by Walter Scott
CHAPTER FOURTEEN.
"Woe to the vanquished!" was stern Brenno's word, When sunk proud Rome beneath the Gallic sword-- "Woe to the vanquished!" when his massive blade Bore down the scale against her ransom weigh'd; And on the field of foughten battle still, Woe knows no limits save the victor's will. The Gaulliad.
I anxiously endeavoured to distinguish Dougal among the victors. I hadlittle doubt that the part he had played was assumed, on purpose to leadthe English officer into the defile, and I could not help admiring theaddress with which the ignorant, and apparently half-brutal savage, hadveiled his purpose, and the affected reluctance with which he hadsuffered to be extracted from him the false information which it musthave been his purpose from the beginning to communicate. I foresaw weshould incur some danger on approaching the victors in the first flush oftheir success, which was not unstained with cruelty; for one or two ofthe soldiers, whose wounds prevented them from rising, were poniarded bythe victors, or rather by some ragged Highland boys who had mingled withthem. I concluded, therefore, it would be unsafe to present ourselveswithout some mediator; and as Campbell, whom I now could not but identifywith the celebrated freebooter Rob Roy, was nowhere to be seen, Iresolved to claim the protection of his emissary, Dougal.
After gazing everywhere in vain, I at length retraced my steps to seewhat 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 latelysuspended. I hastened to join him and offer my congratulations, which hewas at first far from receiving in the spirit of cordiality with whichthey were offered. A heavy fit of coughing scarce permitted him breathenough to express the broken hints which he threw out against mysincerity.
"Uh! uh! uh! uh!--they say a friend--uh! uh!--a friend sticketh closerthan a brither--uh! uh! uh! When I came up here, Maister Osbaldistone, tothis country, cursed of God and man--uh! uh--Heaven forgie me forswearing--on nae man's errand but yours, d'ye think it was fair--uh! uh!uh!--to leave me, first, to be shot or drowned atween red-wad Highlandersand red-coats; and next to be hung up between heaven and earth, like anauld potato-bogle, without sae muckle as trying--uh! uh!--sae muckle astrying to relieve me?"
I made a thousand apologies, and laboured so hard to represent theimpossibility of my affording him relief by my own unassisted exertions,that at length I succeeded, and the Bailie, who was as placable as hastyin his temper, extended his favour to me once more. I next took theliberty of asking him how he had contrived to extricate himself.
"Me extricate! I might hae hung there till the day of judgment or I couldhae helped mysell, wi' my head hinging down on the tae side, and my heelson the tother, like the yarn-scales in the weigh-house. It was thecreature Dougal that extricated me, as he did yestreen; he cuttit aff thetails o' my coat wi' his durk, and another gillie and him set me on mylegs as cleverly as if I had never been aff them. But to see what a thinggude braid claith is! Had I been in ony o' your rotten French camletsnow, or your drab-de-berries, it would hae screeded like an auld rag wi'sic a weight as mine. But fair fa' the weaver that wrought the wefto't--I swung and bobbit yonder as safe as a gabbart* that's moored by athree-ply cable at the Broomielaw."
* A kind of lighter used in the river Clyde,--probably from the French *_abare._
I now inquired what had become of his preserver.
"The creature," so he continued to call the Highlandman, "contrived tolet 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'sseeking after you--it's a considerate creature--and troth, I wad swear hewas right about the leddy, as he ca's her, too--Helen Campbell was naneo' the maist douce maidens, nor meekest wives neither, and folk say thatRob himsell stands in awe o' her. I doubt she winna ken me, for it's monyyears since we met--I am clear for waiting for the Dougal creature or wegang near her."
I signified my acquiescence in this reasoning; but it was not the will offate that day that the Bailie's prudence should profit himself or any oneelse.
Andrew Fairservice, though he had ceased to caper on the pinnacle uponthe cessation of the firing, which had given occasion for his whimsicalexercise, continued, as perched on the top of an exposed cliff, tooconspicuous an object to escape the sharp eyes of the Highlanders, whenthey had time to look a little around them. We were apprized he wasdiscovered, by a wild and loud halloo set up among the assembled victors,three or four of whom instantly plunged into the copsewood, and ascendedthe rocky side of the hill in different directions towards the placewhere they had discovered this whimsical apparition.
