Rob Roy Part 11

There was something in the familiarity of this introduction which ill suited the exalted state of temper of the person to whom it was addressed, then busied with distributing dooms of death, and warm from conquest in a perilous encounter.

"What fellow are you," she said, "that dare to claim kindred with the MacGregor, and neither wear his dress nor speak his language?--What are you, that have the tongue and the habit of the hound, and yet seek to lie down with the deer?"

"I dinna ken," said the undaunted Bailie, "if the kindred has ever been weel redd out to you yet, cousin--but it's ken'd, and can be prov'd. My mother, Elspeth MacFarlane, was the wife of my father, Deacon Nicol Jarvie--peace be wi' them baith!--and Elspeth was the daughter of Parlane MacFarlane, at the Sheeling o' Loch Sloy. Now, this Parlane MacFarlane, as his surviving daughter Maggy MacFarlane, alias MacNab, wha married Duncan MacNab o' Stuckavrallachan, can testify, stood as near to your gudeman, Robert MacGregor, as in the fourth degree of kindred, for"-- The virago lopped the genealogical tree, by demanding haughtily, "If a stream of rushing water acknowledged any relation with the portion withdrawn from it for the mean domestic uses of those who dwelt on its banks?"

"Vera true, kinswoman," said the Bailie; "but for a' that, the burn wad be glad to hae the milldam back again in simmer, when the chuckie-stanes are white in the sun. I ken weel eneugh you Hieland folk haud us Glasgow people light and cheap for our language and our claes;--but everybody speaks their native tongue that they learned in infancy; and it would be a daft-like thing to see me wi' my fat wame in a short Hieland coat, and my puir short houghs gartered below the knee, like ane o' your lang-legged gillies. Mair by token, kinswoman," he continued, in defiance of various intimations by which Dougal seemed to recommend silence, as well as of the marks of impatience which the Amazon evinced at his loquacity, "I wad hae ye to mind that the king's errand whiles comes in the cadger's gate, and that, for as high as ye may think o' the gudeman, as it's right every wife should honour her husband--there's Scripture warrant for that--yet as high as ye haud him, as I was saying, I hae been serviceable to Rob ere now;--forbye a set o' pearlins I sent yourself when ye was gaun to be married, and when Rob was an honest weel-doing drover, and nane o' this unlawfu' wark, wi' fighting, and flashes, and fluff-gibs, disturbing the king's peace and disarming his soldiers."

He had apparently touched on a key which his kinswoman could not brook. She drew herself up to her full height, and betrayed the acuteness of her feelings by a laugh of mingled scorn and bitterness.

"Yes," she said, "you, and such as you, might claim a relation to us, when we stooped to be the paltry wretches fit to exist under your dominion, as your hewers of wood and drawers of water--to find cattle for your banquets, and subjects for your laws to oppress and trample on. But now we are free--free by the very act which left us neither house nor hearth, food nor covering--which bereaved me of all--of all--and makes me groan when I think I must still c.u.mber the earth for other purposes than those of vengeance. And I will carry on the work, this day has so well commenced, by a deed that shall break all bands between MacGregor and the Lowland churls. Here Allan--Dougal--bind these Sa.s.senachs 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 pa.s.sions of the person whom he addressed, when Dougal threw himself between them, and in his own language, which he spoke with a fluency and rapidity strongly contrasted by the slow, imperfect, and idiot-like manner in which he expressed himself in English, poured forth what I doubt not was a very animated pleading in our behalf.

His mistress replied to him, or rather cut short his harangue, by exclaiming in English (as if determined to make us taste in antic.i.p.ation 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 b.r.e.a.s.t.s, to see which would there best plot treason against the MacGregor--and such things have been done of old in the day of revenge, when our fathers had wrongs to redress--Should I command you to do this, would it be your part to dispute my orders?"

"To be sure, to be sure," Dougal replied, with accents of profound submission; "her pleasure suld be done--tat's but reason; but an it were--tat is, an it could be thought the same to her to coup the ill-faured loon of ta red-coat Captain, and hims corporal Cramp, and twa three o' the red-coats, into the loch, herself wad do't wi' muckle mair great satisfaction than to hurt ta honest civil shentlemans as were friends to the Gregarach, and came up on the Chiefs a.s.surance, and not to do no treason, as herself could testify."

The lady was about to reply, when a few wild strains of a pibroch were heard advancing up the road from Aberfoil, the same probably which had reached the ears of Captain Thornton's rear-guard, and determined him to force his way onward rather than return to the village, on finding the pa.s.s occupied. The skirmish being of very short duration, the armed men who followed this martial melody, had not, although quickening their march when they heard the firing, been able to arrive in time sufficient to take any share in the rencontre. The victory, therefore, was complete without them, and they now arrived only to share in the triumph of their countrymen.

