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THE
WAWER LEY NOW E L S
T}rgburgſ (£bition
WOL. IV
:


R () B R () Y
I3 Y
SIR WALTER SCOTT, BAIRT.
ISDINBURGH ; ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK
NEW YORK : MACMILLAN AND CO.
For why Ž I}ecause the good old rule
Sufficeth them : the simple I'lan,
That they should take whº have the power,
And they should keep who can.
WORLSWC, F.T. H.-J'93, Moy’s C, yºzzº.
1 S 9 3

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
DRAWN BY
LOC K H A RT B O GLE
ENGRAVED ON WOOD BY J. I.). COOPER
THE WARNING IN GLASGOW CATHEDRAL . * . Frontispiece
ROB ROY MACGREGOIt g 4 & w . Title-page
MEETING OF DIE VERNON AND FRANK AT THE HUNT . To face p. 40
DIE VERNON AND FRANK IN THE LIBRARY ſº * , , 126
FRANK IN ANDREW FAIRSERVICE's Cott'AGE *: g ,, 168
THE BAILIE DISCOVERS ROB ROY IN THE GAOL . * ,, 210
FIGHT IN THE INN AT THE CLACHAN of ABERFORI, & ,, 268
THE MURDER OF MORRIS . º t * e ,, 306
ROB ROY WELCOMED BY HIS CLAN º e * ,, 338
DEATH OF RASHLEIGH e º g g g , , 392
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ADWERTISEMENT 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
benigm, 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 my 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 permis-
sion, or rather with a request, couched in highly flattering
terms, that they might be given to the public, with such altera-
tions as should be found suitable.* 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,
* As it may be necessary, in the present [1829-33) edition, to speak upon the
Square, the Author thinks it proper to own that the communication alluded to is
entirely imaginary.
Vi WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 TO ROB ROY
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 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 enterpris-
ing 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, blend-
ing 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
IV
viii WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 con-
nexion with, the Clan MacGregor, so famous for their misfor-
tunes 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 sup-
pressed by more powerful neighbours, and either extirpated or
forced to secure themselves by renouncing their own family ap-
pellation 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 Mac-
Alpine, and they are usually termed the Clan Alpine. An in-
dividual 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 glaïve, that is, the right of the sword. Their neigh-
bours, the Earls of Argyle and Breadalbane, in the meanwhile
managed to have the lands occupied by the MacGregors en-
grossed 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 ex-
tended their own domains by usurping, under the pretext of
INTRODUCTION TO ROB ROY ix
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 occa-
sionally gained advantages, which they used cruelly enough.
This conduct, though matural considering the country and time,
was studiously represented at the capital as arising from an
untamable 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 A
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 ex-
perienced 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 right-
fully their own. Hence they became versed in predatory forays,
and accustomed to bloodshed. Their passions were eager, and,
X WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 Mac-
Gregors 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 south-western
extremity of Loch Lomond, in the vicinity of which the Mac-
Gregors continued to exercise much authority by the coir a
glaïve, or right of the strongest, which we have already men-
tioned.
There had been a long and bloody feud betwixt the Mac-
Gregors 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 m
Gael, or the Highlandman's Pass. - .
Sir Humphrey Colquhoun received early notice of this in-
cursion, and collected a strong force, more than twice the
INTRODUCTION TO ROB ROY xi
number of that of the invaders. He had with him the gentle-
men 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 indis-
criminate 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 Pro-
fessor 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-Mhinister, the Minister or Clerk’s
Flagstone. The MacGregors impute this cruel action to the
ferocity of a single man of their tribe, renowned for size and
strength, called Dugald Ciar Mohr, or the Great Mouse-coloured
Man. He was MacGregor's foster-brother, and the chief com-
mitted 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
xii & WAVERLEY NOVELS
Kiar) Mohr drew out his bloody dirk, saying in Gaelic, “Ask
that and God save me !” The latter words allude to the ex-
clamation 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 Mohr'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 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,t is still shown, and where his great
strength and courage are the theme of many traditions.f
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 Bennachra. It proved no
* [For a later and more correct version, see a note to the Introduction to A Legend
of Montrose.
f 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 Mohr 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 conse-
quences, 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.
f The above is the account which I find in a manuscript history of the Clan Mac-
Gregor, 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, pre-
served among the inhabitants of the country, and particularly those of the Clan Mac-
Farlane, relieves Dugald Ciar Mohr 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 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 on the thigh. He was
lame from the wound, and was the more easily overtaken and killed. I incline to think
that this last is the true edition of the story, and that the guilt was transferred to
Dugald Ciar Mohr as a man of higher name. Or it is possible these subordinate per-
sons had only executed his orders.-I have learnt that Dugald Ciar Mohr was in truth
dead several years before the battle, my authority being his representative, Mr. Gregor-
son of Ardtornish (Later Note),
INTRODUCTION TO ROB ROY xiii
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 mourming, 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 entrusted in
the west to the Earl of Argyle and the powerful clan of Camp-
bell, 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
xiv WAVERLEY NOVELS
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's sake, was suspended higher by his
own height than two of his kindred and friends. On the 18th
of February following nine more of the MacGregors were
executed, after a long imprisonment, and several others in the
beginning of March.
The Earl of Argyle's service, in conducing to the surrender
of the insolent and wicked race and name of MacGregor,
notorious limmers and 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 Act of Parliament, 1607, Chap. 16, and re-
warded with a grant of twenty chalders of victual out of the
lands of Kintyre.
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 con-
venient, Drummonds, Campbells, Grahams, Buchanans, Stewarts,
and the like ; but to all intents and purposes of combination
INTRODUCTION TO ROB ROY XV
and mutual attachment they remained the Clan Gregor, united
together for right or wrong, and menacing with the general
vengeance of their race whomsoever committed aggressions
against any individual of their number.
They continued to take and give offence with as little hesita-
tion as before the legislative dispersion which had been at-
tempted, as appears from the preamble to Statute 1633, chapter
30, setting forth that the Clan Gregor, which had been sup-
pressed 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, Menteith,
Lennox, Angus, and Mearns; for which reason the statute re-
establishes the disabilities attached to the clam, 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
maked 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,
xvi WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 Parlia-
ment 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 mis-
carriages, and take away all marks of reproach for the same.
It is singular enough that it seems to have aggravated the
feelings of the nonconforming Presbyterians when the penalties
which were most unjustly imposed upon themselves were re-
laxed 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 [Revolution] an influence inimical to this un-
fortunate 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
INTRODUCTION TO ROB ROY xvii
the acts against the clan were severely enforced ; and in the
latter half of the 18th 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 Lan-
rick, Esq. (afterwards Sir John MacGregor, Baronet), represent-
ative 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. This 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 this volume.
In giving an account of a Highlander, his pedigree is first
to be considered. That of Rob Roy was deduced from Ciar
Mohr, 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 intri-
cacies of Highland genealogy, it is enough to say that, after
the death of Allaster MacGregor of Glenstrae, the clan, dis-
xviii WAVERLEY NOVELS
couraged 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 resi-
dence and immediate descent, the several families were led and
directed by Chieftains, which, in the Highland acceptation, signi-
fies 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 Mohr 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 Inversmaid; but he appears to have
acquired a right of some kind or other to the property or posses-
sion 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 Hership (or devastation) of Kippen.” The
time of his death is also uncertain, but, as he is said to have sur-
vived the year 1733, and died an aged man, it is probable he may
have been twenty-five about the time of the Hership of Kippen,
which would assign his birth to the middle of the 17th century.
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
* See Statistical Account of Scotland, vol. xviii. page 332. Parish of Kippen.
INTRODUCTION TO ROB ROY xix
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, 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 skir-
mishes 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 specu-
lations. 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 seem 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 power-
ful neighbour, James, first Duke of Montrose, from whom he
received many marks of regard. His Grace consented to give
XX WAVERLEY NOVELS
his nephew and himself a right of property on the estates of
Glengyle and Inversmaid, 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 entrusted with a considerable
sum of money, rendered totally insolvent. He absconded, of
course, not empty-handed, if it be true, as stated in an ad-
vertisement for his apprehension, that he had in his possession
sums to the amount of £1000 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.*
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 High-
lands, and commenced the lawless sort of life which he after-
wards 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 execu-
tion 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
* See Appendix No. I.
INTRODUCTION TO ROB ROY xxi
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 protec-
tion; 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 re-
sponsibility on their patrons. The strife between the names
of Campbell and Graham, during the civil wars of the 17th
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 Camp-
bells, 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 depre-
dation, 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,
xxii WAVERLEY NOVELS
Under one or other of these pretexts all his neighbours of the
Lowlands who had anything to lose, or were unwilling to com-
pound 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, more-
over, 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 Balquidder 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 17th 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 com-
pact. The greatest peculiarities of his frame were the breadth
of his shoulders, and the great and almost disproportioned
length of his arms; so remarkable, indeed, that it was said he
INTRODUCTION TO ROB ROY xxiii
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 indi-
viduals, 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 bloodthirsty Ciar Mohr, 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 uni-
versal 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, gave
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 pur-
sued, whether from choice or from necessity, he would doubtless
have assumed to himself the character of a brave man, who,
deprived of his matural rights by the partiality of laws,
endeavoured to assert them by the strong hand of latural
power; and he is most felicitously described as reasoning thus,
in the high-toned poetry of my gifted friend Wordsworth :
IV C
xxiv.
WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 thus, 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 this which all can see ;
Thus, nothing here provokes the strong
To wanton cruelty.
“All 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 the rule of 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.
INTRODUCTION TO ROB ROY XXV
We are mot, however, to suppose the character of this dis-
tinguished 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 some-
times 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 was 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 in-
consistent 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 register of the ancient
history and manners of Scotland, informed me 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 of 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.
xxvi WAVERLEY NOVELS
at the battle of Sherriffmuir, 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 reputa-
tion 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.*
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 good-
wife 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
* 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 bow’d unseen
Before he dared advance ;
The Duke then, turning round well pleased,
Said, ‘Sure you've been in France,
A more polite and jaunty mein
I never saw before ';
Then Harry bow'd, and blush'd, and bow’d,
And strutted to the door. -
See a Collection of Original Poems, by Scotch Gentlemen, vol. ii. page 125.
INTRODUCTION TO ROB ROY xxvii
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, ‘O, Mac-
analeister, 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), who was a person of Sagacity, and
neither wanted stratagem nor address, having abandoned himself to all
licentiousness, sett himself att 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 countrys with theifts, robberys, and depredations.
Very few who lived within his reach (that is, within the distance of a noc-
turnal expedition) could promise to themselves security, either to their
persons or effects, without subjecting themselves to pay him a heavy and
shamefull tax of black-maill. He at last proceeded to such a degree of
audaciousness that he committed robberys, raised depredations [contribu-
tions], and resented quarrels at the head of a very considerable body of
armed men, in open day, and in the face of the government.’ “
The extent and success of these depredations cannot be sur-
prising when we consider that the scene of them was laid in a
country where the general law was neither enforced nor re-
spected.
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. Graham
adds—On these accounts there is no culture of ground, no
improvement of pastures, and, from the same reasons, no manu-
factures, 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
* Mr. Graham 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. 848. 4
xxviii WAVERLEY NOVELS
people, accustomed to arms, and lazy in everything but rapines
and depredations. As buddiell 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 exe-
cuted, 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 above thirty miles from lawful
persons. In short, here is no order, no authority, no govern-
ment.
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
Mohr, on this occasion were not commanded by Rob Roy, but
by his nephew already mentioned, Gregor MacGregor, otherwise
called James Graham 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 Inversmaid,
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
INTRODUCTION TO ROB ROY xxix
Highland dress of the period, which is picturesquely described.*
The whole party crossed to Craig Royston, but the MacGregors
did not offer combat. If we are to believe the account of the
expedition given by the historian Rae, they leaped 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.
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 Mohr).
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 Mac-
Intoshes, 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 grand-
father of the late eminent physician and accomplished scholar,
* “At night they arrived at Luss, where they were joined by Sir Humphray
Colquhoun of Luss, and James Grant of Pluscarden, his son-in-law, followed by 40
or 50 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 durk and knife, on his belt.” 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 Thurs-
day the 13th, they went on in their expedition, and about noon came to Innersmaat
[Inversnaid], the place of danger, where the Pasley men and those of Dumbarton, and
several of the other companies, to the number of 100 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, anchors, 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 dammaged they carried
off with them, and such as were they sunk or hewed in pieces. That same night they
returned to Luss, and thence next day to Dumbarton, from whence they had 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 moored them under the cannon of the
Castle. During this expedition the pinnaces discharging their pateraroes, 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 MacGregiours were
cowed and firighted away to the rest of the rebels who were encamped at Strath-
phillen [Strath Fillan].”—Rae's History of the Rebellion, 4to, p. 287.
XXX. WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 bedfellows. Dr. Gregory thought it a point of prudence
to claim kindred at so critical a period with a man so formid-
able 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 High-
land 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 deter-
mined, 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
INTRODUCTION TO ROB ROY xxxi
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 agree-
ment 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, pray-
ing 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
Roy Roy.’
The connexion 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.' *
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 Dumblane, with the view of cross-
ing 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 insur-
gents brought on the battle of Sherriffmuir, indecisive indeed
in its immediate results, but of which the Duke of Argyle
* 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 dis-
tinguished 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 connexion of Dr.
Gregory by marriage, who is still alive.
xxxii WAVERLEY NOVELS
reaped the whole advantage. In this action it will be recol-
lected 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 lead-
ing of a party of the Macphersons had been committed to Mac-
Gregor. 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 l 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 his temporary leader that he
threw off his plaid, drew his sword, and called out to his clans-
men, ‘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, how-
ever, neglect his own private interest on the occasion. In the
confusion of an undecided field of battle he enriched his fol-
lowers by plundering the baggage and the dead on both sides.
The fine old satirical ballad on the battle of Sherriffmuir
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 ;
INTRODUCTION TO ROB ROY xxxiii
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
contrived 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 Col. Patrick Campbell of Finab, 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 pur-
pose 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 trouble-
some adversary. His Grace applied to General Carpenter, com-
manding 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 neighbour-
hood 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, dis-
appointed 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
xxxiv. WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 £300 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 3400 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 un-
injured, with the account books and bills granted by the tenants,
taking especial care to retain the cash.*
Other pranks are told of Rob, which argue the same bold-
ness and sagacity as the seizure of Killearn.f The Duke of
Montrose, weary of his insolence, procured a quantity of arms
and distributed them among his tenantry, in order that
* 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 Appendix No. VII.
INTRODUCTION TO ROB ROY XXXV
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 govern-
ment, the ruins of which may be still seen about half-way
betwixt Loch Lomond and Loch Katrine, upon Rob Roy's
original property of Inversmaid. Even this military establish-
ment 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, Ghlume Dhu,
previous to the insurrection of 1745-46. Finally, the fort of
Inversmaid 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.*
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 [13, 16] on that work.
Mr. Graham of Gartmore's description of the character may be
here transcribed :—
‘The confusion and disorders of that country were so great, and the
government so absolutely neglected it, that the sober people there were
obliged to purchase some security to their effects by shamefull and ignomini-
ous, contracts of black-maill. A person who had the greatest correspond-
* 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 Invers-
maid. 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,
xxxvi WAVERIEY NOVELS
ence with the thieves was agreed with to preserve the lands contracted for
from thefts, for certain sums to be paid yearly out of these lands. Upon this
fund he employed one half of the thieves to recover stolen cattle, and the
other half of them to steall, in order to make this agreement and black-
maill contract necessary. The estates of these 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 cappable of doing
much mischief. These different odd kinds of corps through the Highlands
make altogether a very considerable body of men, inured from their infancy
to the greatest fatigues, and so are capable to act in a military way when
occasion offers.
‘People who are ignorant and enthusiastick, who are in absolute depend-
ance upon their chief or landlord, who are directed in their consciences by
Roman Catholick 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 as by these
they better it.’ “
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 £5 on each £100 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
* Letters from the North of Scotland, vol. ii. pp. 344-45.
INTRODUCTION TO ROB ROY xxxvii
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 Balquidder, whose
name was Robison, 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, Mac-
Gregor 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 account of the proceedings of Rob Roy, on an
application to him from one of his contractors, had in it some-
thing 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 appre-
hended, 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 ex-
pressed his confidence that the herd-widdiefows could not have carried
their booty far, and that he should be able to recover them. 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
xxxviii WAVERLEY NOVELS
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.
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 cau-
tiously 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 Highlanders, sheltered by their
plaids, lay down in 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; in so much 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 him-
self 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 imper-
ceptible 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 duinhé-wassel'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 Balquidder hills at the head of a body of his own
* The winds which sweep a wild glen in Badenoch are so called.
INTRODUCTION TO ROB ROY xxxix
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 slipped 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 Appendix III. It is written
in a good hand, and not particularly deficient in grammar or
spelling. 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
* Appendix No. IV.
IV
xl WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 marrow
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, bear-
ing 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 Ghlume 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 com-
mander of the Highland watch arrayed at the charge of govern-
ment. He is said to have strictly abstained from the open and
lawless depredations which his kinsman had practised.
INTRODUCTION TO ROB ROY x]i
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 ulyſſe,
or oil, *
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 Balquidder, 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, finding 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 Balquidder, 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 a trial of skill, and therefore he took the freedom
to invite any gentleman of the Stewarts present to exchange a
m Such an admission is ascribed to the robber, Donald Bean Lean, in Waverley,
Chap. lxii.
xlii WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 kinsmem.* 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 1733, 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 death-bed, 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 foe-
man, 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 Balquidder. He was buried in the churchyard of the same
* Some accounts state that Appin himself was Rob Roy's antagonist on this occa-
sion. 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.
INTRODUCTION TO ROB ROY xliii
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 educa-
tion, 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 be-
coming 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 has 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 Dugald Ciar Mohr 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.” He was as good as his word, and shot MacLaren when
between the stilts of his plough, wounding him mortally.
* This fatal piece was taken from Robin Oig when he was seized many years after.
Wards. It remained in possession of the magistrate before whom he was brought for
xliv WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 p the cause of their tenant, Robin Oig absconded, and escaped all
Sea,ICIl.
The doctor already mentioned, by name Callum 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 £200 for their good
behaviour for seven years.”
The spirit of clanship was at that time so strong—to which must be
examination, and now makes part of a small collection of arms belonging to the Author.
§ is sººnish barrelled gun, marked with the letters R. M. C., for Robert MacGregor
ampbell.
* The Author is uncertain whether it is worth while to mention that he had a per-
sonal opportunity of observing even in his own time that the king's writ did not pass
quite current in the Braes of Balquidder. 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
42500, 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 Mac-
Larens 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 com-
mitting 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 some-
what 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 £10 to £70 or £80; and when sold the
farm was purchased (I think by the late Laird of MacNab) at a price higher in propor-
tion than What even the modern remt authorised the parties interested to hope for.
INTRODUCTION TO ROB ROY xly
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 in-
formed 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 MacGregors' country ; and, notwith-
standing 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 Glencarnock, 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 Mohr, however, affecting
independence, and commanded by Glengyle and his cousin James Roy
. did not join this kindred corps, but united themselves to the
levies of the titular Duke of Perth, until William MacGregor Drummond
of Balhaldie, 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 Mohr, 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. After
that defeat the Clan MacGregor kept together in a body, and did not
* Published in Blackwood's Magazine, vol., ii, page 290.
xlvi WAVERLEY NOVELS
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, . 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.
The wealthy are slaughter'd, 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.f 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 had a good
horse, 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, ex-
pressed 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 lang syne which had
been done off hand.’ 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.”
* Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto II. # See Appendix No. V.
INTRODUCTION TO ROB ROY xlvii
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 Qig 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
Edinbelly, 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 Mohr 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 Mohr, 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 Rowerdennan, where they
had a priest unscrupulous enough to read the marriage service, while
James Mohr 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 Balquidder, where the officiat-
ing 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,
xlviii WAVERLEY NOVELS
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.
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
Mohr 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 Mohr Drummond accordingly brought his pretended sister-in-
law to Edinburgh, where for some little time she was hurried 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 Mauldsly, 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 Mac-
Gregors 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 safety. 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 º those who
had injured her, in respect of the oath which she had been compelled to
* Such, at least, was his general character; for when James Mohr, while perpetrat-
ing the violence at Edinbelly, 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.
INTRODUCTION TO ROB ROY xlix
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 Mohr Drummond had left Edinburgh as 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 Mac-
Gregors 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 Edinbelly.
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 Mohr 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 after-
Wards 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
l WAVERLEY NOVELS
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
Mohr 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 Mac-
Gregor or Drummond, his brother, 15th January 1753. The accused had
º 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 mis-
represented, 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 docu-
ments 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 Balhaldie, whom, as before
mentioned, James Mohr acknowledged as his chief.
The effect which this petition produced does not appear. Some tem-
porary relief was perhaps obtained. But soon after this daring adven-
turer was engaged in a very dark intrigue against an exile of his own
country, and placed pretty nearly in his own circumstances. . A remark-
able 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 Ardsheil, 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 Ardsheil, the
forfeited person, was tried as being accessory to the murder, and con-
demned 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 eagerly desirous to obtain possession
of the person of Allan Breck Stewart, supposed to be the actual homicide,
James Mohr Drummond was secretly applied to to trepan Stewart to
INTRODUCTION TO ROB ROY li
the sea-coast, and bring him over to Britain to almost certain death.
Drummond MacGregor had kindred connexions 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 country-
men, 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.” The Stewart clan were in the highest degree unfriendly to
* 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 Edin-
lii WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 Balhaldie. His intercourse
with Lord Holdermesse was suspicious. The Jacobites were probably, like
Don Bernard de Castil Blazo in Gil Blas, little disposed to like those
who kept company with alguazils. MacDonnell 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 Mac-
Laren'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 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 Balhaldie,
dated Paris, 25th September 1754, he describes his state of destitution
as absolute, and expresses himself willing to exercise his talents in break-
ing 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 Scotsman 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 soul and body
together. All that I have carried here is about 13 livres, and has 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 so as to keep me in Life 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. Buttler, 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 Horses as any in France, besides that I am a good Hunter, either
on horseback or by fowling. You may judge my Reduction, as I propose the
meanest things to serve a turn till better cast up. I am sorry that I am
oblidged to give you so much trouble, but I hope you are very well assured
burgh l’ On inquiry this admirer of Auld Reekie, which he was never to see again,
proved to be Allān Breck Stewart. He lived decently on his little pension, and had in
ino 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.
INTRODUCTION TO ROB ROY liii
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 your house, for if I could shun 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 uncer-
tainties, 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 Inversmaid, 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 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. Four years 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, notwithstand-
ing 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.”
Robin Oig was condemned to death, and executed on 6th 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. #
The newspapers observe that his body, after hanging the usual time,
was délivered 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 school-boy 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
* The Trials of . . . Sons of Rob Roy, with Amecdotes of Himself and his Family, were
published at Edinburgh, 1818, in 12mo.
t James died near three months before, but his family might easily remain a long
time without the news of that event. [But compare the dates in the text.)
liv WAVERLEY NOVELS
emblems of Highland mourning, and so escorted it to Balquidder. 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.
R O B R O Y
CHAPTER I
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 transform'd 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 adven-
tures, 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 remem-
brance 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 attem-
tion 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,
IV I
2 WAVERIEY NOVELS
then, these sheets into some secret drawer of your escritoir 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 pati ºnce of
the audience, and the best and wisest have yielded to its fascina-
tion. 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 illustrat-
ing 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 him-
ROB ROY 3
self 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 them-
selves, 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 connexions 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 groundwork 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 specu-
lation. He would have been a poorer man indeed, but perhaps
as happy, had he devoted to the extension of science those
active emergies and acute powers of observation for which com-
mercial 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
4. WAVERLEY NOVELS
shall overcome fortune, or fortune baffle the schemes of pru-
dence—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 com-
posed 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 j
“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
j
ROB ROY 5
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, in-
superable is the word—I wish, by the way, you would write a
more distinct current hand, draw a score through the tops of
your tºs 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 and 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 l’
Owen appeared, not with the silver locks which you were
used to venerate, for he was them 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 count-
ing-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,
6 WAVERILEY NOVELS
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 conse-
quence.