Those who arrived first within gunshot of poor Andrew, did not troublethemselves to offer him any assistance in the ticklish posture of hisaffairs, but levelling their long Spanish-barrelled guns, gave him tounderstand, by signs which admitted of no misconstruction, that he mustcontrive to come down and submit himself to their mercy, or to be markedat from beneath, like a regimental target set up for ball-practice. Withsuch a formidable hint for venturous exertion, Andrew Fairservice couldno longer hesitate; the more imminent peril overcame his sense of thatwhich seemed less inevitable, and he began to descend the cliff at allrisks, clutching to the ivy and oak stumps, and projecting fragments ofrock, with an almost feverish anxiety, and never failing, ascircumstances left him a hand at liberty, to extend it to the plaidedgentry below in an attitude of supplication, as if to deprecate thedischarge of their levelled firearms. In a word, the fellow, under theinfluence of a counteracting motive for terror, achieved a safe descentfrom his perilous eminence, which, I verily believe, nothing but the fearof instant death could have moved him to attempt. The awkward mode ofAndrew's descent greatly amused the Highlanders below, who fired a shotor 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 hisextreme terror, and the superlative exertions of agility to which itexcited him.
At length he attained firm and comparatively level ground--or rather, tospeak more correctly, his foot slipping at the last point of descent, hefell on the earth at his full length, and was raised by the assistance ofthe Highlanders, who stood to receive him, and who, ere he gained hislegs, stripped him not only of the whole contents of his pockets, but ofperiwig, hat, coat, doublet, stockings, and shoes, performing the featwith such admirable celerity, that, although he fell on his back awell-clothed and decent burgher-seeming serving-man, he arose a forked,uncased, bald-pated, beggarly-looking scarecrow. Without respect to thepain which his undefended toes experienced from the sharp encounter ofthe rocks over which they hurried him, those who had detected Andrewproceeded to drag him downward towards the road through all theintervening obstacles.
In the course of their descent, Mr. Jarvie and I became exposed to theirlynx-eyed observation, and instantly half-a-dozen of armed Highlandersthronged around us, with drawn dirks and swords pointed at our faces andthroats, and cocked pistols presented against our bodies. To have offeredresistance would have been madness, especially as we had no weaponscapable of supporting such a demonstration. We therefore submitted to ourfate; and with great roughness on the part of those who assisted at ourtoilette, were in the act of being reduced to as unsophisticated a state(to use King Lear's phrase) as the plume-less biped Andrew Fairservice,who stood shivering between fear and cold at a few yards' distance. Goodchance, however, saved us from this extremity of wretchedness; for, justas I had yielded up my cravat (a smart Steinkirk, by the way, and richlylaced), and the Bailie had been disrobed of the fragments of hisriding-coat--enter Dougal, and the scene was changed. By a high tone ofexpostulation, mixed with oaths and threats, as far as I could conjecturethe tenor of his language from the violence of his gestures, he compelledthe plunderers, however reluctant, not on
ly to give up their furtherdepredations on our property, but to restore the spoil they had alreadyappropriated. He snatched my cravat from the fellow who had seized it,and twisted it (in the zeal of his restitution) around my neck with suchsuffocating energy as made me think that he had not only been, during hisresidence at Glasgow, a substitute of the jailor, but must moreover havetaken lessons as an apprentice of the hangman. He flung the tatteredremnants of Mr. Jarvie's coat around his shoulders, and as moreHighlanders began to flock towards us from the high road, he led the waydownwards, directing and commanding the others to afford us, butparticularly the Bailie, the assistance necessary to our descending withcomparative ease and safety. It was, however, in vain that AndrewFairservice employed his lungs in obsecrating a share of Dougal'sprotection, or at least his interference to procure restoration of hisshoes.
"Na, na," said Dougal in reply, "she's nae gentle pody, I trow; herpetters hae ganged parefoot, or she's muckle mista'en." And, leavingAndrew to follow at his leisure, or rather at such leisure as thesurrounding crowd were pleased to indulge him with, he hurried us down tothe pathway in which the skirmish had been fought, and hastened topresent us as additional captives to the female leader of his band.
