Rob Roy – Complete

On arrival before her hospitable wigwam, I found power and popularity had its inconveniences in the Highlands, as everywhere else; for, before MacGregor could be permitted to enter the house where he was to obtain rest and refreshment, he was obliged to relate the story of his escape at least a dozen times over, as I was told by an officious old man, who chose to translate it at least as often for my edification, and to whom I was in policy obliged to seem to pay a decent degree of attention. The audience being at length satisfied, group after group departed to take their bed upon the heath, or in the neighbouring huts, some cursing the Duke and Garschattachin, some lamenting the probable danger of Ewan of Brigglands, incurred by his friendship to MacGregor, but all agreeing that the escape of Rob Roy himself lost nothing in comparison with the exploit of any one of their chiefs since the days of Dougal Ciar, the founder of his line.

The friendly outlaw, now taking me by the arm, conducted me into the interior of the hut. My eyes roved round its smoky recesses in quest of Diana and her companion; but they were nowhere to be seen, and I felt as if to make inquiries might betray some secret motives, which were best concealed. The only known countenance upon which my eyes rested was that of the Bailie, who, seated on a stool by the fireside, received with a sort of reserved dignity, the welcomes of Rob Roy, the apologies which he made for his indifferent accommodation, and his inquiries after his health.

“I am pretty weel, kinsman,” said the Bailie – “indifferent weel, I thank ye; and for accommodations, ane canna expect to carry about the Saut Market at his tail, as a snail does his caup; – and I am blythe that ye hae gotten out o’ the hands o’ your unfreends.”

“Weel, weel, then,” answered Roy, “what is’t ails ye, man – a’s weel that ends weel! – the warld will last our day – Come, take a cup o’ brandy – your father the deacon could take ane at an orra time.”

“It might be he might do sae, Robin, after fatigue – whilk has been my lot mair ways than ane this day. But,” he continued, slowly filling up a little wooden stoup which might hold about three glasses, “he was a moderate man of his bicker, as I am mysell – Here’s wussing health to ye, Robin” (a sip), “and your weelfare here and hereafter” (another taste), “and also to my cousin Helen – and to your twa hopefu’ lads, of whom mair anon.”

So saying, he drank up the contents of the cup with great gravity and deliberation, while MacGregor winked aside to me, as if in ridicule of the air of wisdom and superior authority which the Bailie assumed towards him in their intercourse, and which he exercised when Rob was at the head of his armed clan, in full as great, or a greater degree, than when he was at the Bailie’s mercy in the Tolbooth of Glasgow. It seemed to me, that MacGregor wished me, as a stranger, to understand, that if he submitted to the tone which his kinsman assumed, it was partly out of deference to the rights of hospitality, but still more for the jest’s sake.

As the Bailie set down his cup he recognised me, and giving me a cordial welcome on my return, he waived farther communication with me for the present. – “I will speak to your matters anon; I maun begin, as in reason, wi’ those of my kinsman. – I presume, Robin, there’s naebody here will carry aught o’ what I am gaun to say, to the town-council or elsewhere, to my prejudice or to yours?”

“Make yourself easy on that head, cousin Nicol,” answered MacGregor; “the tae half o’ the gillies winna ken what ye say, and the tother winna care – besides that, I wad stow the tongue out o’ the head o’ any o’ them that suld presume to say ower again ony speech held wi’ me in their presence.”

“Aweel, cousin, sic being the case, and Mr. Osbaldistone here being a prudent youth, and a safe friend – I’se plainly tell ye, ye are breeding up your family to gang an ill gate.” Then, clearing his voice with a preliminary hem, he addressed his kinsman, checking, as Malvolio proposed to do when seated in his state, his familiar smile with an austere regard of control. – “Ye ken yourself ye haud light by the law – and for my cousin Helen, forbye that her reception o’ me this blessed day – whilk I excuse on account of perturbation of mind, was muckle on the north side o’ friendly, I say (outputting this personal reason of complaint) I hae that to say o’ your wife” —

“Say nothing of her, kinsman,” said Rob, in a grave and stern tone, “but what is befitting a friend to say, and her husband to hear. Of me you are welcome to say your full pleasure.”