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, en-
deavoured 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 grace-
fully 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.
ROB ROY 7
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 sum-
moned 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 him-
self if, a stranger to business of this description, he found him-
self at Once involved in the labyrinth of mercantile concerns,
without the clue 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
8 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 it 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 Postle-
thwayte (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 some-
where 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 satis-
factory to him as, ‘Yours received, and duly honoured the bills
inclosed, 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,
ROB ROY 0
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 II
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
a state course. Actum est of him for a Commonwealth's man, if he go
to'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 dis-
pleased 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 arrêt 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 daresay, 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 cloverest clerks, sir, in the house, a prodigious
ROB ROY 11
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 young-
ster 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 falter-
ing 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 motions 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.’
I 2 WAVERLEY NOVELS
My father smiled at this reduction of the golden rule to
arithmetical form, but instantly proceeded : “All this significs
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 sup-
plicatory 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 my-
self 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 inter-
course 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.”
ROB ROY 13
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 Wantz
29; weltes to the barrique—at Cognac and Rochelle 27 ; at
Bourdeaua. 32. Very right, Frank. Duties on tonnage and
custom-house, see Sawby'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—ſsingham, 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.”
14 WAVERLEY NOVELS
‘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 obstimate
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 somethodical.
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 missummation 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 paymim sons of Swarthy Spain
Had wrought his champion's fall.
Fontarabian echoes!’ continued my father, interrupting him.
self; ‘the Fontarabian Fair would have been more to the pur-
POB ROY 15
pose. Paynim What's paymim 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 Bourdeaux dying lay.
Poitiers, by the way, is always spelt with an 8, 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 mirror'd 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 bell-
man 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
16 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 º’ 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 º'
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
TOIB ROY 17
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 obstimacy 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 for-
tune, 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.’
IV 2
18 WAVERLEY NOVELS
‘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, Osbaldis-
tone, 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,’ re-
joined 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 trust-
ing it might indicate some relaxation in my father's determina-
tion.
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
ROB ROY 19
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 medita-
tion 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 expressions 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 limes 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 com-
mission ; 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.
20 WAVERLEY NOVELS
‘He has spoken about nothing, sir, since he returned, but
his new boots and his Rippon spurs and a cock-fight 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 oppor-
tunity 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 respect-
fully 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 dis-
appointed; 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 3’
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
ROB ROY 21
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 º' said I to my sym-
pathetic 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 III
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 navi-
gator 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 school-boy 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 accom-
plishments which had hitherto sustained me. Prince Pretty-
man, 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 mortify-
ing. As the hum of London died away on my ear, the distant
peal of her steeples more than once sounded to my ears the ad-
monitory ‘Turn again erst heard by her future Lord Mayor;
and when I looked back from Highgate on her dusky magnifi-
cence, I felt as if I were leaving behind me comfort, Opulence,
the charms of society, and all the pleasures of cultivated life.
ROB ROY 23
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 obstimacy 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 unhesitat-
ingly 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 accommoda-
tion 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 re-
instated 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, notwith-
standing my assumed confidence, were not always of an un-
chequered 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
24 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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, jog-
ging 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 them an officer going down into the country upon the recruit-
ing service, were at this period the persons by whom the turn-
pikes 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 Beggar's 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 re-
pressing the officious zeal of the waiters and ostlers, who offered
their services to carry it into the house. With the same pre-
caution 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 tarmished gold-laced waistcoat.
With all these cares on his mind, my fellow-traveller, to judge
by his thewes and sinews, was a man who might have set danger
IROB ROY 25
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 mar-
vellous 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 overcharges 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 possi-
bility 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 highroad,
looked before, behind, and around him, examined his arms, and
seemed to prepare himself for flight or defence, as circumstances
might require.
26 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 depart-
ment 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 Marybone, was often united with that of the professed
ruffian who, on Bagshot Heath or Finchley Common, com-
manded 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
uninclosed and extensive heaths in the vicinity of the metro-
polis, 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
Beauw Stratagem, piqued themselves on being the best behaved
men on the road, and on conducting themselves with all appro-
priate 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 amuse-
ment 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 con-
versation 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
ROB ROY 27
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 hand-
some 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'm 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 bare-faced 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 for-
got 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
28 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 IV
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 7
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 counter-
part to this decent practice, and a remnant of old English
hospitality, was, that the landlord of a principal imm laid aside
his character of 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 com-
plied 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 homest 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
30 WAVERLEY NOVELS
worthies of the town or village, the apothecary, the attorney,
even the curate himself, did not disdaim 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 bishoprick 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 com-
panion, 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,' re-
turned 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 eler cross'd Berwick bridge. I trow
he's a dealer in cattle.’
‘Let us have his company by all means,' answered my com-
panion; 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.”
‘Well said, Mr. Campbell !’ answered the landlord; “I did
mat think thoud'st been sae near us, mom. 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.’
* The introduction of gaugers, supervisors, and examiners was one of the great
coln plaints of the Scottish nation, though a natural consequence of the Union.
ROB ROY 31
“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 mom 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 afore-
said 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 con-
temptible 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
ensure 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 atten-
tions 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 North-
umberland, she poured herself forth to my infant ear in descrip-
tions 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
32 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 from 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 Country
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 marratives 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 solemnising 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 some-
times held with respect to them. He had engaged in some
large speculations concerning oak-woods, the property of High-
land proprietors, and alleged that he found them much more
ROB ROY 33
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 Scotch mercantile men, whom he
was under the necessity of employing as a sort of middlemen
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. Osbaldis-
tone 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 re-
mained 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.”
It was, them, 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 observa-
tions 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 gentlemen,
* This seems to have been written about the time of Wilkes and Liberty.
IV 3
34 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 con-
sequence 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 some-
what 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 ale-house resounded with the brawls of contend-
ing politicians, and as mine host's politics were of that liberal
description which quarrelled with no good customer, his heb-
domadal visitants were often divided in their opinion as irrecon-
cilably 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 exciseman, 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, stanchly supported the cause
ROB ROY 35
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 dis-
putants; “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 make 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 port-
manteau, 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
arch-prelate 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 com-
peting sovereigns would give Rob Campbell a tass of aqua-
vitae, 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, inter-
rupting him; ‘they were but barely two, and two cowardly
looms 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 l’
‘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
36 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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, throw-
ing 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 contempt-
uously; “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 your-
self 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 mature 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.’
ROB ROY 37
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 direc-
tion 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 W
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 characterises 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 mis-
fortunes 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
ROT3 ROY 39
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 appear-
ance 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.
40 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 un-
commonly 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, how-
ever, 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 l’ 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 undertone, the young lady
apparently pressing the sportsman to do something which he
declined shyly, and with a sort of sheepish sullenness. She in-
stantly turned her horse's head towards me, saying, ‘Well,
well, Thornie, if you won't, I must, that's all. Sir,’ she con-
tinued, addressing me, ‘I have been endeavouring to persuade
this cultivated young gentleman to make inquiry of you

TOB ROY 41
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 Osbaldis-
tone 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
scens 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 Vermon 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, how-
ever, 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 1' 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 Vermon.’
‘And do you not blush to own it !” said Miss Vermon. Why,
we must forswear your alliance. Then I suppose you can
neither give a ball nor a mash nor a horn ?’
42 WAVERLEY NOVELS
‘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 Vermon; something, how-
ever, 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 staid
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
undertone—‘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 excep-
tion, for I am the only conversible 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
ROB ROY 43
for his own sake. He is Sir Hildebrand's youngest Son, about
your own age, but not so—mot 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 recom-
mended 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 retire-
ment. 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, ‘con-
demned 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;
44 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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
ROB ROY 45
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 clown 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, hunt-
ing-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, repre-
Senting 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
46 WAVERLEY NOVELS
the monsters of heraldry, embodied by the art of some
Northumbrian chisel, grinned and ramped in red freestone,
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. 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.
* Now called Dom Juan.
CHAPTER WI
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 abrupt-
ness 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
48 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 appear-
8,IlC62,
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, as-
cribed this unsightly defect to a mere awkward habit, and con-
tended that it did not amount to a personal disqualification
from holy orders.
ROB ROY 49
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, con-
trived 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.”
‘O, 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 characterised 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,
IV 4
50 WAVERLEY NOVELS
horse-jockey, and fool; but, as they say there cannot be found
two leaves on the same tree exactly alike, so these happy ingre-
dients, 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 might 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 Vermon, and the individual varietics
belong to a most interesting species. But is there no room on
the canvass 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 forbear-
ance. 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 haughti-
ness 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 navi-
gators carry to propitiate the Savage inhabitants of newly dis-
covered 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.’
ROB ROY 51
I was silenced and confounded.
‘You remind me at this moment,” said the young lady, re-
suming 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 con-
versation 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 compli-
mentary 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 l’ 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 Vermon'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-à-téte. “And now,” said I,
‘give me leave to ask you frankly, Miss Vernon, what you sup-
pose 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 conjurer enough to
tell your thoughts without it. You need not open the case-
ment of your bosom ; I see through it. You think me a strange
bold girl, half coquette, half romp; desirous of attracting atten-
tion by the freedom of her manners and loudness of her conver-
sation, 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 mis-
taken. All the confidence I have reposed in you I would have
|
52 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 Vermon
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 º'
‘Yes, in a few days; did you not know that ? Your father
must keep his resolutions much more secret than Sir Hilde-
brand. 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 obstimacy, Mr.
Francis, the good knight held a cour plenière of all his family,
including the butler, housekeeper, and gamekeeper. This
reverend assembly of the peers and household officers of Osbal-
distone 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
ROB ROY 53
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 dis-
advantage, he will owe you a grudge for it. But here come
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.TIt 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 Vermon's behalf, I was far from judging
her with severity merely for a frankmess which, I supposed,
was in some degree justified by my own personal merit; and
54 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 Vermon quitted the apartment, the bottle circu-
lated, 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 shrime of Bacchus. When I heard
the whoop and halloo, 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 an-
other; 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 tºye,’ 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.’
ROB ROY 55
“A gold-laced what, my good friend ?’
‘Ou, a jeistiecor—that's a jacket like your ain there.
They hac 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 Syboes,
ingams, 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 them,' 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 me 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 daresay
it cannot be want of skill which prevented your being placed
more to your satisfaction.’
‘It disma become me to speak to the point of my qualifica-
56 WAVERLEY NOVELS
tions,’ said Andrew, looking round him with great complacency;
“but mae 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 Syme, and I find
mysell still turning up the mouls here, for a that. Forbye
that, to tell your honour the even-down truth, there's nae better
place ever offered to Andrew. But if your honour wad wush
me to omy 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 tºye.”
‘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 fashedus bargains—aye crying for apricocks,
pears, plums, and apples, summer and winter, without distinc-
tion 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 house-
keeper'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 Vermon.’
‘What the lassie Vernon . She's mae mistress o' mine,
man. I wish she was her aim mistress; and I wish she mayna
be some other body's mistress or it's lang. She's a wild slip
that.'
‘Indeed l’ 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.’
ROB ROY 57
‘If I ken them, I can keep them,” said Andrew ; ‘they winna
work in my wane like barm 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 Islipped a crown-
piece into Andrew's horn-hard hand. The touch of the silver
made him grin a ghastly smile, as he modded slowly and thrust
it into his breeches pocket; and then, like a man who well under-
stood 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 chim 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 mot fully told.
‘Good God l’ said I, ‘so young, so beautiful, so early lost l’
‘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.’
‘Ou, 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 Wandals in Marmontel's
late novel.
CHAPTER WII
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,
ROB ROY 59
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 protec-
tion; 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 neighbour-
hood 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, pre-
vail 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 contem-
plation.
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 cheer-
ful 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 courtyard, 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 cdge
May chance to catch a fall.’
60 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 ex-
empted 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 re-
gard 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 mo, 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 mat off a first
burst.’
ROB ROY 61
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 ab-
solutely 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, not-
withstanding 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 l'
‘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 ?”
62 -- WAVERLEY NOVELS
‘You shall have the choice of being paymaster 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 hunt-
ing-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 Scot-
land '''
‘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 him-
self, 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.’
ROB ROY 63
‘Think a moment. Did you not lately travel with some-
body 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 merit-
ing 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,’ replicd 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 l’
‘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 mot 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 unwilling-
64 WAVERLEY NOVELS
ness 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.”
‘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 Vermon ; can you think me insensible of
the interest you show me, or ungrateful for it º’ 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 out-
skirts of the kingdom, country justices do odd things. My
uncle has no desire to embroil himself in your affair; Rashleigh
* See Horses of the Catholics. Note 1.
ROB ROY 65
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 advo-
cate, 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
farther 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 nonjuror, 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 gentle-
men imposed the duty on Inglewood, who, being very inert in
}
IV 5
66 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 homest 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 unauthorised destroyers of
black-game, grouse, partridges, and hares, is peculiarly em-
barrassed 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 back-
ROB ROY 67
wards 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 VIII
‘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 courtyard, 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 Osbal-
distone'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 Vermon, “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.
ROB ROY 69
Francis Osbaldistone was likely to be as effectually, and rather
more delicately, supported by my presence than by yours.”
‘O 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
Vermon'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 con-
vinced—but that I must also be acquainted with the real per-
petrators of the outrage on this fellow ; if, indeed, such an
outrage has been committed. Is this reasonable, Mr. Osbaldis-
tone '''
‘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.
70 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 Vermon, after a pause, ‘and
I will not go till I see you safe out of the hands of the Philis-
times. Cousin Rashleigh, I daresay, 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, obstimate 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'
‘O, 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.’
‘Hey day !’ said Miss Vernon, ‘the genial Justice must have
dimed 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 ante-dated his
meridian repast, having dined at twelve instead of one o'clock,
then the general diming hour in England. The various occur-
rences 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.
POB ROY 71
‘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 clerk, ‘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 car,
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 arm'd 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 commemor-
ated in this pathetic ditty were more startled at the appear-
72 WAVERLEY NOVELS
ance 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.
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 pardom 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,’ replicd 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
ROB ROY 73
it's no treason to say so; but it's enough to make one mad to
be worried in this way. Have I a moment of my life quiet for
warrants, orders, directions, acts, bails, bonds, and recognizances?
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 l’
‘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
74 WAVERLEY NOVELS
after the first bottle was out. But you have not dined ; we'll
have something mice and ladylike, sweet and pretty like your-
Self, tossed up in a trice.’
‘I may eat a crust in the ante-room before I set out,’ an-
Swered 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 show'd him the way, and she show'd him the way,
She show'd 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
Vermon, had given up the matter in despair, but who picked up
courage to press farther investigation on finding himself sup-
ported 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 recognizance 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
TOIB ROY 75
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 in-
quiring into the principles of the family so named, he, the said
declarant, was informed that they were of the worst descrip-
tion, 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 no ways
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 conversa-
tion 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 Thirty-Four Edward
76 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 show-
ing, assumed the bearing or deportment of a robber or male-
factor, 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 Third of King Edward, there being in that act an express
exception of such as be charged of commandment or force, and
aid of felony dome’; 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 conse-
quence 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 l’ said the Justice, in a tone of Sotto voce depre-
cation ; ‘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 subpoena'd for the next
world; he has sent an express for Dr. Killdown 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.’
ROB ROY 77
‘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. Rash-
leigh's opinion the rest was lost in a whisper.
The Justice replied aloud, ‘I tell thee mo, 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 school-boy. 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 connexions and
78 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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–m 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 resent-
ing 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 with-
out farther ceremony.
CHAPTER IX
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 IV idow.
‘A STRANGER l' 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 Omerous 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 con-
sideration 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 ful
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 l’
“Both shall be yours, sir,’ answered Campbell, ‘in a brief
80 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 under-
stand my evidence is necessary to the compurgation of ane
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 seeming 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, no ways given to
broils or batteries. Mr. Morris, who belongs, as I understand,
ROB ROY 81
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 uttered 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 such suspicions 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 sus-
picion, 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 hands, 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, etc. etc. etc. 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.
IV 6
82 WAVERLEY NOVELS
‘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
for whom he took him was a shorter man, and a thicker mam,
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 cog-
nizance 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. Osbaldis-
tone; 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 toad 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
ROB ROY 83
we do not meet as friends in Scotland, it will be your aim
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 kail-yard. 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 i. all
smooth. And now, Miss Die Vermon, 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 Osbaldis-
tone 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 Osbaldistome 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
84 WAVERLEY NOVELS
John Fenwick's, old Hildebrand used to halloo out his name
as readily as any of the remaining six, and then complaim 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 Vermon,
and took an equally kind farewell of me.
‘Thou seems to be a good tight lad, Mr. Frank, and I re-
member 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 extinguish’d quite,
Comes age, like embers, dry and white.
Think of this as you take 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 admoni-
tions, 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. Rash-
* See Tobacco. Note 2.
*
ROB ROY 85
leigh, 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. Camp-
bell, 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 Vermon—ay, I see well enough how it is:
bail put in during my absence, I suppose? I should like to
know who drew the recognizance, 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 his 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 ?’
86 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 of my whip, which I only
suppressed in consideration of his insignificance.
‘Farmer Rutledge, ma’am l’ said the clerk, so 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 ill-
ness; and if you did not know as much before, you know it
now, ma'am.’
‘La you there now !’ replied Miss Vernon, with an affecta-
tion 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 Henric; 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 Rut-
ledge 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 Vermon laid her hand on my arm and exclaimed, ‘Come,
ROB ROY 87
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, missalls, grailes, processionals,
manuals, legends, pies, portuasses, and those that have such
trimkets in their possession, Miss Vermon; and there's summon-
ing 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 I., 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, Diama Vernon, spinstress, not being a
femme cowverte, 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 Vermon, laughing. ‘Well, I thank you for
88 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 y
‘Are so much better cared for that they are jealous of their
prerogatives,’ interrupted Miss Vernon; ‘I forgot you were a
party interested. Nay,’ said she, 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
ROB ROY 89
count of my indictment against fortune, as that quill-driving
puppy would call it. I belong to an oppressed sect and anti-
quated religion, and, instead of getting credit for my devotion,
as is due to all good girls beside, my kind friend, Justice Ingle-
wood, may send me to the house of correction, merely for wor-
shipping 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.”’
‘This is not a cureless evil,” said I, gravely. “Consult some
of our learned divines, or consult your own excellent under-
standing, Miss Vernon, and surely the particulars in which
our religious creed differs from that in which you have been
educated 3.
‘Hush l’ said Diana, placing her forefinger 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 incon-
veniences 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 con-
fidence, 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 woman-
kind 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 mis-
fortune that well merits compassion. I am by nature, as you
may easily observe, of a frank and unreserved disposition—a
plaim true-hearted girl, who would willingly act openly and
homestly by the whole world, and yet fate has involved me in
* See Nunnery of Wilton. Note 3. CŞ
90 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 Vermon 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 matural.
‘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 Vermon's brother,’ said I, ‘there could
not be less chance that I should refuse my assistance. And
ROB ROY 91
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 j
‘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 chim 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 X
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.
Amonymous.
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 pro-
pensity, 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 cither sea-coal or
fagots, 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 ''
FOB ROY 93
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 forefinger immediately touched her dimpled chin, with
an arch look of prohibition.
‘We are still allies,” she continued, ‘bound, like other con-
federate 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 chim. 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?’
‘Umquestionably; 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 polite-
ness, 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 l’ 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 case 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
94 WAVERLEY NOVELS
yourselves, in revenge, I suppose, for our common mother's
share in the great original transgression.’
‘And Rashleigh readily 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.’
‘O, 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 Vermon, 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 toilette-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 Lan-
castrian 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 might descern one
Brave knight, with pipes on shield, yeleped Vernon ;
Like a borne fiend along the plain he thundered,
Prest to be carving throtes, while others plundered.
FOB ROY 95
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 fire-lock; 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 wiret. 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 cognizance, 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 l’ she exclaimed.
‘Why, Percie, Thornie, John, Dickon, Wilfred himself, might
be your instructor. Even ignorance itself is a plummet over
rou.’
‘With shame I confess it, my dear Miss Vernon, the mys-
teries 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 insigni-
ficant 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 like-
mess to you. What ease and dignity in the attitude, what
richness of colouring, what breadth and depth of shade l’
“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.’
96 WAVERLEY NOVELS
‘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 alto-
gether 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 wine glass 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
ROB ROY 97
and deportment, announced that the education of Rashleigh
Osbaldistone at the College of St. Omer's 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 pro-
fession,’ 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 mime, as if to search, from the expression of my features,
whether Diana's communication had been as narrowly limited
IV 7
98 WAVERLEY NOVELS
as my words had intimated. Miss Vernon retorted his inquisi-
torial 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 wit-
nessed 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 Rash-
leigh, “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 philan-
thropical 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 outer-
most till all means of discharging itself in the interior circles
have been exhausted. It is within these circles that his heart
ROB ROY 99
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, be-
cause 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 country-
man 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 con-
trary, 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 incon-
venience, 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 North-
100 WAVERLEY NOVELS
umberland; 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 windictive.’
‘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 acquies-
cence, ‘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 them 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, destimed for some little employment under govern-
ment ; 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 tº
“I own,' I replied, ‘that his expression struck me as being
occasionally fierce and sinister, and little adapted to his peace-
able 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,
ROB ROY 101
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 care 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 tempta-
tion 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 Vermon ; 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. Pre-
serve your hatred and contempt for dissimulation, basemess, 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 pre-
ferred, as it were on principle, the risking bold and precarious
102 WAVERIEY NOVELS
strokes to the Ordinary rules of play; and, neglecting the minor
and better-balanced chances of the game, he hazarded every-
thing 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 téte-à-téte.
So effectual, my dear Tresham, does the sense of being
pleased and amused blunt our faculties of perception and dis-
crimination 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 XI
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 re-
ligious 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
104 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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; Thorn-
cliff 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 break-
fast. 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
ROB ROY 105
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 mime—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 con-
cerning 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
106 WAVERLEY NOVELS
day many an apprentice and fellow-craft, if not some of the
master-masons, in the temple of Apollo. Vanity is their uni-
versal 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 consider-
ing 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 avoca-
tions of the world. I repeat it, that my compliance with my
father's wishes for the advantage of my family is indeed a sacri-
fice, 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 destina-
tion—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
f
ROB ROY 107
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 Osbaldis-
tone 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 pre-
carious 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 dis-
position 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, them, 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 situa-
tion 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 tolera-
tion 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 high-flying 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
108 WAVERLEY NOVELS
of praise or attention unless it be in some measure connected
with commerce.”
‘O rare-painted portrait !’ exclaimed Rashleigh, when I was
silent. “Wandyke was a dauber to you, Frank. I see thy sire
before me in all his strength and weakness—loving and honour-
ing 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 North-
umbrian 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 7 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 avoca-
tions, the gravity of the profession to which I was destined,
the peculiar mature 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 beauti-
ful 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''
ROB ROY 109
‘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 thought-
lessness 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 l’ 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 renewing our acquaintance and
sharing it with Miss Vermon.’
“With all his fine voice and well-turned periods,’ thought I,
‘this same Rashleigh Osbaldistone is the ugliest and most con-
ceited 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 Vermom l’
‘Why, ay; her father's commands, and a certain family
contract, destine 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 Osbal-
distone of Osbaldistone Hall, Bart, and so forth; and it only
110 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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.’
‘O, my destimation 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 or married an ugly
fellow . And if she were free of every Osbaldistone of them,
ROB ROY 111
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 XII
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 trepamned 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
ROB ROY 113
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. Osbaldis-
tone.’
‘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 Vermon, that it cannot be worth your while to
inquire into the cause of my stupidity and bad spirits.’
