honours of the table with great and anxious

hospitality, prayed us to excuse the circumstance that some particular

dish or pasty had been infringed on before it was presented to us. "You

must know," said he to Mr. Jarvie, but without looking towards me, "you

are not the only guests this night in the MacGregor's country, whilk,

doubtless, ye will believe, since my wife and the twa lads would

otherwise have been maist ready to attend you, as weel beseems them."

Bailie Jarvie looked as if he felt glad at any circumstance which

occasioned their absence; and I should have been entirely of his opinion,

had it not been that the outlaw's apology seemed to imply they were in

attendance on Diana and her companion, whom even in my thoughts I could

not bear to designate as her husband.

While the unpleasant ideas arising from this suggestion counteracted the

good effects of appetite, welcome, and good cheer, I remarked that Rob

Roy's attention had extended itself to providing us better bedding than

we had enjoyed the night before. Two of the least fragile of the

bedsteads, which stood by the wall of the hut, had been stuffed with

heath, then in full flower, so artificially arranged, that, the flowers

being uppermost, afforded a mattress at once elastic and fragrant.

Cloaks, and such bedding as could be collected, stretched over this

vegetable couch, made it both soft and warm. The Bailie seemed exhausted

by fatigue. I resolved to adjourn my communication to him until next

morning; and therefore suffered him to betake himself to bed so soon as

he had finished a plentiful supper. Though tired and harassed, I did not

myself feel the same disposition to sleep, but rather a restless and

feverish anxiety, which led to some farther discourse betwixt me and

MacGregor.

CHAPTER EIGHTEENTH.

A hopeless darkness settles o'er my fate;

I've seen the last look of her heavenly eyes,--

I've heard the last sound of her blessed voice,--

I've seen her fair form from my sight depart;

My doom is closed.

Count Basil.

"I ken not what to make of you, Mr. Osbaldistone," said MacGregor, as he

pushed the flask towards me. "You eat not, you show no wish for rest; and

yet you drink not, though that flask of Bourdeaux might have come out of

Sir Hildebrand's ain cellar. Had you been always as abstinent, you would

have escaped the deadly hatred of your cousin Rashleigh."

"Had I been always prudent," said I, blushing at the scene he recalled to

my recollection, "I should have escaped a worse evil--the reproach of my

own conscience."

MacGregor cast a keen and somewhat fierce glance on me, as if to read

whether the reproof, which he evidently felt, had been intentionally

conveyed. He saw that I was thinking of myself, not of him, and turned

his face towards the fire with a deep sigh. I followed his example, and

each remained for a few minutes wrapt in his own painful reverie. All in

the hut were now asleep, or at least silent, excepting ourselves.

MacGregor first broke silence, in the tone of one who takes up his

determination to enter on a painful subject. "My cousin Nicol Jarvie

means well," he said, "but he presses ower hard on the temper and

situation of a man like me, considering what I have been--what I have

been forced to become--and, above all, that which has forced me to become

what I am."

He paused; and, though feeling the delicate nature of the discussion in

which the conversation was likely to engage me, I could not help

replying, that I did not doubt his present situation had much which must

be most unpleasant to his feelings.

"I should be happy to learn," I added, "that there is an honourable

chance of your escaping from it."

"You speak like a boy," returned MacGregor, in a low tone that growled

like distant thunder--"like a boy, who thinks the auld gnarled oak can be

twisted as easily as the young sapling. Can I forget that I have been

branded as an outlaw--stigmatised as a traitor--a price set on my head as

if I had been a wolf--my family treated as the dam and cubs of the

hill-fox, whom all may torment, vilify, degrade, and insult--the very

name which came to me from a long and noble line of martial ancestors,

denounced, as if it were a spell to conjure up the devil with?"

As he went on in this manner, I could plainly see, that, by the

enumeration of his wrongs, he was lashing himself up into a rage, in

order to justify in his own eyes the errors they had led him into. In

this he perfectly succeeded; his light grey eyes contracting alternately

and dilating their pupils, until they seemed actually to flash with

flame, while he thrust forward and drew back his foot, grasped the hilt

of his dirk, extended his arm, clenched his fist, and finally rose from

his seat.

"And they _shall_ find," he said, in the same muttered but deep tone of

stifled passion, "that the name they have dared to proscribe--that the

name of MacGregor--_is_ a spell to raise the wild devil withal. _They_

shall hear of my vengeance, that would scorn to listen to the story of my

wrongs--The miserable Highland drover, bankrupt, barefooted,--stripped of

all, dishonoured and hunted down, because the avarice of others grasped

at more than that poor all could pay, shall burst on them in an awful

change. They that scoffed at the grovelling worm, and trode upon him, may

cry and howl when they see the stoop of the flying and fiery-mouthed

dragon.--But why do I speak of all this?" he said, sitting down again,

and in a calmer tone--"Only ye may opine it frets my patience, Mr.

Osbaldistone, to be hunted like an otter, or a sealgh, or a salmon upon

the shallows, and that by my very friends and neighbours; and to have as

many sword-cuts made, and pistols flashed at me, as I had this day in the

ford of Avondow, would try a saint's temper, much more a Highlander's,

who are not famous for that gude gift, as ye may hae heard, Mr.

Osbaldistone.--But as thing bides wi' me o' what Nicol said;--I'm vexed

for the bairns--I'm vexed when I think o' Hamish and Robert living their

father's life." And yielding to despondence on account of his sons, which

he felt not upon his own, the father rested his head upon his hand.

I was much affected, Will. All my life long I have been more melted by

the distress under which a strong, proud, and powerful mind is compelled

to give way, than by the more easily excited sorrows of softer

dispositions. The desire of aiding him rushed strongly on my mind,

notwithstanding the apparent difficulty, and even impossibility, of the

task.

"We have extensive connections abroad," said I: "might not your sons,

with some assistance--and they are well entitled to what my father's

house can give--find an honourable resource in foreign service?"

I believe my countenance showed signs of sincere emotion; but my

companion, taking me by the hand, as I was going to speak farther,

said--"I thank--I thank ye--but let us say nae mair o' this. I did not

think the eye of man would again have seen a tear on MacGregor's

eye-lash." He dashed the moisture from his long gray eye-lash and shaggy

red eye-brow with the back of his hand. "To-morrow morning," he said,

"we'll talk of this, and we will talk, too, of your affairs--for we are

early starters in the dawn, even when we have the luck to have good beds

to sleep in. Will ye not pledge me in a grace cup?" I declined the

invitation.

"Then, by the soul of St. Maronoch! I must pledge myself," and he poured

out and swallowed at least half-a-quart of wine.

I laid myself down to repose, resolving to delay my own inquiries until

his mind should be in a more composed state. Indeed, so much had this

singular man possessed himself of my imagination, that I felt it

impossible to avoid watching him for some minutes after I had flung

myself on my heath mattress to seeming rest. He walked up and down the

hut, crossed himself from time to time, muttering over some Latin prayer

of the Catholic church; then wrapped himself in his plaid, with his naked

sword on one side, and his pistol on the other, so disposing the folds of

his mantle that he could start up at a moment's warning, with a weapon in

either hand, ready for instant combat. In a few minutes his heavy

breathing announced that he was fast asleep. Overpowered by fatigue, and

stunned by the various unexpected and extraordinary scenes of the day, I,

in my turn, was soon overpowered by a slumber deep and overwhelming, from

which, notwithstanding every cause for watchfulness, I did not awake

until the next morning.

When I opened my eyes, and recollected my situation, I found that

MacGregor had already left the hut. I awakened the Bailie, who, after

many a snort and groan, and some heavy complaints of the soreness of his

bones, in consequence of the unwonted exertions of the preceding day, was

at length able to comprehend the joyful intelligence, that the assets

carried off by Rashleigh Osbaldistone had been safely recovered. The

instant he understood my meaning, he forgot all his grievances, and,

bustling up in a great hurry, proceeded to compare the contents of the

packet which I put into his hands, with Mr. Owen's memorandums,

muttering, as he went on, "Right, right--the real thing--Bailie and

Whittington--where's Bailie and Whittington?--seven hundred, six, and

eight--exact to a fraction--Pollock and Peelman--twenty-eight,

seven--exact--Praise be blest!--Grub and Grinder--better men cannot

be--three hundred and seventy--Gliblad--twenty; I doubt Gliblad's

ganging--Slipprytongue; Slipprytongue's gaen--but they are

sma'sums--sma'sums--the rest's a'right--Praise be blest! we have got the

stuff, and may leave this doleful country. I shall never think on

Loch-Ard but the thought will gar me grew again"

"I am sorry, cousin," said MacGregor, who entered the hut during the last

observation, "I have not been altogether in the circumstances to make

your reception sic as I could have desired--natheless, if you would

condescend to visit my puir dwelling"--

"Muckle obliged, muckle obliged," answered Mr. Jarvie, very hastily--"But

we maun be ganging--we maun be jogging, Mr. Osbaldistone and me--business

canna wait."

"Aweel, kinsman," replied the Highlander, "ye ken our fashion--foster the

guest that comes--further him that maun gang. But ye cannot return by

Drymen--I must set you on Loch Lomond, and boat ye down to the Ferry o'

Balloch, and send your nags round to meet ye there. It's a maxim of a

wise man never to return by the same road he came, providing another's

free to him."

"Ay, ay, Rob," said the Bailie, "that's ane o' the maxims ye learned when

ye were a drover;--ye caredna to face the tenants where your beasts had

been taking a rug of their moorland grass in the by-ganging, and I doubt

your road's waur marked now than it was then."

"The mair need not to travel it ower often, kinsman," replied Rob; "but

I'se send round your nags to the ferry wi' Dougal Gregor, wha is

converted for that purpose into the Bailie's man, coming--not, as ye may

believe, from Aberfoil or Rob Roy's country, but on a quiet jaunt from

Stirling. See, here he is."

"I wadna hae ken'd the creature," said Mr. Jarvie; nor indeed was it easy

to recognise the wild Highlander, when he appeared before the door of the

cottage, attired in a hat, periwig, and riding-coat, which had once

called Andrew Fairservice master, and mounted on the Bailie's horse, and

leading mine. He received his last orders from his master to avoid

certain places where he might be exposed to suspicion--to collect what

intelligence he could in the course of his journey, and to await our

coming at an appointed place, near the Ferry of Balloch.

At the same time, MacGregor invited us to accompany him upon our own

road, assuring us that we must necessarily march a few miles before

breakfast, and recommending a dram of brandy as a proper introduction to

the journey, in which he was pledged by the Bailie, who pronounced it "an

unlawful and perilous habit to begin the day wi' spirituous liquors,

except to defend the stomach (whilk was a tender part) against the

morning mist; in whilk case his father the deacon had recommended a dram,

by precept and example."

"Very true, kinsman," replied Rob, "for which reason we, who are Children

of the Mist, have a right to drink brandy from morning till night."

The Bailie, thus refreshed, was mounted on a small Highland pony; another

was offered for my use, which, however, I declined; and we resumed, under

very different guidance and auspices, our journey of the preceding day.

Our escort consisted of MacGregor, and five or six of the handsomest,

best armed, and most athletic mountaineers of his band, and whom he had

generally in immediate attendance upon his own person.

When we approached the pass, the scene of the skirmish of the preceding

day, and of the still more direful deed which followed it, MacGregor

hastened to speak, as if it were rather to what he knew must be

necessarily passing in my mind, than to any thing I had said--he spoke,

in short, to my thoughts, and not to my words.

"You must think hardly of us, Mr. Osbaldistone, and it is not natural

that it should be otherwise. But remember, at least, we have not been

unprovoked. We are a rude and an ignorant, and it may be a violent and

passionate, but we are not a cruel people. The land might be at peace and

in law for us, did they allow us to enjoy the blessings of peaceful law.

But we have been a persecuted generation."

"And persecution," said the Bailie, "maketh wise men mad."

"What must it do then to men like us, living as our fathers did a

thousand years since, and possessing scarce more lights than they did?

Can we view their bluidy edicts against us--their hanging, heading,

hounding, and hunting down an ancient and honourable name--as deserving

better treatment than that which enemies give to enemies?--Here I stand,

have been in twenty frays, and never hurt man but when I was in het

bluid; and yet they wad betray me and hang me like a masterless dog, at

the gate of ony great man that has an ill will at me."

I replied, "that the proscription of his name and family sounded in

English ears as a very cruel and arbitrary law;" and having thus far

soothed him, I resumed my propositions of obtaining military employment

for himself, if he chose it, and his sons, in foreign parts. MacGregor

shook me very cordially by the hand, and detaining me, so as to permit

Mr. Jarvie to precede us, a manoeuvre for which the narrowness of the

road served as an excuse, he said to me--"You are a kind-hearted and an

honourable youth, and understand, doubtless, that which is due to the

feelings of a man of honour. But the heather that I have trode upon when

living, must bloom ower me when I am dead--my heart would sink, and my

arm would shrink and wither like fern in the frost, were I to lose sight

of my native hills; nor has the world a scene that would console me for

the loss of the rocks and cairns, wild as they are, that you see around

us.--And Helen--what could become of her, were I to leave her the subject

of new insult and atrocity?--or how could she bear to be removed from

these scenes, where the remembrance of her wrongs is aye sweetened by the

recollection of her revenge?--I was once so hard put at by my Great

enemy, as I may well ca' him, that I was forced e'en to gie way to the

tide, and removed myself and my people and family from our dwellings in

our native land, and to withdraw for a time into MacCallum More's

country--and Helen made a Lament on our departure, as weel as MacRimmon*

himsell could hae framed it--and so piteously sad and waesome, that our

hearts amaist broke as we sate and listened to her--it was like the

wailing of one that mourns for the mother that bore him--the tears came

down the rough faces of our gillies as they hearkened; and I wad not have

the same touch of heartbreak again, no, not to have all the lands that

ever were owned by MacGregor."

* The MacRimmons or MacCrimonds were hereditary pipers to the chiefs of

MacLeod, and celebrated for their talents. The pibroch said to have been

composed by Helen MacGregor is still in existence. See the Introduction

to this Novel.

"But your sons," I said--"they are at the age when your countrymen have

usually no objection to see the world?"

"And I should be content," he replied, "that they pushed their fortune in

the French or Spanish service, as is the wont of Scottish cavaliers of

honour; and last night your plan seemed feasible eneugh--But I hae seen

his Excellency this morning before ye were up."

"Did he then quarter so near us?" said I, my bosom throbbing with

anxiety.

"Nearer than ye thought," was MacGregor's reply; "but he seemed rather in

some shape to jalouse your speaking to the young leddy; and so you see"--

"There was no occasion for jealousy," I answered, with some haughtiness;

--"I should not have intruded on his privacy."

"But ye must not be offended, or look out from amang your curls then,

like a wildcat out of an ivy-tod, for ye are to understand that he wishes

most sincere weel to you, and has proved it. And it's partly that whilk

has set the heather on fire e'en now."

"Heather on fire?" said I. "I do not understand you."