There was a marked difference betwixt the appearance of these new comers and that of the party by which our escort had been defeated--and it was greatly in favour of the former. Among the Highlanders who surrounded the Chieftainess, if I may presume to call her so without offence to grammar, were men in the extremity of age, boys scarce able to bear a sword, and even women--all, in short, whom the last necessity urges to take up arms; and it added a shade of bitter shame to the defection which clouded Thornton's manly countenance, when he found that the numbers and position of a foe, otherwise so despicable, had enabled them to conquer his brave veterans. But the thirty or forty Highlanders who now joined the others, were all men in the prime of youth or manhood, active clean-made fellows, whose short hose and belted plaids set out their sinewy limbs to the best advantage. Their arms were as superior to those of the first party as their dress and appearance. The followers of the female Chief had axes, scythes, and other antique weapons, in aid of their guns; and some had only clubs, daggers, and long knives. But of the second party, most had pistols at the belt, and almost all had dirks hanging at the pouches which they wore in front. Each had a good gun in his hand, and a broadsword by his side, besides a stout round target, made of light wood, covered with leather, and curiously studded with bra.s.s, and having a steel spike screwed into the centre. These hung on their left shoulder during a march, or while they were engaged in exchanging fire with the enemy, and were worn on their left arm when they charged with sword in hand.

But it was easy to see that this chosen band had not arrived from a victory such as they found their ill-appointed companions possessed of. The pibroch sent forth occasionally a few wailing notes expressive of a very different sentiment from triumph; and when they appeared before the wife of their Chieftain, it was in silence, and with downcast and melancholy looks. They paused when they approached her, and the pipes again sent forth the same wild and melancholy strain.

Helen rushed towards them with a countenance in which anger was mingled with apprehension.--"What means this, Alaster?" she said to the minstrel--"why a lament in the moment of victory?--Robert--Hamish--where's the MacGregor?--where's your father?"

Her sons, who led the band, advanced with slow and irresolute steps towards her, and murmured a few words in Gaelic, at hearing which she set up a shriek that made the rocks ring again, in which all the women and boys joined, clapping their hands and yelling as if their lives had been expiring in the sound. The mountain echoes, silent since the military sounds of battle had ceased, had now to answer these frantic and discordant shrieks of sorrow, which drove the very night-birds from their haunts in the rocks, as if they were startled to hear orgies more hideous and ill-omened than their own, performed in the face of open day.

"Taken!" repeated Helen, when the clamour had subsided--"Taken!-- captive!--and you live to say so?--Coward dogs! did I nurse you for this, that you should spare your blood on your father's enemies? or see him prisoner, and come back to tell it?"

The sons of MacGregor, to whom this expostulation was addressed, were youths, of whom the eldest had hardly attained his twentieth year. Hamish, or James, the elder of these youths, was the tallest by a head, and much handsomer than his brother; his light-blue eyes, with a profusion of fair hair, which streamed from under his smart blue bonnet, made his whole appearance a most favourable specimen of the Highland youth. The younger was called Robert; but, to distinguish him from his father, the Highlanders added the epithet Oig, or the young. Dark hair, and dark features, with a ruddy glow of health and animation, and a form strong and well-set beyond his years, completed the sketch of the young mountaineer.

Both now stood before their mother with countenances clouded with grief and shame, and listened, with the most respectful submission, to the reproaches with which she loaded them. At length when her resentment appeared in some degree to subside, the eldest, speaking in English, probably that he might not be understood by their followers, endeavoured respectfully to vindicate himself and his brother from his mother's reproaches. I was so near him as to comprehend much of what he said; and, as it was of great consequence to me to be possessed of information in this strange crisis, I failed not to listen as attentively as I could.

"The MacGregor," his son stated, "had been called out upon a trysting with a Lowland hallion, who came with a token from"--he muttered the name very low, but I thought it sounded like my own. "The MacGregor," he said, "accepted of the invitation, but commanded the Saxon who brought the message to be detained, as a hostage that good faith should be observed to him. Accordingly he went to the place of appointment" (which had some wild Highland name that I cannot remember), "attended only by Angus Breck and Little Rory, commanding no one to follow him. Within half an hour Angus Breck came back with the doleful tidings that the MacGregor had been surprised and made prisoner by a party of Lennox militia, under Galbraith of Garschattachin." He added, "that Galbraith, on being threatened by MacGregor, who upon his capture menaced him with retaliation on the person of the hostage, had treated the threat with great contempt, replying, 'Let each side hang his man; we'll hang the thief, and your catherans may hang the gauger, Rob, and the country will be rid of two d.a.m.ned things at once, a wild Highlander and a revenue officer.' Angus Breck, less carefully looked to than his master, contrived to escape from the hands of the captors, after having been in their custody long enough to hear this discussion, and to bring off the news."