‘What l’ she said, ‘am I to understand, then, that you have
deserted my faction and gone over to the enemy'
Them, looking across the table and observing that Rashleigh,
who was seated opposite, was watching us with a singular ex-
pression 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 mo, 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 in-
Sulting 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
IV 8
114 WAVERLEY NOVELS
a quantity of liquor that does little more than muddy those in-
tellects which, in their sober state, are mome 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 forget-
fulness; I accepted several bets without having the least judg-
ment; 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, dis-
putatious, 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 modera-
tion 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 apart-
ment by locking the door, and I heard them, to my inexpress-
ROB ROY 115
ible 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 degrada-
tion 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-mature 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
116 WAVERILEY NOVELS
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 Thorn-
cliff 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-m me, if I call him son
more Why, Rashie, dost stand there like a logº “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
ROB ROY 117
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 grada-
tions, 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. i
My attention was strongly arrested by this peculiarity on
the present occasion. At Rashleigh's first entrance, ‘black he
stood as might !” 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 homest Cassio, a very vague recollection
of the confusion of last might—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 un-
expectedly 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 pur-
pose, 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,
118 WAVERLEY NOVELS
with the aid of March beer and brandy, made a handsome com-
petence 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 Osbaldis-
tones, although I had, properly speaking, no title to be called
her kinsman, ‘I have encountered this morning a difficult
passage in the Divina Commedia 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. Rash-
leigh 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
ROB ROY 119
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, haſ 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 4”
‘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 tête-à-téte.
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 XIII
Dire was his thought, who first in poison steep'd
The weapon form'd for slaughter; direr his,
And worthier of damnation, who instill’d
The mortal venom in the social cup,
To fill the veins with death º of life.
Amonymous.
‘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 com-
munications 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 Thorn-
cliff, 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 approv-
ing of it; but we have Shakspeare's authority for saying that
ROB ROY I21
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 quota-
tion 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 mightly wallowing.’
‘I have but wet my shoe, I assure you, Miss Vermon, 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 tº
I was stupified; the direct bluntness of the demand was
much in the style one gentleman uses to another, when request-
ing explanation of any part of his conduct in a good-humoured
yet determined manner, and was totally devoid of the circum-
locutions, 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 detail-
ing what inferred such necessary and matural 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.
122 WAVERLEY NOVELS
‘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'ſ 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 Vermon
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
ROB ROY 123
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 sup-
planting 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 2
‘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
124 WAVERLEY NOVELS
whole fountain, so there is one falsehood in Rashleigh's com-
munication 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 corre-
sponding with the Strange and interesting romance of her situa-
tion. 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 con-
stancy 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 com-
miseration 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 Osbal-
distone. Yes! the time once was that I might have learned
to love that man. But, great God the purpose for which he
ROB ROY 125
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 l’
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 scorm and indignation had given
way to the most lively alarm, Miss Vermon threw herself be-
tween 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
126 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 com-
moners 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 is 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 villainy 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
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ROB ROY 127
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 medi-
tated villainy towards her. Our intercourse, therefore, was re-
served 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 circum-
stances 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 in 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 inter-
views 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 taskmaster 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 Omer's ;
128 WAVERLEY NOVELS
‘happy is he whose good intentions have borne fruit in decds,
and whose evil thoughts have perished in the blossom.’
These were his parting words. ‘Accomplished hypocrite l’
said Miss Vernon to me, as the door closed behind him. “How
nearly can what we most despise and hate approach in out-
ward manner to that which we most venerate l’
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 matural 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 un-
likely 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 taedium 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 tem-
perance, 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 un-
pleasant 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 matural that I should have pointed out all
these disadvantages to my father, in order to obtain his con-
sent 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 Osbaldis-
tone 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
FOB ROY 129
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 com-
menced 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 subtile 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 cere-
monial limits which are drawn round females in modern society.
It is true, she was sequestered from all female company, and
could not learn the usual rules of decorum, either from example
or precept ; yet such was her inmate 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 con-
scious innocence. Her wily instructor had no doubt his own
IV 9
130 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 think-
ing upon ordinary subjects, so strikingly contrasted with her
fund of general knowledge and information, which rendered her
conversation so irresistibly fascinating, and riveted the atten-
tion to whatever she said or did ; since it was absolutely im-
possible 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 XIV
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 manage-
ment 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
132 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 there-
fore 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 dis-
covered 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 doun at the
Trinlay Knowe.’
‘Well, Andrew, and I suppose you heard some news at the
ale-house '''
‘Na, sir; I never gang to the yill-house—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 aim wi' Mattie
ROB ROY 133
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’em 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'
ame anither.’
‘And you went and had a jug of ale together, I suppose,
Andrew 7 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 yoursell, 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 Lummon 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 over Jock Wabster.’
“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
maunna 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 man-
fully and spoke at intervals, but nothing to the purpose of Mr.
Macready's news; and I stood and listened, cursing him in my
134 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 sparrygrass, and am gaun to saw
sum Misegun beams. 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 maunna 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 pos-
sessed 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 o'
Fife, frae Culross to the East Nuik, it's just like a great com-
bined 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 krames, and houses of stame 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
ROB ROY 135
to hear about them. Howsoever,’ he continued, grinning a
ghastly smile, ‘Pate Macready does say that they are Sair mis-
trysted 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 7°
‘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 Lunnon 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 kail-wife pou'd aff her neigh-
bour's mutch they wad hae the twasome o' them into the
Parliament House o' Lunnon. 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 cou’d 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 wasma far wrang maybe
—and that they had levied amaist open war, and a king's mes-
senger 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 ell-wand is a yard lang–
136 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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
folks' beside (looking sly at me). And them another dragon
o' a chield got up on the other side and said, wad they accuse
the best gentlemen 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 Lunnon; 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 gowling 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's 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 just a'
gaed aff 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 cared ma whether Morris was rubbit 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 ruggit 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
ROB ROY 137
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 akin to a Camp-
bell, as I am name 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 connexion 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 Lunnon even now ; for he canna preceesely be
said to belang to ony o' the twa sides o' them, sae deil ane 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 farther 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
138 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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.”
‘Wara right—vara right ; that's what I hae aften said—a
kail-blaid 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 sate 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 téte-à-téte. 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 bienséance, I was desirous to think for Miss
Vermon concerning those points of propriety where her experi-
ence 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.
ROB ROY I 39
Miss Vernon first laughed, then blushed, and was disposed
to be displeased; and them, 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 communi-
cated 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 barghaist, 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
140 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 com-
panion for the evening, or I must have been mistaken, and taken
Diana's shadow for a second person. No, by Heaven it ap-
pears 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, notwith-
standing 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
ROB ROY 141
countryman, 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
commivance 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 apart-
ment to consider what I ought to do in defence of my character
thus publicly attacked.
CHAPTER XV
Whence, and what art thou ?
MILTON.
AFTER exhausting a sleepless night in meditating on the intelli-
gence 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, cer-
tainly, 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 con-
cluding 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
ROB ROY 143
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 dis-
guised 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 windicate
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 pos-
session, 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 busi-
ness; so will be of service to the firm. Could have wished
another person had turned his mind that way; but God's will
be dome. As cash may be scarce in those parts, have to trust
you will excuse my inclosing a goldsmith's bill at six days'
sight, on Messrs. Hooper and Girder of Newcastle, for £100,
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 acknowledg-
ment 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 mis-
carry upon the road. As it comprised matters of great import-
144 WAVERLEY NOVELS
ance, 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 con-
sider 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 postmaster 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 Hilde-
brand and all his offspring had gone down to the little hamlet,
called Trinlay Knowe, ‘to see,’ as Andrew Fairservice expressed
it, “a wheen midden-cocks pike ilk ither's harns 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 haud 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. Rash-
leigh's apartments. 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 intri-
cate and dark vaulted passage with the rest of the house. A
ROB ROY - 145
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 move-
ments 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 Waughan, as
they ca' him. Ye'll no catch ane O' the servants ganging 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 himsell a privileged per-
son—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 trimkets. I dinna believe he speaks gude Latin
neither; at least he disma take me up when I tell him the
learned mames o' the plants.’
Of Father Vaughan, who divided his time and his ghostly
care between Osbaldistone Hall and about half a dozen man-
sions 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 North-
umberland 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 recommenda-
IV IO
146 WAVERLEY NOVELS
tion 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 Rash-
leigh'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 Waughan'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 conversible 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 Waughan 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 main-
ROB ROY 147
tain, 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 7 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 obstimately affirming it to be impossible that
they can have missed the way.
CHAPTER XVI
‘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 plaim to be seen on the sand.’
Robinsom Ch'usoe.
WITH the blended feelings of interest and jealousy which were
engendered by Miss Vermon'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
pettishmess. 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 éclaircissement. 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 embarrass-
ment 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
ROB ROY 149
had given Diana some additional reason for disliking the cloister,
I could by no means confide in an affection which seemed Com-
pletely 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 written 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? may, 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 homest 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 deem’d 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 them.
150 WAVERIEY NOVELS
“Much more than ought to engage your attention, Miss
Vermon,' 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 con-
tinued, ‘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 Vermon's, and assured her that she need not
fear my wincing under criticism which I knew to be kindly
meant.
‘That was homestly 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 Osbaldis-
tones. Then you are not aware that he has gone to Holland
to arrange some pressing affairs which required his own im-
mediate presence " '
ROB BOY 151
‘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 appre-
hension.
‘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 7'
“Ask no questions,’ she said ; “but, believe me, Rashleigh's
views extend far beyond the possession or increase of commer-
cial wealth. He will only make the command of Mr. Osbaldis-
tone'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 Rash-
leigh 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 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
152 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 Osbaldis-
tone 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 l’ she exclaimed—“this is madness ſ” 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 villaimy 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
}} }
ROB ROY 153
being subjected to an evesdropper on such an occasion. Pru-
dence, and the necessity of suppressing my passion and obeying
Diana's reiterated command of ‘Leave me ! leave me !’ came
in time to prevent any 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 over-
shadowing 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 which 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 counter-
balance 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 Vermon 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 investigat-
ing the propriety or prudence of my own conduct, by trans-
ferring the inquiry to what concerned Miss Vermon. “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 senti-
154 WAVERLEY NOVELS
ments, 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 con-
vinced 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 pene-
trate 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 XVII
I hear a voice you cannot hear,
Which says, I must not stay ;
I see a hand you cannot see,
Which beckons me away.
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 pre-
vious 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 make 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 foot-
steps 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
156 WAVERI, EY NOVELS
this visitant must probably 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 sub-
ordinate 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 as 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 dark-
ness 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 proportion-
ally 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
ROB ROY 157
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 lighted 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 de-
votion, 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 aneuch 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 game to
158 WAVERLEY NOVELS
even-song, and heard Daddie Docharty mumbling his mass;
muckle the better I wad hae been o’ that l’
‘Docharty l’ 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 amang 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 might. 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 Waugham, mamely, 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 re-
marked, 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.
ROB ROY 159
‘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 Wan-
dyke'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 Vermon would say?’
‘And if I do say so,” she replied, haughtily, ‘by whom shall
my affection be called to account'
“Not by me, Miss Vernon, assuredly. I entreat you to hold
me acquitted of such presumption. But,' I continued, with
160 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 your-
self 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 Vermon,
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 naiveté 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,
ROB ROY 161
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 should
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 teaze 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 pro-
ceeded 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 º' 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. Osbaldis.
tone, very duly and distinctly ; but which, notwithstanding
IV I I
162 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 l’
Miss Vermon 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 Scot-
land, 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 en-
treated 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 !’
e *
&
e
*
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:
*
:
:
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:
ROB ROY 163
‘You do me injustice, Miss Vernon,” I answered. ‘I grieve
not for the loss, 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, how-
ever, I could find a lucid interval to admire the firmness, com-
posure, 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 mature 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.
164 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 on your friend Die
Vermon.’
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 apart-
ment, and I saw her no more.
CHAPTER XVIII
And hurry, hurry, off they rode,
As fast as fast might be ;
Hurra, hurra, the dead can ride,
Dost fear to ride with me !
BüRGER.
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 inter-
cepted, 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
166 WAVERLEY NOVELS
doubt for one instant ; yet it was frightful to conceive the
extent of combined villainy 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 considera-
tion 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 sup-
pose 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 dis-
concert them, if my departure were publicly announced at
Osbaldistone Hall.
I therefore determined to set off on my journey with day-
light in the ensuing morning, and to gain the neighbouring king-
dom 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
ROB ROY 167
the exterior wall of the garden, a snug comfortable Northum-
brian 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 ex-
tremity, 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 some-
times contrived to form an audience for himself out of the
neighbouring Papists and Church-of-England men—brands, as
he expressed it, snatched out of the burning, on whom he used
to exercise his spiritual gifts, in defiance alike of Father
Vaugham, 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 nowadays. Always, I crave
your pardon for keeping ye standing at the door, but having
been mistrysted—Gude preserve us!—with ae bogle the night
168 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 l’ said I; ‘what do you mean by
that, Andrew 7'
“I said mistrysted,’ replied Andrew ; ‘that is as muckle as
to say, fley'd wi' a ghaist—Gude preserve us, I say again l’
“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 mae-
body 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. ‘Glas-
gow's a ceety, man. And is't the way to Glasgow ye were
speering if I kend ? 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 mae lees.” To Glasgow' He made a short pause. “I am
thinking ye wad be the better o’ some ame 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 ame 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 bye-paths
through the hills, and y
-
-
-
-
-
-

ROB ROY 169
‘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 employ-
ment'''
‘I tell'd your honour a while syme 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.’ º
‘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 won to Glasgow; and ye’ll be for
setting out forthwith !’
‘By daybreak in the morning,' I answered.
‘That's something o' the suddenest ; whare am I to find a
maig'ſ 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 afftwa 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 disma 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 l'I exclaimed, breaking away from him, ‘fear
170 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 sunk 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 downstairs, 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 indistinguish-
able 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 7°
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
ROB ROY 171
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 un-
necessary haste. Extricating ourselves by short cuts known
to Andrew from the numerous stony lanes and bye-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 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
172 WAVERLEY NOVELS
that I should never find my way through the howling wilder-
ness 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 im-
penetrable 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 dwalt Sae lang; and
having maebody to pledge, mae 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 Otterscape 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;
FOB ROY 173
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'excise-
men 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 mill 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 practi-
cable, 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 moor 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 l’
“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
174 WAVERLEY NOVELS
back again, and spake o' raddling my banes, as he ca'd it,
when I asked him but for my aim 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 jurisdictiones 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 eler 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 with-
out 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 in-
differently 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 eneugh law amang them by and by and that is ae
grand reason that I hae gien 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 we 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 resent-
ment, 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
ROB ROY 175
sure as ye live, his honour Sir Hildebrand is gaun to stick his
horn in the bog; there's maething 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.’ k
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 kend Andrew that asked him. I’ll fight when I like my-
sell, but it sall neither be for the hure o' Babylon nor ony hure
in England.’
CHAPTER XIX
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 slight-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 gener-
osity by exacting from poor Andrew an absolute cession of his
right and interest in the gallant palfrey of Thorncliff Osbal-
distone; a transference which Mr. Touthope represented as of
very little consequence, since his unfortunate friend, as he
ROB ROY 177
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 wadma 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' een, or
ae kindly Scot cheat amither. But nae doubt things were
strangely changed in his country sin’ the sad and sorrowful
Union’; an event to which Andrew referred every symptom of
depravity or degeneracy which he remarked among his country-
men, 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, con-
cluding 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 pro-
sperity; 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
IV I2
178 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 dis-
tricts 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, con-
ducted 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 employ-
ment, 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,
ROB ROY 179
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, unsubstantial, 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 land-
lady 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 re-
ferred 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.’”
Andrew Fairservice, whose disgust at the law of his country
had fortunately not extended itself to the other learned pro-
fessions 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 deter-
mined 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 Mac-
Wittie—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;
* See Note 4.
180 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 pre-
served, 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 mothingness 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
j
WOé.
ROB ROY 181
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 Kirk-
wall, in the Orkneys, which remained uninjured at the Refor-
mation; 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—mane o' yere
whigmaleeries and curliewurlies and open-steek 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 wasma 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 ae fair morning
to try their hand on purging the High Kirk o' Popish nick-
mackets. 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 himsell, 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 dome elsewhere. It wasna for luve o’ paperie; na,
na | name could ever say that o' the trades o' Glasgow. Sae
they sume 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 drive’t 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 XX
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 multitudes which had
lately crowded the churchyard, but now, inclosed 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
addresses her Maker. I had heard the service of high mass in
France, celebrated with all the éclat 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 Presby-
terian 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
ROB ROY 183
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-
wark gaum 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, doubt-
less, ‘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 implored, 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 kneel-
ing 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, there-
fore, 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.
* See Note 5.
I84 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 counte-
nances 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 pro-
nunciation 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 main-
tained. 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 pro-
priety, 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 com-
prehended 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
ROB ROY 185
rhetoric, and more attracted by acute and argumentative reason-
ing 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 dis-
tinguished 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 com-
pressed; 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, ex-
pressive 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 be-
longed 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
ſ
186 WAVERLEY NOVELS
martial and wild look, however, of these stragglers added a
kind of character which the congregation could not have ex-
hibited without them. They were more numerous, Andrew
* observed, owing to some cattle-fair in the neighbour-
lOOCl.
Such was the group of countenances, rising tier on tier, dis-
covered 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 raindrops, which, admitted through some
cranny in the ruined roof, fell successively and plashed 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 im-
perfectly 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 re-
deem the time, because the days were evil. At present the
picture which my thoughts suggested, far from fixing my atten-
tion, 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
ROB ROY 187
Andrew to obtain information whether any of the gentlemen of
the firm of MacVittie and 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 peri-
wig, starched ruffles, or the uniform suit of light brown gar-
ments, 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 import-
ance and attention to the preacher's discourse.
While I endeavoured to make a virtue of necessity, and re-
call 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
188 WAVERLEY NOVELS
danger it directed my attention, or by whom the warning was
uttered, were points on which my imagination lost itself in con-
jecture. 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 deter-
mined 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 dis-
course 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
ROB ROY 189
Andrew exclaimed, ‘See, yonder is worthy Mr. MacVittie and
Mrs. MacVittie, and Miss Alison MacVittie, and Mr. Thomas
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 hesita-
tion 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 meist 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 throughstanes, as if they
wad raise the very dead folk wi' the clatter, a kirk wi' a
chimley in't was fittest for them.’
CHAPTER XXI
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. I never was what is
properly called superstitious; but I suppose all men, in situa-
tions 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 either
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 physio-
gnomy; 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 avert-
ing 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
* 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 (Laing).
ROB ROY 191
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 coun-
sellor 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 my-
self—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 connexion 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 Vermon,
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
192 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 pro-
tracted disputes of those of more advanced age. Notwith-
standing 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 suc-
cessively 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 im-
ROB ROY 193
pertinent 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'thegether 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 queez-maddam in full
bearing; and a naked craig, wi' a burn 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 Vermon—weel I wot 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 Ony
other idle slut, rather than hear what might do him gude aſ
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 wad 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. Fair-
service 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 such like 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, homest Andrew answered, ‘Tell him a bit o' my mind,
quoth ye? Wha wad be fule then but Andrew He's a red-
wud 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
IV I3
l94 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 puir thoughtless callant, Mr.
Hammorgaw; and then the penny fee y
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 hearkener 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 un-
equalled 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 par-
taken 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 un-
certainty of the situation in which I was placed increased every
ROB ROY 195
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 machination 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
196 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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, your life is 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 con-
ductor 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 whis-
pered in this lonely street would make the stones themselves
rise up to apprehend him, on whose head half the men in
ROB ROY 197
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, and which was sufficient to guard me 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
198 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 stame's weight o' iron at every ancle, 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 over-
heard, 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 partizans,
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 XXII
‘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, stified by damp and stench,
Doth Hope's fair torch expire ; and at the Snuff,
Ere yet 'tis quite extinct, rude, wild, and wayward,
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, Act i. Scene 3.
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 interest-
ing 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 experi-
ence 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 l’ and other exclamations equally brief,
expressed in the same unknown tongue in which he had com-
municated with my conductor while we were on the outside of
the jail door. My guide received all this excess of joyful
200 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 l’exclaimed Dougal, softening the sharp excla-
mations 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 mothing,
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 in-
convenient 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 um-
locked 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
ROB ROY 201
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 conse-
quences.
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 drowsi-
ness, “I’ll tell you what, Mr. Dugwell, 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 complaim 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 un-
fortunate 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 masty Scotch jail,
where one cannot even get the dirt brushed off their clothes I’
He rubbed, with an air of peevish irritation, the once stain-
less brown coat, which had now shared some of the im-
202 WAVERLEY NOVELS
purities of the floor of his prison-house, his habits of extreme
punctilious meatness 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 l’
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 ac-
commodating. They had deferred to the great English house
On every possible occasion; and in their bargains and trans-
actions 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, inno-
vated, 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 ea.
cathedrá—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
ROB ROY 203
the contrary, he transacted many affairs through a corre-
spondent 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 some-
times 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 Mac-
Fin, 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 com-
pleted, 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
204 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 Osbaldis-
tone 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. Mac-
Vittie 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 him-
self 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 deter-
mination. 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, maid-servant, and stranger within
his household. The laws concerning debt in most countries
are so ummercifully severe that I could not altogether disbelieve
his statement ; and my arrest, in the present circumstances,
would have been a coup de grâce to my father's affairs. In this
FOB ROY 205
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 / 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 yoursell ahimt
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 pless 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
206 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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, con-
fronted 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 opposi-
tion 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 partizans, 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 ony body 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' whlummle :
ROB ROY 207
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 aſ thegether 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 kind-
ness; for when Owen expressed himself somewhat hurt that
these things should be recalled to memory in his present situa-
tion, 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-queam 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 lawful 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 ament 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
208 WAVERLEY NOVELS
his own superior judgment, yet it was blended with a sort of
frank and blunt good-nature, from which I could not help deriv-
ing some hopes. He requested to see Some papers he men-
tioned, 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 uncere-
monious leave. He made a sign to me to say nothing, and in-
timated by his change of posture an intention to glide towards
the door in such a manner as to attract the least possible observa-
tion. But the alert magistrate (very different from my old
acquaintance, Mr. Justice Inglewood) instantly detected and in-
terrupted 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 mae odds now. Weel, sir, your house
awes them this siller; and for this, and relief of other engage-
ments they stand in for you, they hae putten a double turn o'
Stanchells's 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 mysell, 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
ROB ROY 209
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 Con-
sidering. 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 kend, and industrious, as the hale town can
testify ; and I can win my crowns, and keep my crowns, and
count my crowns wi' ony body 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 ony body else—why, conscience, man I’ll be
your bail mysell. 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 security 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.’ •
IV I4
CHAPTER XXIII
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
and anxious 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 ame—can this be you?”
‘E’em as ye see, Bailie,” was the laconic answer.
‘Conscience 1 if I am na clean bumbaized you, ye cheat-
the-wuddy rogue, you here on your venture in the tolbooth o'
Glasgow'ſ What d'ye think's the value o' your head'
‘Umph why, fairly weighed, and Dutch weight, it might
"10V 0 & HJ, NI ± 0，1 ×10× S（IGIA OOS 101 GH1， 11 vºi

ROB ROY 211
weigh down one provost's, four bailies', a town-clerk’s, six
deacons', besides stentmasters
“Ah, ye reiving villain ſº interrupted Mr. Jarvie. “But tell
ower your sins and prepare ye, for if I say the word 2
‘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 ilk 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 gangthereout Hieland bodies are an unchancy genera-
tion when you speak to us o' bondage. We downa bide the
coercion of gude braid-claith about our hinderlins, let abee
breeks o' freestone and garters o' iron.’
‘Ye'll find the stame 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 dome;
but e'em pickle in your aim pock-neuk, I hae gien ye warning.’
‘Well, cousin,” said the other, ‘ye'll wear black at my
burial '!’
212 WAVERLEY NOVELS
‘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 con-
sidering 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 cearments? Ye had better stick to your auld trade o'
theft-boot, black-mail, spreaghs, and gillravaging—better steal-
ing nowt than ruining nations.”