"Why," resumed MacGregor, "ye ken weel eneugh that women and gear are at

the bottom of a' the mischief in this warld. I hae been misdoubting your

cousin Rashleigh since ever he saw that he wasna to get Die Vernon for

his marrow, and I think he took grudge at his Excellency mainly on that

account. But then came the splore about the surrendering your papers--and

we hae now gude evidence, that, sae soon as he was compelled to yield

them up, he rade post to Stirling, and tauld the Government all and mair

than all, that was gaun doucely on amang us hill-folk; and, doubtless,

that was the way that the country was laid to take his Excellency and the

leddy, and to make sic an unexpected raid on me. And I hae as little

doubt that the poor deevil Morris, whom he could gar believe onything,

was egged on by him, and some of the Lowland gentry, to trepan me in the

gate he tried to do. But if Rashleigh Osbaldistone were baith the last

and best of his name, and granting that he and I ever forgather again,

the fiend go down my weasand with a bare blade at his belt, if we part

before my dirk and his best blude are weel acquainted thegither!"

He pronounced the last threat with an ominous frown, and the appropriate

gesture of his hand upon his dagger.

"I should almost rejoice at what has happened," said I, "could I hope

that Rashleigh's treachery might prove the means of preventing the

explosion of the rash and desperate intrigues in which I have long

suspected him to be a prime agen."

"Trow ye na that," said Rob Roy; "traitor's word never yet hurt honest

cause. He was ower deep in our secrets, that's true; and had it not been

so, Stirling and Edinburgh Castles would have been baith in our hands by

this time, or briefly hereafter, whilk is now scarce to be hoped for. But

there are ower mony engaged, and far ower gude a cause to be gien up for

the breath of a traitor's tale, and that will be seen and heard of ere it

be lang. And so, as I was about to say, the best of my thanks to you for

your offer anent my sons, whilk last night I had some thoughts to have

embraced in their behalf. But I see that this villain's treason will

convince our great folks that they must instantly draw to a head, and

make a blow for it, or be taen in their houses, coupled up like hounds,

and driven up to London like the honest noblemen and gentlemen in the

year seventeen hundred and seven. Civil war is like a cockatrice;--we

have sitten hatching the egg that held it for ten years, and might hae

sitten on for ten years mair, when in comes Rashleigh, and chips the

shell, and out bangs the wonder amang us, and cries to fire and sword.

Now in sic a matter I'll hae need o' a' the hands I can mak; and, nae

disparagement to the Kings of France and Spain, whom I wish very weel to,

King James is as gude a man as ony o' them, and has the best right to

Hamish and Rob, being his natural-born subjects."

I easily comprehended that these words boded a general national

convulsion; and, as it would have been alike useless and dangerous to

have combated the political opinions of my guide, at such a place and

moment, I contented myself with regretting the promiscuous scene of

confusion and distress likely to arise from any general exertion in

favour of the exiled royal family.

"Let it come, man--let it come," answered MacGregor; "ye never saw dull

weather clear without a shower; and if the world is turned upside down,

why, honest men have the better chance to cut bread out of it."

I again attempted to bring him back to the subject of Diana; but although

on most occasions and subjects he used a freedom of speech which I had no

great delight in listening to, yet upon that alone which was most

interesting to me, he kept a degree of scrupulous reserve, and contented

himself with intimating, "that he hoped the leddy would be soon in a

quieter country than this was like to be for one while." I was obliged to

be content with this answer, and to proceed in the hope that accident

might, as on a former occasion, stand my friend, and allow me at least

the sad gratification of bidding farewell to the object which had

occupied such a share of my affections, so much beyond even what I had

supposed, till I was about to be separated from her for ever.

[Illustration: Loch Lomond--284]

We pursued the margin of the lake for about six English miles, through a

devious and beautifully variegated path, until we attained a sort of

Highland farm, or assembly of hamlets, near the head of that fine sheet

of water, called, if I mistake not, Lediart, or some such name. Here a

numerous party of MacGregor's men were stationed in order to receive us.

The taste as well as the eloquence of tribes in a savage, or, to speak

more properly, in a rude state, is usually just, because it is unfettered

by system and affectation; and of this I had an example in the choice

these mountaineers had made of a place to receive their guests. It has

been said that a British monarch would judge well to receive the embassy

of a rival power in the cabin of a man-of-war; and a Highland leader

acted with some propriety in choosing a situation where the natural

objects of grandeur proper to his country might have their full effect on

the minds of his guests.

We ascended about two hundred yards from the shores of the lake, guided

by a brawling brook, and left on the right hand four or five Highland

huts, with patches of arable land around them, so small as to show that

they must have been worked with the spade rather than the plough, cut as

it were out of the surrounding copsewood, and waving with crops of barley

and oats. Above this limited space the hill became more steep; and on its

edge we descried the glittering arms and waving drapery of about fifty of

MacGregor's followers. They were stationed on a spot, the recollection of

which yet strikes me with admiration. The brook, hurling its waters

downwards from the mountain, had in this spot encountered a barrier rock,

over which it had made its way by two distinct leaps. The first fall,

across which a magnificent old oak, slanting out from the farther bank,

partly extended itself as if to shroud the dusky stream of the cascade,

might be about twelve feet high; the broken waters were received in a

beautiful stone basin, almost as regular as if hewn by a sculptor; and

after wheeling around its flinty margin, they made a second precipitous

dash, through a dark and narrow chasm, at least fifty feet in depth, and

from thence, in a hurried, but comparatively a more gentle course,

escaped to join the lake.

With the natural taste which belongs to mountaineers, and especially to

the Scottish Highlanders, whose feelings, I have observed, are often

allied with the romantic and poetical, Rob Roy's wife and followers had

prepared our morning repast in a scene well calculated to impress

strangers with some feelings of awe. They are also naturally a grave and

proud people, and, however rude in our estimation, carry their ideas of

form and politeness to an excess that would appear overstrained, except

from the demonstration of superior force which accompanies the display of

it; for it must be granted that the air of punctilious deference and

rigid etiquette which would seem ridiculous in an ordinary peasant, has,

like the salute of a _corps-de-garde,_ a propriety when tendered by a

Highlander completely armed. There was, accordingly, a good deal of

formality in our approach and reception.

The Highlanders, who had been dispersed on the side of the hill, drew

themselves together when we came in view, and, standing firm and

motionless, appeared in close column behind three figures, whom I soon

recognised to be Helen MacGregor and her two sons. MacGregor himself

arranged his attendants in the rear, and, requesting Mr. Jarvie to

dismount where the ascent became steep, advanced slowly, marshalling us

forward at the head of the troop. As we advanced, we heard the wild notes

of the bagpipes, which lost their natural discord from being mingled with

the dashing sound of the cascade. When we came close, the wife of

MacGregor came forward to meet us. Her dress was studiously arranged in a

more feminine taste than it had been on the preceding day, but her

features wore the same lofty, unbending, and resolute character; and as

she folded my friend the Bailie in an unexpected and apparently unwelcome

embrace, I could perceive by the agitation of his wig, his back, and the

calves of his legs, that he felt much like to one who feels himself

suddenly in the gripe of a she-bear, without being able to distinguish

whether the animal is in kindness or in wrath.

"Kinsman," she said, "you are welcome--and you, too, stranger," she

added, releasing my alarmed companion, who instinctively drew back and

settled his wig, and addressing herself to me--"you also are welcome. You

came," she added, "to our unhappy country, when our bloods were chafed,

and our hands were red. Excuse the rudeness that gave you a rough

welcome, and lay it upon the evil times, and not upon us." All this was

said with the manners of a princess, and in the tone and style of a

court. Nor was there the least tincture of that vulgarity, which we

naturally attach to the Lowland Scottish. There was a strong provincial

accentuation, but, otherwise, the language rendered by Helen MacGregor,

out of the native and poetical Gaelic, into English, which she had

acquired as we do learned tongues, but had probably never heard applied

to the mean purposes of ordinary life, was graceful, flowing, and

declamatory. Her husband, who had in his time played many parts, used a

much less elevated and emphatic dialect;--but even _his_ language rose in

purity of expression, as you may have remarked, if I have been accurate

in recording it, when the affairs which he discussed were of an agitating

and important nature; and it appears to me in his case, and in that of

some other Highlanders whom I have known, that, when familiar and

facetious, they used the Lowland Scottish dialect,--when serious and

impassioned, their thoughts arranged themselves in the idiom of their

native language; and in the latter case, as they uttered the

corresponding ideas in English, the expressions sounded wild, elevated,

and poetical. In fact, the language of passion is almost always pure as

well as vehement, and it is no uncommon thing to hear a Scotchman, when

overwhelmed by a countryman with a tone of bitter and fluent upbraiding,

reply by way of taunt to his adversary, "You have gotten to your

English."

Be this as it may, the wife of MacGregor invited us to a refreshment

spread out on the grass, which abounded with all the good things their

mountains could offer, but was clouded by the dark and undisturbed

gravity which sat on the brow of our hostess, as well as by our deep and

anxious recollection of what had taken place on the preceding day. It was

in vain that the leader exerted himself to excite mirth;--a chill hung

over our minds, as if the feast had been funereal; and every bosom felt

light when it was ended.

"Adieu, cousin," she said to Mr. Jarvie, as we rose from the

entertainment; "the best wish Helen MacGregor can give to a friend is,

that he may see her no more."

The Bailie struggled to answer, probably with some commonplace maxim of

morality;--but the calm and melancholy sternness of her countenance bore

down and disconcerted the mechanical and formal importance of the

magistrate. He coughed,--hemmed,--bowed,--and was silent.

"For you, stranger," she said, "I have a token, from one whom you can

never"--

"Helen!" interrupted MacGregor, in a loud and stern voice, "what means

this?--have you forgotten the charge?"

"MacGregor," she replied, "I have forgotten nought that is fitting for me

to remember. It is not such hands as these," and she stretched forth her

long, sinewy, and bare arm, "that are fitting to convey love-tokens, were

the gift connected with aught but misery. Young man," she said,

presenting me with a ring, which I well remembered as one of the few

ornaments that Miss Vernon sometimes wore, "this comes from one whom you

will never see more. If it is a joyless token, it is well fitted to pass

through the hands of one to whom joy can never be known. Her last words

were--Let him forget me for ever."

"And can she," I said, almost without being conscious that I spoke,

"suppose that is possible?"

"All may be forgotten," said the extraordinary female who addressed

me,--"all--but the sense of dishonour, and the desire of vengeance."

"_Seid suas!_"* cried the MacGregor, stamping with impatience.

* "Strike up."

The bagpipes sounded, and with their thrilling and jarring tones cut

short our conference. Our leave of our hostess was taken by silent

gestures; and we resumed our journey with an additional proof on my part,

that I was beloved by Diana, and was separated from her for ever.

CHAPTER NINETEENTH.

Farewell to the land where the clouds love to rest,

Like the shroud of the dead, on the mountain's cold breast

To the cataract's roar where the eagles reply,

And the lake her lone bosom expands to the sky.

Our route lay through a dreary, yet romantic country, which the distress

of my own mind prevented me from remarking particularly, and which,

therefore, I will not attempt to describe. The lofty peak of Ben Lomond,

here the predominant monarch of the mountains, lay on our right hand, and

served as a striking landmark. I was not awakened from my apathy, until,

after a long and toilsome walk, we emerged through a pass in the hills,

and Loch Lomond opened before us. I will spare you the attempt to

describe what you would hardly comprehend without going to see it. But

certainly this noble lake, boasting innumerable beautiful islands, of

every varying form and outline which fancy can frame,--its northern

extremity narrowing until it is lost among dusky and retreating

mountains,--while, gradually widening as it extends to the southward, it

spreads its base around the indentures and promontories of a fair and

fertile land, affords one of the most surprising, beautiful, and sublime

spectacles in nature. The eastern side, peculiarly rough and rugged, was

at this time the chief seat of MacGregor and his clan,--to curb whom, a

small garrison had been stationed in a central position betwixt Loch

Lomond and another lake. The extreme strength of the country, however,

with the numerous passes, marshes, caverns, and other places of

concealment or defence, made the establishment of this little fort seem

rather an acknowledgment of the danger, than an effectual means of

securing against it.

On more than one occasion, as well as on that which I witnessed, the

garrison suffered from the adventurous spirit of the outlaw and his

followers. These advantages were never sullied by ferocity when he

himself was in command; for, equally good-tempered and sagacious, he

understood well the danger of incurring unnecessary odium. I learned with

pleasure that he had caused the captives of the preceding day to be

liberated in safety; and many traits of mercy, and even of generosity,

are recorded of this remarkable man on similar occasions.

A boat waited for us in a creek beneath a huge rock, manned by four lusty

Highland rowers; and our host took leave of us with great cordiality, and

even affection. Betwixt him and Mr. Jarvie, indeed, there seemed to exist

a degree of mutual regard, which formed a strong contrast to their

different occupations and habits. After kissing each other very lovingly,

and when they were just in the act of parting, the Bailie, in the fulness

of his heart, and with a faltering voice, assured his kinsman, "that if

ever an hundred pund, or even twa hundred, would put him or his family in

a settled way, he need but just send a line to the Saut-Market;" and Rob,

grasping his basket-hilt with one hand, and shaking Mr. Jarvie's heartily

with the other, protested, "that if ever anybody should affront his

kinsman, an he would but let him ken, he would stow his lugs out of his

head, were he the best man in Glasgow."

With these assurances of mutual aid and continued good-will, we bore away

from the shore, and took our course for the south-western angle of the

lake, where it gives birth to the river Leven. Rob Roy remained for some

time standing on the rock from beneath which we had departed, conspicuous

by his long gun, waving tartans, and the single plume in his cap, which

in those days denoted the Highland gentleman and soldier; although I

observe that the present military taste has decorated the Highland bonnet

with a quantity of black plumage resembling that which is borne before

funerals. At length, as the distance increased between us, we saw him

turn and go slowly up the side of the hill, followed by his immediate

attendants or bodyguard.

We performed our voyage for a long time in silence, interrupted only by

the Gaelic chant which one of the rowers sung in low irregular measure,

rising occasionally into a wild chorus, in which the others joined.

My own thoughts were sad enough;--yet I felt something soothing in the

magnificent scenery with which I was surrounded; and thought, in the

enthusiasm of the moment, that had my faith been that of Rome, I could

have consented to live and die a lonely hermit in one of the romantic and

beautiful islands amongst which our boat glided.

The Bailie had also his speculations, but they were of somewhat a

different complexion; as I found when, after about an hour's silence,

during which he had been mentally engaged in the calculations necessary,

he undertook to prove the possibility of draining the lake, and "giving

to plough and harrow many hundred, ay, many a thousand acres, from whilk

no man could get earthly gude e'enow, unless it were a gedd,* or a dish

of perch now and then."

* A pike.