"And did you learn this, you false-hearted traitor," said the wife of MacGregor, "and not instantly rush to your father's rescue, to bring him off, or leave your body on the place?"

The young MacGregor modestly replied, by representing the very superior force of the enemy, and stated, that as they made no preparation for leaving the country, he had fallen back up the glen with the purpose of collecting a band sufficient to attempt a rescue with some tolerable chance of success. At length he said, "the militiamen would quarter, he understood, in the neighbouring house of Gartartan, or the old castle in the port of Monteith, or some other stronghold, which, although strong and defensible, was nevertheless capable of being surprised, could they but get enough of men a.s.sembled for the purpose."

I understood afterwards that the rest of the freebooter's followers were divided into two strong bands, one destined to watch the remaining garrison of Inversnaid, a party of which, under Captain Thornton, had been defeated; and another to show front to the Highland clans who had united with the regular troops and Lowlanders in this hostile and combined invasion of that mountainous and desolate territory, which lying between the lakes of Loch Lomond, Loch Katrine, and Loch Ard, was at this time currently called Rob Roy's, or the MacGregor country. Messengers were despatched in great haste, to concentrate, as I supposed, their forces, with a view to the purposed attack on the Lowlanders; and the dejection and despair, at first visible on each countenance, gave place to the hope of rescuing their leader, and to the thirst of vengeance. It was under the burning influence of the latter pa.s.sion that the wife of MacGregor commanded that the hostage exchanged for his safety should be brought into her presence. I believe her sons had kept this unfortunate wretch out of her sight, for fear of the consequences; but if it was so, their humane precaution only postponed his fate. They dragged forward at her summons a wretch already half dead with terror, in whose agonised features I recognised, to my horror and astonishment, my old acquaintance Morris.

He fell prostrate before the female Chief with an effort to clasp her knees, from which she drew back, as if his touch had been pollution, so that all he could do in token of the extremity of his humiliation, was to kiss the hem of her plaid. I never heard entreaties for life poured forth with such agony of spirit. The ecstasy of fear was such, that instead of paralysing his tongue, as on ordinary occasions, it even rendered him eloquent; and, with cheeks pale as ashes, hands compressed in agony, eyes that seemed to be taking their last look of all mortal objects, he protested, with the deepest oaths, his total ignorance of any design on the person of Rob Roy, whom he swore he loved and honoured as his own soul. In the inconsistency of his terror, he said he was but the agent of others, and he muttered the name of Rashleigh. He prayed but for life--for life he would give all he had in the world: it was but life he asked--life, if it were to be prolonged under tortures and privations: he asked only breath, though it should be drawn in the damps of the lowest caverns of their hills.

It is impossible to describe the scorn, the loathing, and contempt, with which the wife of MacGregor regarded this wretched pet.i.tioner for the poor boon of existence.

"I could have bid ye live," she said, "had life been to you the same weary and wasting burden that it is to me--that it is to every n.o.ble and generous mind. But you--wretch! you could creep through the world unaffected by its various disgraces, its ineffable miseries, its constantly acc.u.mulating ma.s.ses of crime and sorrow: you could live and enjoy yourself, while the n.o.ble-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 pa.s.sed over the sun."

She gave a brief command in Gaelic to her attendants, two of whom seized upon the prostrate suppliant, and hurried him to the brink of a cliff which overhung the flood. He set up the most piercing and dreadful cries that fear ever uttered--I may well term them dreadful, for they haunted my sleep for years afterwards. As the murderers, or executioners, call them as you will, dragged him along, he recognised me even in that moment of horror, and exclaimed, in the last articulate words I ever heard him utter, "Oh, Mr. Osbaldistone, save me!--save me!"

I was so much moved by this horrid spectacle, that, although in momentary expectation of sharing his fate, I did attempt to speak in his behalf, but, as might have been expected, my interference was sternly disregarded. The victim was held fast by some, while others, binding a large heavy stone in a plaid, tied it round his neck, and others again eagerly stripped him of some part of his dress. Half-naked, and thus manacled, they hurled him into the lake, there about twelve feet deep, with a loud halloo of vindictive triumph,--above which, however, his last death-shriek, the yell of mortal agony, was distinctly heard. The heavy burden splashed in the dark-blue waters, and the Highlanders, with their pole-axes and swords, watched an instant to guard, lest, extricating himself from the load to which he was attached, the victim might have struggled to regain the sh.o.r.e. But the knot had been securely bound--the wretched man sunk without effort; the waters, which his fall had disturbed, settled calmly over him, and the unit of that life for which he had pleaded so strongly, was for ever withdrawn from the sum of human existence.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

And be he safe restored ere evening set, Or, if there's vengeance in an injured heart, And power to wreak it in an armed hand, Your land shall ache for't. Old Play.