‘Hout, man, whisht wi' your Whiggery,’ answered the Celt,
‘we hae kend ame anither mony a long day. I'se take care
your counting-room is no cleaned out when the gillon-a-maillie
come to redd up the Glasgow buiths, and clear them o' their
auld shop-wares. 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
imobedient. And wha the deevil's this?’ he continued, turn-
ing 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 Osbaldis-
tone, only child of the head of our house, who should have
been taken into our firm at the time Mr. Rashleigh Osbaldis-
tone, his cousin, had the luck to be taken into it (here
Owen could not suppress a groan). But, howsoever
‘O, I have heard of that smaik,' said the Scotch merchant,
ROB ROY 213
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 dis-
like to the labour an honest man should live by. Weel, sir,
what say you to your handiwark? 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 kend 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 yoursell 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, d'ye 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 galloglasses, 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, Andrea-Ferraras, leather targets, brogues,
brechan, 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 inclosure, 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 astonish-
ment, handed it to 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.’
214 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 Ingle-
wood, Clerk Jobson, Mr. Morris—above all, remember your
Vera humble servant, Robert Cawmil, and the beautiful Diana
Vermon. 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 con-
siderate cast of features; the Scottish brogue, with its corre-
sponding 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 broadsword, 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
ROB ROY 215
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 desper-
adoes 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 mae freedom to gang amang your
wild hills, Robin, and your kilted red-shanks, it disma become
my place, man.’
‘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
216 WAVERLEY NOVELS
to visit me ! 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 stame at Inch Cailleach.' *
“Say nae mair, Robin—say nae mair. We'll see what may
be dune. But ye maunna expect me to gang ower the High-
land line. I’ll gae beyond the line at no rate. Ye maun meet
me about Bucklivie or the Clachan of Aberfoil, and dinna for-
get 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 suld 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,
homest man, could look ower a friend's fault as Weel as amither.’
‘Ye may be right, Robin,” replied the Bailie, after a moment's
reflection; “he was a considerate man the deacon ; he kend we
had a' our frailties, and he lo'ed his friends. Ye'll no hae for-
gotten 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 daurma stay langer in bonny Dundee.’
“Whisht, sir!” said the magistrate, in an authoritative tone,
* See Note 6.
ROB ROY 217
‘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 aim share of the night's wark, but was in all
probability on the full trot to the pass of Ballamaha j
‘And left us, and abune a' me mysell, locked up in the
tolbooth a night !” exclaimed the Bailie, in ire and perturbation.
‘Ca' for fore-hammers, sledge-hammers, pinches, and coulters;
send for Deacon Yettlin, the smith, and let him ken that Bailie
Jarvie's shut up in the tolbooth by a Hieland blackguard, whom
he'll hang up as high as Haman j
“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 kend 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 shuld hae ame 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 Ben Lomond already, where they may
gang whewing and whistling about without minding Sunday
218 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 wad be a sair hair in my neck l’
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 mane 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 º'
‘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 wadma 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 baith
awa’ 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
mista'en 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 suldma 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.
ROB ROY 219
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 gien 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 XXIV
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 homest 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 trans-
port at my arrival as fairly drowned my expressions of resent-
ROB ROY 221
ment. 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 tumult-
uous 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, con-
tented 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 wadma 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 forgie 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 expostu-
lating 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
222 WAVERLEY NOVELS
offended your honour? Certainly a flesh is but as 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 elem thinking Sae,’ replied Andrew, dogmatic-
ally; “for, if your honour disma 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 homestly and wif a clear conscience twenty
Sterling pounds per annum, weel counted siller, o' the garden
at Osbaldistone Hall, and I wasna likely to gie 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 upon 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 preten-
sions 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 himsell, that had come
forty or fifty, or say a hundred, miles out o' his road purely to
ROB ROY 223
bear my honour company, and that had nae hauding 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 gullible 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 comfortablemorning'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 purifica-
tion 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
224 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 Salt Market Grove, in the island of Jamaica;
to his English toast and ale, his Scotch dried salmon, his
Loch Fyne herrings, and even to the double damask tablecloth,
‘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 might, a circumstance which made my question
sound somewhat abrupt when, without any previous introduc-
tion of the subject, I took advantage of a pause when the
history of the tablecloth 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 them, 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 up the cattle line o' dealing. Poor fallow ! he was hardly
guided by them might hae used him better; and they haema
made their plack a bawbee o't neither. There's mony ane this
%.
ROB ROY 225
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
tail o' three hundred kyloes than at the head o' thirty waur
cattle.’
“All this explains nothing to me, Mr. Jarvie, of Mr. Camp-
bell'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 name 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
maething 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' a' 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 enter-
tained 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 observ-
ing 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 smell ame in the Saut Market o' Glasgow. It will be a
heavy deficit—a staff out o' my bicker, I trow. But what
then } I trust the house wunna coup the crans for a’ that's
come and game 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 e'en lay the head o' the sow
to the tail o' the grice.’
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
1W I5
226 WAVERLEY NOVELS
prohibited, and apparently the puzzling, subject of Mr. Camp-
bell, 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
name to be, as he had been tell'd by them that kend, or suld
hae kend, 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 pre-
ceesely : it was the hour he and the deacon his father aye
dined at ; they pat it aff for naething nor for maebody.”
CHAPTER XXV
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 Arcitc.
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 quad-
rangle 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 Wayward-
ness 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
connexion 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.
228 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 con-
viction 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 with-
draw ; 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 talents 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
ROB ROY 229
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 so 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 smeer, 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 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 suc-
ceeded. ‘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
230 WAVERLEY NOVELS
looks, ‘that it was dishonoured in my person and you remind
me also by whom I 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 per-
severing 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—marrow,
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
ROB ROY 231
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 in-
veteracy 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 in-
terrupted 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 other's bluid as it were
strangers'! By the hand of my father, I will cleave to the
brisket the first man that mints another stroke l’
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,
232 WAVERLEY NOVELS
as if for the purpose of enforcing his mediation. Rashleigh
and I stared in silence at this unexpected intruder, who pro-
ceeded 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 aim smeckit instead
thereof in the college yards of Glasgow Or do you, Mr. Rash-
leigh, 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.’
‘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 omy 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 mone of my seeking. I am glad we are inter-
rupted 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 Camp-
bell; ‘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
o' that, man; come and walk wi' me. I hae news to tell ye,
and ye’ll cool and come to yoursell 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,
ROB ROY 233
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 mae-
thing 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 resist-
ance, 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 stand-
ing 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 wasma fashed wi' warrants
and poindings and apprizings, and a that cheatry craft. And
ance mair I say it, my conscience winna see this puir thought-
less 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 l’ 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 aim 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 unex-
234 WAVERLEY NOVELS
pected 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, with-
out 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 gim 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 bye. 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 wunma 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 approach-
ing, I stopped at a small unpretending shop, the sign of which
intimated the indweller to be Christopher Nielson, 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
ROB ROY 235
learned pharmacopolist. He opened the door of the back-shop,
where I found a lively elderly man, who shook his head incredu-
lously 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 would become of the twa
learned faculties '''
With which moral reflection he dismissed me ; and I ex-
perienced very little pain or inconvenience afterwards from the
scratch I had received.
CHAPTER XXVI
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 7' said Mr. Jarvie, as I entered the
dining-parlour of that honest gentleman; ‘it is chappit ame the
best feck o’ five minutes bye-game. 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
ROB ROY 237
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, amang the buccaneers.
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
woollem or worsted goods; and we hae limens 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
muslims. Na, mal let every herring hing by its aim head, and
every sheep by its aim 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 maum 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 remcounter, 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
238 WAVERLEY NOVELS
by the laws o' God and man; and to draw a sword on the
streets of a royal burgh is punishable by fine and imprison-
ment ; and the college yards are nae better privileged : they
should be a place of peace and quietness, I trow. The college
didna get gude £600 a-year out o' bishops' rents—sorrow fa’
the brood o' bishops and their rents too !—nor yet a lease
o' the archbishoprick o' Glasgow the sell o't, that they suld
let folk tuilzie in their yards, or the wild callants bicker
there wi' Smaw-ba's as they whiles do, that when Mattie and I
gae through we are faim to make a baik and a bow, or rim the
risk o’ our harns being knocked out—it suld be looked to.”
But come awa’ wi' your tale; what fell meist''
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 ;
Odd, 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
marrative.
“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 yoursell,
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 mae-
thing 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.’
* See Boys' Snow-Balling. Note 7.
ROB ROY 239
‘Assuredly, Mr. Jarvie,” said our friend Owen, ‘credit is the
sum total; and if we can but save that, at whatever dis-
COunt )
‘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 hunder
punds wi' his former engagements, and haena muckle expecta-
tion ever to see back my thousand pund Scots that he promises
me e'enow, yet I will never say but what Robin means fair by
a' men.’
‘I am then to consider him,' I replied, “as an honest man º'
‘Umph l’ replied Jarvie, with a precautionary sort of cough.
‘Ay, he has a kind o' Hieland honesty; he's homest after a sort,
as they say. My father the deacon used aye to laugh when he
tauld me how that bye-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
bye-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 yoursell
there's some risk in your staying here. This bit body Morris bas
gotten a custom-house place doun at Greenock—that's a port
on the Firth doun by here; and tho' a' the warld 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,
240 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 kennaething
about our hill country, or Hielands, as we ca’ them. They are
clean amither 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 broad-
Sword'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
aim 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 and 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 name 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 7–but the like o' thae grit men wadma mind the like o'
me, a puir Wabster-body; they think mair o' wha says a thing
ROB ROY 241
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 Mac-
Callum 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 mae 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 wadma willingly be in bad blude wi' ony
o' their clans. Howsumever, to proceed—Ye maun under-
stand 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, deduct-
ing 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 j
‘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 homest industry
about the country, cannot employ the one moiety of the
IV I6
242 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 j
“To one hundred and fifteen thousand souls,’ said Owen,
‘being the half of the above product.”
‘Ye hae’t, Maister 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
eneugh 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 l’ 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.
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
nowt—a gallant, manly action, and mair befitting of pretty
men, as sic reivers will ca’ themsells, than to win a day's wage
by ony honest thrift. And the lairds are as bad as the loons;
for if they dinna bid them gae reive and harry, the deil a bit
ROB ROY 243
they forbid them, and they shelter them, or let them shelter
themsells, in their woods, and mountains, and strongholds,
whenever the thing's dune. And every ane o' them will
maintain as mony o' his ain 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 bye-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 name 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 kend between the
Lennox and Breadalbane. Robin was anes a weel-doing, pains-
taking 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 wadgie him a luck-penny to the mends.
I hae kend 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
244 WAVERLEY NOVELS
he thought the buyer was a puir man, and couldma stand by a
loss. But the times cam hard, and Rob was venturesome. It
wasma my faut—it wasma my faut ; he canna wyte me. I aye
tauld him o't. And the creditors, mair especially some grit
neighbours o' his, grippit to his living and land; and they say
his wife was turned out o' the house to the hillside, and sair
misguided to the boot, Shamefu'ſ shamefu'. I am a peaceful
man and a magistrate, but if ony ame had guided sae muckle
as my servant queam, 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 Briga-walking again. 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.’
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 connexion, and he spoke of his friend in his
prosperity with an overflow of affection which deepened his sym-
pathy 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 kins-
man became one of those depredators you have described to us?”
“No sae bad as that,’ said the Glaswegian—“no athegither
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, aſ
through the Lennox and Menteith, and up to the gates o' Stir-
ling 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 aim 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 sae 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
ROB ROY 245
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, what for suld I no engage wi' a Hieland gentle-
man 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 4'
“Aha, lad l’ 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 mights come on. 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 7 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 thorn 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 ame 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 peaceful man's son, for the deacon my
father quarrelled wi' name 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'
246 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 sub-
dued 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 gude 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 mae wark, as I said afore ; and
they lay by quiet eneugh, saving some spreagherie on the Low-
lands, whilk is their use and wont, and some cutting o' thrapples
amang themsells, that nae civilised body kens or cares ony thing
anent. Weel, but there's a new warld come up wi' this King
George—I say, God bless him, for ame !—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 game 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 wasfu' 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 be-
tween 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 ame 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,
ROB ROY 247
ye needna say a word about it, I see weel I was mistaen ; but
I wad believe ony thing o' a stage-player, whilk I concluded ye
to be. But now I doubtna, it has been Rashleigh himsell, or
some other o' your cousins; they are a' tarr'd wi' the same stick
—rank Jacobites and Papists—and wad think the government
siller and government papers lawful prize. And the creature
Morris is sic a cowardly caitiff that to this hour he daurma 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 j
‘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 bye-game some o' the Hieland lairds
and chiefs hae come to some sma’ sense o' their aim 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' Edin-
burgh folk do in real business—for all, or the greater part of,
the contents o' thae bills. So that Aha! d'ye see me mow!’
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, them,' 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.
248 WWAVERLEY NOVIELS
Osbaldistone. I doubtma 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 mae mair use to him than if he were to light his pipe
wi' them. He tried if MacVittie and 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 kend than trusted in
Glasgow, for he was here about some Jacobitical papistical trok-
ing in seventeem 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 wad rather be on Argyle's side than he wad
be on Breadalbane's, for there's auld ill-will between the Bread-
albane 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. But there's ae thing Sair again ye: Rob
has a grey mear in his stable at hame.’
“A grey mare l’ 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 Low-
lands, 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 trans-
actions of London citizens should become involved with
revolutions and rebellions.”
* See To fight like Henry Wynd. Note 8.
ROB ROY 249
‘Not at a', man—not at a',' returned Mr. Jarvie, ‘that's aſ
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 of Spain, whereby the
sailing of the Grand Spanish Armada was put aff for a haill
year. What think you of that, sir!’
‘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 weel
baith o' the state and o' humanity, that wad save three or
four homest 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. 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 busi-
ness 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 Candle Riggs,
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.
‘Dimna despair, sir—dinna despair,’ said Mr. Jarvie; ‘I hae
taen sae muckle concern wi' your affairs already that it maun e'en
250 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 aim. 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 dimma ken wha can. I hae been a kind
freend to them afore now, to say maething o' ower-looking him
last might, 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 mashgabs . 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 homester man than stude on ony o' their shanks.
And what for suld I mind their clavers ? If Rob is an outlaw,
to himsell be it said, there is nae laws now about reset of
intercommuned 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 con-
siderable weight with him. I therefore cheerfully acquiesced
in Mr. Jarvie's proposal that we should set out early next
morning.
That homest 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
ROB ROY 251
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 XXVII
Far as the eye could reach no tree was seen,
Earth, clad in russet, scorn'd 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 atten-
tion 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 athegither. The
stringhalt will gae aff when it's gaen a mile ; it's a weel-kend
ganger; they ca’ 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
ROB ROY 253
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
hasma 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-
254 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 dis-
posed 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 at ween neighbourhoods and nations.
There's maething 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 nowadays.
But it's an ill wind blaws maebody gude. Let ilka ane roose
ROB ROY 255
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 bye-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 ony body tell me that, and grumble
at the treaty that opened us a road west-awa’yonder'
Andrew FairService was far from acquiescing in these argu-
ments 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 aſ the tobacco-casks to boot, hae.
gien up the riding o' the Scots Parliament, or sent awa’ ours
crown, and our sword, and our sceptre, and Mons Meg,” td
be keepit by thae English pock-puddings in the Towerfo'
Lunnon. 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 ale-house, 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
* See Note 9.
256 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 dis-
consolate 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 informa-
tion, 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
kend 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 a wee, the silly
FOB ROY 257
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. Osbaldis-
tone, now that chield's out of ear-shot, I'll just tell ye 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 ame o' his gillies ahint every whim-
bush for what I ken. And if ye’ll be guided by my advice, the
less ye speak about him, or where we are gaum, 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'em 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 maum 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 l’
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 tºye. We are gaun into the Hielands a bit 2
“I judged as muckle,' said Andrew.
IV 17
258 WAVERLEY NOVELS
‘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 lawful bidding
without a nay-say. My puir mither 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 say 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 mae
offence wi' that clavering tongue o' yours, but keep a calm
sough, and let ilka cock fight his aim battle.’
“Muckle needs to tell me that,’ said Andrew, contemptuously,
‘as if I had never seen a Hielandman before, and kend mae
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 y
‘Did ye ever fight wi' them 7” 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
ROB ROY 259
nae word, gude or bad, that ye can weel get bye, to Ony body
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.’
“Eneugh said,' answered Andrew—‘eneugh said ' What
need ye think I wad be speaking about your names for I
haemony 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 Ony 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 neces-
sity 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
horms,’ 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 or 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 might.
CHAPTER XXVIII
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
TOB ROY 261
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 moon-
shine, 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.*
“They ca’ them,” said Mr. Jarvie, in a whisper, ‘Daoine
Schie, whilk signifies, as I understand, men of peace; meaning
thereby to make their gude-will. And we may e'en as weel ca’
them that too, Mr. Osbaldistone, for there's mae gude in speak-
ing 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
* See Fairy Superstition. Note 10,
262 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 betwixt 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 bye there, and dinna want to be disturbed;
and the least we'll get if we gang ram-stam 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 wane, 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
ear.’
y 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 ‘Haniel 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.’
TOB ROY 263
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 wadma like to be intruded on wi' strangers. She didna
ken wha mair might be there—redcoats, 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 flow-moss 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
264 WAVERLEY NOVELS
to Cupar !” To see thae English belly-gods ! He has had ae ful
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 ex-
terior 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 be-
neath 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 greatcoat ; 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 in-
difference. Two were in the Highland dress; the one, a little
dark-complexioned man, with a lively, quick, and irritable ex-
pression 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 maebody but their duinhé-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 chim—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
ROB ROY 265
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 pro-
fusely 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 compotation was not to be
interrupted by any brawl. A mighty pewter measure, con-
taining 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 loud 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
266 WAVERLEY NOVELS
the other party, and returned a hesitating and doubtful answer
to our request to have something to eat.
‘She didna ken,” she said; “she wasma sure there was ony
thing in the house,’ and then modified her refusal with the
qualification—‘that is, ony thing 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 nao 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 smorting and snuffing the air after the
manner of their countrymen when working themselves into
a passion.
‘I tauld ye what wad come, gentlemen,” said the land-
lady, “an ye wad hae been tauld. Get awa’ wi' ye out o' my
house, and make mae disturbance here; there's nae gentleman
be disturbed at Jeanie MacAlpine's an she can hinder. A
ROB ROY 267
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 l’
At another time I should have thought of the old Latin
adage,
Dat veniam corvis, vexat censura columbas.
But I had not any time for classical quotation, for there was
obviously a fray about to ensue, at which, feeling myself
indignant 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 l' and, un-
sheathing 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 Low-
land 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 my-
Self, 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,
268 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 mainsell has eaten the town pread
at the Cross o' Glasgow, and py her troth she'll fight for Bailie
Sharvie at the Clacham 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 gentle-
man, 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.
‘Haud your hands—haud your hands; eneugh dome—eneugh
done ! the quarrel's no mortal. The strange gentlemen have
shown themselves men of honour, and gien reasonable satisfac-
tion. I’ll stand on mine honour as kittle as omy man, but I
hate unnecessary bloodshed.’
It was not, of course, my wish to protract the fray; my
adversary seemed equally disposed to sheath 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 ame might put a kail-pat
through' Saw ever ony body a decent gentleman fight wi'a
firebrand before ?’
‘Let that be mae hindrance,’ 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 arbitrement.
"1.10.181，181 V , 10 NOVHOWTO ºi. Hu, LV NINI GIHJ, NI LH91）

ROB ROY 269
“Gin I hae broken the head,” he said, ‘I sall find the plaister.
A new plaid sall ye hae, and o' the best—your aim 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
kend,” 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, meist
time ye fight, an ye hae ony respect for your athversary, let it
be wi' your sword, man, since ye wear ame, and no wi' thae het
culters and fireprands, like a wild Indian.’
‘Conscience l’ replied the Bailie, “every man maun do as he
dow. My sword hasma seen the light since Bothwell Brig, when
my father, that's dead and game, ware it; and I kenna weel if
it was forthcoming than either, for the battle was o' the briefest.
At ony rate, it's glewed 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 himsell sae frankly''
I’se bestow a gill o' aquavitae on him, an I suld never ca' for
amither.’
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 mae
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
270 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 maebody 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 l’ 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 con-
trary; 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 unassum-
ing 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 a wee 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
ROB ROY 271
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 ma 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 l’ said the laird, with an appearance
of great heartiness. “Deil a word o' business will you or I speak,
now that ye're sae 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 l’
‘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 kend him and his father these twenty
years. Are ye a' cleared kelty aff? Fill amither. 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 these
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 kend 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 disma come often to the Cross o' Glasgow, but mony a
272 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 remcontre. 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 hersell at this hour.
She was a lone woman, and it was weel kend 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 Highland line.’
So saying, she put the pine-torch into my hand, and returned
into the house.
CHAPTER XXIX
Bagpipes, not lyres, the Highland hills adorn,
MacLean's loud hollo, and MacGregor's horn.
John Cooper's ſteply to Allam 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 un-
known 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 gentle-
man—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 ame
Hielandman may gie his friends, and where we will drink a
Solemn health to a certain D. W., 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
IV I8
274 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 pro-
cure 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 homest 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 aim 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 Satisfac-
tion ? 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 mae farther wi' your honour; and if ye’ll tak my foolish
ROB ROY 275
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 mae
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 maebody 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 cousins' pliskies were nae-
thing 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
mae near Rob Roy l’
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 ale-house 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.
276 WAVERLEY NOVELS
“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-
man-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. “She’ll speak her mind and fear maebody. She
doesna value a Cawmil mair as a Cowan, and ye may tell
MacCallum More that Allan Inverach said sae. “It’s a far cry
to Lochow.”’ &
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 mow 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.”
‘For shame, Garschattachin l’exclaimed the Bailie—‘fie 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.
* Lochow and the adjacent districts formed the original seat of the Campbells.
The expression of a ‘far cry to Lochow' was proverbial,
ROB ROY 277
‘And tat's true,” said the taller Highlander, whose name I
found was Stuart, “for we suldna be plagued and worried here
wi' meetings to pit down Rob Roy if the Cawmils didna gie him
refutch. I was ame 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 Glen-
falloch's country, and the Cawmils raise and wadma let us pursue
mae 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 awa, frae Rob as
ye are e'en now. Odd, my het pleugh-culter wad hae been
maething 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 haemae 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 ower 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 a start fair.’
‘What the deevil are ye in sic a hurry for '' said Garschat-
tachin ; ‘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 eneugh. 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, them,” said
278 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 suldma 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 might 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 redcoats. If it had been
to do ony thing 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 refresh-
ments, 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 gaum through the country on their aim
business.’
“Nor I neither,’ said Inverach.
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 rim in his name ; but
one commission being good, sir, does not make another bad, and
* See Slaughter of MacLaren. Note 11.
ROB ROY 279
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 memded.’
‘I am sorry to see how you have been employing your time,
sir,’ replied the English officer, as indeed the honest gentle-
man'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 descrip-
tion.’
‘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 agame the King at Bothwell Brig.’
‘He paid what he ought and what he bought, Mr. Galbraith,’
said the Bailie, ‘and was an homester 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 redcoat 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.’
280 WAVERLEY NOVELS
‘What, a son of Sir Hildebrand Osbaldistone of Northum-
berland ''' -
‘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 in-
creases 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 mone,' 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 1' 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 aim, gentlemen,’
said the Bailie, ‘that's fa’en into his hands by accident; there's
nae law agame a man looking after his aim, I hope 7'
‘How did you come by this letter?” said the officer, address-
ing 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, look-
ing 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 kend maething about it. But he's wilfu' to
gang up the hills and speak wi' Rob ; and O, sir, it wad be a
charity just to send a wheen o' your redcoats 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 eneugh for ony
fine ye may lay on him ; and So's my master for that matter;
ROB ROY 281
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 con-
tinued, 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 ex-
pressed 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' Argyle-
shire 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 kend 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 ony thing 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 XXX
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.
