by Walter Scott
I was much affected, Will. All my life long I have been more melted by the distress under which a strong, proud, and powerful mind is compelled to give way, than by the more easily excited sorrows of softer dispositions. The desire of aiding him rushed strongly on my mind, notwithstanding the apparent difficulty, and even impossibility of the task.
‘We have extensive connexions abroad,’ said I; ‘might not your sons, with some assistance—and they are well entitled to what my father’s house can give—find an honourable resource in foreign service?’
I believe my countenance showed signs of sincere emotion; but my companion, taking me by the hand, as I was going to speak farther, said, ‘I thank—I thank ye—but let us say nae mair o’ this. I did not think the eye of man would again have seen a tear on MacGregor’s eye-lash.’ He dashed the moisture from his long grey eye-lash and shaggy red eye-brow with the back of his hand. ‘To-morrow morning,’ he said, ‘we’ll talk of this, and we will talk, too, of your affairs—for we are early starters in the dawn, even when we have the luck to have good beds to sleep in. Will ye not pledge me in a grace cup?’ I declined the invitation.
‘Then, by the soul of St Maronoch! I must pledge myself,’ and he poured out and swallowed at least half a quart of wine.
I laid myself down to repose, resolving to delay my own enquiries until his mind should be in a more composed state. Indeed, so much had this singular man possessed himself of my imagination, that I felt it impossible to avoid watching him for some minutes after I had flung myself on my heath mattress to seeming rest. He walked up and down the hut, crossed himself from time to time, muttering over some Latin prayer of the Catholic church; then wrapped himself in his plaid, with his naked sword on one side, and his pistol on the other, so disposing the folds of his mantle, that he could start up at a moment’s warning, with a weapon in either hand, ready for instant combat. In a few minutes his heavy breathing announced that he was fast asleep. Overpowered by fatigue, and stunned by the various unexpected and extraordinary scenes of the day, I, in my turn, was soon overpowered by a slumber deep and overwhelming, from which, notwithstanding every cause for watchfulness, I did not awake until the next morning.
When I opened my eyes, and recollected my situation, I found that MacGregor had already left the hut. I awakened the Bailie, who, after many a snort and groan, and some heavy complaints of the soreness of his bones, in consequence of the unwonted exertions of the preceding day, was at length able to comprehend the joyful intelligence, that the assets carried off by Rashleigh Osbaldistone had been safely recovered. The instant he understood my meaning he forgot all his grievances, and, bustling up in a great hurry, proceeded to compare the contents of the packet, which I put into his hands, with Mr. Owen’s memorandums, muttering as he went on, ‘Right, right—the real thing—Baillie and Whittington—where’s Baillie and Whittington?—seven hundred, six, and eight—exact to a fraction—Pollock and Peelman—twenty-eight, seven—exact—Praise be blest!—Grub and Grinder—better men cannot be—three hundred and seventy—Gliblad—twenty, I doubt Gliblad’s ganging—Slipprytongue—Slipprytongue’s gaen—but they are sma’ sums—sma’ sums—the rest’s a’ right—Praise be blest! we have got the stuff, and may leave this doleful country. I shall never think on Loch-Ard but the thought will gar me grew again.’
‘I am sorry, cousin,’ said MacGregor, who entered the hut during the last observation, ‘I have not been altogether in the circumstances to make your reception sic as I could have desired—natheless, if you would condescend to visit my puir dwelling——’
‘Muckle obliged, muckle obliged,’ answered Mr. Jarvie, very hastily. ‘But we maun be ganging—we maun be jogging, Mr. Osbaldistone and me—business canna wait.’
‘Aweel, kinsman,’ replied the Highlander, ‘ye ken our fashion—foster the guest that comes—further him that maun gang.—But ye cannot return by Drymen—I must set ye on Loch Lomond, and boat ye down to the ferry o’ Balloch, and send your nags round to meet ye there—It’s a maxim of a wise man never to return by the same road he came, providing another’s free to him.’