I know not why it is that a single deed of violence and cruelty affects our nerves more than when these are exercised on a more extended scale. I had seen that day several of my brave countrymen fall in battle: it seemed to me that they met a lot appropriate to humanity, and my bosom, though thrilling with interest, was affected with nothing of that sickening horror with which I beheld the unfortunate Morris put to death without resistance, and in cold blood. I looked at my companion, Mr. Jarvie, whose face reflected the feelings which were painted in mine. Indeed he could not so suppress his horror, but that the words escaped him in a low and broken whisper,-- "I take up my protest against this deed, as a b.l.o.o.d.y and cruel murder--it is a cursed deed, and G.o.d will avenge it in his due way and time."

"Then you do not fear to follow?" said the virago, bending on him a look of death, such as that with which a hawk looks at his prey ere he pounces.

"Kinswoman," said the Bailie, "nae man willingly wad cut short his thread of life before the end o' his pirn was fairly measured off on the yarn-winles--And I hae muckle to do, an I be spared, in this warld--public and private business, as weel that belonging to the magistracy as to my ain particular; and nae doubt I hae some to depend on me, as puir Mattie, wha is an orphan--She's a far-awa' cousin o' the Laird o' Limmerfield. Sae that, laying a' this thegither--skin for skin, yea all that a man hath, will he give for his life."

"And were I to set you at liberty," said the imperious dame, "what name could you give to the drowning of that Saxon dog?"

"Uh! uh!--hem! hem!" said the Bailie, clearing his throat as well as he could, "I suld study to say as little on that score as might be--least said is sunest mended."

"But if you were called on by the courts, as you term them, of justice," she again demanded, "what then would be your answer?"

The Bailie looked this way and that way, like a person who meditates an escape, and then answered in the tone of one who, seeing no means of accomplishing a retreat, determines to stand the brunt of battle--"I see what you are driving me to the wa' about. But I'll tell you't plain, kinswoman,--I behoved just to speak according to my ain conscience; and though your ain gudeman, that I wish had been here for his ain sake and mine, as wool as the puir Hieland creature Dougal, can tell ye that Nicol Jarvie can wink as hard at a friend's failings as onybody, yet I'se tell ye, kinswoman, mine's ne'er be the tongue to belie my thought; and sooner than say that yonder puir wretch was lawfully slaughtered, I wad consent to be laid beside him--though I think ye are the first Hieland woman wad mint sic a doom to her husband's kinsman but four times removed."

It is probable that the tone and firmness a.s.sumed 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 a.s.sumed, 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...o...b..ldistone?--the dead dog, whose death you have witnessed, called you so."

"My name is...o...b..ldistone," was my answer.

"Rashleigh, then, I suppose, is your Christian name?" she pursued.

"No,--my name is Francis."

"But you know Rashleigh Osbaldistone," she continued. "He is your brother, if I mistake not,--at least your kinsman and near friend."

"He is my kinsman," I replied, "but not my friend. We were lately engaged together in a rencontre, when we were separated by a person whom I understand to be your husband. My blood is hardly yet dried on his sword, and the wound on my side is yet green. I have little reason to acknowledge him as a friend."

"Then," she replied, "if a stranger to his intrigues, you can go in safety to Garschattachin and his party without fear of being detained, and carry them a message from the wife of the MacGregor?"

I answered that I knew no reasonable cause why the militia gentlemen should detain me; that I had no reason, on my own account, to fear being in their hands; and that if my going on her emba.s.sy would act as a protection to my friend and servant, who were here prisoners, "I was ready to set out directly." I took the opportunity to say, "That I had come into this country on her husband's invitation, and his a.s.surance that he would aid me in some important matters in which I was interested; that my companion, Mr. Jarvie, had accompanied me on the same errand."

"And I wish Mr. Jarvie's boots had been fu' o' boiling water when he drew them on for sic a purpose," interrupted the Bailie.

"You may read your father," said Helen MacGregor, turning to her sons, "in what this young Saxon tells us--Wise only when the bonnet is on his head, and the sword is in his hand, he never exchanges the tartan for the broad-cloth, but he runs himself into the miserable intrigues of the Lowlanders, and becomes again, after all he has suffered, their agent--their tool--their slave."