Amidst a long discussion, which he "crammed into mine ear against the

stomach of my sense," I only remember, that it was part of his project to

preserve a portion of the lake just deep enough and broad enough for the

purposes of water-carriage, so that coal-barges and gabbards should pass

as easily between Dumbarton and Glenfalloch as between Glasgow and

Greenock.

At length we neared our distant place of landing, adjoining to the ruins

of an ancient castle, and just where the lake discharges its superfluous

waters into the Leven. There we found Dougal with the horses. The Bailie

had formed a plan with respect to "the creature," as well as upon the

draining of the lake; and, perhaps in both cases, with more regard to the

utility than to the practical possibility of his scheme. "Dougal," he

said, "ye are a kindly creature, and hae the sense and feeling o' what is

due to your betters--and I'm e'en wae for you, Dougal, for it canna be

but that in the life ye lead you suld get a Jeddart cast* ae day suner or

later. I trust, considering my services as a magistrate, and my father

the deacon's afore me, I hae interest eneugh in the council to gar them

wink a wee at a waur faut than yours.

* ["The memory of Dunbar's legal (?) proceedings at Jedburgh is preserved

in the proverbial phrase _Jeddart Justice,_ which signifies trial _after_

execution."--_Minstrelsy of the Border,_ Preface, p. lvi.]

Sae I hae been thinking, that if ye will gang back to Glasgow wi' us,

being a strong-backit creature, ye might be employed in the warehouse

till something better suld cast up."

"Her nainsell muckle obliged till the Bailie's honour," replied Dougal;

"but teil be in her shanks fan she gangs on a cause-way'd street, unless

she be drawn up the Gallowgate wi' tows, as she was before."

In fact, I afterwards learned that Dougal had originally come to Glasgow

as a prisoner, from being concerned in some depredation, but had somehow

found such favour in the eyes of the jailor, that, with rather

overweening confidence, he had retained him in his service as one of the

turnkeys; a task which Dougal had discharged with sufficient fidelity, so

far as was known, until overcome by his clannish prejudices on the

unexpected appearance of his old leader.

Astonished at receiving so round a refusal to so favourable an offer, the

Bailie, turning to me, observed, that the "creature was a natural-born

idiot." I testified my own gratitude in a way which Dougal much better

relished, by slipping a couple of guineas into his hand. He no sooner

felt the touch of the gold, than he sprung twice or thrice from the earth

with the agility of a wild buck, flinging out first one heel and then

another, in a manner which would have astonished a French dancing-master.

He ran to the boatmen to show them the prize, and a small gratuity made

them take part in his raptures. He then, to use a favourite expression of

the dramatic John Bunyan, "went on his way, and I saw him no more."

The Bailie and I mounted our horses, and proceeded on the road to

Glasgow. When we had lost the view of the lake, and its superb

amphitheatre of mountains, I could not help expressing with enthusiasm,

my sense of its natural beauties, although I was conscious that Mr.

Jarvie was a very uncongenial spirit to communicate with on such a

subject.

"Ye are a young gentleman," he replied, "and an Englishman, and a' this

may be very fine to you; but for me, wha am a plain man, and ken

something o' the different values of land, I wadna gie the finest sight

we hae seen in the Hielands, for the first keek o' the Gorbals o'

Glasgow; and if I were ance there, it suldna be every fule's errand,

begging your pardon, Mr. Francis, that suld take me out o' sight o' Saint

Mungo's steeple again!"

The honest man had his wish; for, by dint of travelling very late, we

arrived at his own house that night, or rather on the succeeding morning.

Having seen my worthy fellow-traveller safely consigned to the charge of

the considerate and officious Mattie, I proceeded to Mrs. Flyter's, in

whose house, even at this unwonted hour, light was still burning. The

door was opened by no less a person than Andrew Fairservice himself, who,

upon the first sound of my voice, set up a loud shout of joyful

recognition, and, without uttering a syllable, ran up stairs towards a

parlour on the second floor, from the windows of which the light

proceeded. Justly conceiving that he went to announce my return to the

anxious Owen, I followed him upon the foot. Owen was not alone, there was

another in the apartment--it was my father.

The first impulse was to preserve the dignity of his usual

equanimity,--"Francis, I am glad to see you." The next was to embrace me

tenderly,--"My dear--dear son!"--Owen secured one of my hands, and

wetted it with his tears, while he joined in gratulating my return.

These are scenes which address themselves to the eye and to the heart

rather than to the ear--My old eye-lids still moisten at the

recollection of our meeting; but your kind and affectionate feelings

can well imagine what I should find it impossible to describe.

When the tumult of our joy was over, I learnt that my father had arrived

from Holland shortly after Owen had set off for Scotland. Determined and

rapid in all his movements, he only stopped to provide the means of

discharging the obligations incumbent on his house. By his extensive

resources, with funds enlarged, and credit fortified, by eminent success

in his continental speculation, he easily accomplished what perhaps his

absence alone rendered difficult, and set out for Scotland to exact

justice from Rashleigh Osbaldistone, as well as to put order to his

affairs in that country. My father's arrival in full credit, and with the

ample means of supporting his engagements honourably, as well as

benefiting his correspondents in future, was a stunning blow to MacVittie

and Company, who had conceived his star set for ever. Highly incensed at

the usage his confidential clerk and agent had received at their hands,

Mr. Osbaldistone refused every tender of apology and accommodation; and

having settled the balance of their account, announced to them that, with

all its numerous contingent advantages, that leaf of their ledger was

closed for ever.

While he enjoyed this triumph over false friends, he was not a little

alarmed on my account. Owen, good man, had not supposed it possible that

a journey of fifty or sixty miles, which may be made with so much ease

and safety in any direction from London, could be attended with any

particular danger. But he caught alarm, by sympathy, from my father, to

whom the country, and the lawless character of its inhabitants, were

better known.

These apprehensions were raised to agony, when, a few hours before I

arrived, Andrew Fairservice made his appearance, with a dismal and

exaggerated account of the uncertain state in which he had left me. The

nobleman with whose troops he had been a sort of prisoner, had, after

examination, not only dismissed him, but furnished him with the means of

returning rapidly to Glasgow, in order to announce to my friends my

precarious and unpleasant situation.

Andrew was one of those persons who have no objection to the sort of

temporary attention and woeful importance which attaches itself to the

bearer of bad tidings, and had therefore by no means smoothed down his

tale in the telling, especially as the rich London merchant himself

proved unexpectedly one of the auditors. He went at great length into an

account of the dangers I had escaped, chiefly, as he insinuated, by means

of his own experience, exertion, and sagacity.

"What was to come of me now, when my better angel, in his (Andrew's)

person, was removed from my side, it was," he said, "sad and sair to

conjecture; that the Bailie was nae better than just naebody at a pinch,

or something waur, for he was a conceited body--and Andrew hated

conceit--but certainly, atween the pistols and the carabines of the

troopers, that rappit aff the tane after the tother as fast as hail, and

the dirks and claymores o' the Hielanders, and the deep waters and weils

o' the Avondow, it was to be thought there wad be a puir account of the

young gentleman."

This statement would have driven Owen to despair, had he been alone and

unsupported; but my father's perfect knowledge of mankind enabled him

easily to appreciate the character of Andrew, and the real amount of his

intelligence. Stripped of all exaggeration, however, it was alarming

enough to a parent. He determined to set out in person to obtain my

liberty by ransom or negotiation, and was busied with Owen till a late

hour, in order to get through some necessary correspondence, and devolve

on the latter some business which should be transacted during his

absence; and thus it chanced that I found them watchers.

It was late ere we separated to rest, and, too impatient long to endure

repose, I was stirring early the next morning. Andrew gave his attendance

at my levee, as in duty bound, and, instead of the scarecrow figure to

which he had been reduced at Aberfoil, now appeared in the attire of an

undertaker, a goodly suit, namely, of the deepest mourning. It was not

till after one or two queries, which the rascal affected as long as he

could to misunderstand, that I found out he "had thought it but decent to

put on mourning, on account of my inexpressible loss; and as the broker

at whose shop he had equipped himself, declined to receive the goods

again, and as his own garments had been destroyed or carried off in my

honour's service, doubtless I and my honourable father, whom Providence

had blessed wi' the means, wadna suffer a puir lad to sit down wi' the

loss; a stand o' claes was nae great matter to an Osbaldistone (be

praised for't!), especially to an old and attached servant o' the house."

As there was something of justice in Andrew's plea of loss in my service,

his finesse succeeded; and he came by a good suit of mourning, with a

beaver and all things conforming, as the exterior signs of woe for a

master who was alive and merry.

My father's first care, when he arose, was to visit Mr. Jarvie, for whose

kindness he entertained the most grateful sentiments, which he expressed

in very few, but manly and nervous terms. He explained the altered state

of his affairs, and offered the Bailie, on such terms as could not but be

both advantageous and acceptable, that part in his concerns which had

been hitherto managed by MacVittie and Company. The Bailie heartily

congratulated my father and Owen on the changed posture of their affairs,

and, without affecting to disclaim that he had done his best to serve

them, when matters looked otherwise, he said, "He had only just acted as

he wad be done by--that, as to the extension of their correspondence, he

frankly accepted it with thanks. Had MacVittie's folk behaved like honest

men," he said, "he wad hae liked ill to hae come in ahint them, and out

afore them this gate. But it's otherwise, and they maun e'en stand the

loss."

The Bailie then pulled me by the sleeve into a corner, and, after again

cordially wishing me joy, proceeded, in rather an embarrassed tone--"I

wad heartily wish, Maister Francis, there suld be as little said as

possible about the queer things we saw up yonder awa. There's nae gude,

unless ane were judicially examinate, to say onything about that awfu'

job o' Morris--and the members o' the council wadna think it creditable

in ane of their body to be fighting wi' a wheen Hielandmen, and singeing

their plaidens--And abune a', though I am a decent sponsible man, when I

am on my right end, I canna but think I maun hae made a queer figure

without my hat and my periwig, hinging by the middle like bawdrons, or a

cloak flung ower a cloak-pin. Bailie Grahame wad hae an unco hair in my

neck an he got that tale by the end."

I could not suppress a smile when I recollected the Bailie's situation,

although I certainly thought it no laughing matter at the time. The

good-natured merchant was a little confused, but smiled also when he

shook his head--"I see how it is--I see how it is. But say naething about

it--there's a gude callant; and charge that lang-tongued, conceited,

upsetting serving man o' yours, to sae naething neither. I wadna for ever

sae muckle that even the lassock Mattie ken'd onything about it. I wad

never hear an end o't."

He was obviously relieved from his impending fears of ridicule, when I

told him it was my father's intention to leave Glasgow almost

immediately. Indeed he had now no motive for remaining, since the most

valuable part of the papers carried off by Rashleigh had been recovered.

For that portion which he had converted into cash and expended in his own

or on political intrigues, there was no mode of recovering it but by a

suit at law, which was forthwith commenced, and proceeded, as our

law-agents assured us, with all deliberate speed.

We spent, accordingly, one hospitable day with the Bailie, and took leave

of him, as this narrative now does. He continued to grow in wealth,

honour, and credit, and actually rose to the highest civic honours in his

native city. About two years after the period I have mentioned, he tired

of his bachelor life, and promoted Mattie from her wheel by the kitchen

fire to the upper end of his table, in the character of Mrs. Jarvie.

Bailie Grahame, the MacVitties, and others (for all men have their

enemies, especially in the council of a royal burgh), ridiculed this

transformation. "But," said Mr. Jarvie, "let them say their say. I'll

ne'er fash mysell, nor lose my liking for sae feckless a matter as a nine

days' clash. My honest father the deacon had a byword,

Brent brow and lily skin,

A loving heart, and a leal within,

Is better than gowd or gentle kin.

Besides," as he always concluded, "Mattie was nae ordinary lassock-quean;

she was akin to the Laird o' Limmerfield."

Whether it was owing to her descent or her good gifts, I do not presume

to decide; but Mattie behaved excellently in her exaltation, and relieved

the apprehensions of some of the Bailie's friends, who had deemed his

experiment somewhat hazardous. I do not know that there was any other

incident of his quiet and useful life worthy of being particularly

recorded.

CHAPTER TWENTIETH.

"Come ye hither my 'six' good sons,

Gallant men I trow ye be,

How many of you, my children dear,

Will stand by that good Earl and me?"

"Five" of them did answer make--

"Five" of them spoke hastily,

"O father, till the day we die,

We'll stand by that good Earl and thee."

The Rising in the North.

On the morning when we were to depart from Glasgow, Andrew Fairservice

bounced into my apartment like a madman, jumping up and down, and

singing, with more vehemence than tune,

The kiln's on fire--the kiln's on fire--

The kiln's on fire--she's a' in a lowe.

With some difficulty I prevailed on him to cease his confounded clamour,

and explain to me what the matter was. He was pleased to inform me, as if

he had been bringing the finest news imaginable, "that the Hielands were

clean broken out, every man o' them, and that Rob Roy, and a' his

breekless bands, wad be down upon Glasgow or twenty-four hours o' the

clock gaed round."

"Hold your tongue," said I, "you rascal! You must be drunk or mad; and if

there is any truth in your news, is it a singing matter, you scoundrel?"

"Drunk or mad? nae doubt," replied Andrew, dauntlessly; "ane's aye drunk

or mad if he tells what grit folks dinna like to hear--Sing? Od, the

clans will make us sing on the wrang side o' our mouth, if we are sae

drunk or mad as to bide their coming."

I rose in great haste, and found my father and Owen also on foot, and in

considerable alarm.

Andrew's news proved but too true in the main. The great rebellion which

agitated Britain in the year 1715 had already broken out, by the

unfortunate Earl of Mar's setting up the standard of the Stuart family in

an ill-omened hour, to the ruin of many honourable families, both in

England and Scotland. The treachery of some of the Jacobite agents

(Rashleigh among the rest), and the arrest of others, had made George the

First's Government acquainted with the extensive ramifications of a

conspiracy long prepared, and which at last exploded prematurely, and in

a part of the kingdom too distant to have any vital effect upon the

country, which, however, was plunged into much confusion.

This great public event served to confirm and elucidate the obscure

explanations I had received from MacGregor; and I could easily see why

the westland clans, who were brought against him, should have waived

their private quarrel, in consideration that they were all shortly to be

engaged in the same public cause. It was a more melancholy reflection to

my mind, that Diana Vernon was the wife of one of those who were most

active in turning the world upside down, and that she was herself exposed

to all the privations and perils of her husband's hazardous trade.

We held an immediate consultation on the measures we were to adopt in

this crisis, and acquiesced in my father's plan, that we should instantly

get the necessary passports, and make the best of our way to London. I

acquainted my father with my wish to offer my personal service to the

Government in any volunteer corps, several being already spoken of. He

readily acquiesced in my proposal; for though he disliked war as a

profession, yet, upon principle, no man would have exposed his life more

willingly in defence of civil and religious liberty.