“Aweel, aweel,” said the Bailie, somewhat disconcerted, “we’se let that be a pass-over – I dinna approve of making mischief in families. But here are your twa sons, Hamish and Robin, whilk signifies, as I’m gien to understand, James and Robert – I trust ye will call them sae in future – there comes nae gude o’ Hamishes, and Eachines, and Angusses, except that they’re the names ane aye chances to see in the indictments at the Western Circuits for cow-lifting, at the instance of his majesty’s advocate for his majesty’s interest. Aweel, but the twa lads, as I was saying, they haena sae muckle as the ordinar grunds, man, of liberal education – they dinna ken the very multiplication table itself, whilk is the root of a’ usefu’ knowledge, and they did naething but laugh and fleer at me when I tauld them my mind on their ignorance – It’s my belief they can neither read, write, nor cipher, if sic a thing could be believed o’ ane’s ain connections in a Christian land.”

“If they could, kinsman,” said MacGregor, with great indifference, “their learning must have come o’ free will, for whar the deil was I to get them a teacher? – wad ye hae had me put on the gate o’ your Divinity Hall at Glasgow College, ‘Wanted, a tutor for Rob Roy’s bairns?’”

“Na, kinsman,” replied Mr. Jarvie, “but ye might hae sent the lads whar they could hae learned the fear o’ God, and the usages of civilised creatures. They are as ignorant as the kyloes ye used to drive to market, or the very English churls that ye sauld them to, and can do naething whatever to purpose.”

“Umph!” answered Rob; “Hamish can bring doun a black-cock when he’s on the wing wi’ a single bullet, and Rob can drive a dirk through a twa-inch board.”

“Sae muckle the waur for them, cousin! – sae muckle the waur for them baith!” answered the Glasgow merchant in a tone of great decision; “an they ken naething better than that, they had better no ken that neither. Tell me yourself, Rob, what has a’ this cutting, and stabbing, and shooting, and driving of dirks, whether through human flesh or fir deals, dune for yourself? – and werena ye a happier man at the tail o’ your nowte-bestial, when ye were in an honest calling, than ever ye hae been since, at the head o’ your Hieland kernes and gally-glasses?”

I observed that MacGregor, while his well-meaning kinsman spoke to him in this manner, turned and writhed his body like a man who indeed suffers pain, but is determined no groan shall escape his lips; and I longed for an opportunity to interrupt the well-meant, but, as it was obvious to me, quite mistaken strain, in which Jarvie addressed this extraordinary person. The dialogue, however, came to an end without my interference.

“And sae,” said the Bailie, “I hae been thinking, Rob, that as it may be ye are ower deep in the black book to win a pardon, and ower auld to mend yourself, that it wad be a pity to bring up twa hopefu’ lads to sic a godless trade as your ain, and I wad blythely tak them for prentices at the loom, as I began mysell, and my father the deacon afore me, though, praise to the Giver, I only trade now as wholesale dealer – And – and” —

He saw a storm gathering on Rob’s brow, which probably induced him to throw in, as a sweetener of an obnoxious proposition, what he had reserved to crown his own generosity, had it been embraced as an acceptable one; – “and Robin, lad, ye needna look sae glum, for I’ll pay the prentice-fee, and never plague ye for the thousand merks neither.”

“Ceade millia diaoul, hundred thousand devils!” exclaimed Rob, rising and striding through the hut, “My sons weavers! —Millia molligheart!– but I wad see every loom in Glasgow, beam, traddles, and shuttles, burnt in hell-fire sooner!”

With some difficulty I made the Bailie, who was preparing a reply, comprehend the risk and impropriety of pressing our host on this topic, and in a minute he recovered, or reassumed, his serenity of temper.

“But ye mean weel – ye mean weel,” said he; “so gie me your hand, Nicol, and if ever I put my sons apprentice, I will gie you the refusal o’ them. And, as you say, there’s the thousand merks to be settled between us. – Here, Eachin MacAnaleister, bring me my sporran.”

The person he addressed, a tall, strong mountaineer, who seemed to act as MacGregor’s lieutenant, brought from some place of safety a large leathern pouch, such as Highlanders of rank wear before them when in full dress, made of the skin of the sea-otter, richly garnished with silver ornaments and studs.

“I advise no man to attempt opening this sporran till he has my secret,” said Rob Roy; and then twisting one button in one direction, and another in another, pulling one stud upward, and pressing another downward, the mouth of the purse, which was bound with massive silver plate, opened and gave admittance to his hand. He made me remark, as if to break short the subject on which Bailie Jarvie had spoken, that a small steel pistol was concealed within the purse, the trigger of which was connected with the mounting, and made part of the machinery, so that the weapon would certainly be discharged, and in all probability its contents lodged in the person of any one, who, being unacquainted with the secret, should tamper with the lock which secured his treasure. “This,” said he touching the pistol – “this is the keeper of my privy purse.”