"Add, madam," said I, "and their benefactor."

"Be it so," she said; "for it is the most empty t.i.tle of them all, since he has uniformly sown benefits to reap a harvest of the most foul ingrat.i.tude.--But enough of this. I shall cause you to be guided to the enemy's outposts. Ask for their commander, and deliver him this message from me, Helen MacGregor;--that if they injure a hair of MacGregor's head, and if they do not set him at liberty within the s.p.a.ce of twelve hours, there is not a lady in the Lennox but shall before Christmas cry the coronach for them she will be loath to lose,--there is not a farmer but shall sing well-a-wa over a burnt barnyard and an empty byre,--there is not a laird nor heritor shall lay his head on the pillow at night with the a.s.surance of being a live man in the morning,--and, to begin as we are to end, so soon as the term is expired, I will send them this Glasgow Bailie, and this Saxon Captain, and all the rest of my prisoners, each bundled in a plaid, and chopped into as many pieces as there are checks in the tartan."

As she paused in her denunciation, Captain Thornton, who was within hearing, added, with great coolness, "Present my compliments--Captain Thornton's of the Royals, compliments--to the commanding officer, and tell him to do his duty and secure his prisoner, and not waste a thought upon me. If I have been fool enough to have been led into an ambuscade by these artful savages, I am wise enough to know how to die for it without disgracing the service. I am only sorry for my poor fellows," he said, "that have fallen into such butcherly hands."

"Whist! whist!" exclaimed the Bailie; "are ye weary o' your life?--Ye'll gie my service to the commanding officer, Mr. Osbaldistone--Bailie Nicol Jarvie's service, a magistrate o' Glasgow, as his father the deacon was before him--and tell him, here are a wheen honest men in great trouble, and like to come to mair; and the best thing he can do for the common good, will be just to let Rob come his wa's up the glen, and nae mair about it. There's been some ill dune here already; but as it has lighted chiefly on the gauger, it winna be muckle worth making a stir about."

With these very opposite injunctions from the parties chiefly interested in the success of my emba.s.sy, and with the reiterated charge of the wife of MacGregor to remember and detail every word of her injunctions, I was at length suffered to depart; and Andrew Fairservice, chiefly, I believe, to get rid of his clamorous supplications, was permitted to attend me. Doubtful, however, that I might use my horse as a means of escape from my guides, or desirous to retain a prize of some value, I was given to understand that I was to perform my journey on foot, escorted by Hamish MacGregor, the elder brother, who, with two followers, attended, as well to show me the way, as to reconnoitre the strength and position of the enemy. Dougal had been at first ordered on this party, but he contrived to elude the service, with the purpose, as we afterwards understood, of watching over Mr. Jarvie, whom, according to his wild principles of fidelity, he considered as ent.i.tled to his good offices, from having once acted in some measure as his patron or master.

After walking with great rapidity about an hour, we arrived at an eminence covered with brushwood, which gave us a commanding prospect down the valley, and a full view of the post which the militia occupied. Being chiefly cavalry, they had judiciously avoided any attempt to penetrate the pa.s.s which had been so unsuccessfully essayed by Captain Thornton. They had taken up their situation with some military skill, on a rising ground in the centre of the little valley of Aberfoil, through which the river Forth winds its earliest course, and which is formed by two ridges of hills, faced with barricades of limestone rock, intermixed with huge ma.s.ses of breecia, or pebbles imbedded in some softer substance which has hardened around them like mortar; and surrounded by the more lofty mountains in the distance. These ridges, however, left the valley of breadth enough to secure the cavalry from any sudden surprise by the mountaineers and they had stationed sentinels and outposts at proper distances from this main body, in every direction, so that they might secure full time to mount and get under arms upon the least alarm. It was not, indeed, expected at that time, that Highlanders would attack cavalry in an open plain, though late events have shown that they may do so with success.*

* The affairs of Prestonpans and Falkirk are probably alluded to, which * marks the time of writing the Memoirs as subsequent to 1745.