‘Ay, ay, Rob,’ said the Bailie, ‘that’s ane o’ the maxims ye learned when ye were a drover—ye caredna to face the tenants where your beasts had been taking a rug of their moorland grass in the by-ganging—and I doubt your road’s waur marked now than it was then.’
“The mair need not to travel it ower often, kinsman,’ replied Rob; ‘but I’se send round your nags to the ferry wi’ Dougal Gregor, wha is converted for that purpose into the Bailie’s man, coming—not, as ye may believe, from Aber-foil or Rob Roy’s country, but on a quiet jaunt from Stirling.—See, here he is.’
‘I wadna hae kend the creature,’ said Mr. Jarvie; nor indeed was it easy to recognize the wild Highlander, when he appeared before the door of the cottage, attired in a hat, periwig, and riding coat, which had once called Andrew Fairservice master, and mounted on the Bailie’s horse, and leading mine. He received his last orders from his master to avoid certain places where he might be exposed to suspicion—to collect what intelligence he could in the course of his journey, and to await our coming at an appointed place, near the Ferry of Balloch.
At the same time MacGregor invited us to accompany him upon our own road, assuring us that we must necessarily march a few miles before breakfast, and recommending a dram of brandy as a proper introduction to the journey, in which he was pledged by the Bailie, who pronounced it ‘an unlawful and perilous habit to begin the day wi’ spirituous liquors, except to defend the stomach (whilk was a tender part) against the morning mist; in whilk case his father the deacon had recommended a dram, by precept and example.’
‘Very true, kinsman,’ replied Rob, ‘for which reason we, who are Children of the Mist, have a right to drink brandy from morning till night.’
The Bailie, thus refreshed, was mounted on a small Highland pony; another was offered for my use, which, however, I declined, and we resumed, under very different guidance and auspices, our journey of the preceding day.
Our escort consisted of MacGregor, and five or six of the handsomest, best armed, and most athletic mountaineers of his band, and whom he had generally in immediate attendance upon his own person.
When we approached the pass, the scene of the skirmish of the preceding day, and of the still more direful deed which followed it, MacGregor hastened to speak, as if it were rather to what he knew must be necessarily passing in my mind, than to any thing I had said—he spoke, in short, to my thoughts, and not to my words.
‘You must think hardly of us, Mr. Osbaldistone, and it is not natural that it should be otherwise. But remember, at least, we have not been unprovoked—we are a rude and an ignorant, and it may be a violent and passionate, but we are not a cruel people—the land might be at peace and in law for us, did they allow us to enjoy the blessings of peaceful law. But we have been a persecuted generation.’
‘And persecution,’ said the Bailie, ‘maketh wise men mad.’
‘What must it do then to men like us, living as our fathers did a thousand years since, and possessing scarce more lights than they did?—Can we view their bluidy edicts against us—their hanging, heading, hounding, and hunting down an ancient and honourable name, as deserving better treatment than that which enemies give to enemies?—Here I stand, have been in twenty frays, and never hurt man but when I was in het bluid; and yet they wad betray me and hang me like a masterless dog, at the gate of ony great man that has an ill-will at me.’
I replied, ‘that the proscription of his name and family sounded in English ears as a very cruel and arbitrary law;’ and having thus far soothed him, I resumed my propositions of obtaining military employment for himself, if he choose it, and his sons in foreign parts. MacGregor shook me very cordially by the hand, and detaining me, so as to permit Mr. Jarvie to precede us, a manoeuvre for which the narrowness of the road served as an excuse, he said to me, ‘You are a kind-hearted and an honourable youth, and understand, doubt
less, that which is due to the feelings of a man of honour.—But the heather that I have trod upon when living, must bloom ower me when I am dead—my heart would sink, and my arm would shrink and wither like fern in the frost, were I to lose sight of my native hills; nor has the world a scene that would console me for the loss of the rocks and cairns, wild as they are, that you see around us.—And Helen—what could become of her, were I to leave her the subject of new insult and atrocity?—or how could she bear to be removed from these scenes, where the remembrance of her wrongs is aye sweetened by the recollection of her revenge?—I was once so hard put at by my Great enemy, as I may well ca’ him, that I was forced e’en to gie way to the tide, and removed myself and my people and family from our dwellings in our native land, and to withdraw for a time into MacCallum More’s country—and Helen made a Lament on our departure, as weel as Mac-Rimmon1 himsell could hae framed it—and so piteously sad and waesome, that our hearts amaist broke as we sate and listened to her—it was like the wailing of one that mourns for the mother that bore him—the tears came down the rough faces of our gillies as they hearkened—and I wad not have the same touch of heartbreak again, no, not to have all the lands that ever were owned by MacGregor.’