Bomduca.
WE were permitted to slumber out the remainder of the
night in the best manner that the miserable accommodations
of the ale-house 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 with-
out bringing any satisfactory information to their commanding
officer. He was obviously eager and anxious, and again des-
patched 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 acquaint-
ance 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.’
{ ROB ROY 283
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 an 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 re-
member 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 game.’
‘And where are the rest of his banditti?”
‘Game wi' the lieutenant agame 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 redcoats
were doing doum 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.’
284 WAVERLEY NOVELS
‘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 l’ exclaimed Dougal, in the extremity of dis-
tress 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 l’
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, over-
come with the terror of immediate death, he exclaimed,
‘Shentlemans, stops—stops | She'll do his honour's bidding;
stops l’
“Awa wi' the creature l’ said the Bailie, “he deserves hang-
ing 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 bye-dialogue prevented my hearing what passed between
the prisoner and Captain Thornton, but I heard the former
smivel 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
ROB ROY 285
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 re-
monstrated, 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 maething 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, dis-
regarding 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 stopped 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 uncomfort-
ably, for the refreshing fragrance of the morning air, and the
glorious beams of the rising sum, which, from a tabernacle of
purple and golden clouds, were darted full on such a scene of
matural 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,
286 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 Fair-
Service observed we might have ridden over the village the
night before, and never found out we were near it, unless our
horses' feet had “game 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 daresay (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 improve-
ment.*
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, im-
perfectly 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 im-
perfectly 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
* See Aberfoil. Note 12,
ROB ROY 287
a boy of ten or twelve years old, to be seen among the inhabit-
ants 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 expres-
sions. 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
redcoats, 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 Hieland carlines', and sic grew-
Some 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. 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
* See Note 13.
288 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 kend to be better than half a hunder
men strong when he's at the fewest; and if he brings in the
Glengyle folk and the Glenfinlas and Balquidder 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 take back again to the
clachan, for thae women at Aberfoil are like the scarts and sea-
maws at the Cumries: there's aye foul weather follows their
skirling.’
‘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
ROB ROY 289
quarrel amang 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 con-
sisting of a non-commissioned officer and two soldiers, who
received strict orders to keep an alert look-out. Dougal under-
went another and very close examination, in which he stead-
fastly 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 mainsell 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 pro-
gress.
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
IV I9
290 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 com-
manding 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 rear-guard 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, scaled the
promontory by one or two rapid zigzags, carried in a broken
ROB ROY 291
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 unex-
pected apparition of a female upon the summit of the rock.
‘Stand l’ 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
limes 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 Scot-
land, 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 your-
self 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 and mine 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
292 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 for-
Ward, 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 l’ 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 Thorn-
ton, 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 High-
landers 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
ROB ROY 293
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 marrow 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 alter-
mately, 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 antick shapes to avoid the balls which he con-
ceived 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
2.94 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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, XXXI
‘Woe to the vanquish'd l’ was stern Brenno's word,
When sunk proud Rome beneath the Gallic sword—
‘Woe to the vanquish'd l’ when his massive blade
Bore down the scale against her ransom weigh’d ;
And on the field of foughten battle still
Woe knows no limit 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 pur-
pose, 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 sus-
pended. I hastened to join him and offer my congratulations,
which he was at first far from receiving in the spirit of cordiality
296 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 !—to
leave me, first, to be shot or drowned atween red-wud High-
landers and redcoats; 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 repre-
sent 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 drap 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.”
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 con-
siderate creature; and troth, I wad swear he was right about
the leddy, as he ca's her, too. Helen Campbell was mane 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
ROB ROY 297
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 apprised he was
discovered by a wild and loud halloo set up among the as-
sembled 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 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
fear of instant death could have moved him to attempt. The
awkward mode of Andrew's descent greatly amused the High-
landers 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
298 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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. With-
out 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 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 unsophisti-
cated a state (to use King Lear's phrase) as the plumeless 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 depreda-
tions 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 (Iighlanders began to flock towards us from the
highroad, he led the way downwards, directing and command-
ing 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
IROB ROY 299
employed his lungs in obsecrating a share of Dougal's protec-
tion, or at least his interference, to procure restoration of his
shoes.
‘Na, ma,’ said Dougal in reply, “she's mae gentle body, I
trow ; her petters hae ganged parefoot, or she's muckle mis-
ta'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 apprehen-
sive 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 the 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 un-
300 WAVERLEY NOVELS
common, 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 ! etc. etc. 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. Mac-
Gregor 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 kend
and can be proved. 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, Robin MacGregor, as in the fourth
degree of kindred, for j
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!’
ROB ROY 301
‘Vera true, kinswoman,’ said the Bailie ; “but for a’ that
the burn wad be glad to hae the mill-dam 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 every body speaks
their native tongue that they learned in infancy; and it would
be a daft-like thing to see me wi' my fat wane 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 gude-
man, 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 yoursell when ye was gaun to be married,
and when Rob was an honest weel-doing drover, and name o'
this unlawfu' wark, wi' fighting, and flashes, and fluf-gibs, dis-
turbing 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
scorm 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 churles. 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
302 WAVERIEY NOVELS
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 redcoat Captain,
and hims corporal Cramp, and twa three o' the redcoats into
the loch, hersell wad do’t wi' muckle mair great satisfaction
than to hurt ta homest civil shentlemans as were friends to the
Gregarach, and came up on the Chief's assurance, and not to
do no treason, as hersell 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
TOB ROY 303
dejection 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 appear-
ance. 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 pike 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 the 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,
Allaster!’ she said to the minstrel. “Why a lament in the
moment of victory ! Robert–Hamish—where's the Mac-
Gregor? 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
304 WAVERLEY NOVELS
startled to hear Orgies more hideous and ill-omened than their
own, performed in the face of open day.
‘Taken l’ 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 attaimed
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 a pearance 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,
ROB ROY 305
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 Gartartam, or the old castle in the Port
of Menteith, 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 Inversmaid, 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
1W 2O
306 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 you 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
THE MURDER OF MORRIS.

ROB ROY 307
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, ‘O, 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 with-
drawn from the sum of human existence.
CHAPTER XXXII
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 with-
out 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 pirm was fairly
measured off on the yarn-winnles. And I hae muckle to do,
an I be spared, in this warld—public and private business, as
weel that belanging to the magistracy as to my aim 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' Limmer-
field. 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 would you give to the drowning of that Saxon dog?'
ROB ROY 309
‘Uh uh !—hem hem l’ 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 waſ
about. But I’ll tell you’t plain, kinswoman, I behoved just to
speak according to my aim conscience; and though your ain
gudeman, that I wish had been here for his ain sake and mine,
as weel as the puir Hieland creature Dougal, can tell ye that
Nicol Jarvie can wink as hard at a friend's failings as Ony
body, 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 of 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 remcontre, 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.”
‘Them,” she replied, “if a stranger to his intrigues, you can go
in Safety to Garschattachin and his party, without fear of being
310 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 her 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 accom-
panied 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 broadcloth 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 com-
mander, and deliver him this message from me, Helen Mac-
Gregor: 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 loth to lose; there is
not a farmer but shall sing wellawa 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
ROB ROY 311
-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.’
“Whisht ! whisht !’ 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 under-
stood, 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 com-
manding 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 assayed 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
t
312 WAVERIEY NOVELS
which is formed by two ridges of hills, faced with barricades of
limestone rock, intermixed with huge masses of breccia, 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.” 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 picqueted 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 land-
scape 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
* The affairs of Prestonpans and Falkirk are probably alluded to, which marks the
time of Writing the Memoirs as subsequent to 1745.
ROB ROY 313
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 Gar-
schattachin 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 um-
injured. 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 other-
wise; 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 honour-
able 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
314 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 smeckit 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 shelldrake'ſ Na, na; ilk ame for himsell,
and God for us a'. Folk may just mak a page o’ their aim 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 l’
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 omy man o' his day,
was an auld-farrand carle, and there might be some means
ROB ROY 315
found 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 l’ 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 kend 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
horsemen 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 congé. -
‘Now will I wad a hogshead of claret,” said Garschattachin,
316 WAVERLEY NOVELS
‘that this is a message to tell us that these cursed Highland.
men, 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,” etc. etc. etc. ‘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 gaum to serve us the same gate, if we had not got
the start of them at Utrecht.”
‘You are facetious, sir,’ said the Duke, with a frown which
showed how little he liked the pleasantry, “but our business is
rather of a grave cast 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 Inversmaid!’
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 re-
membered. The justice of the appellation was also vindicated
ROB ROY 317
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 appear-
ance 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 mammer was bold, unconstrained, unless by the actual
bonds, haughty, and even dignified. He bowed to the Duke,
modded 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 kend 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
318 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 gentle-
men 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 mem-
bers. However, come o't what like, there's an honest man, a
kinsman o' my ain, maum come by nae skaith. Is there omy
body here wad do a gude deed for MacGregor'ſ 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 masters', who invited us to make common cause
against these freebooters, and have deserted us so soon as the
MacGregors have agreed to surrender the Balquidder lands they
were squabbling about.
No truth in plaids, no faith in tartan trews
Cameleon-like, they change a thousand hues.’
‘Your great ancestor never said so, my lord,” answered
Major Galbraith; “and, with submission, neither would your
E.OB ROY 319
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 its aim 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 to-morrow. You will please grant no leave of absence
to any of your troopers.’
‘Here's auld ordering and counter-ordering,' muttered Gar-
schattachim 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 some-
thing 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 Rash-
leigh 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 XXXIII
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 with-
out falling into the ranks of the more regularly trained
troopers.
In this manner we travelled for a certain distance, until We
ROB ROY 321
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.
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 mo 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 hearthstane, and the fire flashing out
between the rafters o' your house, ye may be thinking them,
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 Brigg-
lands, 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 for-
ward rather precipitately, entered the water.
“Not yet, sir—not yet,” said some of the troopers to me, as
IV 2 I
322 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 l’ 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 villaim. 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, rush-
ing, 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 hallooing, 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
ROB ROY 323
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 pur-
suit. 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 dis-
engage 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 acci-
dents had also happened among the pursuers, whose task the
approaching might 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
mêlée, 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 command-
ing 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
324 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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.”
‘Cleave the pock-pudding to the chafts l’ cried one voice.
‘Weize a brace of balls through his harm-pan said a
second.
‘Drive three inches of cauld airm into his breaskit !” 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 un-
necessary 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; 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
whirling 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
ROB ROY 325
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 Fair-
service, 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
326 WAVERLEY NOVELS
a rent and torm ravine resembling a deserted watercourse. 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 º’ he inquired, with the same command-
ing 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 neighbour-
hood, 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.
ROB ROY 327
“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 re-
main undiscovered.’
And Diana Vermon—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 J
“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
werba.’
While she was thus speaking I eagerly took advantage of
an unusually bright gleam of moonshine to study the appear-
ance of her companion; for it may be easily supposed that,
finding Miss Vermon 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 expres-
sion contended with a deeper and more grave tone of sentiment,
328 WAVERLEY NOVELS
‘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 warm 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 farewell
—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 l’
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 floodgates 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 motion-
less with the packet in my hand, gazing after them as if en-
deavouring 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
ROB ROY 329
to my eyes, glazed as they were by the exertion of straining
after what was no longer to be seen. I wiped them mechanic-
ally, 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
i. bitter tears which had flowed from my eyes since child-
OOCls
CHAPTER XXXIV
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 I
Was ashamed of my weakness. I remembered that I had been
for some time endeavouring to regard Diana Vermon, 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 un-
repressed 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 over-
taken 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 diffi-
culty 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 plaus-
ROB ROY 331
ible 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 clue 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
332 wAVERLEY NOVELS
country. 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 tºother moiety there was
ae 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 mow 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 l’’’ he exclaimed. ‘The curse of
Cromwell on me if I wad hae wished better sport than to see
cousin Nicol Jarvie singe Inverach'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 hose-net 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 mentiomed 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 mame? She passed but
now, along with a gentleman who seemed to use a style of
authority.’
ROB ROY 333
‘Ay, ay!’ answered Rob, ‘she's under lawful authority now ;
and full time, for she was a daft hempie. But she's a mettle
queam. It's a pity his Excellency is a thought eldern. The
like o' yoursell 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 any-
thing 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 ame 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 folks' corn; but I think that camma 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 country-side ; 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 aim 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,
334 WAVERLEY NOVELS
whilk I thought was very like to be ament Garschattachin and
a party of the Lennox declaring themselves for King James.
Faith, but I kend 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 kend
your kinsman, being, wi' pardon, a slippery loom himsell, is
prone to employ those of his aim 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 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'ſ Damnation l’ 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 l’
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 maebody
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.
ROB ROY 335
“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 forgathered wi' Rashleigh sooner than I
expected.’
The first part of this answer was what most forcibly struck
II].62.
‘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 aim hand, or, having a sort of business of my
aim 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
336 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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, ‘kend 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 5
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-faur'd accident at the Loch. Na, na, his
Excellency kend 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 himsell upon you,
that he had nae grit favour to frae the beginning; and then
Miss Die, she maun hae us sweep up aſ 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 º'
‘Mine? it was none of mine. No man can Say I ever laid
my burden on other folks' 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
kend far ower mony secrets to be lightlied in a matter o’ that
ROB ROY 337
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 ‘Gregarach,” in the deep and commanding voice of
my companion, was answeréd 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 glad-
mess. 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 every-
where else; for, before MacGregor could be permitted to enter
1 V 22
338 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 trans-
late 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 neighbour-
ing huts, some cursing the Duke and Garschattachim, 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 accommo-
dation, 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 tak 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 hopeful 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
*NVIO SIH X-GI GIGIIN 00：10： Aw x0x1 {{0}1

ROB ROY 339
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 amon; I maum begin, as in
reason, wi' those of my kinsman. I presume, Robin, there's
maebody 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' ony 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 yoursell 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—out-putting this personal
reason of complaint—I hae that to say o' your wife j
“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 dimna approve of making mis-
chief 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 ame aye chances to see in the indict-
ments at the Western circuits for cow-lifting, at the instance
340 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 maething 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 aim connexions in a Christian land.’
‘If they could, kinsman,’ said MacGregor, with great in-
difference, ‘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 maething whatever to
purpose.’
‘Umph l’ 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 maething better than that
they had better no ken that neither. Tell me yoursell, Rob,
what has a this cutting, and stabbing, and shooting, and
driving of dirks, whether through human flesh or fir deals,
dune for yoursell? and werena, ye a happier man at the tail o'
your mowt-bestial, when ye were in an honest calling, than
ever ye hae been since, at the head o' your Hieland kernes and
gallyglasses'
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 yoursell, that it wad be a pity
to bring up twa hopefu'lads to sic a godless trade as your aim,
ROB ROY 341
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 5
He saw a storm gathering on Rob's brow, which probably
induced him to throw im, as a Sweetener of an obnoxious pro-
position, what he had reserved to crown his own generosity, had
it been embraced as an acceptable one. “And, Robin, lad, ye
needma look sae glum, for I'll pay the prentice-fee, and never
plague ye for the thousand merks neither.’
‘Ceade millia diaowl—hundred thousand devils l’ 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 l’
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 Mac-
Amaleister, bring me my sporram.’
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,
342 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 folks' 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, publing 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 mae 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 l’ 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 eye-
brow, and, as he looked at me, directing a glance towards Mr.
ROB ROY 343
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 dis-
charges, 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,
344 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 XXXV
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.
Cowmt Basil.
‘I KEN not what to make of you, Mr. Osbaldistone,’ said Mac-
Gregor, 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 aim
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, com-
sidering what I have been—what I have been forced to be-
come—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
346 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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, stigma-
tised 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 pro-
scribe—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, dis-
honoured 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 ae 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
ROB ROY 347
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 diffi-
culty, and even impossibility, of the task.
‘We have extensive connexions 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 eyelash.’ He dashed the moisture
from his long grey eyelash and shaggy red eyebrow 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; them 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.
348 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 smort 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. Baillie and Whittington—where's Baillie 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 garme 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; matheless, 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 ye 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 ame 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 bye-ganging; and I doubt your road's Waur marked
now than it was them.’
‘The mair need not to travel it ower often, kinsman,’ replied
Rob ; ‘but I'se send round your mags to the ferry wi' Dougal
Gregor, wha is converted for that purpose into the Bailie's man,
ROB ROY 349
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 kend 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 recom-
mended 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 anything 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,
350 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 marrowness 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 trod 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 would 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 re-
membrance 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,
* See Note 14.
ROB ROY 351
not to have all the lands that ever were owned by Mac-
Gregor.’
“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 enough. 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 2
‘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 wild-cat out of an ivy-tod, for ye are to under-
stand 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 wasma 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
dousely 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 ony thing, was egged on by him and some of the Low-
land 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 be-
fore my dirk and his best bluid are weel acquainted thegither l’
He pronounced the last threat with an ominous frown, and
the appropriate gesture of his hand upon his dagger.
352 WAVERLEY NOVELS
‘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 agent.’
‘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 gentle-
men 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 dis-
paragement 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
ROB ROY 353
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 who 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.
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
matural objects of grandeur proper to his country might have
the full effect on the mind 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, slant-
ing 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
IV 23
354 WAVERLEY NOVELS
wheeling around its flinty margin, they made a second pre-
cipitous 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 matural 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 com-
pletely armed. There was, accordingly, a good deal of for-
mality 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 in-
stinctively drew back and settled his wig, and addressing her-
self to me—“you also are welcome. You came,” she added,
ROB ROY 355
‘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 ac-
quired 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 them-
selves 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 over-
whelmed by a countryman with a tone of bitter and fluent up-
braiding, 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 re-
freshment 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 com-
monplace maxim of morality; but the calm and melancholy
sternness of her countenance bore down and disconcerted the
356 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 mought 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.
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 XXXVI
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 innumer-
able 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,
358 WAVERLEY NOVELS
equally good-tempered and Sagacious, he understood well the
danger of incurring unnecessary odium. I learnt with pleasure
that he had caused the captives of the preceding day to be liber-
ated in Safety ; and many traits of mercy, and even 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 occupa-
tions 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 any body 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 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 body-guard.
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 sur-
rounded; 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.
ROB ROY 359
The Bailie had also his speculations, but they were of Some-
what 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.’
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-car-
riage, so that coal-barges and gabbards should pass as easily be-
tween 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, Sumer 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. 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 mainsell 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
* See Note 15,
360 WAVERLEY NOVELS
known, until overcome by his clannish prejudices on the un-
expected 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 them, 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 express-
ing with enthusiasm my sense of its matural 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 l’
The homest 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 upstairs
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
FOB ROY 361
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 eyelids 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 obliga-
tions 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 con-
ceived 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 accommoda-
tion ; 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.
362 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 mae 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 trans-
acted 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 re-
duced 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 inexpress-
ible 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 Ser-
vice, doubtless I and my honourable father, whom Providence
had blessed wi' the means, wadna Suffer a puir lad to sit down
ROB ROY 363
wi' the loss; a stand o' claes was nae great matter to an Osbaldis-
tone, be praised for't especially to an auld 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 other-
wise, 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 ony thing 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
364 WAVERLEY NOVELS
Serving-man o' yours to say naething neither. I wadna for
ever sae muckle that even the lassock Mattie kend ony thing
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 pro-
ceeded, 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 byeword,
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 mae 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 XXXVII
‘Come ye hither, my “six” pood 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 mad-
man, 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 con-
founded 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! Odd, 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.
366 WAVERLEY NOVELS
_-
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 Scot-
land. 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 pre-
maturely, 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 con-
sideration 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 Dumfries-shire
and the neighbouring counties of England. In this quarter
gentlemen of the Tory interest were already in motion, muster-
ing 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 occa-
sions 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
ROB ROY 367
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 Eng-
land. The unfortunate Earl of Derwentwater had taken arms in
the cause along with General Forster. My poor uncle, Sir Hilde-
brand, 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 be-
queathed 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 Vermon
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
368 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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, notwithstand-
ing his infernal temper, he had a grain or two of more sense
than belonged to the rest of the brotherhood, Rashleigh always
excepted.
Percival, 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 broken-hearted by these suc-
cessive 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 near
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, re-
commending to me, with his last breath, a cast of hawks
which he had at the Hall, and a black spaniel bitch, called Lucy.
ROB ROY 369
My poor uncle seemed beaten down to the very earth by his
family calamities, and the circumstances in which he unex-
pectedly 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 halloo, ‘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 Ingle-
wood, 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 chaplaim 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
IV 24
370 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 only like the fox in the fable, contemming
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, corro-
borated 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 the property to Frank, the
natural heir, and he was determined the bequest should take
effect.”
In the meantime Tashleigh was not altogether a con-
temptible 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 matural 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 con-
vert 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 com-
merce, 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 in-
timated 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
ROB ROY 371
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 accom-
panied 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 re-
ceived 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 con-
tracted 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–d,
men cannot be fattened like poultry when they see their neigh-
bours 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,
37.2 WAVERLEY NOVELS
unless it were by the art, which he possessed in no inconsider-
able 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 remark-
able 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
matural 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 com-
menced 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 occa-
sion 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 téte-à-tête, 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 )
ROB ROY 373
“Pooh pooh his Excellency and his Lordship's all a hum-
bug now, you know—mere St. Germains titles; Earl of Beau-
champ and ambassador plenipotentiary from France, when the
Duke Regent of Orleans scarce knew that he lived, I daresay !
But you must have seen old Sir Frederick Vernon at the Hall,
when he played the part of Father Vaughan 7
‘Good Heavens ! then Vaughan was Miss Vernon's father l’
“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 ; f
For though your stocking be of silk,
Your knees near kiss the ground, aground, aground.’”
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 Vermon’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 Fen-
wick’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 informa-
tion 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
* This pithy verse occurs, it is believed, in Shadwell's play of Bury Fair.
374 WAVERLEY NOVELS
five minutes' purchase if he had been discovered to the govern-
ment. 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 Overthrow-
ing an established government. Sir Frederick Vernon, or, as
he was called among the Jacobites, his Excellency Wiscount
Beauchamp, had, with his daughter, some difficulty in escaping
the consequences of Rashleigh's information. Here Mr. Ingle-
wood’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, agreeable
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
ROB ROY 375
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 over might, 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.’ w
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 Wolds.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
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 Vermon 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 motes of the horn,
and strained my eye on 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 hunts-
man, 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
ROB ROY - 377
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 build-
ing, 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 him-
self 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 beam 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 dis-
tressed, 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, explaiming 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 Hilde-
378 WAVERLEY NOVELS
brand 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 aim reek's better than other folks' fire,’ said Andrew ;
‘ his honour likes the library. He's name 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 himsell, that would face and out-face
ROB ROY 379
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 awful 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 recom-
mended 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
380 WAVERIEY NOVELS
the poor gentlemen that have been in trouble. But he's a
Dissenter, and I suppose that's enough nowadays.”
Having thus far given vent to his feelings, to which, how-
ever, 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 con-
fused 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 1’
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 Waughan, 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 Diama 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
ROB ROY 381
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 Vermon
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
to-night, 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
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.
382 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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, conclud-
ing 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 Rash-
leigh, 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 Derwent-
water, with Forster, Kenmure, Winterton, and others, were as-
sembling forces on the Border. As my connexions 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 l’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 copped up by a
FOB ROY 383
superior force in the little town of Preston. We defended our-
selves resolutely 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 highroad 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 reli-
gious 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 sub-
mitting to your mercy.’
Thus ended Sir Frederick's 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 digni-
384 WAVERLEY NOVELS
fied 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 under-
stood 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 pro-
tection.’
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 XXXIX
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 marrow 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 contemmed, them,' 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
IV - 25
\
386 WAVERLEY NOVELS
roof at least, mo 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 call'd another, Abra came.