When I first knew the Highlanders, they had almost a superst.i.tious dread of a mounted trooper, the horse being so much more fierce and imposing in his appearance than the little shelties of their own hills, and moreover being trained, as the more ignorant mountaineers believed, to fight with his feet and his teeth. The appearance of the piequeted horses, feeding in this little vale--the forms of the soldiers, as they sate, stood, or walked, in various groups in the vicinity of the beautiful river, and of the bare yet romantic ranges of rock which hedge in the landscape on either side,--formed a n.o.ble 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 compa.s.sion, and having a tattered plaid to supply the want of all upper garments, looked as if he had been playing the part of a Highland Tom-of-Bedlam. We had not proceeded far before we became visible to one of the videttes, who, riding towards us, presented his carabine and commanded me to stand. I obeyed, and when the soldier came up, desired to be conducted to his commanding-officer. I was immediately brought where a circle of officers, sitting upon the gra.s.s, seemed in attendance upon one of superior rank. He wore a cuira.s.s of polished steel, over which were drawn the insignia of the ancient Order of the Thistle. My friend Garschattachin, and many other gentlemen, some in uniform, others in their ordinary dress, but all armed and well attended, seemed to receive their orders from this person of distinction. Many servants in rich liveries, apparently a part of his household, were also in waiting.

Having paid to this n.o.bleman 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 pa.s.s of Loch-Ard (such I had learned was the name of the place where Mr. Thornton was made prisoner), and that the victors threatened every species of extremity to those who had fallen into their power, as well as to the Low Country in general, unless their Chief, who had that morning been made prisoner, were returned to them uninjured. The Duke (for he whom I addressed was of no lower rank) listened to me with great composure, and then replied, that he should be extremely sorry to expose the unfortunate gentlemen who had been made prisoners to the cruelty of the barbarians into whose hands they had fallen, but that it was folly to suppose that he would deliver up the very author of all these disorders and offences, and so encourage his followers in their license. "You may return to those who sent you," he proceeded, "and inform them, that I shall certainly cause Rob Roy Campbell, whom they call MacGregor, to be executed, by break of day, as an outlaw taken in arms, and deserving death by a thousand acts of violence; that I should be most justly held unworthy of my situation and commission did I act otherwise; that I shall know how to protect the country against their insolent threats of violence; and that if they injure a hair of the head of any of the unfortunate gentlemen whom an unlucky accident has thrown into their power, I will take such ample vengeance, that the very stones of their glens shall sing woe for it this hundred years to come!"

I humbly begged leave to remonstrate respecting the honourable mission imposed on me, and touched upon the obvious danger attending it, when the n.o.ble commander replied, "that such being the case, I might send my servant."

"The deil be in my feet," said Andrew, without either having respect to the presence in which he stood, or waiting till I replied--"the deil be in my feet, if I gang my tae's length. Do the folk think I hae another thrapple in my pouch after John Highlandman's sneeked this ane wi' his joctaleg? or that I can dive doun at the tae side of a Highland loch and rise at the tother, like a sh.e.l.l-drake? Na, na--ilk ane for himsell, and G.o.d for us a'. Folk may just make a page o' their ain age, and serve themsells till their bairns grow up, and gang their ain errands for Andrew. Rob Roy never came near the parish of Dreepdaily, to steal either pippin or pear frae me or mine."

Silencing my follower with some difficulty, I represented to the Duke the great danger Captain Thornton and Mr. Jarvie would certainly be exposed to, and entreated he would make me the bearer of such modified terms as might be the means of saving their lives. I a.s.sured him I should decline no danger if I could be of service; but from what I had heard and seen, I had little doubt they would be instantly murdered should the chief of the outlaws suffer death.

The Duke was obviously much affected. "It was a hard case," he said, "and he felt it as such; but he had a paramount duty to perform to the country--Rob Roy must die!"

I own it was not without emotion that I heard this threat of instant death to my acquaintance Campbell, who had so often testified his good-will towards me. Nor was I singular in the feeling, for many of those around the Duke ventured to express themselves in his favour. "It would be more advisable," they said, "to send him to Stirling Castle, and there detain him a close prisoner, as a pledge for the submission and dispersion of his gang. It were a great pity to expose the country to be plundered, which, now that the long nights approached, it would be found very difficult to prevent, since it was impossible to guard every point, and the Highlanders were sure to select those that were left exposed." They added, that there was great hardship in leaving the unfortunate prisoners to the almost certain doom of ma.s.sacre 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 n.o.bleman whom he addressed, although he knew he had particular reasons for disliking their prisoner. "Rob Roy," he said, "though a kittle neighbour to the Low Country, and particularly obnoxious to his Grace, and though he maybe carried the catheran trade farther than ony man o' his day, was an auld-farrand carle, and there might be some means of making him hear reason; whereas his wife and sons were reckless fiends, without either fear or mercy about them, and, at the head of a' his limmer loons, would be a worse plague to the country than ever he had been."

"Pooh! pooh!" replied his Grace, "it is the very sense and cunning of this fellow which has so long maintained his reign--a mere Highland robber would have been put down in as many weeks as he has flourished years. His gang, without him, is no more to be dreaded as a permanent annoyance--it will no longer exist--than a wasp without its head, which may sting once perhaps, but is instantly crushed into annihilation."