We travelled in haste and in peril through Dumfriesshire and the

neighbouring counties of England. In this quarter, gentlemen of the Tory

interest were already in motion, mustering men and horses, while the

Whigs assembled themselves in the principal towns, armed the inhabitants,

and prepared for civil war. We narrowly escaped being stopped on more

occasions than one, and were often compelled to take circuitous routes to

avoid the points where forces were assembling.

When we reached London, we immediately associated with those bankers and

eminent merchants who agreed to support the credit of Government, and to

meet that run upon the funds, on which the conspirators had greatly

founded their hopes of furthering their undertaking, by rendering the

Government, as it were, bankrupt. My father was chosen one of the members

of this formidable body of the monied interest, as all had the greatest

confidence in his zeal, skill, and activity. He was also the organ by

which they communicated with Government, and contrived, from funds

belonging to his own house, or over which he had command, to find

purchasers for a quantity of the national stock, which was suddenly flung

into the market at a depreciated price when the rebellion broke out. I

was not idle myself, but obtained a commission, and levied, at my

father's expense, about two hundred men, with whom I joined General

Carpenter's army.

The rebellion, in the meantime, had extended itself to England. The

unfortunate Earl of Derwentwater had taken arms in the cause, along with

General Foster. My poor uncle, Sir Hildebrand, whose estate was reduced

to almost nothing by his own carelessness and the expense and debauchery

of his sons and household, was easily persuaded to join that unfortunate

standard. Before doing so, however, he exhibited a degree of precaution

of which no one could have suspected him--he made his will!

By this document he devised his estates at Osbaldistone Hall, and so

forth, to his sons successively, and their male heirs, until he came to

Rashleigh, whom, on account of the turn he had lately taken in politics,

he detested with all his might,--he cut him off with a shilling, and

settled the estate on me as his next heir. I had always been rather a

favourite of the old gentleman; but it is probable that, confident in the

number of gigantic youths who now armed around him, he considered the

destination as likely to remain a dead letter, which he inserted chiefly

to show his displeasure at Rashleigh's treachery, both public and

domestic. There was an article, by which he, bequeathed to the niece of

his late wife, Diana Vernon, now Lady Diana Vernon Beauchamp, some

diamonds belonging to her late aunt, and a great silver ewer, having the

arms of Vernon and Osbaldistone quarterly engraven upon it.

But Heaven had decreed a more speedy extinction of his numerous and

healthy lineage, than, most probably, he himself had reckoned on. In the

very first muster of the conspirators, at a place called Green-Rigg,

Thorncliff Osbaldistone quarrelled about precedence with a gentleman of

the Northumbrian border, to the full as fierce and intractable as

himself. In spite of all remonstrances, they gave their commander a

specimen of how far their discipline might be relied upon, by fighting it

out with their rapiers, and my kinsman was killed on the spot. His death

was a great loss to Sir Hildebrand, for, notwithstanding his infernal

temper, he had a grain or two of more sense than belonged to the rest of

the brotherhood, Rashleigh always excepted.

Perceval, the sot, died also in his calling. He had a wager with another

gentleman (who, from his exploits in that line, had acquired the

formidable epithet of Brandy Swalewell), which should drink the largest

cup of strong liquor when King James was proclaimed by the insurgents at

Morpeth. The exploit was something enormous. I forget the exact quantity

of brandy which Percie swallowed, but it occasioned a fever, of which he

expired at the end of three days, with the word, _water, water,_

perpetually on his tongue.

Dickon broke his neck near Warrington Bridge, in an attempt to show off a

foundered blood-mare which he wished to palm upon a Manchester merchant

who had joined the insurgents. He pushed the animal at a five-barred

gate; she fell in the leap, and the unfortunate jockey lost his life.

Wilfred the fool, as sometimes befalls, had the best fortune of the

family. He was slain at Proud Preston, in Lancashire, on the day that

General Carpenter attacked the barricades, fighting with great bravery,

though I have heard he was never able exactly to comprehend the cause of

quarrel, and did not uniformly remember on which king's side he was

engaged. John also behaved very boldly in the same engagement, and

received several wounds, of which he was not happy enough to die on the

spot.

Old Sir Hildebrand, entirely brokenhearted by these successive losses,

became, by the next day's surrender, one of the unhappy prisoners, and

was lodged in Newgate with his wounded son John.

I was now released from my military duty, and lost no time, therefore, in

endeavouring to relieve the distresses of these new relations. My

father's interest with Government, and the general compassion excited by

a parent who had sustained the successive loss of so many sons within so

short a time, would have prevented my uncle and cousin from being brought

to trial for high treason. But their doom was given forth from a greater

tribunal. John died of his wounds in Newgate, recommending to me in his

last breath, a cast of hawks which he had at the Hall, and a black

spaniel bitch called Lucy.

My poor uncle seemed beaten down to the very earth by his family

calamities, and the circumstances in which he unexpectedly found himself.

He said little, but seemed grateful for such attentions as circumstances

permitted me to show him. I did not witness his meeting with my father

for the first time for so many years, and under circumstances so

melancholy; but, judging from my father's extreme depression of spirits,

it must have been melancholy in the last degree. Sir Hildebrand spoke

with great bitterness against Rashleigh, now his only surviving child;

laid upon him the ruin of his house, and the deaths of all his brethren,

and declared, that neither he nor they would have plunged into political

intrigue, but for that very member of his family, who had been the first

to desert them. He once or twice mentioned Diana, always with great

affection; and once he said, while I sate by his bedside--"Nevoy, since

Thorncliff and all of them are dead, I am sorry you cannot have her."

The expression affected me much at the time; for it was a usual custom of

the poor old baronet's, when joyously setting forth upon the morning's

chase, to distinguish Thorncliff, who was a favourite, while he summoned

the rest more generally; and the loud jolly tone in which he used to

hollo, "Call Thornie--call all of them," contrasted sadly with the

woebegone and self-abandoning note in which he uttered the disconsolate

words which I have above quoted. He mentioned the contents of his will,

and supplied me with an authenticated copy;--the original he had

deposited with my old acquaintance Mr. Justice Inglewood, who, dreaded by

no one, and confided in by all as a kind of neutral person, had become,

for aught I know, the depositary of half the wills of the fighting men of

both factions in the county of Northumberland.

The greater part of my uncle's last hours were spent in the discharge of

the religious duties of his church, in which he was directed by the

chaplain of the Sardinian ambassador, for whom, with some difficulty, we

obtained permission to visit him. I could not ascertain by my own

observation, or through the medical attendants, that Sir Hildebrand

Osbaldistone died of any formed complaint bearing a name in the science

of medicine. He seemed to me completely worn out and broken down by

fatigue of body and distress of mind, and rather ceased to exist, than

died of any positive struggle,--just as a vessel, buffeted and tossed by

a succession of tempestuous gales, her timbers overstrained, and her

joints loosened, will sometimes spring a leak and founder, when there are

no apparent causes for her destruction.

It was a remarkable circumstance that my father, after the last duties

were performed to his brother, appeared suddenly to imbibe a strong

anxiety that I should act upon the will, and represent his father's

house, which had hitherto seemed to be the thing in the world which had

least charms for him. But formerly, he had been like the fox in the

fable, contemning what was beyond his reach; and, moreover, I doubt not

that the excessive dislike which he entertained against Rashleigh (now

Sir Rashleigh) Osbaldistone, who loudly threatened to attack his father

Sir Hildebrand's will and settlement, corroborated my father's desire to

maintain it.

"He had been most unjustly disinherited," he said, "by his own

father--his brother's will had repaired the disgrace, if not the injury,

by leaving the wreck of his property to Frank, the natural heir, and he

was determined the bequest should take effect."

In the meantime, Rashleigh was not altogether a contemptible personage as

an opponent. The information he had given to Government was critically

well-timed, and his extreme plausibility, with the extent of his

intelligence, and the artful manner in which he contrived to assume both

merit and influence, had, to a certain extent, procured him patrons among

Ministers. We were already in the full tide of litigation with him on the

subject of his pillaging the firm of Osbaldistone and Tresham; and,

judging from the progress we made in that comparatively simple lawsuit,

there was a chance that this second course of litigation might be drawn

out beyond the period of all our natural lives.

To avert these delays as much as possible, my father, by the advice of

his counsel learned in the law, paid off and vested in my person the

rights to certain large mortgages affecting Osbaldistone Hall. Perhaps,

however, the opportunity to convert a great share of the large profits

which accrued from the rapid rise of the funds upon the suppression of

the rebellion, and the experience he had so lately had of the perils of

commerce, encouraged him to realise, in this manner, a considerable part

of his property. At any rate, it so chanced, that, instead of commanding

me to the desk, as I fully expected, having intimated my willingness to

comply with his wishes, however they might destine me, I received his

directions to go down to Osbaldistone Hall, and take possession of it as

the heir and representative of the family. I was directed to apply to

Squire Inglewood for the copy of my uncle's will deposited with him, and

take all necessary measures to secure that possession which sages say

makes nine points of the law.

At another time I should have been delighted with this change of

destination. But now Osbaldistone Hall was accompanied with many painful

recollections. Still, however, I thought, that in that neighbourhood only

I was likely to acquire some information respecting the fate of Diana

Vernon. I had every reason to fear it must be far different from what I

could have wished it. But I could obtain no precise information on the

subject.

It was in vain that I endeavoured, by such acts of kindness as their

situation admitted, to conciliate the confidence of some distant

relations who were among the prisoners in Newgate. A pride which I could

not condemn, and a natural suspicion of the Whig Frank Osbaldistone,

cousin to the double-distilled traitor Rashleigh, closed every heart and

tongue, and I only received thanks, cold and extorted, in exchange for

such benefits as I had power to offer. The arm of the law was also

gradually abridging the numbers of those whom I endeavoured to serve, and

the hearts of the survivors became gradually more contracted towards all

whom they conceived to be concerned with the existing Government. As they

were led gradually, and by detachments, to execution, those who survived

lost interest in mankind, and the desire of communicating with them. I

shall long remember what one of them, Ned Shafton by name, replied to my

anxious inquiry, whether there was any indulgence I could procure him?

"Mr. Frank Osbaldistone, I must suppose you mean me kindly, and therefore

I thank you. But, by G--, men cannot be fattened like poultry, when they

see their neighbours carried off day by day to the place of execution,

and know that their own necks are to be twisted round in their turn."

Upon the whole, therefore, I was glad to escape from London, from

Newgate, and from the scenes which both exhibited, to breathe the free

air of Northumberland. Andrew Fairservice had continued in my service

more from my father's pleasure than my own. At present there seemed a

prospect that his local acquaintance with Osbaldistone Hall and its

vicinity might be useful; and, of course, he accompanied me on my

journey, and I enjoyed the prospect of getting rid of him, by

establishing him in his old quarters. I cannot conceive how he could

prevail upon my father to interest himself in him, unless it were by the

art, which he possessed in no inconsiderable degree, of affecting an

extreme attachment to his master; which theoretical attachment he made

compatible in practice with playing all manner of tricks without scruple,

providing only against his master being cheated by any one but himself.

We performed our journey to the North without any remarkable adventure,

and we found the country, so lately agitated by rebellion, now peaceful

and in good order. The nearer we approached to Osbaldistone Hall, the

more did my heart sink at the thought of entering that deserted mansion;

so that, in order to postpone the evil day, I resolved first to make my

visit at Mr. Justice Inglewood's.

That venerable person had been much disturbed with thoughts of what he

had been, and what he now was; and natural recollections of the past had

interfered considerably with the active duty which in his present

situation might have been expected from him. He was fortunate, however,

in one respect; he had got rid of his clerk Jobson, who had finally left

him in dudgeon at his inactivity, and become legal assistant to a certain

Squire Standish, who had lately commenced operations in those parts as a

justice, with a zeal for King George and the Protestant succession,

which, very different from the feelings of his old patron, Mr. Jobson had

more occasion to restrain within the bounds of the law, than to stimulate

to exertion.

Old Justice Inglewood received me with great courtesy, and readily

exhibited my uncle's will, which seemed to be without a flaw. He was for

some time in obvious distress, how he should speak and act in my

presence; but when he found, that though a supporter of the present

Government upon principle, I was disposed to think with pity on those who

had opposed it on a mistaken feeling of loyalty and duty, his discourse

became a very diverting medley of what he had done, and what he had left

undone,--the pains he had taken to prevent some squires from joining, and

to wink at the escape of others, who had been so unlucky as to engage in

the affair.

We were _tete-a'-tete,_ and several bumpers had been quaffed by the

Justice's special desire, when, on a sudden, he requested me to fill a

_bona fide_ brimmer to the health of poor dear Die Vernon, the rose of

the wilderness, the heath-bell of Cheviot, and the blossom that's

transplanted to an infernal convent.

"Is not Miss Vernon married, then?" I exclaimed, in great astonishment.

"I thought his Excellency"--

"Pooh! pooh! his Excellency and his Lordship's all a humbug now, you

know--mere St. Germains titles--Earl of Beauchamp, and ambassador

plenipotentiary from France, when the Duke Regent of Orleans scarce knew

that he lived, I dare say. But you must have seen old Sir Frederick

Vernon at the Hall, when he played the part of Father Vaughan?"

"Good Heavens! then Vaughan was Miss Vernon's father?"

"To be sure he was," said the Justice coolly;--"there's no use in

keeping the secret now, for he must be out of the country by this

time--otherwise, no doubt, it would be my duty to apprehend him.--Come,

off with your bumper to my dear lost Die!

And let her health go round, around, around,

And let her health go round;

For though your stocking be of silk,

Your knees near kiss the ground, aground, aground."*

* This pithy verse occurs, it is believed, in Shadwell's play of Bury

Fair.

I was unable, as the reader may easily conceive, to join in the Justice's

jollity. My head swam with the shock I had received. "I never heard," I

said, "that Miss Vernon's father was living."

"It was not our Government's fault that he is," replied Inglewood, "for

the devil a man there is whose head would have brought more money. He was

condemned to death for Fenwick's plot, and was thought to have had some

hand in the Knightsbridge affair, in King William's time; and as he had

married in Scotland a relation of the house of Breadalbane, he possessed

great influence with all their chiefs. There was a talk of his being

demanded to be given up at the peace of Ryswick, but he shammed ill, and

his death was given publicly out in the French papers. But when he came

back here on the old score, we old cavaliers knew him well,--that is to

say, I knew him, not as being a cavalier myself, but no information being

lodged against the poor gentleman, and my memory being shortened by

frequent attacks of the gout, I could not have sworn to him, you know."

"Was he, then, not known at Osbaldistone Hall?" I inquired.

"To none but to his daughter, the old knight, and Rashleigh, who had got

at that secret as he did at every one else, and held it like a twisted

cord about poor Die's neck. I have seen her one hundred times she would

have spit at him, if it had not been fear for her father, whose life

would not have been worth five minutes' purchase if he had been

discovered to the Government.--But don't mistake me, Mr. Osbaldistone; I

say the Government is a good, a gracious, and a just Government; and if

it has hanged one-half of the rebels, poor things, all will acknowledge

they would not have been touched had they staid peaceably at home."