We were dragged before her accordingly, Dougal fighting, struggling,screaming, as if he were the party most apprehensive of hurt, andrepulsing, by threats and efforts, all those who attempted to take anearer interest in our capture than he seemed to do himself. At length wewere placed before the heroine of the day, whose appearance, as well asthose of the savage, uncouth, yet martial figures who surrounded us,struck me, to own the truth, with considerable apprehension. I do notknow if Helen MacGregor had personally mingled in the fray, and indeed Iwas afterwards given to understand the contrary; but the specks of bloodon her brow, her hands and naked arms, as well as on the blade of hersword which she continued to hold in her hand--her flushed countenance,and the disordered state of the raven locks which escaped from under thered bonnet and plume that formed her head-dress, seemed all to intimatethat she had taken an immediate share in the conflict. Her keen blackeyes and features expressed an imagination inflamed by the pride ofgratified revenge, and the triumph of victory. Yet there was nothingpositively sanguinary, or cruel, in her deportment; and she reminded me,when the immediate alarm of the interview was over, of some of thepaintings I had seen of the inspired heroines in the Catholic churches ofFrance. She was not, indeed, sufficiently beautiful for a Judith, nor hadshe the inspired expression of features which painters have given toDeborah, or to the wife of Heber the Kenite, at whose feet the strongoppressor of Israel, who dwelled in Harosheth of the Gentiles, boweddown, fell, and lay a dead man. Nevertheless, the enthusiasm by which shewas agitated gave her countenance and deportment, wildly dignified inthemselves, an air which made her approach nearly to the ideas of thosewonderful artists who gave to the eye the heroines of Scripture history.
I was uncertain in what terms to accost a personage so uncommon, when Mr.Jarvie, breaking the ice with a preparatory cough (for the speed withwhich he had been brought into her presence had again impeded hisrespiration), addressed her as follows:--"Uh! uh! &c. &c. I am very happyto have this _joyful_ opportunity" (a quaver in his voice strongly beliedthe emphasis which he studiously laid on the word joyful)--"this joyfuloccasion," he resumed, trying to give the adjective a more suitableaccentuation, "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 usualjog-trot manner, which exhibited a mixture of familiarity andself-importance)--"How's a' wi' ye this lang time? Ye'll hae forgottenme, Mrs. MacGregor Campbell, as your cousin--uh! uh!--but ye'll mind myfather, Deacon Nicol Jarvie, in the Saut Market o' Glasgow?--an honestman he was, and a sponsible, and respectit you and yours. Sae, as I saidbefore, I am right glad to see you, Mrs. MacGregor Campbell, as mykinsman's wife. I wad crave the liberty of a kinsman to salute you, butthat your gillies keep such a dolefu' fast haud o' my arms, and, to speakHeaven'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 illsuited the exalted state of temper of the person to whom it wasaddressed, then busied with distributing dooms of death, and warm fromconquest in a perilous encounter.
"What fellow are you," she said, "that dare to claim kindred with theMacGregor, and neither wear his dress nor speak his language?--What areyou, that have the tongue and the habit of the hound, and yet seek to liedown with the deer?"
"I dinna ken," said the undaunted Bailie, "if the kindred has ever beenweel redd out to you yet, cousin--but it's ken'd, and can be prov'd. Mymother, Elspeth MacFarlane, was the wife of my father, Deacon NicolJarvie--peace be wi' them baith!--and Elspeth was the daughter of ParlaneMacFarlane, at the Sheeling o' Loch Sloy. Now, this Parlane MacFarlane,as his surviving daughter Maggy MacFarlane, _alias_ MacNab, wha marriedDuncan MacNab o' Stuckavrallachan, can testify, stood as near to yourgudeman, Robert MacGregor, as in the fourth degree of kindred, for"--
The virago lopped the genealogical tree, by demanding haughtily, "If astream of rushing water acknowledged any relation with the portionwithdrawn from it for the mean domestic uses of those who dwelt on itsbanks?"