Garschattachin was not so easily silenced. "I am sure, my Lord Duke," he replied, "I have no favour for Rob, and he as little for me, seeing he has twice cleaned out my ain byres, beside skaith amang my tenants; but, however"-- "But, however, Garschattachin," said the Duke, with a smile of peculiar expression, "I fancy you think such a freedom may be pardoned in a friend's friend, and Rob's supposed to be no enemy to Major Galbraith's friends over the water."

"If it be so, my lord," said Garschattachin, in the same tone of jocularity, "it's no the warst thing I have heard of him. But I wish we heard some news from the clans, that we have waited for sae lang. I vow to G.o.d they'll keep a Hielandman's word wi' us--I never ken'd them better--it's ill drawing boots upon trews."

"I cannot believe it," said the Duke. "These gentlemen are known to be men of honour, and I must necessarily suppose they are to keep their appointment. Send out two more horse-men to look for our friends. We cannot, till their arrival, pretend to attack the pa.s.s where Captain Thornton has suffered himself to be surprised, and which, to my knowledge, ten men on foot might make good against a regiment of the best horse in Europe--Meanwhile let refreshments be given to the men."

I had the benefit of this last order, the more necessary and acceptable, as I had tasted nothing since our hasty meal at Aberfoil the evening before. The videttes who had been despatched returned without tidings of the expected auxiliaries, and sunset was approaching, when a Highlander belonging to the clans whose co-operation was expected, appeared as the bearer of a letter, which he delivered to the Duke with a most profound conge'.

"Now will I wad a hogshead of claret," said Garschattachin, "that this is a message to tell us that these cursed Highlandmen, whom we have fetched here at the expense of so much plague and vexation, are going to draw off, and leave us to do our own business if we can."

"It is even so, gentlemen," said the Duke, reddening with indignation, after having perused the letter, which was written upon a very dirty sc.r.a.p of paper, but most punctiliously addressed, "For the much-honoured hands of Ane High and Mighty Prince, the Duke," &c. &c. &c. "Our allies," continued the Duke, "have deserted us, gentlemen, and have made a separate peace with the enemy."

"It's just the fate of all alliances," said Garschattachin, "the Dutch were gaun to serve us the same gate, if we had not got the start of them at Utrecht."

"You are facetious, air," said the Duke, with a frown which showed how little he liked the pleasantry; "but our business is rather of a grave cut just now.--I suppose no gentleman would advise our attempting to penetrate farther into the country, unsupported either by friendly Highlanders, or by infantry from Inversnaid?"

A general answer announced that the attempt would be perfect madness.

"Nor would there be great wisdom," the Duke added, "in remaining exposed to a night-attack in this place. I therefore propose that we should retreat to the house of Duchray and that of Gartartan, and keep safe and sure watch and ward until morning. But before we separate, I will examine Rob Roy before you all, and make you sensible, by your own eyes and ears, of the extreme unfitness of leaving him s.p.a.ce for farther outrage." He gave orders accordingly, and the prisoner was brought before him, his arms belted down above the elbow, and secured to his body by a horse-girth buckled tight behind him. Two non-commissioned officers had hold of him, one on each side, and two file of men with carabines and fixed bayonets attended for additional security.

I had never seen this man in the dress of his country, which set in a striking point of view the peculiarities of his form. A shock-head of red hair, which the hat and periwig of the Lowland costume had in a great measure concealed, was seen beneath the Highland bonnet, and verified the epithet of Roy, or Red, by which he was much better known in the Low Country than by any other, and is still, I suppose, best remembered. The justice of the appellation was also vindicated by the appearance of that part of his limbs, from the bottom of his kilt to the top of his short hose, which the fashion of his country dress left bare, and which was covered with a fell of thick, short, red hair, especially around his knees, which resembled in this respect, as well as from their sinewy appearance of extreme strength, the limbs of a red-coloured Highland bull. Upon the whole, betwixt the effect produced by the change of dress, and by my having become acquainted with his real and formidable character, his appearance had acquired to my eyes something so much wilder and more striking than it before presented, that I could scarce recognise him to be the same person.

His manner was bold, unconstrained unless by the actual bonds, haughty, and even dignified. He bowed to the Duke, nodded to Garschattachin and others, and showed some surprise at seeing me among the party.

"It is long since we have met, Mr. Campbell," said the Duke.

"It is so, my Lord Duke; I could have wished it had been" (looking at the fastening on his arms) "when I could have better paid the compliments I owe to your Grace;--but there's a gude time coming."