The simplicity of the contrivance to secure a furred pouch, which could have been ripped open without any attempt on the spring, reminded me of the verses in the Odyssey, where Ulysses, in a yet ruder age, is content to secure his property by casting a curious and involved complication of cordage around the sea-chest in which it was deposited.

The Bailie put on his spectacles to examine the mechanism, and when he had done, returned it with a smile and a sigh, observing – “Ah! Rob, had ither folk’s purses been as weel guarded, I doubt if your sporran wad hae been as weel filled as it kythes to be by the weight.”

“Never mind, kinsman,” said Rob, laughing; “it will aye open for a friend’s necessity, or to pay a just due – and here,” he added, pulling out a rouleau of gold, “here is your ten hundred merks – count them, and see that you are full and justly paid.”

Mr. Jarvie took the money in silence, and weighing it in his hand for an instant, laid it on the table, and replied, “Rob, I canna tak it – I downa intromit with it – there can nae gude come o’t – I hae seen ower weel the day what sort of a gate your gowd is made in – ill-got gear ne’er prospered; and, to be plain wi’ you, I winna meddle wi’t – it looks as there might be bluid on’t.”

“Troutsho!” said the outlaw, affecting an indifference which perhaps he did not altogether feel; “it’s gude French gowd, and ne’er was in Scotchman’s pouch before mine. Look at them, man – they are a’ louis-d’ors, bright and bonnie as the day they were coined.”

“The waur, the waur – just sae muckle the waur, Robin,” replied the Bailie, averting his eyes from the money, though, like Caesar on the Lupercal, his fingers seemed to itch for it – “Rebellion is waur than witchcraft, or robbery either; there’s gospel warrant for’t.”

“Never mind the warrant, kinsman,” said the freebooter; “you come by the gowd honestly, and in payment of a just debt – it came from the one king, you may gie it to the other, if ye like; and it will just serve for a weakening of the enemy, and in the point where puir King James is weakest too, for, God knows, he has hands and hearts eneugh, but I doubt he wants the siller.”

“He’ll no get mony Hielanders then, Robin,” said Mr. Jarvie, as, again replacing his spectacles on his nose, he undid the rouleau, and began to count its contents.

“Nor Lowlanders neither,” said MacGregor, arching his eyebrow, and, as he looked at me, directing a glance towards Mr. Jarvie, who, all unconscious of the ridicule, weighed each piece with habitual scrupulosity; and having told twice over the sum, which amounted to the discharge of his debt, principal and interest, he returned three pieces to buy his kinswoman a gown, as he expressed himself, and a brace more for the twa bairns, as he called them, requesting they might buy anything they liked with them except gunpowder. The Highlander stared at his kinsman’s unexpected generosity, but courteously accepted his gift, which he deposited for the time in his well-secured pouch.

The Bailie next produced the original bond for the debt, on the back of which he had written a formal discharge, which, having subscribed himself, he requested me to sign as a witness. I did so, and Bailie Jarvie was looking anxiously around for another, the Scottish law requiring the subscription of two witnesses to validate either a bond or acquittance. “You will hardly find a man that can write save ourselves within these three miles,” said Rob, “but I’ll settle the matter as easily;” and, taking the paper from before his kinsman, he threw it in the fire. Bailie Jarvie stared in his turn, but his kinsman continued, “That’s a Hieland settlement of accounts. The time might come, cousin, were I to keep a’ these charges and discharges, that friends might be brought into trouble for having dealt with me.”

The Bailie attempted no reply to this argument, and our supper now appeared in a style of abundance, and even delicacy, which, for the place, might be considered as extraordinary. The greater part of the provisions were cold, intimating they had been prepared at some distance; and there were some bottles of good French wine to relish pasties of various sorts of game, as well as other dishes. I remarked that MacGregor, while doing the honours of the table with great and anxious hospitality, prayed us to excuse the circumstance that some particular dish or pasty had been infringed on before it was presented to us. “You must know,” said he to Mr. Jarvie, but without looking towards me, “you are not the only guests this night in the MacGregor’s country, whilk, doubtless, ye will believe, since my wife and the twa lads would otherwise have been maist ready to attend you, as weel beseems them.”

Bailie Jarvie looked as if he felt glad at any circumstance which occasioned their absence; and I should have been entirely of his opinion, had it not been that the outlaw’s apology seemed to imply they were in attendance on Diana and her companion, whom even in my thoughts I could not bear to designate as her husband.