I alternately gave way to these thoughts and struggled
against them, sometimes yielding to a mood of melting tender-
ness 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
ROB ROY 387
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 Iarose, 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 my-
self 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 exe-
cutioners, 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 pro-
ceeded 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
388 WAVERILEY NOVELS
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 maething 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 downstairs; 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 Rash-
leigh'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 l’ 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 Thirteenth
of King William, Chapter Third.’
ROB ROY 389
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, gentle-
man, accused of misprision of treason. It was a case in which
resistance would have been madness; I therefore, after capitu-
lating 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, with-
out 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 Vermon and his daughter as
prisoners. ‘The fox,’ he said, ‘knew his old earth, but he for-
got it could be stopped by a careful huntsman. I had not for-
got 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 l’
“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
umy best,’ said he, looking upwards, “to atome for my errors.”
I could hold no longer. I had designed to watch their pro-
ceedings 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 villainy 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
390 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 the house and property in my name, and turn
out the doating 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 might air on foot or on horse-
back 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 l’
He was turned out of the house, together with Syddall,
without being allowed to conclude his lamentation. His ex-
pulsion, 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 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,
ROB ROY 391
who take care of those droves, to quarter themselves after
night upon the best uninclosed grass-ground they can find,
and depart before daybreak 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 kend; 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 barri-
cade 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 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 Highlandman,
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.
392 WAVERLEY NOVELS
‘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
off in different directions. Rashleigh, meanwhile, had dis-
mounted, 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 l’ 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 over he was in his
life, who had only taken this recumbent posture to avoid the
T
DEATH OF RASHLEIGH, :


~~~ ROB ROY 393
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 com-
prehended 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, how-
over, 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 him-
self 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 one iota of my feel-
ings 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
394 WAVERLEY NOVELS
Ilie 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 patri-
mony has become yours. Take it,” he said, ‘and may the curse
of a dying man cleave to it !’
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 pain-
ful 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
entrusted 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 meet-
ing 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
ROB ROY 395
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 gentle-
man 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 con-
vent, 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 power-
ful enemies, and that he even obtained, to a certain degree,
the connivance of government to his self-elected office of Pro-
tector 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 con-
cluded 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
396 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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
affairs.]
APPENDICES TO INTRODUCTION
NO. I
ADWERTISEMENT FOR APPREHENSION OF ROB ROY
(From the Edinburgh. Evening Courant, June 18 to June 20, A.D. 1712. No. 1058.)
‘THAT Robert Campbell, commonly known by the name of Rob Roy Mac-
Gregor, being lately intrusted by several noblemen and gentlemen with
considerable sums for buying cows for them in the Highlands, has treacher-
ously gone off with the money, to the value of £1000 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 keeper 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 cash 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 MIR.
GRAHAM OF KILLEARN
THE DUKE OF MONTROSE TO —”
‘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
* 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. (But see PostScript, p. 403.)
398 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 fre-
quently 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 countrie
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 keep’t 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 gunns in att the window of the room where
he was sitting, while he himself at the same time with others entered att the
door, with cocked pistols, and made Mr. Grahame prisoner, carreing 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 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, depreda-
tions, and murders, and have been the constant harbourers and entertainers
of vagabonds and loose people. From the time of the Revolution be 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 reallie 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 over-
burdened with debts, he quitted his ordinary residence and removed some
twelve or sixteen miles farther into the Highlands, puting himself under the
protection of the Earl of Broadalbin. When my Lord Cadogan was in the
Highlands he ordered his house att this place to be burnt, which your Lord-
ship 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 sur-
prise 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 Independant 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 country, 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 party's 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 had 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 this 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 county, went
along with the party that marched from Stirling ; and, doubtless, will now
APPENDICES TO INTRODUCTION 399
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 forsee 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 Secur-
ing the peace of the countrie; and in that view spoak 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 verie 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. Lordss, most humble and
“obedient servant,
‘MONTROSE.’
COPY OF GRAHAM OF KILLEARN's LETTER INCLOSED 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 referr 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 soune 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 carryes me, all the money I received this day,
my books and bonds for entress, not yet paid, along with him, with assur-
ances of hard usage if any partys are sent after him. The sum I received
this day, conform to the nearest computation I can make before severll. Of
the gentlemen, is £3227 2s. 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 subr. ‘JOHN GRAHAME.’
THE DUKE OF MONTROSE TO
28th 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 to have it
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
400 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 con-
tinually 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.'
NO. III
CHALLENGE BY ROB ROY
(See Introduction, p. xxii)
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 retreve both is to treat Rob Roy like himself, in appointing your 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 combate. 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 gentlemany expedient,
then let your Desyre of Peace restur what you have robed from me by the
tirranny of your present cituation, otherwise your overthrowe or ruin 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 war be frightful, and chuse you which,
your good friend or mortal enemy.'
This singular rhodomontade is inclosed in a letter to a friend of Rob
Roy, probably a retainer of the Duke of Argyle in Isla, which is in these
words:—
‘SIR-Receive the inclosed paper, qh you are taking your Botle; it will
divert yourself and comrades. I got no news since J saw you, only qt we had
before about the Spainyards is like to continue. If I get any account about
them I'le be sure to let you here of it, and till then I will not write any more
till I have more accounts. I am, Sir, your affect. Cn [cousin) and most
humble servant, RO : ROY,
‘ARGYLE, 1719.'
Addressed, To Mr. Patrick Anderson,
At Ilay—These.
The seal, a stag—no bad emblem
of a wild catheran.
It appears from the envelope that Rob Roy still continued to act as
intelligencer to the Duke of Argyle and his agents. The news 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 Glenshiel in the preceding year, 1718.
APPENDICES TO INTRODUCTION 401
NO. IV
FROM ROBERT CAMPBELL, alias M'GREGOR, COMMONLY
CALLED ROB ROY, TO FIELD-MARSHAL WADE,
Then receiving the submission of disaffected Chieftains and Clans.”
‘SIR-The great humanity with which you have constantly acted in the dis-
charge of the trust reposed in you, and your having ever made use of the
great powers with which you were wested, 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 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, that of Rebellion. But I humbly beg leave to lay
before your Excellency some particulars in the circumstances 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 lyable 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, etc.
“ROBERT CAMPBELL.’
NO. W
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 Baby Livingstone He took frae her her sattin coat,
Gaed out to see the hay, But an her silken gown,
And she has met with Glenlyon, Syne rowd her in his tartan plaid
Who has stolen her away. And happd her round and roun’.
* This curious epistle is copied from Am 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 pub-
lished in the Appendix to an Edition of Burt's Letters from the North of Scotland.
2 vols. 8vo. Edinburgh, 1818.
IV 26
402 WAVERLEY NOVELS
In another ballad we are told how—
Four-and-twenty Hieland men And they have sworn a deadly oath,
Came doun by Fiddoch side, Ilk man upon his durk,
And they have sworn a deadly oath, That she should wed with Duncan Ger,
Jean Muir suld be a bride : Or they'd make bloody worke.
This last we have from tradition, but there are many others in the col-
lections 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 follow-
ing words from memory:—
Rob Roy is frae the Hielands come, * Rob Roy, he was my father called,
Down to the Lawland border ; MacGregor was his name, Lady ;
And he has stolen that lady away, Aſ the country, far and near,
To haud his house in order. Have heard MacGregor's fame, Lady.
He set her on a milk-white steed, ‘He was a hedge about his friends,
Of none he stood in awe ; A heckle to his foes, Lady ;
Untill they reached the Hieland hills, If any man did him gainsay,
Aboon the Balmaha'! * He felt his deadly blows, Lady.
Saying, ‘Be content, be content, ‘I am as bold, I am as bold,
Be content with me, Lady ; I am as bold and more, Lady :
Where will ye find in Lennox land, Ony man that doubts my word,
Sae braw a man as me, Lady? May try my gudé claymore, Lady.
“Then be content, be content,
Be content with me, Lady ;
For now you are my wedded wife,
|Until the day ye die, Lady.'
NO WI
GHLUNE DEIU
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 manu-
script memoirs, written by a person intimately acquainted with the incidents
of 1745.
This Chief had the important task entrusted 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 partizans
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
Ballechin, as averred in a note (28) on Waverley—commanded the garrison of
Doune. Ballechin might, no doubt, succeed MacGregor in the situation.
* A pass on the eastern margin of Loch Lomond, and an entrance to the Highlands.
APPENDICES TO INTRODUCTION 403
NO. WII
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 interest-
ing 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 partizans.
‘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 is past the house of
Commons and Come before the Lords, which is thought to be considerably
more ample yn formerly wº respect to the Disposeing of estates Canvassing
and paying of Debts. It's said yt the examinatione of Cadugans accounts is
droped, but it wants Confirmatione here as yet. Oxford's tryals should be
entered upon Saturday last. We hear that the Duchess of Argyle is wº 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 wº 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 Edº to acquent the Court of
his being aprehended, & call his friends at Ed” and to desire a party from
Gen Carpinter to receive and bring him to Edº, 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 re-
solved 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
Conversatione he is making some few steps carelessly from the Door about
the house till he comes closs 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 give yr Lady hearty thanks for the Highland plaid.
It's good cloath, but it does not answer the sett I sent some time agae wt.
* i.e. John the Red—John Duke of Argyle, so called from his complexion, more
commonly styled ‘Red John the Warriour."
404 WAVERLEY NOVELS
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 lett 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 3d, 1717.
“I salute y lady. I wish my . . . her Daughter much Joy.'
[This note was printed for the first time in the Abbotsford Edition, 1842-46.]
POSTSCRIPT
THE second of the Appendices to the Introduction to Rob Roy (see p. 397)
contains two curious letters respecting the arrest of Mr. Graham 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 inclosure, of which he possessed only the rough draught.
The originals were discovered in the State Paper Office by the indefati-
gable 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, the 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 Wiscount Townshend
‘GLASGow, 21 Nov. 1716.
% SR,
* 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 Lá. 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 Monteith 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 sur-
rounded 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
POSTSCRIPT 405
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,
“Sº, yr most humble servant,
(Signed) ‘MONTROSE.
“I long exceedingly for a return of my former dispatches to the Secretary's
about Methven and Coll! 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 referr him to what I have written to my Lord Townshend
. this affair of Rob Roy, believing it was needless to trouble both with
etters.”
Examined, ROBT. LEMON,
Deputy Keeper of State Papers.
STATE PAPER OFFICE,
Nov. 4, 1829.
NOTE. –The inclosure referred to in the preceding letter is another copy
of the letter which Mr. Graham of Killearn was compelled by Rob Roy to
write to the Duke of Montrose, and is exactly the same as the one inclosed
in his Grace's letter to Lord Townshend, dated November 21st, 1716.
R. L.
The last letter in the same Appendix, p. 399 (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 in-
surrection 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 trust-
ing Don Raphael and Ambrose de Lamela with the church-treasure.*
* See MacGregor Papers. Note 16.
NOTES TO ROB ROY
NOTE 1.-HORSEs of THE CATHOLICs, p. 64
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.
NOTE 2.--TOBACCO, p. 84
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 think, and smoke tobacco. (Laing.)
NOTE 3.−NUNNERY OF WILTON, p. 89
The nunnery of Wilton was granted to the Earl of Pembroke upon its dis-
solution 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 reinstal 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 expres-
sions on the former occasion, could wring from him no other answer than that
in the text—“Go spin, you jade—go spin.’
NOTE 4.—BARONY LAIGH KIRK, p. 179
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 (Laing).
408 NOTES
NOTE 5.—AN AGED CLERGYMAN, p. 183
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 cir-
. connected with my narratives of which I myself never so much
&S Cll’ea,Dile:Cl,
NOTE 6.-INCH CAILLEACH, p. 216
Inch Cailleach is an island in Loch Lomond, 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 Inch Cailleach, or the Island
of Old Women,
NOTE 7.-Boys' SNow-BALLING, p. 238
The boys in Scotland used formerly to make a sort of saturnalia in a snow-
storm by pelting passengers with snow-balls. But those exposed to that
annoyance were excused from it on the easy penalty of a beck (courtesy) from
tº: or a bow from a man. It was only the refractory who underwent
€ SUOI’Dºn,
NOTE 8.—To FIGHT LIKE HENRY WYND, p. 248
Two great clans fought out a quarrel with thirty men of a side, in presence
of 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
artizan, 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.-[See The Fair Maid of Perth.]
NOTE 9.—Mons MEG, p. 255
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 school-boy knows, the loudness of
the report), ribands to deck her carriage, and pipers 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
1828-29 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,
NOTES 409
NOTE 10.-FAIRY SUPERSTITION, p. 261
The lakes and precipices amidst which the Avondhu 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 [Mr. Jarvie] the terror of their
power. It is remarkable that two successive clergymen of the parish of
Aberfoil have employed themselves in writing about this fairy superstition.
The eldest of these was Robert Kirk, a man of some talents, who translated
the Psalms into Gaelic verse. He had formerly been minister at the neigh-
bouring parish of Balquidder, 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 exist-
ence Mr. Kirk 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 Kirk, author of the said
treatise, is believed himself to have been taken away by the fairies, in re-
venge, 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 Graham, also minister
at Aberfoil, who, in his Sketches of Perthshire, has not forgotten to touch
upon the Daoine Shie, or men of peace.
The Rev. Robert Kirk 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. Kirk 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 mutual 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. Kirk 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 ; Mr. Kirk entered, but the Laird of Duchray, by
some unaccountable fatality, neglected to perform the prescribed ceremony.
Mr. Kirk retired by another door, and was seen no more. It is firmly believed
that he is, at this day, in Fairyland.’—Sketches of Perthshire, p. 254.
* [For a correction of this note, see note to Introduction to A Legend of Montrose.]
NOTE 11.-SLAUGHTER OF MACLAREN, p. 278
This, as appears from the introductory matter to this Tale, is an anachron-
ism. 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,
410 NOTES
NOTE 12.-ABERFOIL, p. 286
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 Graham, 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 accumu-
lated.—Orig. Note. The respectable clergyman alluded to has been dead for
Some years.—[Added in 1829.]
NOTE 13.−WALTER CUMING OF GUIYoCK, p. 287
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.
NOTE 14.—THE MACRIMMONs, p. 350
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 (p. xxi).
NOTE 15.-JEDDART CAST, p. 359
‘The memory of Dunbar's legal (?) proceedings at Jedburgh is preserved in
the proverbial phrase “Jeddart Justice,” which signifies trial after execution.’
—Münstrelsy of the Border, Preface, p. lvi. (Laing).
NOTE 16.-MACGREGOR PAPERs, p. 405
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 Decem-
ber 1711. –See Proceedings, vol. vii. p. 253 (Laing).
GLOSSARY
OF
WORDS, PHRASES, AND ALLUSIONS
AD CRUMENAM, to the purse
Aſ BLINS, perhaps
AIK, Oak ; AIK-SNAG, an
Oak Stick
AIR, early
AIRN, iron
AITS, Oats ;
Oaten
ALCORAN, the Koran, the
sacred book of the
Mohammedans
ALGUAZIL, a Serjeant or
officer of police
ALMANZA, BATTLE OF,
fought in Spain on 25th
April 1707, during the
war of the Spanish Suc-
cession, the French de-
feating the allied English
and Spanish forces
AMAIST, almost
ANCE, ANES, Once ; ANCE
AND AWA, now and again,
occasionally
ANDREA FERRARA, a broad-
sword
ANKER, a cask of wine or
Spirits, containing about
8 gallons
ARCHILowe, a peace-offer-
ing ; the return made by
One who has been treated
in a tavern
ARCHIMAGE, the name given
in the Faërie Queene to the
personification of Hypo-
crisy; a wizard, magician
ARGYLE's LEVEE, was more
probably written by
Joseph Mitchell, ‘Sir
Robert Walpole's poet'
ATE, an ancient Greek god-
dess who beguiled men
to rash and inconsiderate
deeds
AIT, AITEN,
AULD - FARRAN, AULD-
FARRAND, Sagacious, old-
fashioned
Avon Dow, the River Forth
AYONT, beside, beyond
BAIK, courtesy
BAN, Curse
BAND, bond
BAREFIT, barefooted
BARGHAIST, BARGHEST, a
goblin that appeared in
the form of a horrible
dog, portending misfor-
tune or death. See a note
to The Betrothed
BARIL, a small brandy cask
used in the French (Gas-
cony) retail trade
BARKIT, stripped of bark
BARRICANT, or BARICANT.
Identical with Baril (q.v.)
BARRIQUE, or BARIQUE, a
hogshead, the brandy
cask used at Bourdeaux,
Cognac, Rochelle, and
towns adjacent
BARTLETT, J., author of
The Gentleman's Farriery
(1754)
BAUDRONs, a pet word for
the cat
BAULD, bold
BAWBEE, a halfpenny
BEAUX STRATAGEM, by
George Farquhar
BEGGAR's OPERA, Gay's play
BEILD, shelter, protection
BENEDICT, i.e. Benedick.
See Much Ado about
Nothing, Act ii. Sc. 3
BENT, the moor; TAKE THE
BENT, see List of Scotch
Proverbs, p. 417
BESTED, beset, hard pressed
BICKER, a wooden bowl or
vessel ; to throw stones,
to quarrel; (of a flame)
to flicker, quiver
BIENSEANCE, propriety,
decency
BIGGING, building
BIKE, nest, swarm
BIRKIE, lively fellow,
youth of mettle, “spark'
BIRL, toss, drink copiously
BIRRELL, or BIRREL,
ROBERT, author of a
Diarey—1533-1605
BITTOCK, more than a bit ;
A MILE AND A BITTOCK, a
proverbial expression for
a considerable distance
longer
BLACK Douglas, Good Sir
James Douglas, the
valiant supporter of
Robert Bruce
BLAYE, a port. On
Gironde, France
BLEEZING AND BLASTING,
speaking in a loud, Osten-
tatious manner
BLETHER, idle talk, non-
SèllS6
BODLE, BODDLE, a copper
coin, #d English half-
penny
Bog LE, ghost ; scareerow
BoLE, an aperture
BoFE, a crevice
BOUROCK, a small hut, a
heap of stones
BRAID, broad
BRECHAN, tartan plaid
BRIG, bridge
BROGUE, Highland shoe
BROKEN MAN, an outlaw
BROOMIELAw, a part of
Glasgow harbour
the
412
GLOSSARY
BROSE, pottage made by
pouring boiling water
Over Oatmeal
BUDDIELL, or BUIDEAL, a
small keg or cask in
which spirits were con-
veyed on pack-saddles
from place to place
BUITH, booth, shop
BUMBAIzED, confounded,
stupefied
BY, besides. See Forbye
CA', to drive, work ; CA'-
THE-SHUTTLE, a weaver
CA’D FOR, called for
CADGER, an itinerant
dealer, hawker
CALLANT, a lad
CALLER, to cool, freshen
CAMILLA, the warlike
daughter of an ancient
Volscian king, a char-
acter in the AEmeid
CANET, he sings
CANNY, cautious,
sensible
CAP, cup ; DRINK CLEAN
CAP ouT, drain to the
last drop
CAPTION, arrest by judicial
process, a Scots law term
CARLE, a fellow
CARLINE, hag
CARTE DU PAYs, map of the
country
CATERAN, CATHERAN, a
robber, thief
CAULDRIFE, CAULD, cold
CAUNLE, candle
CAUP, a shell
CHACK, snack
CHAFTs, chops
CHALDERs, a measure of
capacity corresponding
to chaldrons, and used
to measure corn, lime,
coal, etc.
CHAP, strike (e.g. of a
clock); CHAPPIT, struck
CHAPPIN, CHOPPEN, a quart
In ea SllT0
CHAPPING-STICKs, for strik-
ing with
CHEATRY, fraudful, deceit-
ful
CHEAT-THE-WUDDY ROGUE,
a gallows-bird
CHIEL, CHIELD, a fellow
CHUCKIE - STANES, Small
pebbles
CLACHAN, hamlet
CLASH, scandal, gossip,
talk
quiet,
CLAUTS O’ CAULD PARRITCH,
scrapings of cold porridge
CLAvers, gossip, Scandal
CLERKIT, written
CLOANTHUs, a follower of
AEmeas, who took part in
the boat-race of AEmeid v.
CLOOT, hoof, single beast
CLow, clove
COCKET, customs seal or
warrant
COCKLE-HEADED, whimsi-
cal, cock-brained
Cog, Wooden vessel
CoLLEGE OF ST. OMER's, a
college at St. Omer in
Normandy, for educating
English and Irish Roman
Catholics
CoLLOGUE, to scheme to-
gether, intrigue
Coost, cast
CoRBIE, raven, crow
CoRONACH, the Highland
lament, for the dead
CoRPS DE GARDE, a slip for
garde du corps
Costa RD, the head, a
humorous term
Coup, upset ; coup THE
CRANs, be upset or over-
turned; coup THE CREELS,
tumble heels-over-head
Court PLéNIERE, a full,
complete gathering of
vassals, dependants
Cousin-RED, kinship
CRACK, to gossip
CRAIG, the neck, throat ;
crag, precipice
CREAGH, a raid
CROFTON CROKER, T. The
book referred to is Re-
searches in the Sowth of
Ireland, 1824
CRoPLING, a variety of
stock-fish or cod-fish,
from 18 to 24 inches in
length
CROUSE, brisk, cheery
CRow DY, CRowdTE, a thick
pottage made of Oatmeal
CUITLE UP, tickle up, to do
for
CUMRIES, the islands Great
and Little Cumbrae in
the Firth of Clyde
CURLIE-wu RLIE, ornament
On Stone
DAFFIN', chaffing, frolick-
ing
DAFT, crazy ; DAFT DAYS,
Christmastide
DAIKER, jog slowly, hang
on irresolutely
DALTON, MICHAEL, author
of The Country Justice
(1742)
DARN, or DERN, conceal
DAT VENIAM CORVIS, VEXAT
CENSURA COLUMBAS, the
crows escape, the doves
are censured
DAVIE LINDSAY, the popu-
lar name for the popular
16th century Scottish
poet, Sir David Lyndsay
of the Mount, author of
Satire of the Three Estates
DEAN O' GUILD, a magis-
trate in certain Scotch
burghs, who exercises
supervision over all
buildings
DING, beat, pull down
DIRDUM, an ado, disturb-
3.D CO
DIvoT, a turf, peat
DOBBIE, sprite, apparition
DON RAPHAEL AND AM-
BROSE DE LAMELA. See
Gil Blas, bk. v.
DOOMs, exceedingly
Douce, gentle
Dour, stubborn, reluctant
DOURLACH, bundle, knap-
sack
Dous ELY, soberly, quietly
DOW, to be able ; DOWNA,
cannot
Dow'D, withered
DRAB DE BERRIES, or DRAP
DE BERRI, a thickwoollen
cloth made in the district
of Berri in Central France
DREE, to suffer
DRow, cold mist, drizzling
shower
DUINH#-WASSEL,
IllāIl
DUKE, THE, the Duke of
Montrose
DURK, dirk
gentle-
EEN, eyes
ELLWAND, a yard measure
ENEUCH, ENow, ANEUCH,
enough
ETTLE, intend
EVEN, compare, put on the
same footing with
Evidents, proofs
FA'ARD, favoured ;
FAURED, ugly
FADEUR, an insipid colu-
pliment
FASH, to trouble, concern ;
FASHEOUs, troublesome
FASTERN's E'EN, Shrove
Tuesday
FAULD, fold
FAUSE-FACE, mask
FECK, part
FECKLEss, trifling, useless
FEE AND BOUNTITH, per-
quisites
FEMME couvBRTE, 3,
married woman whose
rights vested in her hus-
band, a law term
ILL-
GLOSSARY
413
FEND, shift
FENwick's PLOT, a plot to
assassinate William III.,
the prime agent in which
was Sir John Fenwick,
executed in January
1697
FERLIE, wonder, wonderful
FILE, defile, soil
FIzzENLEss, devoid of
strength, feeble, useless.