"No time like the time present, Mr. Campbell," answered the Duke, "for the hours are fast flying that must settle your last account with all mortal affairs. I do not say this to insult your distress; but you must be aware yourself that you draw near the end of your career. I do not deny that you may sometimes have done less harm than others of your unhappy trade, and that you may occasionally have exhibited marks of talent, and even of a disposition which promised better things. But you are aware how long you have been the terror and the oppressor of a peaceful neighbourhood, and by what acts of violence you have maintained and extended your usurped authority. You know, in short, that you have deserved death, and that you must prepare for it."

"My Lord," said Rob Roy, "although I may well lay my misfortunes at your Grace's door, yet I will never say that you yourself have been the wilful and witting author of them. My Lord, if I had thought sae, your Grace would not this day have been sitting in judgment on me; for you have been three times within good rifle distance of me when you were thinking but of the red deer, and few people have ken'd me miss my aim. But as for them that have abused your Grace's ear, and set you up against a man that was ance as peacefu' a man as ony in the land, and made your name the warrant for driving me to utter extremity,--I have had some amends of them, and, for a' that your Grace now says, I expect to live to hae mair."

"I know," said the Duke, in rising anger, "that you are a determined and impudent villain, who will keep his oath if he swears to mischief; but it shall be my care to prevent you. You have no enemies but your own wicked actions."

"Had I called myself Grahame, instead of Campbell, I might have heard less about them," answered Rob Roy, with dogged resolution.

"You will do well, sir," said the Duke, "to warn your wife and family and followers, to beware how they use the gentlemen now in their hands, as I will requite tenfold on them, and their kin and allies, the slightest injury done to any of his Majesty's liege subjects."

"My Lord," said Roy in answer, "none of my enemies will allege that I have been a bloodthirsty man, and were I now wi' my folk, I could rule four or five hundred wild Hielanders as easy as your Grace those eight or ten lackeys and foot-boys--But if your Grace is bent to take the head away from a house, ye may lay your account there will be misrule amang the members.--However, come o't what like, there's an honest man, a kinsman o' my ain, maun come by nae skaith. Is there ony body here wad do a gude deed for MacGregor?--he may repay it, though his hands be now tied."

The Highlander who had delivered the letter to the Duke replied, "I'll do your will for you, MacGregor; and I'll gang back up the glen on purpose."

He advanced, and received from the prisoner a message to his wife, which, being in Gaelic, I did not understand, but I had little doubt it related to some measures to be taken for the safety of Mr. Jarvie.

"Do you hear the fellow's impudence?" said the Duke; "he confides in his character of a messenger. His conduct is of a piece with his master's, who invited us to make common cause against these freebooters, and have deserted us so soon as the MacGregors have agreed to surrender the Balquhidder lands they were squabbling about.

No truth in plaids, no faith in tartan trews! Chameleon-like, they change a thousand hues."

"Your great ancestor never said so, my Lord," answered Major Galbraith;--"and, with submission, neither would your Grace have occasion to say it, wad ye but be for beginning justice at the well-head--Gie the honest man his mear again--Let every head wear it's ane bannet, and the distractions o' the Lennox wad be mended wi' them o'the land."

"Hush! hush! Garschattachin," said the Duke; "this is language dangerous for you to talk to any one, and especially to me; but I presume you reckon yourself a privileged person. Please to draw off your party towards Gartartan; I shall myself see the prisoner escorted to Duchray, and send you orders tomorrow. You will please grant no leave of absence to any of your troopers."

"Here's auld ordering and counter-ordering," muttered Garschattachin between his teeth. "But patience! patience!--we may ae day play at change seats, the king's coming."

The two troops of cavalry now formed, and prepared to march off the ground, that they might avail themselves of the remainder of daylight to get to their evening quarters. I received an intimation, rather than an invitation, to attend the party; and I perceived, that, though no longer considered as a prisoner, I was yet under some sort of suspicion. The times were indeed so dangerous,--the great party questions of Jacobite and Hanoverian divided the country so effectually,--and the constant disputes and jealousies between the Highlanders and Lowlanders, besides a number of inexplicable causes of feud which separated the great leading families in Scotland from each other, occasioned such general suspicion, that a solitary and unprotected stranger was almost sure to meet with something disagreeable in the course of his travels.

I acquiesced, however, in my destination with the best grace I could, consoling myself with the hope that I might obtain from the captive freebooter some information concerning Rashleigh and his machinations. I should do myself injustice did I not add, that my views were not merely selfish. I was too much interested in my singular acquaintance not to be desirous of rendering him such services as his unfortunate situation might demand, or admit of his receiving.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

And when he came to broken brigg, He bent his bow and swam; And when he came to gra.s.s 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 a.s.signed 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.