"Vera true, kinswoman," said the Bailie; "but for a' that, the burn wadbe glad to hae the milldam back again in simmer, when the chuckie-stanesare white in the sun. I ken weel eneugh you Hieland folk haud us Glasgowpeople light and cheap for our language and our claes;--but everybodyspeaks their native tongue that they learned in infancy; and it would bea daft-like thing to see me wi' my fat wame in a short Hieland coat, andmy puir short houghs gartered below the knee, like ane o' yourlang-legged gillies. Mair by token, kinswoman," he continued, in defianceof various intimations by which Dougal seemed to recommend silence, aswell as of the marks of impatience which the Amazon evinced at hisloquacity, "I wad hae ye to mind that the king's errand whiles comes inthe 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 Scripturewarrant for that--yet as high as ye haud him, as I was saying, I hae beenserviceable to Rob ere now;--forbye a set o' pearlins I sent yourselfwhen ye was gaun to be married, and when Rob was an honest weel-doingdrover, and nane o' this unlawfu' wark, wi' fighting, and flashes, andfluff-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 herfeelings 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 yourdominion, as your hewers of wood and drawers of water--to find cattle foryour banquets, and subjects for your laws to oppress and trample on. Butnow we are free--free by the very act which left us neither house norhearth, food nor covering--which bereaved me of all--of all--and makes megroan when I think I must still cumber the earth for other purposes thanthose of vengeance. And I will carry on the work, this day has so wellcommenced, by a deed that shall break all bands between MacGregor and theLowland churls. Here Allan--Dougal--bind these Sassenachs neck and heeltogether, and throw them into the Highland Loch to seek for theirHighland kinsfolk."
The Bailie, alarmed at this mandate, was commencing an expostulation,which probably would have only inflamed the violent passions of theperson whom he addressed, when Dougal threw himself between them, and inhis own language, which he spoke with a fluency and rapidity stronglycontrasted by the slow, imperfect, and idiot-like manner in which heexpressed himself in English, poured forth what I doubt not was a veryanimated pleading in our behalf.
His mistress replied to him, or rather cut short his harangue, byexclaiming in English (as if determined to make us taste in anticipationthe full bitterness of death)--"Base dog, and son of a dog, do youdispute my commands? Should I tell ye to cut out their tongues and putthem into each other's throat
s, to try which would there best knapSouthron, or to tear out their hearts and put them into each other'sbreasts, to see which would there best plot treason against theMacGregor--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 profoundsubmission; "her pleasure suld be done--tat's but reason; but an itwere--tat is, an it could be thought the same to her to coup theill-faured loon of ta red-coat Captain, and hims corporal Cramp, and twathree o' the red-coats, into the loch, herself wad do't wi' muckle mairgreat satisfaction than to hurt ta honest civil shentlemans as werefriends to the Gregarach, and came up on the Chiefs assurance, and notto do no treason, as herself could testify."
The lady was about to reply, when a few wild strains of a pibroch wereheard advancing up the road from Aberfoil, the same probably which hadreached the ears of Captain Thornton's rear-guard, and determined him toforce his way onward rather than return to the village, on finding thepass occupied. The skirmish being of very short duration, the armed menwho followed this martial melody, had not, although quickening theirmarch when they heard the firing, been able to arrive in time sufficientto take any share in the rencontre. The victory, therefore, was completewithout them, and they now arrived only to share in the triumph of theircountrymen.
There was a marked difference betwixt the appearance of these new comersand that of the party by which our escort had been defeated--and it wasgreatly in favour of the former. Among the Highlanders who surrounded theChieftainess, 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, andeven 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 cloudedThornton's manly countenance, when he found that the numbers and positionof a foe, otherwise so despicable, had enabled them to conquer his braveveterans. 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 bestadvantage. Their arms were as superior to those of the first party astheir dress and appearance. The followers of the female Chief had axes,scythes, and other antique weapons, in aid of their guns; and some hadonly clubs, daggers, and long knives. But of the second party, most hadpistols at the belt, and almost all had dirks hanging at the poucheswhich they wore in front. Each had a good gun in his hand, and abroadsword by his side, besides a stout round target, made of light wood,covered with leather, and curiously studded with brass, and having asteel spike screwed into the centre. These hung on their left shoulderduring a march, or while they were engaged in exchanging fire with theenemy, and were worn on their left arm when they charged with sword inhand.