While the unpleasant ideas arising from this suggestion counteracted the good effects of appetite, welcome, and good cheer, I remarked that Rob Roy’s attention had extended itself to providing us better bedding than we had enjoyed the night before. Two of the least fragile of the bedsteads, which stood by the wall of the hut, had been stuffed with heath, then in full flower, so artificially arranged, that, the flowers being uppermost, afforded a mattress at once elastic and fragrant. Cloaks, and such bedding as could be collected, stretched over this vegetable couch, made it both soft and warm. The Bailie seemed exhausted by fatigue. I resolved to adjourn my communication to him until next morning; and therefore suffered him to betake himself to bed so soon as he had finished a plentiful supper. Though tired and harassed, I did not myself feel the same disposition to sleep, but rather a restless and feverish anxiety, which led to some farther discourse betwixt me and MacGregor.

CHAPTER EIGHTEENTH

A hopeless darkness settles o’er my fate;
I’ve seen the last look of her heavenly eyes, —
I’ve heard the last sound of her blessed voice, —
I’ve seen her fair form from my sight depart;
My doom is closed.

    Count Basil.

“I ken not what to make of you, Mr. Osbaldistone,” said MacGregor, as he pushed the flask towards me. “You eat not, you show no wish for rest; and yet you drink not, though that flask of Bourdeaux might have come out of Sir Hildebrand’s ain cellar. Had you been always as abstinent, you would have escaped the deadly hatred of your cousin Rashleigh.”

“Had I been always prudent,” said I, blushing at the scene he recalled to my recollection, “I should have escaped a worse evil – the reproach of my own conscience.”

MacGregor cast a keen and somewhat fierce glance on me, as if to read whether the reproof, which he evidently felt, had been intentionally conveyed. He saw that I was thinking of myself, not of him, and turned his face towards the fire with a deep sigh. I followed his example, and each remained for a few minutes wrapt in his own painful reverie. All in the hut were now asleep, or at least silent, excepting ourselves.

MacGregor first broke silence, in the tone of one who takes up his determination to enter on a painful subject. “My cousin Nicol Jarvie means well,” he said, “but he presses ower hard on the temper and situation of a man like me, considering what I have been – what I have been forced to become – and, above all, that which has forced me to become what I am.”

He paused; and, though feeling the delicate nature of the discussion in which the conversation was likely to engage me, I could not help replying, that I did not doubt his present situation had much which must be most unpleasant to his feelings.

“I should be happy to learn,” I added, “that there is an honourable chance of your escaping from it.”

“You speak like a boy,” returned MacGregor, in a low tone that growled like distant thunder – “like a boy, who thinks the auld gnarled oak can be twisted as easily as the young sapling. Can I forget that I have been branded as an outlaw – stigmatised as a traitor – a price set on my head as if I had been a wolf – my family treated as the dam and cubs of the hill-fox, whom all may torment, vilify, degrade, and insult – the very name which came to me from a long and noble line of martial ancestors, denounced, as if it were a spell to conjure up the devil with?”

As he went on in this manner, I could plainly see, that, by the enumeration of his wrongs, he was lashing himself up into a rage, in order to justify in his own eyes the errors they had led him into. In this he perfectly succeeded; his light grey eyes contracting alternately and dilating their pupils, until they seemed actually to flash with flame, while he thrust forward and drew back his foot, grasped the hilt of his dirk, extended his arm, clenched his fist, and finally rose from his seat.

“And they shall find,” he said, in the same muttered but deep tone of stifled passion, “that the name they have dared to proscribe – that the name of MacGregor —is a spell to raise the wild devil withal. They shall hear of my vengeance, that would scorn to listen to the story of my wrongs – The miserable Highland drover, bankrupt, barefooted, – stripped of all, dishonoured and hunted down, because the avarice of others grasped at more than that poor all could pay, shall burst on them in an awful change. They that scoffed at the grovelling worm, and trode upon him, may cry and howl when they see the stoop of the flying and fiery-mouthed dragon. – But why do I speak of all this?” he said, sitting down again, and in a calmer tone – “Only ye may opine it frets my patience, Mr. Osbaldistone, to be hunted like an otter, or a sealgh, or a salmon upon the shallows, and that by my very friends and neighbours; and to have as many sword-cuts made, and pistols flashed at me, as I had this day in the ford of Avondow, would try a saint’s temper, much more a Highlander’s, who are not famous for that gude gift, as ye may hae heard, Mr. Osbaldistone. – But as thing bides wi’ me o’ what Nicol said; – I’m vexed for the bairns – I’m vexed when I think o’ Hamish and Robert living their father’s life.” And yielding to despondence on account of his sons, which he felt not upon his own, the father rested his head upon his hand.