‘But your sons,’ I said, ‘they are at the age when your countrymen have usually no objection to see the world?’
‘And I should be content,’ he replied, ‘that they pushed their fortune in the French or Spanish service, as is the wont of Scottish cavaliers of honour, and last night your plan seemed feasible enough—But I hae seen his Excellency this morning before ye were up.’
‘Did he then quarter so near us?’ said I, my bosom throbbing with anxiety.
‘Nearer than ye thought,’ was MacGregor’s reply; ‘but he seemed rather in some shape to jalouse your speaking to the Young leddy; and so you see——’
‘There was no occasion for jealousy,’ I answered, with some haughtiness; ‘I should not have intruded on his privacy.’
‘But ye must not be offended, or look out from amang your curls then, like a wild-cat out of an ivy-tod, for ye are to understand that he wishes most sincere weel to you, and has proved it. And it’s partly that whilk has set the heather on fire e’en now.’
‘Heather on fire?’ said I. ‘I do not understand you.’
‘Why,’ resumed MacGregor, ‘ye ken weel eneugh that women and gear are at the bottom of a’ the mischief in this warld—I hae been misdoubting your cousin Rashleigh since ever he saw that he wasna to get Die Vernon for his marrow, and I think he took grudge at his Excellency mainly on that account. But then came the splore about die surrendering your papers—and we hae now gude evidence, that, sae soon as he was compelled to yield them up, he rade post to Stirling, and tauld the government all, and mair than all, that was gaun doucely on amang us hill-folk; and, doubtless, that was the way that the country was laid to take his Excellency and the leddy, and to make sic an unexpected raid on me. And I hae as little doubt that the poor deevil Morris, whom he could gar believe ony thing, was egged on by him, and some of the Lowland gentry, to trepan me in the gate he tried to do. But if Rashleigh Osbaldistone were baith the last and best of his name; and granting that he and I ever forgather again, the fiend go down my weasand with a bare blade at his belt, if we part before my dirk and his best bluid are weel acquainted thegither!’
He pronounced the last threat with an ominous frown, and the appropriate gesture of his hand upon his dagger.
‘I should almost rejoice at what has happened,’ said I, ‘could I hope that Rashleigh’s treachery might prove the means of preventing the explosion of the rash and desperate intrigues, in which I have long suspected him to be a prime agent.’
‘Trow ye na that,’ said Rob Roy; ‘traitor’s word never yet hurt honest cause. He was ower deep in our secrets, that’s true; and had it not been so, Stirling and Edinburgh Castles would have been baith in our hands by this time, or briefly hereafter, whilk is now scarce to be hoped for. But there are ower mony engaged, and far ower gude a cause to be gien up for the breath of a traitor’s tale, and that will be seen and heard of ere it be lang. And so, as I was about to say, the best of my thanks to you for your offer anent my sons, whilk last night I had some thoughts to have embraced in their behalf. But I see that this villain’s treason will convince our great folks that they must instantly draw to a head, and make a blow for it, or be taen in their houses, coupled up like hounds, and driven up to London like the honest noblemen and gentlemen in the year seventeen hundred and seven. Civil war is like a cockatrice; we have sitten hatching the egg that held it for ten years, and might hae sitten on for ten years mair, when in comes Rashleigh, and chips the shell, and out bangs the wonder amang us, and cries to fire and sword. Now in sic a matter I’ll hae need o’ a’ the hands I can mak; and, nae disparagement to the Kings of France and Spain, whom I wish very weel to, King James is as gude a man as ony o’ them, and has the best right to Hamish and Rob, being his natural-born subjects.’