Waiving the discussion of these political questions, I brought back Mr.

Inglewood to his subject, and I found that Diana, having positively

refused to marry any of the Osbaldistone family, and expressed her

particular detestation of Rashleigh, he had from that time begun to cool

in zeal for the cause of the Pretender; to which, as the youngest of six

brethren, and bold, artful, and able, he had hitherto looked forward as

the means of making his fortune. Probably the compulsion with which he

had been forced to render up the spoils which he had abstracted from my

father's counting-house by the united authority of Sir Frederick Vernon

and the Scottish Chiefs, had determined his resolution to advance his

progress by changing his opinions and betraying his trust. Perhaps

also--for few men were better judges where his interest was concerned--he

considered their means and talents to be, as they afterwards proved,

greatly inadequate to the important task of overthrowing an established

Government. Sir Frederick Vernon, or, as he was called among the

Jacobites, his Excellency Viscount Beauchamp, had, with his daughter,

some difficulty in escaping the consequences of Rashleigh's information.

Here Mr. Inglewood's information was at fault; but he did not doubt,

since we had not heard of Sir Frederick being in the hands of the

Government, he must be by this time abroad, where, agreeably to the cruel

bond he had entered into with his brother-in-law, Diana, since she had

declined to select a husband out of the Osbaldistone family, must be

confined to a convent. The original cause of this singular agreement Mr.

Inglewood could not perfectly explain; but he understood it was a family

compact, entered into for the purpose of securing to Sir Frederick the

rents of the remnant of his large estates, which had been vested in the

Osbaldistone family by some legal manoeuvre; in short, a family compact,

in which, like many of those undertaken at that time of day, the feelings

of the principal parties interested were no more regarded than if they

had been a part of the live-stock upon the lands.

I cannot tell,--such is the waywardness of the human heart,--whether this

intelligence gave me joy or sorrow. It seemed to me, that, in the

knowledge that Miss Vernon was eternally divided from me, not by marriage

with another, but by seclusion in a convent, in order to fulfil an absurd

bargain of this kind, my regret for her loss was aggravated rather than

diminished. I became dull, low-spirited, absent, and unable to support

the task of conversing with Justice Inglewood, who in his turn yawned,

and proposed to retire early. I took leave of him overnight, determining

the next day, before breakfast, to ride over to Osbaldistone Hall.

Mr. Inglewood acquiesced in my proposal. "It would be well," he said,

"that I made my appearance there before I was known to be in the country,

the more especially as Sir Rashleigh Osbaldistone was now, he understood,

at Mr. Jobson's house, hatching some mischief, doubtless. They were fit

company," he added, "for each other, Sir Rashleigh having lost all right

to mingle in the society of men of honour; but it was hardly possible two

such d--d rascals should collogue together without mischief to honest

people."

He concluded, by earnestly recommending a toast and tankard, and an

attack upon his venison pasty, before I set out in the morning, just to

break the cold air on the words.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIRST.

His master's gone, and no one now

Dwells in the halls of Ivor;

Men, dogs, and horses, all are dead,

He is the sole survivor.

Wordsworth.

There are few more melancholy sensations than those with which we regard

scenes of past pleasure when altered and deserted. In my ride to

Osbaldistone Hall, I passed the same objects which I had seen in company

with Miss Vernon on the day of our memorable ride from Inglewood Place.

Her spirit seemed to keep me company on the way; and when I approached

the spot where I had first seen her, I almost listened for the cry of the

hounds and the notes of the horn, and strained my eye on the vacant

space, as if to descry the fair huntress again descend like an apparition

from the hill. But all was silent, and all was solitary. When I reached

the Hall, the closed doors and windows, the grass-grown pavement, the

courts, which were now so silent, presented a strong contrast to the gay

and bustling scene I had so often seen them exhibit, when the merry

hunters were going forth to their morning sport, or returning to the

daily festival. The joyous bark of the fox-hounds as they were uncoupled,

the cries of the huntsmen, the clang of the horses' hoofs, the loud laugh

of the old knight at the head of his strong and numerous descendants,

were all silenced now and for ever.

While I gazed round the scene of solitude and emptiness, I was

inexpressibly affected, even by recollecting those whom, when alive, I

had no reason to regard with affection. But the thought that so many

youths of goodly presence, warm with life, health, and confidence, were

within so short a time cold in the grave, by various, yet all violent and

unexpected modes of death, afforded a picture of mortality at which the

mind trembled. It was little consolation to me, that I returned a

proprietor to the halls which I had left almost like a fugitive. My mind

was not habituated to regard the scenes around as my property, and I felt

myself an usurper, at least an intruding stranger, and could hardly

divest myself of the idea, that some of the bulky forms of my deceased

kinsmen were, like the gigantic spectres of a romance, to appear in the

gateway, and dispute my entrance.

While I was engaged in these sad thoughts, my follower Andrew, whose

feelings were of a very different nature, exerted himself in thundering

alternately on every door in the building, calling, at the same time, for

admittance, in a tone so loud as to intimate, that _he,_ at least, was

fully sensible of his newly acquired importance, as squire of the body to

the new lord of the manor. At length, timidly and reluctantly, Anthony

Syddall, my uncle's aged butler and major-domo, presented himself at a

lower window, well fenced with iron bars, and inquired our business.

"We are come to tak your charge aff your hand, my auld friend," said

Andrew Fairservice; "ye may gie up your keys as sune as ye like--ilka dog

has his day. I'll tak the plate and napery aff your hand. Ye hae had your

ain time o't, Mr. Syddall; but ilka bean has its black, and ilka path has

its puddle; and it will just set you henceforth to sit at the board-end,

as weel as it did Andrew lang syne."

Checking with some difficulty the forwardness of my follower, I explained

to Syddall the nature of my right, and the title I had to demand

admittance into the Hall, as into my own property. The old man seemed

much agitated and distressed, and testified manifest reluctance to give

me entrance, although it was couched in a humble and submissive tone. I

allowed for the agitation of natural feelings, which really did the old

man honour; but continued peremptory in my demand of admittance,

explaining to him that his refusal would oblige me to apply for Mr.

Inglewood's warrant, and a constable.

"We are come from Mr. Justice Inglewood's this morning," said Andrew, to

enforce the menace;--"and I saw Archie Rutledge, the constable, as I came

up by;--the country's no to be lawless as it has been, Mr. Syddall,

letting rebels and papists gang on as they best listed."

The threat of the law sounded dreadful in the old man's ears, conscious

as he was of the suspicion under which he himself lay, from his religion

and his devotion to Sir Hildebrand and his sons. He undid, with fear and

trembling, one of the postern entrances, which was secured with many a

bolt and bar, and humbly hoped that I would excuse him for fidelity in

the discharge of his duty.--I reassured him, and told him I had the

better opinion of him for his caution.

"Sae have not I," said Andrew; "Syddall is an auld sneck-drawer; he wadna

be looking as white as a sheet, and his knees knocking thegither, unless

it were for something mair than he's like to tell us."

"Lord forgive you, Mr. Fairservice," replied the butler, "to say such

things of an old friend and fellow-servant!--Where"--following me humbly

along the passage--"where would it be your honour's pleasure to have a

fire lighted? I fear me you will find the house very dull and dreary--But

perhaps you mean to ride back to Inglewood Place to dinner?"

"Light a fire in the library," I replied.

"In the library!" answered the old man;--"nobody has sat there this many

a day, and the room smokes, for the daws have built in the chimney this

spring, and there were no young men about the Hall to pull them down."

"Our ain reekes better than other folk's fire," said Andrew. "His honour

likes the library;--he's nane o' your Papishers, that delight in blinded

ignorance, Mr. Syddall."

Very reluctantly as it appeared to me, the butler led the way to the

library, and, contrary to what he had given me to expect, the interior of

the apartment looked as if it had been lately arranged, and made more

comfortable than usual. There was a fire in the grate, which burned

clearly, notwithstanding what Syddall had reported of the vent. Taking up

the tongs, as if to arrange the wood, but rather perhaps to conceal his

own confusion, the butler observed, "it was burning clear now, but had

smoked woundily in the morning."

Wishing to be alone, till I recovered myself from the first painful

sensations which everything around me recalled, I desired old Syddall to

call the land-steward, who lived at about a quarter of a mile from the

Hall. He departed with obvious reluctance. I next ordered Andrew to

procure the attendance of a couple of stout fellows upon whom he could

rely, the population around being Papists, and Sir Rashleigh, who was

capable of any desperate enterprise, being in the neighbourhood. Andrew

Fairservice undertook this task with great cheerfulness, and promised to

bring me up from Trinlay-Knowe, "twa true-blue Presbyterians like

himself, that would face and out-face baith the Pope, the Devil, and the

Pretender--and blythe will I be o' their company mysell, for the very

last night that I was at Osbaldistone Hall, the blight be on ilka blossom

in my bit yard, if I didna see that very picture" (pointing to the

full-length portrait of Miss Vernon's grandfather) "walking by moonlight

in the garden! I tauld your honour I was fleyed wi' a bogle that night,

but ye wadna listen to me--I aye thought there was witchcraft and

deevilry amang the Papishers, but I ne'er saw't wi' bodily een till that

awfu' night."

"Get along, sir," said I, "and bring the fellows you talk of; and see

they have more sense than yourself, and are not frightened at their own

shadow."

"I hae been counted as gude a man as my neighbours ere now," said Andrew,

petulantly; "but I dinna pretend to deal wi' evil spirits." And so he

made his exit, as Wardlaw the land-steward made his appearance.

He was a man of sense and honesty, without whose careful management my

uncle would have found it difficult to have maintained himself a

housekeeper so long as he did. He examined the nature of my right of

possession carefully, and admitted it candidly. To any one else the

succession would have been a poor one, so much was the land encumbered

with debt and mortgage. Most of these, however, were already vested in my

father's person, and he was in a train of acquiring the rest; his large

gains by the recent rise of the funds having made it a matter of ease and

convenience for him to pay off the debt which affected his patrimony.

I transacted much necessary business with Mr. Wardlaw, and detained him

to dine with me. We preferred taking our repast in the library, although

Syddall strongly recommended our removing to the stone-hall, which he had

put in order for the occasion. Meantime Andrew made his appearance with

his true-blue recruits, whom he recommended in the highest terms, as

"sober decent men, weel founded in doctrinal points, and, above all, as

bold as lions." I ordered them something to drink, and they left the

room. I observed old Syddall shake his head as they went out, and

insisted upon knowing the reason.

"I maybe cannot expect," he said, "that your honour should put confidence

in what I say, but it is Heaven's truth for all that--Ambrose Wingfield

is as honest a man as lives, but if there is a false knave in the

country, it is his brother Lancie;--the whole country knows him to be a

spy for Clerk Jobson on the poor gentlemen that have been in trouble--But

he's a dissenter, and I suppose that's enough now-a-days."

Having thus far given vent to his feelings,--to which, however, I was

little disposed to pay attention,--and having placed the wine on the

table, the old butler left the apartment.

Mr. Wardlaw having remained with me until the evening was somewhat

advanced, at length bundled up his papers, and removed himself to his own

habitation, leaving me in that confused state of mind in which we can

hardly say whether we desire company or solitude. I had not, however, the

choice betwixt them; for I was left alone in the room of all others most

calculated to inspire me with melancholy reflections.

As twilight was darkening the apartment, Andrew had the sagacity to

advance his head at the door,--not to ask if I wished for lights, but to

recommend them as a measure of precaution against the bogles which still

haunted his imagination. I rejected his proffer somewhat peevishly,

trimmed the wood-fire, and placing myself in one of the large leathern

chairs which flanked the old Gothic chimney, I watched unconsciously the

bickering of the blaze which I had fostered. "And this," said I alone,

"is the progress and the issue of human wishes! Nursed by the merest

trifles, they are first kindled by fancy--nay, are fed upon the vapour of

hope, till they consume the substance which they inflame; and man, and

his hopes, passions, and desires, sink into a worthless heap of embers

and ashes!"

There was a deep sigh from the opposite side of the room, which seemed to

reply to my reflections. I started up in amazement--Diana Vernon stood

before me, resting on the arm of a figure so strongly resembling that of

the portrait so often mentioned, that I looked hastily at the frame,

expecting to see it empty. My first idea was, either that I had gone

suddenly distracted, or that the spirits of the dead had arisen and been

placed before me. A second glance convinced me of my being in my senses,

and that the forms which stood before me were real and substantial. It

was Diana herself, though paler and thinner than her former self; and it

was no tenant of the grave who stood beside her, but Vaughan, or rather

Sir Frederick Vernon, in a dress made to imitate that of his ancestor, to

whose picture his countenance possessed a family resemblance. He was the

first that spoke, for Diana kept her eyes fast fixed on the ground, and

astonishment actually riveted my tongue to the roof of my mouth.

"We are your suppliants, Mr. Osbaldistone," he said, "and we claim the

refuge and protection of your roof till we can pursue a journey where

dungeons and death gape for me at every step."

"Surely," I articulated with great difficulty--"Miss Vernon cannot

suppose--you, sir, cannot believe, that I have forgot your interference

in my difficulties, or that I am capable of betraying any one, much less

you?"

"I know it," said Sir Frederick; "yet it is with the most inexpressible

reluctance that I impose on you a confidence, disagreeable

perhaps--certainly dangerous--and which I would have specially wished

to have conferred on some one else. But my fate, which has chased me

through a life of perils and escapes, is now pressing me hard, and I

have no alternative."

At this moment the door opened, and the voice of the officious Andrew was

heard--"A'm bringin' in the caunles--Ye can light them gin ye like--Can

do is easy carried about wi' ane."

I ran to the door, which, as I hoped, I reached in time to prevent his

observing who were in the apartment, I turned him out with hasty

violence, shut the door after him, and locked it--then instantly

remembering his two companions below, knowing his talkative humour, and

recollecting Syddall's remark, that one of them was supposed to be a spy,

I followed him as fast as I could to the servants' hall, in which they

were assembled. Andrew's tongue was loud as I opened the door, but my

unexpected appearance silenced him.

"What is the matter with you, you fool?" said I; "you stare and look

wild, as if you had seen a ghost."

"N--n--no--nothing," said Andrew.--"but your worship was pleased to be

hasty."

"Because you disturbed me out of a sound sleep, you fool. Syddall tells

me he cannot find beds for these good fellows tonight, and Mr. Wardlaw

thinks there will be no occasion to detain them. Here is a crown-piece

for them to drink my health, and thanks for their good-will. You will

leave the Hall immediately, my good lads."

The men thanked me for my bounty, took the silver, and withdrew,

apparently unsuspicious and contented. I watched their departure until I

was sure they could have no further intercourse that night with honest

Andrew. And so instantly had I followed on his heels, that I thought he

could not have had time to speak two words with them before I interrupted

him. But it is wonderful what mischief may be done by only two words. On

this occasion they cost two lives.