Comp. Fusionless
FLAE, flea
FLEECH, wheedle
FLEER, jeer
FLEG, fright
FLEY, frighten
FLOW-Moss, morass
FLUF - GIB, explosion of
gunpowder
FLYTE, scold
FOIST AND A WARMING-
PAN. It was a popular
report that the Pretender
was a supposititious
child, and was intro-
duced into the royal bed
Within a Warming - pan.
An old proverb calls the
servant maid the Scotch-
man's warming-pan
FONTARABIAN FAIR, liter-
ally a marriage market,
held at Fontarabia, at
the western end of the
Pyrenees
FoRBYE, besides
For FoughEN, breathless,
blown, exhausted
FORGATHER, encounter,
meet in a hostile sense
For Is - FAMILIATION, the
condition of One eman-
cipated from parental
authority
FORPIT, fourth part of a
pec
FoundERED (blood-mare),
lame
FOZY, soft, spungy
FULE, fool
FUSIONLESS, without sap,
withered. Comp. Fizzen-
less
GABBART, or GABBARD, a
kind of lighter or barge
used on the Clyde
GALLOGLASS, GALLYGLASS,
an armed retainer
GANGTHEREOUT, wander-
ing, Vagrant,
GAR, make, oblige
GASH, Sour-looking
GATE, Way, manner
GEAR, affair, business ;
property, possessions
GEDD, a pike
GENTISH, a kind of Flemish
linen, presumably made
at Gent or Ghent
GIBSON, WM., author of
The Farrier's New Guide
(1720)
GILLON-A-NAILLIE, the lads
with the kilt, High-
landers
GILLRAVAGING, committing
depredation
GIRDLE-CAKES, thin cakes
cooked on a girdle or
griddle, that is, a flat
iron pan
GLEED, twisted
GLEG, smooth and bright
GLIFF, GLIFFING, a jiffy,
instant, moment
GLISK, glance, glimpse
GLOOM, a frown
GLOWR, gaze, stare
GOMERIL, fool, lout
GORBALs, suburbs on the
south side of Glasgow
GowD, gold
Gowk, cuckoo, fool
GOWLING AND ROUTING,
Scolding and browbeat-
ing in loud tones of voice
GRAILES, or GRADUALs, a
Roman Catholic service-
book containing the anti-
phons and other canticles
GRAT, Wept ; GREET, to
weep
GREW, or GROUE, shudder,
Shiver
GRICE, a pig
GR1T, great
GROGRAM, a coarse fabric
of silk and wool, usually
stiffened with gum
GUDEMAN, husband, head
Of the house
GUIDE, deal With, use, em-
ploy
GWILLYM, or GUILLIM,
JOHN, the pen name of
the author of A Display
of Heraldry, various
editions. The real writer
is said to have been Dr.
John Barkham, Dean of
Bocking
GYAs, a follower of AEneas,
who took part in the
boat-race of . Freid v.
HADDEN, held
HAET, Smallest thing con-
ceivable
HAGGIs, a Scotch pudding
of minced meat, oatmeal,
etc.
HAILL, HALE, whole
HALLION, clumsy fellow
HA' NARRA, have never a
HA NIEL SASSENAGH, I
can't Speak English
HANTLE, good deal, many
HA NUN GREGARACH, it is
a MacGregor
HARN-PAN, skull
HARNS, brains
HARST, harvest
HAUDING, means
HAULD, habitation
HAVINGs, behaviour
HEATHER-Cowe, a twig of
heather
HECKLE, a sharp-toothed
instrument used for
cleaning flax
HEMPIE, romp, tomboy
HERD, the man who has
charge of the cattle on
a Scotch farm
HERD - WIDDIEFOWs, mad
herdsmen, a name given
to cattle-stealers ; wſL)-
DIEFOU, one who deserves
to fill a widdie or halter
HERITOR, a landowner in
Scotland
HERSHIP, plundering
HET, hot
HIE, high
HIGHLAND ROGUE, pub-
lished in 1723; it was
written by Defoe
HINDERLINs, buttocks
HooDIE - CRAW, hooded
CrOW
HoRNING, letter requiring
a debtor to pay or per-
form, under pain of being
proclaimed a rebel
HOSE - NET, a small net
used for rivulet fishing;
an entanglement or con-
fusion
Hough, thigh, ham
HounBED OUT, incited, pro-
voked
Howe, hollow
How LET, owl
Hoy, incite, urge on
HURDIES, buttocks
ILK, each, every ; ILK
ITHER, One another
IMPETRATE, to obtain by
petition
INGAN, Onion
INGLE, fire, fireplace
INTROMIT, interfere with,
touch, the effects of
another, a Scots law
term
INVERLOCHY, where Ar-
gyle's forces were de-
feated by Montrose in
the winter of 1644-45
ISINGHAM, a kind of Flem-
ish linen, probably so
called from Iseghem, a
town in West, Flanders
ITE, CONCLAMATUM EST,
414
GLOSSARY
Go. The thing is now pro-
claimed, i.e. published
IVY-TOD, ivy-bush
JALOUSE, be suspicious of,
object to
JANNOCK, a bannock or
Cake, generally of oat-
flour
JAUD, jade
JAW, to dash; a wave
JEISTIECOR, perhaps from
the French justaucorps, a
tight-fitting jacket
JoCTALEG, clasp-knife
JOHNSON's Lives of the
Highwaymen, by Captain
Charles Johnson, pub-
lished at Birmingham in
1742
JoHNSTON THE HISTORIAN,
Robert Jonston, author
of two Latin Works on
the History of Britain,
published at Amsterdam
in 1642 and 1655
JOSEPH, a riding-cloak
Jouk (duck) and let the
JAw (wave) go by
JoWING, tolling of a bell,
the tongue being moved
by hand
JUDICATUM solvi, acquittal
JUDICIO SISTI, for delay of
judgment
JURISDICTIONES FANDANDY
CAUSEY, for JURISDIC-
TION IS F UN D A N D AE
CAUSA, to have law
declared
JUSTIFIED, executed for
treason
KAIL-YARD, cabbage gar-
den ; KAIL - BLAID, a
cabbage leaf; KAIL-WIFE,
vegetable seller
KAIM, comb
KEEK, glimpse
KEEP A CALM SOUGH, keep
silence ; KEEPIT, kept
KELTY AFF, glass quite
empty
REMP, strive and fight ;
KEMPING, a struggle
KERNE, a retainer or
servant
KILL-Cow, a terrible fellow,
desperado
KILTED, elevated, tucked
up, lifted
KINDLY TENANTS, tenants
whose ancestors have re-
sided for generations on
the same lands
KINRICK, kingdom
KINTAILL, a parish in the
county of Ross and
Cromarty
KITTLE, vexatious, sensi-
tive ; KITTLE CAST, diffi-
cult part
KNAP SouTHRON,
like the English
KNIGHTSBRIDGE AFFAIR.
A Jacobite plot of 1694 to
assassinate William III.
at Knightsbridge, when
returning from hunting.
The principal agents
were Sir Wim. Barclay
and Sir Wim. Perkins
KRAMEs, merchants' stalls
or booths
KYE, cows
KYLOES, Highland cattle
KYTHE, seem
speak
LAIGH KIRR, or crypt of
the cathedral of Glasgow,
scrved for more than two
centuries as the church
of the Barony parish
LAITH, loth
LANG LUG, a great deal
LANG-NEBBIT, long-nosed,
used often of preter-
natural beings
LAPPER, besmear
LASSOCK, girl
LAVE, the remainder, rest
LAWIN, reckoning
LEASING-MAKING, treason
LEDIART, LEDEARD, or
LEDARD, a waterfall near
the north side of Loch
Ard. See Waverley, Note
25, p. 477
LEGENDs, chronicles of the
lives of the saints
LIESNA, lies not, is not, be-
fits not
LIGHTFOOT, DR. JoBN,
Vice-Chancellor of Cam-
bridge University in the
17th century
LIGHTLIED, slighted
LILT, to sing cheerful
tunes
LIMMER, jade, scoundrel
LINDSAY, DAVID. See
Davie Lindsay
LINKING, rattling, doing
anything quickly or
glibly ; active
Lochow, i.e. Loch Awe
Loon, fellow, common
IIla, Il
Loot, let
LORN, PLUNDERING OF, by
a body of Irish com-
manded by Alexander
M“Donnell, the Colkitto
of Legend of Montrose, in
1644
LOUND, quiet
LOUP, leap
Low E, blaze
LUB-FISH, a variety of
stock-fish, more than
24 inches in length
LUCKIE, widow ; a title
applied to a housewife or
landlady in general
LUG, the ear; portion
LYMPHADS, the galley
which the family of
Argyle and others of the
Clan Campbell carry in
their arms
MAIDEN, a rude kind of
guillotine formerly used
in Scotland
MAIN, THRow A, to throw
a cast at dice
MANUALs, the service-books
of the priests, contain-
ing the sacramental
services
MARKH AM, G E R v As E,
author of Markham's
Maister-peece, containing
all Knowledge belonging
to Smith, Farrier, or
Horse-leech (1662)
MARMONTEL's LATE Novel,
i.e. Bélisaire (1767)
MARROW, a partner in
marriage
MENSE, good manners
MESSAN, cur
MICKLE, much
MIDDEN, dunghill; MID-
DENSTEAD, the place
where the dunghill
stands
MINTED, made, fabricated,
attempted
MIRK, dark ; MIRK Hou R,
midnight
MIRZA, VISION OF, by Addi-
son in The Spectator
MISEGUN BEANs, shipped at
Mazagan, a port. On the
Atlantic coast of Morocco
MISGUIDE, maltreat
MISTRYST, to alarm
MoRNING, an early dram
MoULS, pulverised earth,
moulds
MUCKLE, much
MULL, a snuff-box
MUTCH, cap
NAINSEL, ownself
NASH-GAB, insolent talk
NEB, nose
NEIST, next
NEUK, nook, corner
NEvoy, nephew
NEW TURNIPS, RATs, etc.
Swedish turnips, which
were introduced in
British agriculture about
ten or twelve years be-
fore the end of the 18th
GLOSSARY
415
century. The brown rat,
which has nearly exter-
lminated or driven out
the black rat, is believed
to have reached England
about the middle of the
18th century
NIPPERTY-TIPPERTY, affect-
edly neat or exact
NowT, NOLT, black-cattle,
OX6. Il
OPENSTEEK, ornamental
stitch
ORRA, occasional, odd
OWE A DAY IN HARST. See
List of Scotch Proverbs,
4.18
OwsEN, oxen
PACOLET, a dwarf, owner
of a winged horse, in the
legend of Valentime and
Orsom,
PAIKs, a drubbing
PALLADIUM, sométhing that
affords protection, safety
PAROCHINE, parish
PAT, pot ; put
PATERAROES, Or PEDER-
EROES, Small pieces of
Ordnance used for dis-
charging Stones, etc.,
and for firing salutes
PAUCA VERBA, few words
PAUPERA REGNA, poverty-
stricken domain
PEARLINS, a kind of lace
PEDRO GARCIAs. See the
preface to Gil Blas
PENNY - well DING, a wed-
ding at which the guests
contributed towards the
expenses
PICKLE, a small quantity,
little piece
PICKTHANK, an officious
fellow who curries favour
by proffering his services,
a toady
PIDDLING, to pick at table,
drink fastidiously or in a
trifling way
PIEs, a directory of church
services for each day
throughout the year
PIKE, to strike out with
the beak
PINCH, an iron crowbar or
lever
PIRN, a reel
PIS ALLER, a last resource
PLACK = }d of a penny ;
PLACK AND BAWBEE, the
last penny
PLAYING Booty,
treacherously
PLISKIE, mischievous trick
PLOY, prank, frolic
acting
Pock, a poke, bag; POCK-
MANTY, a portmanteau
PoCK-PUDDING, a bag pud-
ding ; a contemptuous
term applied by the
Scotch to the English,
because of the English-
man's weakness for good
living
Pootry, poultry
PortuassEs, breviaries
PostLETHWAYTE, MAL-
ACHY, author of The
Universal Dictionary of
Trade and Commerce
(1774), translated from
the French. See Savary
below
PotATO-Bogle, scarecrow
PoU'D, PU'D, pulled
Pow, head
PRETTY (MEN), used in
Scotch in the sense of
the German prächtig, a
gallant, alert fellow,
prompt and ready with
his Weapons
PRINCE PRETTYMAN, a
character in Bucking-
ham's Rehearsal
PRovoST, a Scotch mayor
QUEEZ-MADDAM, a French
pear, the jargonelle
RABBLINGS, mobbings
RADDLE, beat, “baste'
RAMSTAM, precipitately
RAP AND REND, rob with
violence
RATHE, ready, quick
RAX, stretch
REDD, clear up,
entangle ; advise
RED-wu D, downright mad
REEK, Smoke
REFT, robbed
REFUTCH, refuge
REIK, prank, trick
REISTED, roasted, smoked
REIVE, to pillage, break
REPLEVISABLE, that may
be set at liberty on
security being given
RESET, harbouring and re-
ceiving an Outlaw or
criminal
RIDING THE SCOTS PARLIA-
MENT, proclaiming the
opening of parliament
RIG, RIGGING, ridge, top of
a house
RIPPON SPURs, the spurs
and spur-rowels made at
Ripon were celebrated
RIVED AND RUGGIT, pulled
and struggled in contest
ROCK, spindle
dis-
Roose, praise
Roup, auction ; to sell by
auction
Row, roll
ROWELLING, applying a
rowel or setOn
RUBBIT, robbed
RUDAs, rude, masculine
RUE - BARGAIN, Smart-
money
RUG, good mouthful
SACKLESS, innocent
SAIN, bless
SAP, a stupid, heavy-headed
fellow
SARK, a shirt
SAUT, salt
SAVARY DES BRULONs,
JACQUES, author of the
work (1723-30)translated,
or rather adapted, by
Malachy Postlethwayte
(q.v.)
SCART, a cormorant
Scots MILE = 1976 yards, or
nearly 9 furlongs
SCREEDED, rent, torn
SEID SUAS, Strike up (the
bagpipes)
SELL o'T, itself
SERGEANT KITE, a character
in G. Farquhar's Recruit-
ing Officer
SER'ING, serving
SETs, becomes, beseems
SETT, pattern
SHABBLE, hanger, cutlass
SHALLOONS, a light woollen
stuff, first made at
Chalons in France, and
used for coat linings and
Women's dresses
SHAW, a flat at the bottom
Of a hill
SHELTY, very small horse,
a Shetland pony
SHERRA, sheriff
SHIP's HUSBAND, the officer
charged to attend to the
provisioning, repairing,
entering and clearing
of vessels
SHOON, shoes
SHORE, threaten
SIC, SICCAN, such
SINGIT, singed
SINON, the crafty Greek
who induced the Trojans
to drag the wooden horse
inside their walls
SIR JOHN THE GRAEME, the
Valiant companion of
Wallace, who fell at Fal-
kirk (1298). The epithets
of the text, refer to the
inscription on his sword,
in the possession of the
l)uke of Montrose
416
GLOSSARY
SKAITH, damage
SKART, scratch
SKINKER, one who serves
Out drink
SKIRL, scream
SKREIGH, scream,
SKREIGH-o'-DAY,
peep of dawn
SKYTE, a wretched fellow
SLABBER, slobber
SLASH A HET HAGGIs, open
up a hot or dangerous
business
SLINK, a greedy starveling
SMAIK, a fool, silly fellow
SNECK, to cut with a sud-
den stroke
SNECK - DRAWER, a sly,
Cunning person
SNELL, sharp, severe, ter-
rible
SoN of SIRACH, called Ben
Sira, a Jewish writer of
Proverbs. The Older
Jews understood the
Words to mean Jesus, the
author of Ecclesiasticus
SORN, to Spunge, beg, or
demand Victuals in a
threatening manner. See
Thigging and Sorning
SPANG, a leap, spring
SPEER, ask, inquire; SPEER-
INGS, intelligence, tidings
SPLORE, a row, pother
SPORRAN, purse
SPREAGH, cattle-lifting
STAFF out o' MY BICKER,
heavy loss
STATES, statements
STEEK, shut
STEER, STIR, molest, meddle
With
STEINKIRK (CRAVAT), a
richly - laced Cravat,
loosely knotted, that
came into fashion after
the battle of Steinkirk
(1692) in Belgium
STENTMASTER, assessor of
a town or parish
STIBBLER, clergyman who
has no settled charge
STICK HIs HoRN IN THE BOG,
like a wild bull, get him-
self stuck fast
STICKIT A SERMON, broke
down in the pulpit
STINT, stop, hang back
STOCK-FISH, cod, ling, etc.,
split and dried without
salt ; usually cod - fish
only is meant
STOT, a bullock
STOUP, a liquid measure
STow, cut
STRAE, straw
SULLY, MAXIMILIEN DE
BETHUNE, DUKE OF,
call ;
first
minister to Henry IV. of
France
SUPPLE - JACK, a
pliant cane
SYBO, young onion
SYNE, since, ago
Strong
TAE, TANE, the one
TASS, a glass, goblet
TATTY-Pow, potato-head
TAWPIE, awkward girl
THEFT-BOOT, hush-money,
the receiving of stolen
goods from a thief
against pecuniary con-
sideration
THIGGING AND SORNING, a
kind of genteel begging,
or rather something be-
tween begging and rob-
bing, as extorting cattle
or the means of subsist-
€DC6,
THRANG, thronged, busy ;
bustle
THRAPPLE, throat, wind-
pipe
THRAw, thwart, twist
THROUGHGAUN, a searching
Cross-examination
THROUGHSTANE, flat grave-
Stone
THRUM, a story
THRUMs, the loose ends of
a piece of woven stuff
TIG, touch
TITHER, other
TITLING, a variety of stock-
fish or cod - fish, 18
inches in length
TITYRE, TU PATULE (RECU-
BANS SUB TEGMINE FAGI),
Oh, Tityrus, reclining
under the shade of the
wide - spreading beech ;
hence, playing the pas-
toral poet
ToD, fox ; bush
ToDBOOTH, jail
TONNEAU, a hogshead, the
brandy cask used at
Nantes
Took, TUCK, beat of drum
Toomſ, empty
ToupeT, or Toup BE, the top-
knot or curl of a peri-
Wig
Tow, a rope, hemp
Town, in Scotland a house
and its dependent cot-
tages
TRIGESIMO SEPTIMO EIEN-
RICI OCTAVI, Act 37
Henry VIII.
TROKE, traffic,
dabble with
TROT-COSEY, riding-hood
TUIK, took
TUILZIE, scuffle
transact,
TURF-BACK, turf bucket
TwAL, twelve
TwAsOME, two
UNCASED, undressed
UNCHANCY, dangerous, not
safe to meddle with
UNCO, uncommon, con-
siderable ; UNCO THING,
a sad thing
USquEEAUGH, whisky
WELTEs, a liquid measure
equal to 6 pints, used
in France ; so and so
Imany, Varying according
to the port of shipment,
Imade a hogshead
VERNON SEMPER VIRET, i.e.
Vernon flourishes ever,
read as, Ver mom semper
viret, i.e. Spring does not
last for ever
VIVERs, victuals
WA', wall ; way
WAD, would ;
hostage
WADSET, mortgage, a Scots
law term
WAE, sorry;
mournful
WALLY-DRAIGLE, a feeble
person, drone, Slovenly
female
WAME, belly; hollow
WAPPING, stout, strapping
WARSTLE, wrestle
WATNA, don't know
WEAN, child
WEDDER, a wether, male
sheep
WEIL, eddy
WEIRD, destiny
WEISE, weize, guide, direct
WELL - A - WA or WALLA-
WAY 1 an exclamation of
Sorrow
WHANG, thong
WHEEN, a few, some
WHIGMALEERIE, gimcrack,
fantastical ornament
WHILE SYNE, some time
Since
WHISK AND SWABBERs, an
old form of whist, the
card-game
WHITE's, a London club
where about a century
ago high play went on
WHITson TRYSTE, a fair
held at Wooler, 20 miles
south of Berwick, at
Whitsuntide; a similar
meeting was held at
Whitsunbank Hill, 2
miles from Wooler
a bet ; a
WAESOME,
SCOTCH PROVIERBS
4] 7
WHUMMLF, turn over, up-
set
WHUPPIT Awa, whipped
away, carried off
WIGHT, valiant, courage-
OllS
WILL TO CUPAR MAUN TO
CUPAR, a wilful man
must have his way
WINNA, will not
WINNLE, a frame for Wind-
ing yarn
WINTERTON, the Earl of
Wintoun is meant
WITTING, knowledge
Won To, reach, arrive at
WOODEN SHOES AND WARM-
ING - PANs, the French
and the Pretender. See
Foist,
WooDIE, a withy. Twigs
of willow, such as bind
fagots, often used for
halters in Scotland and
Ireland, being a sage
economy of hemp
WoundLY, very
dreadfully
WUD, mad
WUSH, recommend
WUss, wish
WYTE, blame
much,
YETT, gate, door
YILL, ale
SCOTCH PROVERBS AND FAMILIAR SAYINGS
- OCCURRING IN ROB ROY
Never put out your arm farther than you can draw it easily back. An instance of
Scotch caution.
Bairns and fules speak at the cross what they hear at the ingle side.
Children and
fools proclaim in public what they overhear at the fireside.
It's a bauld moon, quoth Bennygask ; another pint, quoth Lesley. There's a full moon,
so that one pint more or less won't matter.
This put (his) beard in a blaze.
It's neither beef nor brose o' mine.
Taken to flight.
Better a finger aff as aye wagging.
Taen the bent.
Stirred up his wrath.
It's no concern of mine.
Better cut a finger off than let it annoy by hanging.
Better gang farther than fare Waur. Better go on than stay here and suffer worse.
Better sune as Syne.
Bluid's thicker than Water.
If a bowls row (roll) right.
It's ill taking the breeks affa Hielandman.
If ye're angry ye ken how to turn the buckle o' your belt behind you.
pare to fight it out.
Cadgers maun aye be speaking about cart-saddles.
OWn trade.
Keep a calm sough.
‘Can do' is easy carried about wi' ane.
The SOOner the better.
An intimation of the strength of kinship.
Keep silent, “lie low.'
Voluntary advice is cheap.
You can't do what's impossible.
You can pre-
Everybody loves to talk about his
They were ower auld cats to draw that strae afore them. They were too old to be
played with in that way.
That chield's aye for being Out o' the cheese-fat he was moulded in.
getting his place
Thae corbies dinna gather without they smell carrion.
together without some good reason.
His craig wad ken the weight o' his hurdies.
As crouse as a cat when the flaes are kaimed aff her.
He is always for-
Those harpies don't come
He would be hanged.
Perfectly contented and happy.
Deil rax their thrapples that reft us o't. The devil wring the necks of those that
deprived us of it.
The deil's Ower Jock Wabster.
I had other eggs on the spit.
You have gotten to your English.
All gone wrong (see Ramsay's Gentle Shepherd).
I had other fish to fry, something else to do.
You are in a passion.
See p. 355.
If there's a fair day in seven, Sunday's sure to come and lick it up. The one fair day
in the week is sure to be lost by falling on a Sunday.
It's a far cry to Lochow.
think Over.
Tet that flee stick in the Wa’.
- See p. 276.
Sent them awa’ wi' a flae in their lug.
Let bygones be bygones.
Gave them a sharp reprimand, something to
Forth bridles the wild Highlandman. The Forth is the boundary of the Highlands.
Air day or late day, the fox's hide finds aye the flaying knife.
natural fate at last.
Everything finds its
As fusionless as rue leaves at Yule. Altogether feeble and destitute of strength.
The tane gies up a bit and the tither gies up a bit. They make mutual concessions.
IV
27
418 SCOTCH PROVERBS
The gowk had some reason for singing ance in the year. The fool (cuckoo) has a good
reason for singing once a year.
He has a grey mear in his stable at hame. He has a wife at home.
A hadden tongue makes a slabbered mouth. It's inconvenient to hold one's tongue.