But it was easy to see that this chosen band had not arrived from avictory such as they found their ill-appointed companions possessed of.The pibroch sent forth occasionally a few wailing notes expressive of avery different sentiment from triumph; and when they appeared before thewife of their Chieftain, it was in silence, and with downcast andmelancholy looks. They paused when they approached her, and the pipesagain sent forth the same wild and melancholy strain.
Helen rushed towards them with a countenance in which anger was mingledwith apprehension.--"What means this, Alaster?" she said to theminstrel--"why a lament in the moment of victory?--Robert--Hamish--where'sthe MacGregor?--where's your father?"
Her sons, who led the band, advanced with slow and irresolute stepstowards her, and murmured a few words in Gaelic, at hearing which she setup a shriek that made the rocks ring again, in which all the women andboys joined, clapping their hands and yelling as if their lives had beenexpiring in the sound. The mountain echoes, silent since the militarysounds of battle had ceased, had now to answer these frantic anddiscordant shrieks of sorrow, which drove the very night-birds from theirhaunts in the rocks, as if they were startled to hear orgies more hideousand 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 himprisoner, and come back to tell it?"
The sons of MacGregor, to whom this expostulation was addressed, wereyouths, 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 aprofusion of fair hair, which streamed from under his smart blue bonnet,made his whole appearance a most favourable specimen of the Highlandyouth. The younger was called Robert; but, to distinguish him from hisfather, the Highlanders added the epithet _Oig,_ or the young. Dark hair,and dark features, with a ruddy glow of health and animation, and a formstrong and well-set beyond his years, completed the sketch of the youngmountaineer.
Both now stood before their mother with countenances clouded with griefand shame, and listened, with the most respectful submission, to thereproaches with which she loaded them. At length when her resentmentappeared in some degree to subside, the eldest, speaking in English,probably that he might not be understood by their followers, endeavouredrespectfully to vindicate himself and his brother from his mother'sreproaches. 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 inthis strange crisis, I failed not to listen as attentively as I could.
"The MacGregor," his son stated, "had been called out upon a trystingwith a Lowland hallion, who came with a token from"--he muttered the namevery low, but I thought it sounded like my own. "The MacGregor," he said,"accepted of the invitation, but commanded the Saxon who brought themessage to be detained, as a hostage that good faith should be observedto him. Accordingly he went to the place of appointment" (which had somewild Highland name that I cannot remember), "attended only by Angus Breckand Little Rory, commanding no one to follow him. Within half an hourAngus Breck came back with the doleful tidings that the MacGregor hadbeen surprised and made prisoner by a party of Lennox militia, underGalbraith of Garschattachin." He added, "that Galbraith, on beingthreatened by MacGregor, who upon his capture menaced him withretaliation on the person of the hostage, had treated the threat withgreat contempt, replying, 'Let each side hang his man; we'll hang thethief, and your catherans may hang the gauger, Rob, and the country willbe rid of two damned things at once, a wild Highlander and a revenueofficer.' Angus Breck, less carefully looked to than his master,contrived to escape from the hands of the captors, after having been intheir custody long enough to hear this discussion, and to bring off thenews."
"And did you learn this, you false-hearted traitor," said the wife ofMacGregor, "and not instantly rush to your father's rescue, to bring himoff, or leave your body on the place?"
The young MacGregor modestly replied, by representing the very superiorforce of the enemy, and stated, that as they made no preparation forleaving the country, he had fallen back up the glen with the purpose ofcollecting a band sufficient to attempt a rescue with some tolerablechance of success. At length he said, "the militiamen would quarter, heunderstood, in the neighbouring house of Gartartan, or the old castle inthe port of Monteith, or some other stronghold, which, although strongand defensible, was nevertheless capable of being surprised, could theybut get enough of men assembled for the purpose."