Having made these arrangements, the best which occurred to me upon the

pressure of the moment, to secure privacy for my guests, I returned to

report my proceedings, and added, that I had desired Syddall to answer

every summons, concluding that it was by his connivance they had been

secreted in the Hall. Diana raised her eyes to thank me for the caution.

"You now understand my mystery," she said;--"you know, doubtless, how

near and dear that relative is, who has so often found shelter here; and

will be no longer surprised that Rashleigh, having such a secret at his

command, should rule me with a rod of iron."

Her father added, "that it was their intention to trouble me with their

presence as short a time as was possible."

I entreated the fugitives to waive every consideration but what affected

their safety, and to rely on my utmost exertions to promote it. This led

to an explanation of the circumstances under which they stood.

"I always suspected Rashleigh Osbaldistone," said Sir Frederick; "but his

conduct towards my unprotected child, which with difficulty I wrung from

her, and his treachery in your father's affairs, made me hate and despise

him. In our last interview I concealed not my sentiments, as I should in

prudence have attempted to do; and in resentment of the scorn with which

I treated him, he added treachery and apostasy to his catalogue of

crimes. I at that time fondly hoped that his defection would be of little

consequence. The Earl of Mar had a gallant army in Scotland, and Lord

Derwentwater, with Forster, Kenmure, Winterton, and others, were

assembling forces on the Border. As my connections with these English

nobility and gentry were extensive, it was judged proper that I should

accompany a detachment of Highlanders, who, under Brigadier MacIntosh of

Borlum, crossed the Firth of Forth, traversed the low country of

Scotland, and united themselves on the Borders with the English

insurgents. My daughter accompanied me through the perils and fatigues of

a march so long and difficult."

"And she will never leave her dear father!" exclaimed Miss Vernon,

clinging fondly to his arm.

"I had hardly joined our English friends, when I became sensible that our

cause was lost. Our numbers diminished instead of increasing, nor were we

joined by any except of our own persuasion. The Tories of the High Church

remained in general undecided, and at length we were cooped up by a

superior force in the little town of Preston. We defended ourselves

resolutely for one day. On the next, the hearts of our leaders failed,

and they resolved to surrender at discretion. To yield myself up on such

terms, were to have laid my head on the block. About twenty or thirty

gentlemen were of my mind: we mounted our horses, and placed my daughter,

who insisted on sharing my fate, in the centre of our little party. My

companions, struck with her courage and filial piety, declared that they

would die rather than leave her behind. We rode in a body down a street

called Fishergate, which leads to a marshy ground or meadow, extending to

the river Ribble, through which one of our party promised to show us a

good ford. This marsh had not been strongly invested by the enemy, so

that we had only an affair with a patrol of Honeywood's dragoons, whom we

dispersed and cut to pieces. We crossed the river, gained the high road

to Liverpool, and then dispersed to seek several places of concealment

and safety. My fortune led me to Wales, where there are many gentlemen of

my religious and political opinions. I could not, however, find a safe

opportunity of escaping by sea, and found myself obliged again to draw

towards the North. A well-tried friend has appointed to meet me in this

neighbourhood, and guide me to a seaport on the Solway, where a sloop is

prepared to carry me from my native country for ever. As Osbaldistone

Hall was for the present uninhabited, and under the charge of old

Syddall, who had been our confidant on former occasions, we drew to it as

to a place of known and secure refuge. I resumed a dress which had been

used with good effect to scare the superstitious rustics, or domestics,

who chanced at any time to see me; and we expected from time to time to

hear by Syddall of the arrival of our friendly guide, when your sudden

coming hither, and occupying this apartment, laid us under the necessity

of submitting to your mercy."

Thus ended Sir Fredericks story, whose tale sounded to me like one told

in a vision; and I could hardly bring myself to believe that I saw his

daughter's form once more before me in flesh and blood, though with

diminished beauty and sunk spirits. The buoyant vivacity with which she

had resisted every touch of adversity, had now assumed the air of

composed and submissive, but dauntless resolution and constancy. Her

father, though aware and jealous of the effect of her praises on my mind,

could not forbear expatiating upon them.

"She has endured trials," he said, "which might have dignified the

history of a martyr;--she has faced danger and death in various

shapes;--she has undergone toil and privation, from which men of the

strongest frame would have shrunk;--she has spent the day in darkness,

and the night in vigil, and has never breathed a murmur of weakness or

complaint. In a word, Mr. Osbaldistone," he concluded, "she is a worthy

offering to that God, to whom" (crossing himself) "I shall dedicate her,

as all that is left dear or precious to Frederick Vernon."

There was a silence after these words, of which I well understood the

mournful import. The father of Diana was still as anxious to destroy my

hopes of being united to her now as he had shown himself during our brief

meeting in Scotland.

"We will now," said he to his daughter, "intrude no farther on Mr.

Osbaldistone's time, since we have acquainted him with the circumstances

of the miserable guests who claim his protection."

I requested them to stay, and offered myself to leave the apartment. Sir

Frederick observed, that my doing so could not but excite my attendant's

suspicion; and that the place of their retreat was in every respect

commodious, and furnished by Syddall with all they could possibly want.

"We might perhaps have even contrived to remain there, concealed from

your observation; but it would have been unjust to decline the most

absolute reliance on your honour."

"You have done me but justice," I replied.--"To you, Sir Frederick, I am

but little known; but Miss Vernon, I am sure, will bear me witness that"--

"I do not want my daughter's evidence," he said, politely, but yet with

an air calculated to prevent my addressing myself to Diana, "since I am

prepared to believe all that is worthy of Mr. Francis Osbaldistone.

Permit us now to retire; we must take repose when we can, since we are

absolutely uncertain when we may be called upon to renew our perilous

journey."

He drew his daughter's arm within his, and with a profound reverence,

disappeared with her behind the tapestry.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SECOND.

But now the hand of fate is on the curtain,

And gives the scene to light.

Don Sebastian.

I felt stunned and chilled as they retired. Imagination, dwelling on an

absent object of affection, paints her not only in the fairest light, but

in that in which we most desire to behold her. I had thought of Diana as

she was, when her parting tear dropped on my cheek--when her parting

token, received from the wife of MacGregor, augured her wish to convey

into exile and conventual seclusion the remembrance of my affection. I

saw her; and her cold passive manner, expressive of little except

composed melancholy, disappointed, and, in some degree, almost offended

me.

In the egotism of my feelings, I accused her of indifference--of

insensibility. I upbraided her father with pride--with cruelty--with

fanaticism,--forgetting that both were sacrificing their interest, and

Diana her inclination, to the discharge of what they regarded as their

duty.

Sir Frederick Vernon was a rigid Catholic, who thought the path of

salvation too narrow to be trodden by an heretic; and Diana, to whom her

father's safety had been for many years the principal and moving spring

of thoughts, hopes, and actions, felt that she had discharged her duty in

resigning to his will, not alone her property in the world, but the

dearest affections of her heart. But it was not surprising that I could

not, at such a moment, fully appreciate these honourable motives; yet my

spleen sought no ignoble means of discharging itself.

"I am contemned, then," I said, when left to run over the tenor of Sir

Frederick's communications--"I am contemned, and thought unworthy even to

exchange words with her. Be it so; they shall not at least prevent me

from watching over her safety. Here will I remain as an outpost, and,

while under my roof at least, no danger shall threaten her, if it be such

as the arm of one determined man can avert."

I summoned Syddall to the library. He came, but came attended by the

eternal Andrew, who, dreaming of great things in consequence of my taking

possession of the Hall and the annexed estates, was resolved to lose

nothing for want of keeping himself in view; and, as often happens to men

who entertain selfish objects, overshot his mark, and rendered his

attentions tedious and inconvenient.

His unrequired presence prevented me from speaking freely to Syddall, and

I dared not send him away for fear of increasing such suspicions as he

might entertain from his former abrupt dismissal from the library. "I

shall sleep here, sir," I said, giving them directions to wheel nearer to

the fire an old-fashioned day-bed, or settee. "I have much to do, and

shall go late to bed."

Syddall, who seemed to understand my look, offered to procure me the

accommodation of a mattress and some bedding. I accepted his offer,

dismissed my attendant, lighted a pair of candles, and desired that I

might not be disturbed till seven in the ensuing morning.

The domestics retired, leaving me to my painful and ill-arranged

reflections, until nature, worn out, should require some repose.

I endeavoured forcibly to abstract my mind from the singular

circumstances in which I found myself placed. Feelings which I had

gallantly combated while the exciting object was remote, were now

exasperated by my immediate neighbourhood to her whom I was so soon to

part with for ever. Her name was written in every book which I attempted

to peruse; and her image forced itself on me in whatever train of thought

I strove to engage myself. It was like the officious slave of Prior's

Solomon,--

Abra was ready ere I named her name,

And when I called another, Abra came.

I alternately gave way to these thoughts, and struggled against them,

sometimes yielding to a mood of melting tenderness of sorrow which was

scarce natural to me, sometimes arming myself with the hurt pride of one

who had experienced what he esteemed unmerited rejection. I paced the

library until I had chafed myself into a temporary fever. I then threw

myself on the couch, and endeavoured to dispose myself to sleep;--but it

was in vain that I used every effort to compose myself--that I lay

without movement of finger or of muscle, as still as if I had been

already a corpse--that I endeavoured to divert or banish disquieting

thoughts, by fixing my mind on some act of repetition or arithmetical

process. My blood throbbed, to my feverish apprehension, in pulsations

which resembled the deep and regular strokes of a distant fulling-mill,

and tingled in my veins like streams of liquid fire.

At length I arose, opened the window, and stood by it for some time in

the clear moonlight, receiving, in part at least, that refreshment and

dissipation of ideas from the clear and calm scene, without which they

had become beyond the command of my own volition. I resumed my place on

the couch--with a heart, Heaven knows, not lighter but firmer, and more

resolved for endurance. In a short time a slumber crept over my senses;

still, however, though my senses slumbered, my soul was awake to the

painful feelings of my situation, and my dreams were of mental anguish

and external objects of terror.

I remember a strange agony, under which I conceived myself and Diana in

the power of MacGregor's wife, and about to be precipitated from a rock

into the lake; the signal was to be the discharge of a cannon, fired by

Sir Frederick Vernon, who, in the dress of a Cardinal, officiated at the

ceremony. Nothing could be more lively than the impression which I

received of this imaginary scene. I could paint, even at this moment, the

mute and courageous submission expressed in Diana's features--the wild

and distorted faces of the executioners, who crowded around us with

"mopping and mowing;" grimaces ever changing, and each more hideous than

that which preceded. I saw the rigid and inflexible fanaticism painted in

the face of the father--I saw him lift the fatal match--the deadly signal

exploded--It was repeated again and again and again, in rival thunders,

by the echoes of the surrounding cliffs, and I awoke from fancied horror

to real apprehension.

The sounds in my dream were not ideal. They reverberated on my waking

ears, but it was two or three minutes ere I could collect myself so as

distinctly to understand that they proceeded from a violent knocking at

the gate. I leaped from my couch in great apprehension, took my sword

under my arm, and hastened to forbid the admission of any one. But my

route was necessarily circuitous, because the library looked not upon the

quadrangle, but into the gardens. When I had reached a staircase, the

windows of which opened upon the entrance court, I heard the feeble and

intimidated tones of Syddall expostulating with rough voices, which

demanded admittance, by the warrant of Justice Standish, and in the

King's name, and threatened the old domestic with the heaviest penal

consequences if he refused instant obedience. Ere they had ceased, I

heard, to my unspeakable provocation, the voice of Andrew bidding Syddall

stand aside, and let him open the door.

"If they come in King George's name, we have naething to fear--we hae

spent baith bluid and gowd for him--We dinna need to darn ourselves like

some folks, Mr. Syddall--we are neither Papists nor Jacobites, I trow."

It was in vain I accelerated my pace down stairs; I heard bolt after bolt

withdrawn by the officious scoundrel, while all the time he was boasting

his own and his master's loyalty to King George; and I could easily

calculate that the party must enter before I could arrive at the door to

replace the bars. Devoting the back of Andrew Fairservice to the cudgel

so soon as I should have time to pay him his deserts, I ran back to the

library, barricaded the door as I best could, and hastened to that by

which Diana and her father entered, and begged for instant admittance.

Diana herself undid the door. She was ready dressed, and betrayed neither

perturbation nor fear.

"Danger is so familiar to us," she said, "that we are always prepared to

meet it. My father is already up--he is in Rashleigh's apartment. We will

escape into the garden, and thence by the postern-gate (I have the key

from Syddall in case of need.) into the wood--I know its dingles better

than any one now alive. Keep them a few minutes in play. And, dear, dear

Frank, once more fare-thee-well!"

She vanished like a meteor to join her father, and the intruders were

rapping violently, and attempting to force the library door by the time I

had returned into it.

"You robber dogs!" I exclaimed, wilfully mistaking the purpose of their

disturbance, "if you do not instantly quit the house I will fire my

blunderbuss through the door."

"Fire a fule's bauble!" said Andrew Fairservice; "it's Mr. Clerk Jobson,

with a legal warrant"--

"To search for, take, and apprehend," said the voice of that execrable

pettifogger, "the bodies of certain persons in my warrant named, charged

of high treason under the 13th of King William, chapter third."

And the violence on the door was renewed. "I am rising, gentlemen," said

I, desirous to gain as much time as possible--"commit no violence--give

me leave to look at your warrant, and, if it is formal and legal, I shall

not oppose it."

"God save great George our King!" ejaculated Andrew. "I tauld ye that ye

would find nae Jacobites here."

Spinning out the time as much as possible, I was at length compelled to

open the door, which they would otherwise have forced.

Mr. Jobson entered, with several assistants, among whom I discovered the

younger Wingfield, to whom, doubtless, he was obliged for his

information, and exhibited his warrant, directed not only against

Frederick Vernon, an attainted traitor, but also against Diana Vernon,

spinster, and Francis Osbaldistone, gentleman, accused of misprision of

treason. It was a case in which resistance would have been madness; I

therefore, after capitulating for a few minutes' delay, surrendered

myself a prisoner.

I had next the mortification to see Jobson go straight to the chamber of

Miss Vernon, and I learned that from thence, without hesitation or

difficulty, he went to the room where Sir Frederick had slept. "The hare

has stolen away," said the brute, "but her form is warm--the greyhounds

will have her by the haunches yet."

A scream from the garden announced that he prophesied too truly. In the

course of five minutes, Rashleigh entered the library with Sir Frederick

Vernon and his daughter as prisoners.

"The fox," he said, "knew his old earth, but he forgot it could be

stopped by a careful huntsman.--I had not forgot the garden-gate, Sir

Frederick--or, if that title suits you better, most noble Lord

Beauchamp."

"Rashleigh," said Sir Frederick, "thou art a detestable villain!"

"I better deserved the name, Sir Knight, or my Lord, when, under the

direction of an able tutor, I sought to introduce civil war into the

bosom of a peaceful country. But I have done my best," said he, looking

upwards, "to atone for my errors."