SWallow a hair of the dog that had bit me. After being intoxicated over-night, take a
dram in the morning.
It Wad be a sair hair in my neck. A constant cause of annoyance, and would give a
hold or purchase over me.
I Owe thee a day in harst. A good deed in time of need.
Is for his ain hand, as Henry Wynd feught. See Note 8, p. 408.
Neither to haud nor to bind. Absolutely uncontrollable.
Hawks pike out hawks' een. One thief injures another.
The stoutest head bears langest out.
I'll e'en lay the head o' the sow to the tail o' the grice. I'll take the good with the bad,
Whatever comes.
Set the heather on fire. Stir up rebellion or insurrection.
Let every herring hing by its aim head. Let each be independent.
Slashed as het a baggis. Been in as difficult or hot a business.
Stick his horn in the bog. Get himself into a fix.
Ilka bean has its black and ilka path has its puddle. Every good thing has some
drawback.
Let ilka cock fight his ain battle.
It's an ill bird that files its ain nest. He's a contemptible wretch who discredits his
own kindred.
With iron garters to his hose. With his legs in shackles.
Jouk and let the jaw gae by. Submit temporarily to what is too strong to be opposed.
Gie you your kail through the reek. Give you severe punishment.
Kilted up in a tow. Strung up, hanged.
The king's errand whiles comes in the cadger's gate. The humblest may sometimes
serve the king.
There's nae gude in speaking ill o' the laird within his ain bounds. Don't speak ill of
a man in his own house.
Cool and come to yoursell like MacGibbon's crowdy when he set it out at the window-
bole. See Glossary for ‘crowdy' and ‘bole.’
It just a' gaed aff like moonshine in water. It was entirely on the surface.
Onything is naething. ‘Anything' means “nothing.’
It maun e'en be ower shoon ower boots wi' me. I must take up the matter heartily
and thoroughly, I must go the whole hog.
Ower many maisters, as the paddock said to the harrow when every tooth gae her a tig.
An explanation of the adage, Like a toad under a harrow.
Tickle in yer ain pock-neuk. Depend on your own exertions.
Pint-stoups hae lang lugs. Little pitchers have big ears.
Wind yoursell a bonny pirn. Prepare trouble for yourself.
Plack and bawbee. The last penny.
As plain as Peter Pasley's pike-staff. Perfectly plain, self-evident.
As he can rap and rend means for. Scrape together maintenance for.
Our ain reek's (smoke) better than other folks' fire.
Let ilka (each) ane roose (praise) the ford as they find it.
Shored (threatened) folk live lang.
A sight for sair een. A most welcome sight.
There's sma’sorrow at our parting, as the auld mear said to the broken cart. I'm glad
to get rid of you.
He's honest after a sort. See p. 239.
Never look like a sow playing upon a trump for the luve o' that, man. Don't look so
dissatisfied and angry.
Speer (ask) nae questions and I'll tell ye nae lees (lies). - *
Make a spune or spoil a horn. Either do great things or make a miserable failure.
A staff out o' my bicker. A serious loss.
Has an unco sway and say. Possesses great influence, power.
Clean through ither. In utter confusion, perplexity.
There's my thumb, I'll ne'er beguile thee. . A form of oath.
They had other tow on their rock. Other business on hand. -
Every wight has his weird. Everybody has his own individual destiny.
Them that will to Cupar maun to Cupar. A wilful man must have his Way. y
It's nae mair ferlie to see a woman greet than to see a goose gang barefit. It's not
more strange to see women weep than it is to see a goose with bare feet.
INDEX
ABBESS OF WILTON, 89, 407
Aberfoil, village, 286, 410; bridge at,
vi, 261; inn at, 262
Advertisement, Author's, V
Ard, Loch. See Loch Ard
Argyle, Earl of, relations with Rob Roy,
xiii, 82
Argyle's Levee, quoted, xxvi
Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, translation of,
149
Athole, Earl of, relations with the Mac-
Gregors, xiii, xvi; Rob Roy's escape
from, xxxix, 403
Author's Advertisement, v ; his expedi-
tion against the MacLarens, xliv
Avondhu, or River Forth, 260, 2S6, 311
BARONY LAIGH KIRK, Glasgow, 183, 407;
scene in, 183
Beauchamp, Earl of.
Frederick
Black Bear inn at Darlington, 30
Biack-mail, levied by Rob Roy, xxvii,
xxxv, 244, 399
Black Prince, Frank's verses on, 14
* Bonny Baby Livingstone,’ 401
Brownies, superstitious fears of, 272
Buchanan, Laird of, and the MacGregors,
xiii, xvi
See Vernon, Sir
CAMPBELL, cattle dealer. See Rob Roy
Campbells of Argyle, FairService's opinion
of, 137
Catholics, seizure of their horses, 407
Cattle, recovery of, by Rob Roy, xxxvii
Charlioch, murderer of the students, xii
Ciar Mohr. See Dugald Ciar Mohr
Clachan of Aberfoil. See Aberfoil
College of Glasgow, 227
Colquhouns' feud with the MacGregors,
x, xxviii
Craig Royston, Rob Roy's property, xix,
xxix., xxxiii
Cramp, Corporal, 284
Cunningham of Boquhan, his challenge to
Rob l’oy, xxvi
DAIONE SCHIE, or ſairies, 261, 409
Darlington, Black Bear inn at, 30
Pº. Roy's follower, turnkey at
lasgow gaol, 198; makes off with the
keys, 217 ; at Aberfoil inn, 268; brought
prisoner before Thornton, 2S2; leads
the soldiers into the ambush, 290; pro-
tects the Bailie and Frank, 298, 301 ;
as the Bailie's man-servant, 359
Dºing habits, time of tale, 54, 113,
ll
Drummond, James Mohr. See MacGregor,
James Mohr
Drummond, John, murder of, ix
Drummond, MacGregor, of Ballhaldie, 1,
lii
Dubourg, the Bourdeaux merchant, 4
Dubourg, Clement, 10
Duel between Frank and Rashleigh, 230
Dugald Ciar Mohr, murderer of the
students, xi.; tombstone of, xii; his
descendants, Xviii, Xix
Duncan with the Cowl, ix
EDMONDSTONE of Newton, clallenges Rob
Roy, xxv
Englishmen and meat, 264
Erskine, Ralph, on smoking, 407
Ewan of Brigglands, 330; aids Rob Roy to
escape, 322

FAIRSERVICE Andrew, J 54; reports
MorTIS's robbery to #ank, 132 ; his
opinion of the Campbells, 137 ; his Way
of spending Sunday, 157; reading Light-
foot, 167; leaves the Hall with Frank,
170; carries off Thorncliff's mare, 176;
describes his master to Hammorgaw,
193; threatened with dismissal, 220 ;
brings a Spavined horse, 252 ; reproved
by the Bailie, 253, 257; hides at Aber-
foil inn, 274 ; behaviour during the
skirmish at Loch Ard, 293, 297 ; stripped
by the Highlanders, 297 ; refuses to
carry the Duke's message to Helen
MacGregor, 313; at Glasgow again,
361 ; buys mourning, 362; returns to
Osbaldistone Hall, 376; bids Syddall
give up the keys, 377 ; interruption in
the library, 3Sl; admits Jobson and
420
INDEX
tains Frank and Owen at breakfast,
223; examines the OsbaldistOne
accounts, 225 ; his dinner, 236; his
account of Rob Roy, 243; explains
Rashleigh's motives, 247 ; displays his
interest in Osbaldistone and Tresham,
249 ; sets out for the Highlands, 252 ;
reproves Andrew, 253, 257; quarrels
with the Highland chiefs, 267, 276;
fights the Highlander, 267; arrested at
Aberfoil, 279; gets suspended in mid-
air, 293, 296 ; brought before Helen
MacGregor, 300; protests against
Morris's death, 308; his message to Rob
Roy's captors, 311 ; advice about Rob
Roy's sons, 339; embraced by Helen
MacGregor, 354; his departure home,
357; thanked by Osbaldistone senior,
363; marries Mattie, 364
Jeddart Cast, 359, 410
O ustice's clerk, 66 ; called
to Rutledge, 76 ; shows his anger to
Miss Vernon, 85 ; enters the Hall to
arrest the Vermons, 388 ; his behaviour
in the rescue, 392
KEY, Jean, carried off by Robin Oig, xlvii;
in Edinburgh, xlviii.; her death, Xlix
Kippen, hership of, xviii
Kirk, Rev. Robert, carried off by fairies,
409
‘LADIEs and knights,’ 149
Laigh Kirk of Glasgow, 183, 407
Lean, Donald, or Duncan, xii
Lediart waterfall, 353,
Lemon, Robert, of the State Paper Office,
403
Loch Ard, ambush beside, 290
Loch Lomond, 357
‘Lochow, It's a far cry to,” 276
Luss, Laird of, X
h ABEL #1.” nurse, 31 ; her
3.16S Oi tº Ilê SCOUS
32
MacAlpine, jeanie, of Aberfoil inn, 263,
269
the , officers, 388 ; turned out by Rash-
º 390; meets the Highland drovers,
l
Fairy superstition, 26.1, 272, 409
Flyter, Mrs., lodging - house keeper in
Glasgow, 220
Forth, River, its source, 260 ; valley of,
286, 311
‘Four-and-twenty Hieland men,’ 402
Fox-hunting, 39, 60
Frew, Fords of, 262
GAELIC language, 355
Galbraith, Major, at Aberfoil inn, 266,
276; intercedes for Rob Roy, 314
Garschattachin. See Galbraith
Ghlune Dhu, or MacGregor of Glengyle,
xxviii, x1, xlviii, 402
Glasgow, at time of novel, 177; cathedral
of, 180, 407; college of, 227
Glenfruin, conflict in, xi
Glengyle. See Ghlume Dhu
Glossary, 411
* Good people all,' 71
Graham of Gartmore, on Rob Roy, xxvii,
xxxv ; on the state of the Highlands,
XXVii
Graham of Killearn, seized by Rob Roy,
xxxiii.; letters on his arrest, 397
Gregory, Dr. James, relations with Rob
Roy, xxix
Grenadiers, in action, 292
Grey Stone of MacGregor, xii
Guiyock's curse, 287, 410
HAMMORGAw, Andrew's confidant, 193
Heraldry, 95
Highlanders, their ideas on marriage by
capture, xlvi; in Glasgow, 178; taste,
54
Highlands, the Bailie's account of 241;
approach to, 256
Highwaymen, at time of novel, 25
INCH CAILLEACH, in Loch Lomond, 216,
| 408
*:::::#;" 65, 70; burns the
declarations, ; visited by Frank,
372
Inn customs, at time of novel, 29
Inverach, at Aberfoil, 266, 276
Inverashalloch, at Aberfoil, 266, 276
Invernenty, farm of, xli., xliv
Inversnaid, fort at, xxxv.
“It's a far cry to Loch Awe,” 276
JAcoBrre RISING of 1715, the MacGregors'
share in, xxviii, xxxi.; premonitions of
246, 352 : the outbreak in Scotland,
365; in Northumberland, 367
James Mohr. See MacGregor,
Mohr
James
ilie Nicol, Owen's account, of,
353 visits Owen in gaol, 206; inter-
view with Rob Roy in gaol, 210; enter-
MacAnaleister, Rob Roy's lieutenant,
XXVi
MacFarlane Clan, xii
MacGregor. See Rob Roy
MacGregor Clan, descent of, viii; despoiled
of their possessions, viii; virtually out-
lawed, ix; feud with the Colquhouns,
x, xxviii; battle of Glenfruin, Xi ; share
in massacre of the students, xi.; clan
name prohibited, xiii.; relations with
Argyle, xiii; share in the Civil War,
xv.; Rob Roy, xviii-xliii.; hership of
Kippen, xviii; feud with Duke of Mon-
trose, xxi.; country invaded by Whig
volunteers, xxviii.; at Sherriffmuir,
xxxii; feud with Stewarts, xli ; Rob
Roy's sons, xliii-liv, papers relating to,
410
MacGreg ſamish, reports his father's
$ture, 303; escorts Frank, 311 ; his
|



INDEX
42I
education, 339.
James Mohr the sold
MacGregor, Helen, stops the soldiers, 291;
Tě3. #º. prisoners, 299,
308; second reception of the Bailie and
Frank, 354
MacGregor, James Mohr, xliv-liii; takes
the name of Drummond, xlv. ; at
Prestonpans, xlv.; abducts Jean Key,
xlvii; his trial, xlix; escape from Edin-
burgh Castle, l ; plots to betray Allan
Breck Stewart, l; interview with Lord
Holdernesse, li; his letter to Balhaldie,
lii; his death, liii
MacGregor of Glencarnock, xlv.
MacGregor of Glengyle. See Ghlune Dhu
MacGregor of Glenstrae, x, xiv.
MacGregor, Robert, 303. See also Robin
Oig
MacLaren Clan, their feud with the
MacGregors, xli., 278, 409 ; Author's ex-
pedition against, xliv
Macpherson, Alexander, at Sherriffmuir,
XXXii
Macready, Pate, the pedlar, 133, 141
MacRimmon's Lament, 410
MacWitti he Glasgow merchant, 189;
imprisons Owen, 203 ; in conference
with Rashleigh, 228
Mar, Earl of, in 1715 rising, 366
Martha, housekeeper at the Hall, 139
Mattie, the Bailie's maid, 219 ; her care
for her master, 253 ; made Mrs. Jarvie,
364
Mons Meg, cannon, 408
\—º. with Rob
Oy, KXTXxxiii.; captures Rob Roy,
303; interview with Frank, 313; in-
terrogates Rob Roy, 316; letters from,
respecting Graham of Killearn, 397,
403 ; Rob Roy's challenge to, 400
Iorris, his terror of highwaymen, 24;
travels wi rank, 24 ; tries to force
himself on Campbell, 35 ; robbery of,
63; at Justice Inglewood's, 71; his
charge against Frank dismissed, 82;
the robbery before Parliament, 135;
with Rashleigh in Glasgow, 228; Jarvie's
account of the robbery, 247; thrown
into Loch Ard, 306; Rob Roy's story
of the robbery, 336
Mottoes at head of chapters, 22
“My foot is on my native heath,’ 334
‘My sons weavers 341
See also MacGregor,
NEwgATE, prisoners in, 368, 871
North road, at time of novel, 24, 29
‘O For THE voice of THAT WILD HORN,
14
Orlando Furioso, translation of, 149
Osbaldistone, Dickon, 50 ; death of, 368
/ºfflº, memoirs, 1 ;
l Intel'VleW W1 his father, 4 ;
refuses to take to commerce, 5, 12; his
verses discovered, 14; leaves his father's
house, 21 ; falls in with Morris, 24;
plays upon his fears, 25; meets Camp-
bell, 30; meets Die and his cousins, 40;
seated next her at dinner, 49; interview
with Andrew Fairservice, 54; the
hunt, 60; charged with robbing Morris,
63; arrives with Diana at the Justice's,
68; the charge dismissed, 82; taken
by Die into the library, 92; inquires of
Rashleigh respecting his release, 98;
conversation with Rashleigh, 105;
learns of Die's conditional engagement,
109; ill-temper at dinner, 112 ; strikes
Rashleigh, 114; admonished by Die,
120; warns Owen against Rashleigh,
127; rises in estimation at the Hall,
131 ; sees shadows in Die's room, 138;
urged by Die to return to London, 152;
last scene with her in the library, 158;
letter from Tresham, 162, 165; leaves
for Glasgow, 170 ; warned in the cathe-
dral, 187; meets the stranger on the
bridge, 195; led by Rob Roy to the
gaol, 197; recognises Campbell in the
gaol, 214; enraged with Fairservice,
220; breakfasts with Nicol Jarvie, 223;
encounter with Rashleigh in the college
yards, 229; separated by Rob Roy,
231 ; conversation respecting his pros-
pects, 238-251; sets out for the High-
lands, 252 ; arrival at Aberfoil inn, 262;
receives a letter from Rob Roy, 273 ;
arrested by Captain Thornton, 280; the
march into Rob Roy’s country, 285;
brought before Helen MacGregor, 309;
sent with a message to Rob Roy's
captors, 310 ; escapes from Montrose's
party, 324; meets with the Vernons,
326; with Rob Roy, 331 ; questions the
latter about Diana, 335 ; returns to
Aberfoil, 337; recovery of the assets,
348; departure from the Highlands,
356 ; receives Die's love-token from
Helen MacGregor, 358 ; returns to Lon-
don, 366 ; becomes heir to Osbaldistone
Hall, 369 ; takes possession of the Hall,
377; scene in the library, 380; troubled
sleep, 387 ; roused by constables, 388 ;
marriage, 395
loſſ; Sir # and his
sons, 47; Die's description of them, 50;
his suspicions, 103 ; joins the insurrec-
tion, 367; death of his sons, 367 ; his
own end, 369
Osbaldistone, John, 50 ; fate of, 368
Osbaldistone, Percie, 50 ; death of, 368
distone, Rashleig escribed by
Die, 42, 52, I02; at the Hall, 48; meets
Frank and Die at the Justice's, 68; joins
Die and Frank in the library, 96; con-
Versation with Frank, 104 ; his state-
ments about Miss Vernon, 108 ; struck
by Frank, 114; infamous conduct to-
Wards Miss Vernon, 124; leaves the
Hall, 127; plunders the firm's estate,
162; encounter with Frank in Glasgow
college yards, 229; resents Rob Roy's
interference, 232; his tactics explained,
247; betrayal of Rob Roy, 304; his
treachery, 35l ; discarded by his father,




422
INDEX

367; captures the Vernons, 389 ; his
death, 392
Osbaldistone, Thorncliff, introduction to
Frank, 40; Miss Vernon's description
of him, 50 ; keeps close to Die, 61 ; his
jealousy, 116, 132; his mare carried off
by FairService, 173; his death, 367
Osbaldistone, Wilfred, described by Miss
Vernon, 50 ; cudgelling match with
Thorncliff, 112; death of, 368
Osbaldistone, William, Frank's father, 3,
6, 31, 107; his dinner after Frank's
return, 6; Jarvie's account of his affairs,
247; receives his son at Glasgow, 361
Osbaldistone Hall, 39, 44; dinner at, 49;
the hunt, 60; the library, 92; rumours
about, 138; revisited, 376
Owen, greets Frank, 5 ; remonstrates
with Frank, 17, 19; his letter to Frank,
143 ; in Glasgow gaol, 201; his mis-
fortunes, 202; at the Bailie's, 223, 360
PEEL, Sir Robert, kindness to the Author,
403
Perth, combat at the North Inch, 408
Piquet, game of, 101
Purse of Rob Roy, 341
RAE's History of the Rebellion, quoted,
YXIX
Rivers, Scotch reverence for, 260
Roads, time of tale, 24, 29
Robin Oig, shoots MacLaren, xliii; his
gun, xliii.; his career, xlv. ; carries off
Jean Key, xlvii; his execution, liii;
ballad on, 402
Rob Roy, the historic person, history of,
Vii, xviii-xliii.; a drover, xix ; anecdotes
of, and Edmondstone of Newton, xxv ;
Cunningham of Boquhan, xxvi; Dr.
James Gregory, xxix; at Sherriffmuir,
XXXi ; Graham of Killearn, xxxiii ;
recovers contractor's cattle, xxxvii.;
taken prisoner and escapes, xxxviii; his
mock challenge to Duke of Montrose,
xxxix; combat with Stewart of Inver-
nahyle, xlii; death at Balquidder, xlii;
his family, xliii-liv ; advertisement for
his apprehension, 397; letter to Marshal
Wade, XXXix, 401; escape from the Duke
of Athole, xxxiv, 403
oy, Qf the novel, at Darlington, 30,
33 ; at Justice Inglewood's, 79; con-
nection with Morris's robbery, 80, 99;
warns Frank in the Laigh Church, 187;
meets Frank on Glasgow Bridge, 195;
leads Frank to the gaol, 197; scene
with Bailie Nicol Jarvie in the gaol,
210; opens Diana's letter, 214; his
personal appearance, 214; Separates
Rashleigh and Frank, 231 ; Jarvie's
account of him, 243, 248 ; captured by
the Duke of Montrose, 303 ; his exam-
ination, 316 ; escape in fording the
river, 322; joins Osbaldistone on the
leath, 331 ; regrets his wife's outrage
on Morris, 334; reception at Aberfoil,
337 ; his purse, 341 ; reflection. On his
mode of life, 345; escorts the Bailie and
Osbaldistone homewards, 357 ; rescues
the Vernons from Rashleigh, 392; last
days, 395
‘ Rob Roy is frae the Hielands come,’ 402
Rutledge, Farmer, and his will, 76
SABBATH, Scotch, 183, 192
Scotch, people, Frank's early antipathies
to, 31; character, Rashleigh's reading
of, 98; forms of worship, 185; wooing,
xlvii, 401
‘Seid suas,’ ‘strike up,' 356
Sherriffmuir Battle, Rob Roy's part in,
YXXI
Smuggling, Andrew's ideas of, 173
Snow-balling, 408
Stanchells, chief gaoler at Glasgow, 206,
21
Stewart, Allan Breck, supposed murderer
of Campbell of Glenure, 1, li
Stewart, James, xxxix
Stewart of Appin, xli., xliv
Stewart of Invernahyle's combat with Rob
Roy, xlii
sº of Inverach at Aberfoil inn, 266,
276
Students, massacre of, xi
Sully's Memoirs, 2
Sunday at Osbaldistone Hall, 103; in
Scotland, 183
Superstition, Scottish, 261, 272, 409
|Sºſii is burier at the Hall, 377
TASTE of Highlanders, 354
‘The Indian leaf,’ 84
hiº arrives at Aberfoil,
; cross-examines Dougal, 283 ; the
march to Loch Ard and attack, 285-
294; sends his compliments to Rob
Roy's captors, 310
Title, origin of, vii
Tobacco, song on, 84, 407
Tºpe Andrew Fairservice's friend,
6
l
Tresham, Will, addressed by Osbaldis-
tone, 1, et passim ; letter from his
father regarding Rashleigh's pecula-
tions, 162, 165
Twineall, the clerk, 19
WAUGHAN, Father, 145. See Vernon, Sir
Frederick
Vº Die, described, 40, 53, 57; first
meeting with, 40; at dinner, 49 ; de-
scribes her cousins, 50 ; contempt for
compliments, 50, 149; accompanies
Frank to the Justice's, 64; meeting
with Rashleigh there, 68 ; threatened
by Jobson, 87; refuses to answer
Frank's questions, 90 ; introduces him
to the library, 92; her studies, 93, 129;
admonishes him for his misconduct,
120; demands a recital of Rashleigh's
conversation, 121 ; intercourse with
Father Vaughan, 145; urges Frank to
leave the Hall, 152; glove scene with
INDEX 423
Frank in the library, 158; meets Frank
in the Highlands, 826; Rob Roy's
account of, 836; information about,
from Justice Inglewood, 372; enters
the library with her father, 380; made
prisoner by Rashleigh, 389; rescued
by Rob Roy, 392; marriage, 395
*...*rē-ă;” meets Osbaldis-
tone near erfoiſ, 326; his history,
372; seeks the protection of Osbaldis-
tone, 380; account of his movements,
382; made prisoner by Rashleigh, 389;
rescued by Rob Roy, 392
Vernons, the, 94, 96
WADE, Marshal, letter from Rob Roy,
xxxix, 401
Wardlaw, the land-steward, 378
Whig volunteers, invade MacGregors'
country, xxviii
Wightman, Mr., of Mauldsly, xlviii
Wilton, Abbess of, 89, 407
Wooing, forcible, in the Highlands, xlvii,
401
Wordsworth's verses on Rob Roy, xxiv.
Worship in Scotland, 185
Wright, Jean, carried off by Robin Oig,
xlvii. See Rey, Jean
Wynd, Henry, of Perth, 248, 408
END OF ROB ROY
Printed by R. & R. CLARK, Edinburgh
3.- ***
DD NOT REMOVE
[]R
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