I understood afterwards that the rest of the freebooter's followers weredivided into two strong bands, one destined to watch the remaininggarrison of Inversnaid, a party of which, under Captain Thornton, hadbeen defeated; and another to show front to the Highland clans who hadunited with the regular troops and Lowlanders in this hostile andcombined invasion of that mountainous and desolate territory, which lyingbetween the lakes of Loch Lomond, Loch Katrine, and Loch Ard, was at thistime currently called Rob Roy's, or the MacGregor country. Messen
gerswere despatched in great haste, to concentrate, as I supposed, theirforces, with a view to the purposed attack on the Lowlanders; and thedejection and despair, at first visible on each countenance, gave placeto the hope of rescuing their leader, and to the thirst of vengeance. Itwas under the burning influence of the latter passion that the wife ofMacGregor commanded that the hostage exchanged for his safety should bebrought into her presence. I believe her sons had kept this unfortunatewretch out of her sight, for fear of the consequences; but if it was so,their humane precaution only postponed his fate. They dragged forward ather summons a wretch already half dead with terror, in whose agonisedfeatures I recognised, to my horror and astonishment, my old acquaintanceMorris.
He fell prostrate before the female Chief with an effort to clasp herknees, from which she drew back, as if his touch had been pollution, sothat all he could do in token of the extremity of his humiliation, was tokiss the hem of her plaid. I never heard entreaties for life poured forthwith such agony of spirit. The ecstasy of fear was such, that instead ofparalysing his tongue, as on ordinary occasions, it even rendered himeloquent; and, with cheeks pale as ashes, hands compressed in agony, eyesthat seemed to be taking their last look of all mortal objects, heprotested, with the deepest oaths, his total ignorance of any design onthe person of Rob Roy, whom he swore he loved and honoured as his ownsoul. In the inconsistency of his terror, he said he was but the agent ofothers, and he muttered the name of Rashleigh. He prayed but forlife--for life he would give all he had in the world: it was but life heasked--life, if it were to be prolonged under tortures and privations:he asked only breath, though it should be drawn in the damps of thelowest caverns of their hills.
It is impossible to describe the scorn, the loathing, and contempt, withwhich the wife of MacGregor regarded this wretched petitioner for thepoor boon of existence.
"I could have bid ye live," she said, "had life been to you the sameweary and wasting burden that it is to me--that it is to every noble andgenerous mind. But you--wretch! you could creep through the worldunaffected by its various disgraces, its ineffable miseries, itsconstantly accumulating masses of crime and sorrow: you could live andenjoy yourself, while the noble-minded are betrayed--while nameless andbirthless villains tread on the neck of the brave and the long-descended:you could enjoy yourself, like a butcher's dog in the shambles, batteningon garbage, while the slaughter of the oldest and best went on aroundyou! 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 seizedupon the prostrate suppliant, and hurried him to the brink of a cliffwhich overhung the flood. He set up the most piercing and dreadful criesthat fear ever uttered--I may well term them dreadful, for they hauntedmy sleep for years afterwards. As the murderers, or executioners, callthem as you will, dragged him along, he recognised me even in that momentof horror, and exclaimed, in the last articulate words I ever heard himutter, "Oh, Mr. Osbaldistone, save me!--save me!"
I was so much moved by this horrid spectacle, that, although in momentaryexpectation of sharing his fate, I did attempt to speak in his behalf,but, as might have been expected, my interference was sternlydisregarded. The victim was held fast by some, while others, binding alarge heavy stone in a plaid, tied it round his neck, and others againeagerly stripped him of some part of his dress. Half-naked, and thusmanacled, they hurled him into the lake, there about twelve feet deep,with a loud halloo of vindictive triumph,--above which, however, his lastdeath-shriek, the yell of mortal agony, was distinctly heard. The heavyburden splashed in the dark-blue waters, and the Highlanders, with theirpole-axes and swords, watched an instant to guard, lest, extricatinghimself from the load to which he was attached, the victim might havestruggled to regain the shore. But the knot had been securely bound--thewretched man sunk without effort; the waters, which his fall haddisturbed, settled calmly over him, and the unit of that life for whichhe had pleaded so strongly, was for ever withdrawn from the sum of humanexistence.