I could hold no longer. I had designed to watch their proceedings in

silence, but I felt that I must speak or die. "If hell," I said, "has one

complexion more hideous than another, it is where villany is masked by

hypocrisy."

"Ha! my gentle cousin," said Rashleigh, holding a candle towards me, and

surveying me from head to foot; "right welcome to Osbaldistone Hall!--I

can forgive your spleen--It is hard to lose an estate and a mistress in

one night; for we shall take possession of this poor manor-house in the

name of the lawful heir, Sir Rashleigh Osbaldistone."

While Rashleigh braved it out in this manner, I could see that he put a

strong force upon his feelings, both of anger and shame. But his state of

mind was more obvious when Diana Vernon addressed him. "Rashleigh," she

said, "I pity you--for, deep as the evil is which you have laboured to do

me, and the evil you have actually done, I cannot hate you so much as I

scorn and pity you. What you have now done may be the work of an hour,

but will furnish you with reflection for your life--of what nature I

leave to your own conscience, which will not slumber for ever."

Rashleigh strode once or twice through the room, came up to the

side-table, on which wine was still standing, and poured out a large

glass with a trembling hand; but when he saw that we observed his tremor,

he suppressed it by a strong effort, and, looking at us with fixed and

daring composure, carried the bumper to his head without spilling a drop.

"It is my father's old burgundy," he said, looking to Jobson; "I am glad

there is some of it left.--You will get proper persons to take care of

old butler, and that foolish Scotch rascal. Meanwhile we will convey

these persons to a more proper place of custody. I have provided the old

family coach for your convenience," he said, "though I am not ignorant

that even the lady could brave the night-air on foot or on horseback,

were the errand more to her mind."

Andrew wrung his hands.--"I only said that my master was surely speaking

to a ghaist in the library--and the villain Lancie to betray an auld

friend, that sang aff the same Psalm-book wi' him every Sabbath for

twenty years!"

He was turned out of the house, together with Syddall, without being

allowed to conclude his lamentation. His expulsion, however, led to some

singular consequences. Resolving, according to his own story, to go down

for the night where Mother Simpson would give him a lodging for old

acquaintance' sake, he had just got clear of the avenue, and into the old

wood, as it was called, though it was now used as a pasture-ground rather

than woodland, when he suddenly lighted on a drove of Scotch cattle,

which were lying there to repose themselves after the day's journey. At

this Andrew was in no way surprised, it being the well-known custom of

his countrymen, who take care of those droves, to quarter themselves

after night upon the best unenclosed grass-ground they can find, and

depart before day-break to escape paying for their night's lodgings. But

he was both surprised and startled, when a Highlander, springing up,

accused him of disturbing the cattle, and refused him to pass forward

till he had spoken to his master. The mountaineer conducted Andrew into a

thicket, where he found three or four more of his countrymen. "And," said

Andrew, "I saw sune they were ower mony men for the drove; and from the

questions they put to me, I judged they had other tow on their rock."

They questioned him closely about all that had passed at Osbaldistone

Hall, and seemed surprised and concerned at the report he made to them.

"And troth," said Andrew, "I tauld them a' I ken'd; for dirks and pistols

were what I could never refuse information to in a' my life."

They talked in whispers among themselves, and at length collected their

cattle together, and drove them close up to the entrance of the avenue,

which might be half a mile distant from the house. They proceeded to drag

together some felled trees which lay in the vicinity, so as to make a

temporary barricade across the road, about fifteen yards beyond the

avenue. It was now near daybreak, and there was a pale eastern gleam

mingled with the fading moonlight, so that objects could be discovered

with some distinctness. The lumbering sound of a coach drawn by four

horses, and escorted by six men on horseback, was heard coming up the

avenue. The Highlanders listened attentively. The carriage contained Mr.

Jobson and his unfortunate prisoners. The escort consisted of Rashleigh,

and of several horsemen, peace-officers and their assistants. So soon as

we had passed the gate at the head of the avenue, it was shut behind the

cavalcade by a Highland-man, stationed there for that purpose. At the

same time the carriage was impeded in its farther progress by the cattle,

amongst which we were involved, and by the barricade in front. Two of the

escort dismounted to remove the felled trees, which they might think were

left there by accident or carelessness. The others began with their whips

to drive the cattle from the road.

"Who dare abuse our cattle?" said a rough voice.--"Shoot him, Angus!"

Rashleigh instantly called out--"A rescue! a rescue!" and, firing a

pistol, wounded the man who spoke.

"_Claymore!_" cried the leader of the Highlanders, and a scuffle

instantly commenced. The officers of the law, surprised at so sudden an

attack, and not usually possessing the most desperate bravery, made but

an imperfect defence, considering the superiority of their numbers. Some

attempted to ride back to the Hall, but on a pistol being fired from

behind the gate, they conceived themselves surrounded, and at length

galloped of in different directions. Rashleigh, meanwhile, had

dismounted, and on foot had maintained a desperate and single-handed

conflict with the leader of the band. The window of the carriage, on my

side, permitted me to witness it. At length Rashleigh dropped.

"Will you ask forgiveness for the sake of God, King James, and auld

friendship?" said a voice which I knew right well.

"No, never!" said Rashleigh, firmly.

"Then, traitor, die in your treason!" retorted MacGregor, and plunged his

sword in his prostrate antagonist.

In the next moment he was at the carriage door--handed out Miss Vernon,

assisted her father and me to alight, and dragging out the attorney, head

foremost, threw him under the wheel.

"Mr. Osbaldistone," he said, in a whisper, "you have nothing to

fear--I must look after those who have--Your friends will soon be in

safety--Farewell, and forget not the MacGregor."

He whistled--his band gathered round him, and, hurrying Diana and her

father along with him, they were almost instantly lost in the glades of

the forest. The coachman and postilion had abandoned their horses, and

fled at the first discharge of firearms; but the animals, stopped by the

barricade, remained perfectly still; and well for Jobson that they did

so, for the slightest motion would have dragged the wheel over his body.

My first object was to relieve him, for such was the rascal's terror that

he never could have risen by his own exertions. I next commanded him to

observe, that I had neither taken part in the rescue, nor availed myself

of it to make my escape, and enjoined him to go down to the Hall, and

call some of his party, who had been left there, to assist the wounded.--

But Jobson's fears had so mastered and controlled every faculty of his

mind, that he was totally incapable of moving. I now resolved to go

myself, but in my way I stumbled over the body of a man, as I thought,

dead or dying. It was, however, Andrew Fairservice, as well and whole as

ever he was in his life, who had only taken this recumbent posture to

avoid the slashes, stabs, and pistol-balls, which for a moment or two

were flying in various directions. I was so glad to find him, that I did

not inquire how he came thither, but instantly commanded his assistance.

Rashleigh was our first object. He groaned when I approached him, as much

through spite as through pain, and shut his eyes, as if determined, like

Iago, to speak no word more. We lifted him into the carriage, and

performed the same good office to another wounded man of his party, who

had been left on the field. I then with difficulty made Jobson understand

that he must enter the coach also, and support Sir Rashleigh upon the

seat. He obeyed, but with an air as if he but half comprehended my

meaning. Andrew and I turned the horses' heads round, and opening the

gate of the avenue, led them slowly back to Osbaldistone Hall.

Some fugitives had already reached the Hall by circuitous routes, and

alarmed its garrison by the news that Sir Rashleigh, Clerk Jobson, and

all their escort, save they who escaped to tell the tale, had been cut to

pieces at the head of the avenue by a whole regiment of wild Highlanders.

When we reached the mansion, therefore, we heard such a buzz as arises

when bees are alarmed, and mustering in their hives. Mr. Jobson, however,

who had now in some measure come to his senses, found voice enough to

make himself known. He was the more anxious to be released from the

carriage, as one of his companions (the peace-officer) had, to his

inexpressible terror, expired by his side with a hideous groan.

Sir Rashleigh Osbaldistone was still alive, but so dreadfully wounded

that the bottom of the coach was filled with his blood, and long traces

of it left from the entrance-door into the stone-hall, where he was

placed in a chair, some attempting to stop the bleeding with cloths,

while others called for a surgeon, and no one seemed willing to go to

fetch one. "Torment me not," said the wounded man--"I know no assistance

can avail me--I am a dying man." He raised himself in his chair, though

the damps and chill of death were already on his brow, and spoke with a

firmness which seemed beyond his strength. "Cousin Francis," he said,

"draw near to me." I approached him as he requested.--"I wish you only to

know that the pangs of death do not alter I one iota of my feelings

towards you. I hate you!" he said, the expression of rage throwing a

hideous glare into the eyes which were soon to be closed for ever--"I

hate you with a hatred as intense, now while I lie bleeding and dying

before you, as if my foot trode on your neck."

"I have given you no cause, sir," I replied,--"and for your own sake I

could wish your mind in a better temper."

"You _have_ given me cause," he rejoined. "In love, in ambition, in the

paths of interest, you have crossed and blighted me at every turn. I was

born to be the honour of my father's house--I have been its disgrace--and

all owing to you. My very patrimony has become yours--Take it," he said,

"and may the curse of a dying man cleave to it!"

[Illustration: The Death of Rashleigh--338]

In a moment after he had uttered this frightful wish, he fell back in the

chair; his eyes became glazed, his limbs stiffened, but the grin and

glare of mortal hatred survived even the last gasp of life. I will dwell

no longer on so painful a picture, nor say any more of the death of

Rashleigh, than that it gave me access to my rights of inheritance

without farther challenge, and that Jobson found himself compelled to

allow, that the ridiculous charge of misprision of high treason was got

up on an affidavit which he made with the sole purpose of favouring

Rashleigh's views, and removing me from Osbaldistone Hall. The rascal's

name was struck off the list of attorneys, and he was reduced to poverty

and contempt.

I returned to London when I had put my affairs in order at Osbaldistone

Hall, and felt happy to escape from a place which suggested so many

painful recollections. My anxiety was now acute to learn the fate of

Diana and her father. A French gentleman who came to London on commercial

business, was intrusted with a letter to me from Miss Vernon, which put

my mind at rest respecting their safety.

It gave me to understand that the opportune appearance of MacGregor and

his party was not fortuitous. The Scottish nobles and gentry engaged in

the insurrection, as well as those of England, were particularly anxious

to further the escape of Sir Frederick Vernon, who, as an old and trusted

agent of the house of Stuart, was possessed of matter enough to have

ruined half Scotland. Rob Roy, of whose sagacity and courage they had

known so many proofs, was the person whom they pitched upon to assist his

escape, and the place of meeting was fixed at Osbaldistone Hall. You have

already heard how nearly the plan had been disconcerted by the unhappy

Rashleigh. It succeeded, however, perfectly; for when once Sir Frederick

and his daughter were again at large, they found horses prepared for

them, and, by MacGregor's knowledge of the country--for every part of

Scotland, and of the north of England, was familiar to him--were

conducted to the western sea-coast, and safely embarked for France. The

same gentleman told me that Sir Frederick was not expected to survive for

many months a lingering disease, the consequence of late hardships and

privations. His daughter was placed in a convent, and although it was her

father's wish she should take the veil, he was understood to refer the

matter entirely to her own inclinations.

When these news reached me, I frankly told the state of my affections to

my father, who was not a little startled at the idea of my marrying a

Roman Catholic. But he was very desirous to see me "settled in life," as

he called it; and he was sensible that, in joining him with heart and

hand in his commercial labours, I had sacrificed my own inclinations.

After a brief hesitation, and several questions asked and answered to his

satisfaction, he broke out with--"I little thought a son of mine should

have been Lord of Osbaldistone Manor, and far less that he should go to a

French convent for a spouse. But so dutiful a daughter cannot but prove a

good wife. You have worked at the desk to please me, Frank; it is but

fair you should wive to please yourself."

How I sped in my wooing, Will Tresham, I need not tell you. You know,

too, how long and happily I lived with Diana. You know how I lamented

her; but you do not--cannot know, how much she deserved her husband's

sorrow.

I have no more of romantic adventure to tell, nor, indeed, anything to

communicate farther, since the latter incidents of my life are so well

known to one who has shared, with the most friendly sympathy, the joys,

as well as the sorrows, by which its scenes have been chequered. I often

visited Scotland, but never again saw the bold Highlander who had such an

influence on the early events of my life. I learned, however, from time

to time, that he continued to maintain his ground among the mountains of

Loch Lomond, in despite of his powerful enemies, and that he even

obtained, to a certain degree, the connivance of Government to his

self-elected office of protector of the Lennox, in virtue of which he

levied black-mail with as much regularity as the proprietors did their

ordinary rents. It seemed impossible that his life should have concluded

without a violent end. Nevertheless he died in old age and by a peaceful

death, some time about the year 1733, and is still remembered in his

country as the Robin Hood of Scotland--the dread of the wealthy, but the

friend of the poor--and possessed of many qualities, both of head and

heart, which would have graced a less equivocal profession than that to

which his fate condemned him.

Old Andrew Fairservice used to say, that "There were many things ower bad

for blessing, and ower gude for banning, like Rob Roy."

_Here the original manuscript ends somewhat abruptly. I have reason to

think that what followed related to private a affairs._

POSTSCRIPT.

The second article of the Appendix to the Introduction to Rob Roy

contains two curious letters respecting the arrest of Mr. Grahame of

Killearn by that daring freebooter, while levying the Duke of Montrose's

rents. These were taken from scroll copies in the possession of his Grace

the present Duke, who kindly permitted the use of them in the present

publication.--The Novel had but just passed through the press, when the

Right Honourable Mr. Peel--whose important state avocations do not avert

his attention from the interests of literature--transmitted to the author

copies of the original letters and enclosure, of which he possessed only

the rough draught. The originals were discovered in the State Paper

Office, by the indefatigable researches of Mr. Lemon, who is daily

throwing more light on that valuable collection of records. From the

documents with which the Author has been thus kindly favoured, he is

enabled to fill up the addresses which were wanting in the scrolls. That

of the 21st Nov. 1716 is addressed to Lord Viscount Townshend, and is

accompanied by one of the same date to Robert Pringle, Esquire,

Under-Secretary of State, which is here inserted as relative to so

curious an incident:--

_Letter from the Duke of Montrose, to Robert Pringle, Esq.,

Under-Secretary to Lord Viscount Townshend._

"Sr,_Glasgow,_ 21 _Nov._ 1716.

"Haveing had so many dispatches to make this night, I hope ye'l excuse me

that I make use of another hand to give yow a short account of the

occasion of this express, by which I have written to my Ld. Duke of

Roxburgh, and my Lord Townshend, which I hope ye'l gett carefully

deleivered.

"Mr. Graham, younger of Killearn, being on Munday last in Menteith att a

country house, collecting my rents, was about nine o'clock that same

night surprised by Rob Roy with a party of his men in arms, who haveing

surrounded the house and secured the avenues, presented their guns in at

the windows, while he himself entered the room with some others with cokt

pistolls, and seased Killearn with all his money, books, papers, and

bonds, and carryed all away with him to the hills, at the same time

ordering Killearn to write a letter to me (of which ye have the copy

inclosed), proposeing a very honourable treaty to me. I must say this

story was as surprising to me as it was insolent; and it must bring a

very great concern upon me, that this gentleman, my near relation, should

be brought to suffer all the barbaritys and crueltys, which revenge and

mallice may suggest to these miscreants, for his haveing acted a

faithfull part in the service of the Government, and his affection to me

in my concerns.

"I need not be more particular to you, since I know that my Letter to my

Lord Townshend will come into your hands, so shall only now give you the

assurances of my being, with great sincerity,

"Sr, yr most humble servant,

(Signed)

"Montrose."

"I long exceedingly for a return of my former dispatches to the

Secretary's about Methven and Colll Urquhart, and my wife's cousins,

Balnamoon and Phinaven.

"I must beg yow'll give my humble service to Mr. Secretary Methven, and

tell him that I must refer him to what I have written to My Lord

Townshend in this affair of Rob Roy, believing it was needless to trouble

both with letters."

Examined,

Robt. Lemon,

_Deputy Keeper of State Papers._

STATE PAPER OFFICE,

_Nov._ 4, 1829

Note.--The enclosure referred to in the preceding letter is another copy

of the letter which Mr. Grahame of Killearn was compelled by Rob Roy to

write to the Duke of Montrose, and is exactly the same as the one

enclosed in his Grace's letter to Lord Townshend, dated November 21st,

1716.

R. L.

The last letter in the Appendix No. II. (28th November), acquainting the

Government with Killearn's being set at liberty, is also addressed to the

Under-Secretary of State, Mr. Pringle.

The Author may also here remark, that immediately previous to the

insurrection of 1715, he perceives, from some notes of information given

to Government, that Rob Roy appears to have been much employed and

trusted by the Jacobite party, even in the very delicate task of

transporting specie to the Earl of Breadalbane, though it might have

somewhat resembled trusting Don Raphael and Ambrose de Lamela with the

church treasure.

NOTES TO ROB ROY.

Note A.--The Grey Stone of MacGregor.

I have been informed that, at no very remote period, it was proposed to

take this large stone, which marks the grave of Dugald Ciar Mhor, and

convert it to the purpose of the lintel of a window, the threshold of a

door, or some such mean use. A man of the clan MacGregor, who was

somewhat deranged, took fire at this insult; and when the workmen came to

remove the stone, planted himself upon it, with a broad axe in his hand,

swearing he would dash out the brains of any one who should disturb the

monument. Athletic in person, and insane enough to be totally regardless

of consequences, it was thought best to give way to his humour; and the

poor madman kept sentinel on the stone day and night, till the proposal

of removing it was entirely dropped.

Note B.--Dugald Ciar Mhor.

The above is the account which I find in a manuscript history of the clan

MacGregor, of which I was indulged with a perusal by Donald MacGregor,

Esq., late Major of the 33d regiment, where great pains have been taken

to collect traditions and written documents concerning the family. But an

ancient and constant tradition, preserved among the inhabitants of the

country, and particularly those of the clan MacFarlane, relieves Dugald

Ciar Mhor of the guilt of murdering the youths, and lays the blame on a

certain Donald or Duncan Lean, who performed the act of cruelty, with the

assistance of a gillie who attended him, named Charlioch, or Charlie.

They say that the homicides dared not again join their clan, but that

they resided in a wild and solitary state as outlaws, in an unfrequented

part of the MacFarlanes' territory. Here they lived for some time

undisturbed, till they committed an act of brutal violence on two

defenceless women, a mother and daughter of the MacFarlane clan. In

revenge of this atrocity, the MacFarlanes hunted them down, and shot

them. It is said that the younger ruffian, Charlioch, might have escaped,

being remarkably swift of foot. But his crime became his punishment, for

the female whom he had outraged had defended herself desperately, and had

stabbed him with his own dirk in the thigh. He was lame from the wound,

and was the more easily overtaken and killed.

I always inclined to think this last the true edition of the story, and

that the guilt was transferred to Dugald Ciar Mhor, as a man of higher

name, but I have learned that Dugald was in truth dead several years

before the battle--my authority being his representative, Mr. Gregorson

of Ardtornish. [See also note to introduction, "Legend of Montrose," vol.

vi.]

Note C.--The Loch Lomond Expedition.

The Loch Lomond expedition was judged worthy to form a separate pamphlet,

which I have not seen; but, as quoted by the historian Rae, it must be

delectable.

"On the morrow, being Thursday the 13th, they went on their expedition,

and about noon came to Inversnaid, the place of danger, where the Paisley

men and those of Dumbarton, and several of the other companies, to the

number of an hundred men, with the greatest intrepidity leapt on shore,

got up to the top of the mountains, and stood a considerable time,

beating their drums all the while; but no enemy appearing, they went in

quest of their boats, which the rebels had seized, and having casually

lighted on some ropes and oars hid among the shrubs, at length they found

the boats drawn up a good way on the land, which they hurled down to the

loch. Such of them as were not damaged they carried off with them, and

such as were, they sank and hewed to pieces. That same night they

returned to Luss, and thence next day to Dumbarton, from whence they had

at first set out, bringing along with them the whole boats they found in

their way on either side of the loch, and in the creeks of the isles, and

mooring them under the cannon of the castle. During this expedition, the

pinnaces discharging their patararoes, and the men their small-arms, made

such a thundering noise, through the multiplied rebounding echoes of the

vast mountains on both sides of the loch, that the MacGregors were cowed

and frighted away to the rest of the rebels who were encamped at Strath

Fillan."--_Rae's History of the Rebellion,_ 4to, p. 287.

Note D.--Author's Expedition against the MacLarens.

The Author is uncertain whether it is worth while to mention, that he had

a personal opportunity of observing, even in his own time, that the

king's writ did not pass quite current in the Brass of Balquhidder. There

were very considerable debts due by Stewart of Appin (chiefly to the

author's family), which were likely to be lost to the creditors, if they

could not be made available out of this same farm of Invernenty, the

scene of the murder done upon MacLaren.

His family, consisting of several strapping deer-stalkers, still

possessed the farm, by virtue of a long lease, for a trifling rent. There

was no chance of any one buying it with such an encumbrance, and a

transaction was entered into by the MacLarens, who, being desirous to

emigrate to America, agreed to sell their lease to the creditors for

L500, and to remove at the next term of Whitsunday. But whether they

repented their bargain, or desired to make a better, or whether from a

mere point of honour, the MacLarens declared they would not permit a

summons of removal to be executed against them, which was necessary for

the legal completion of the bargain. And such was the general impression

that they were men capable of resisting the legal execution of warning by

very effectual means, no king's messenger would execute the summons

without the support of a military force. An escort of a sergeant and six

men was obtained from a Highland regiment lying in Stirling; and the

Author, then a writer's apprentice, equivalent to the honourable

situation of an attorney's clerk, was invested with the superintendence

of the expedition, with directions to see that the messenger discharged

his duty fully, and that the gallant sergeant did not exceed his part by

committing violence or plunder. And thus it happened, oddly enough, that

the Author first entered the romantic scenery of Loch Katrine, of which

he may perhaps say he has somewhat extended the reputation, riding in all

the dignity of danger, with a front and rear guard, and loaded arms. The

sergeant was absolutely a Highland Sergeant Kite, full of stories of Rob

Roy and of himself, and a very good companion. We experienced no

interruption whatever, and when we came to Invernenty, found the house

deserted. We took up our quarters for the night, and used some of the

victuals which we found there. On the morning we returned as unmolested

as we came.

The MacLarens, who probably never thought of any serious opposition,

received their money and went to America, where, having had some slight

share in removing them from their _paupera regna,_ I sincerely hope they

prospered.

The rent of Invernenty instantly rose from L10 to L70 or L80; and when

sold, the farm was purchased (I think by the late Laird of MacNab) at a

price higher in proportion than what even the modern rent authorised the

parties interested to hope for.

Note E.--Allan Breck Stewart.

Allan Breck Stewart was a man likely in such a matter to keep his word.

James Drummond MacGregor and he, like Katherine and Petruchio, were well

matched "for a couple of quiet ones." Allan Breck lived till the

beginning of the French Revolution. About 1789, a friend of mine, then

residing at Paris, was invited to see some procession which was supposed

likely to interest him, from the windows of an apartment occupied by a

Scottish Benedictine priest. He found, sitting by the fire, a tall, thin,

raw-boned, grim-looking, old man, with the petit croix of St. Louis. His

visage was strongly marked by the irregular projections of the

cheek-bones and chin. His eyes were grey. His grizzled hair exhibited

marks of having been red, and his complexion was weather-beaten, and

remarkably freckled. Some civilities in French passed between the old man

and my friend, in the course of which they talked of the streets and

squares of Paris, till at length the old soldier, for such he seemed, and

such he was, said with a sigh, in a sharp Highland accent, "Deil ane o'

them a' is worth the Hie Street of Edinburgh!" On inquiry, this admirer

of Auld Reekie, which he was never to see again, proved to be Allan Breck

Stewart. He lived decently on his little pension, and had, in no

subsequent period of his life, shown anything of the savage mood in which

he is generally believed to have assassinated the enemy and oppressor, as

he supposed him, of his family and clan.

Note F.--The Abbess of Wilton.

The nunnery of Wilton was granted to the Earl of Pembroke upon its

dissolution, by the magisterial authority of Henry VIII., or his son

Edward VI. On the accession of Queen Mary, of Catholic memory, the Earl

found it necessary to reinstate the Abbess and her fair recluses, which

he did with many expressions of his remorse, kneeling humbly to the

vestals, and inducting them into the convent and possessions from which

he had expelled them. With the accession of Elizabeth, the accommodating

Earl again resumed his Protestant faith, and a second time drove the nuns

from their sanctuary. The remonstrances of the Abbess, who reminded him

of his penitent expressions on the former occasion, could wring from him

no other answer than that in the text--"Go spin, you jade!--Go spin!"

Note G.--Mons Meg.

Mons Meg was a large old-fashioned piece of ordnance, a great favourite

with the Scottish common people; she was fabricated at Mons, in Flanders,

in the reign of James IV. or V. of Scotland. This gun figures frequently

in the public accounts of the time, where we find charges for grease, to

grease Meg's mouth withal (to increase, as every schoolboy knows, the

loudness of the report), ribands to deck her carriage, and pipes to play

before her when she was brought from the Castle to accompany the Scottish

army on any distant expedition. After the Union, there was much popular

apprehension that the Regalia of Scotland, and the subordinate Palladium,

Mons Meg, would be carried to England to complete the odious surrender of

national independence. The Regalia, sequestered from the sight of the

public, were generally supposed to have been abstracted in this manner.

As for Mons Meg, she remained in the Castle of Edinburgh, till, by order

of the Board of Ordnance, she was actually removed to Woolwich about

1757. The Regalia, by his Majesty's special command, have been brought

forth from their place of concealment in 1818, and exposed to the view of

the people, by whom they must be looked upon with deep associations; and,

in this very winter of 1828-9, Mons Meg has been restored to the country,

where that, which in every other place or situation was a mere mass of

rusty iron, becomes once more a curious monument of antiquity.

Note H.---Fairy Superstition.

The lakes and precipices amidst which the Avon-Dhu, or River Forth, has

its birth, are still, according to popular tradition, haunted by the

Elfin people, the most peculiar, but most pleasing, of the creations of

Celtic superstitions. The opinions entertained about these beings are

much the same with those of the Irish, so exquisitely well narrated by

Mr. Crofton Croker. An eminently beautiful little conical hill, near the

eastern extremity of the valley of Aberfoil, is supposed to be one of

their peculiar haunts, and is the scene which awakens, in Andrew

Fairservice, the terror of their power. It is remarkable, that two

successive clergymen of this parish of Aberfoil have employed themselves

in writing about this fairy superstition. The eldest of these was Robert

Kirke, a man of some talents, who translated the Psalms into Gaelic

verse. He had formerly been minister at the neighbouring parish of

Balquhidder, and died at Aberfoil in 1688, at the early age of forty-two.

He was author of the Secret Commonwealth, which was printed after his

death in 1691--(an edition which I have never seen)--and was reprinted in

Edinburgh, 1815. This is a work concerning the fairy people, in whose

existence Mr. Kirke appears to have been a devout believer. He describes

them with the usual powers and qualities ascribed to such beings in

Highland tradition.

But what is sufficiently singular, the Rev. Robert Kirke, author of the

said treatise, is believed himself to have been taken away by the

fairies,--in revenge, perhaps, for having let in too much light upon the

secrets of their commonwealth. We learn this catastrophe from the

information of his successor, the late amiable and learned Dr. Patrick

Grahame, also minister at Aberfoil, who, in his Sketches of Perthshire,

has not forgotten to touch upon the _Daoine Schie,_ or men of peace.

The Rev. Robert Kirke was, it seems, walking upon a little eminence to

the west of the present manse, which is still held a _Dun Shie,_ or fairy

mound, when he sunk down, in what seemed to mortals a fit, and was

supposed to be dead. This, however, was not his real fate.

"Mr. Kirke was the near relation of Graham of Duchray, the ancestor of

the present General Graham Stirling. Shortly after his funeral, he

appeared, in the dress in which he had sunk down, to a medical relation

of his own, and of Duchray. 'Go,' said he to him, 'to my cousin Duchray,

and tell him that I am not dead. I fell down in a swoon, and was carried

into Fairyland, where I now am. Tell him, that when he and my friends are

assembled at the baptism of my child (for he had left his wife pregnant),

I will appear in the room, and that if he throws the knife which he holds

in his hand over my head, I will be released and restored to human

society.' The man, it seems, neglected, for some time, to deliver the

message. Mr. Kirke appeared to him a second time, threatening to haunt

him night and day till he executed his commission, which at length he

did. The time of the baptism arrived. They were seated at table; the

figure of Mr. Kirke entered, but the Laird of Duchray, by some

unaccountable fatality, neglected to perform the prescribed ceremony. Mr.

Kirke retired by another door, and was seen no wore. It is firmly

believed that he is, at this day, in Fairyland."--(_Sketches of

Perthshire,_ p. 254.)

[The treatise by Robert Kirke, here mentioned, was written in the year

1691, but not printed till 1815.]

Note I.--Clachan of Aberfoil.

I do not know how this might stand in Mr. Osbaldistone's day, but I can

assure the reader, whose curiosity may lead him to visit the scenes of

these romantic adventures, that the Clachan of Aberfoil now affords a

very comfortable little inn. If he chances to be a Scottish antiquary, it

will be an additional recommendation to him, that he will find himself in

the vicinity of the Rev. Dr. Patrick Grahame, minister of the gospel at

Aberfoil, whose urbanity in communicating information on the subject of

national antiquities, is scarce exceeded even by the stores of legendary

lore which he has accumulated.--_Original Note._ The respectable

clergyman alluded to has been dead for some years. [See note H.]

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