I easily comprehended that these words boded a general national convulsion; and, as it would have been alike useless and dangerous to have combatted the political opinions of my guide, at such a place and moment, I contented myself with regretting the promiscuous scene of confusion and distress likely to arise from any general exertion in favour of the exiled royal family.
‘Let it come, man—let it come,’ answered MacGregor; ‘ye never saw dull weather clear without a shower; and if the world is turned upside down, why, honest men have the better chance to cut bread out of it.’
I again attempted to bring him back to the subject of Diana; but although on most occasions and subjects he used a freedom of speech which I had no great delight in listening to, yet upon that alone, which was most interesting to me, he kept a degree of scrupulous reserve, and contented himself with intimating, ‘that he hoped the leddy would be soon in a quieter country than this was like to be for one while.’ I was obliged to be content with this answer, and to proceed in the hope that accident might, as on a former occasion stand my friend, and allow me at least the sad gratification of bidding farewell to the object who had occupied such a share of my affections, so much beyond even what I had supposed, till I was about to be separated from her for ever.
We pursued the margin of the lake for about six English miles, through a devious and beautifully variegated path, until we attained a sort of Highland farm, or assembly of hamlets, near the head of that fine sheet of water, called, if I mistake not, Lediart, or some such name. Here a numerous party of MacGregor’s men were stationed in order to receive us. The taste, as well as the eloquence of tribes, in a savage, or, to speak more properly, in a rude state, is usually just, because it is unfettered by system and affectation; and of this I had an example in the choice these mountaineers had made of a place to receive their guests. It has been said that a British monarch would judge well to receive the embassy of a rival power in the cabin of a man-of-war; and a Highland leader acted with some propriety in choosing a situation, where the natural objects of grandeur proper to his country might have the full effect on the mind of his guests.
We ascended about two hundred yards from the shores of the lake, guided by a brawling brook, and left on the right hand four or five Highland huts, with patches of arable land around them, so small as to show that they must have been worked with the spade rather than the plough, cut as it were out of the surrounding copsewood, and waving with crops of barley and oats. Above this limited space the hill became more steep; and on its edge we descried the glittering arms and waving drapery of about fifty of MacGregor’s followers. They were stationed on a spot, the recollection of which yet strikes me with admiration. The brook, hurling its waters downwards from the mountain, had in this spot encountered a barrier rock, over which it had made its way by two distinct leaps. The first fall, across which a magnificent old oak, slanting out from the farther bank, partly extended itself as if to shroud the dusky stream of the cascade, might be about twelve feet high
; the broken waters were received in a beautiful stone basin, almost as regular as if hewn by a sculptor; and after wheeling around its flinty margin, they made a second precipitous dash, through a dark and narrow chasm, at least fifty feet in depth, and from thence, in a hurried, but comparatively a more gentle course, escaped to join the lake.
With the natural taste which belongs to mountaineers, and especially to the Scottish Highlanders, whose feelings I have observed are often allied with the romantic and poetical, Rob Roy’s wife and followers had prepared our morning repast, in a scene well calculated to impress strangers with some feelings of awe. They are also naturally a grave and proud people, and, however rude in our estimation, carry their ideas of form and politeness to an excess that would appear overstrained, except from the demonstration of superior force which accompanies the display of it; for it must be granted that the air of punctilious deference and rigid etiquette which would seem ridiculous in an ordinary peasant, has, like the salute of a, corps-de-garde, a propriety when tendered by a Highlander completely armed. There was, accordingly, a good deal of formality in our approach and reception.
The Highlanders, who had been dispersed on the side of the hill, drew themselves together when we came in view, and, standing firm and motionless, appeared in close column behind three figures, whom I soon recognized to be Helen MacGregor and her two sons. MacGregor himself arranged his attendants in the rear, and, requesting Mr. Jarvie to dismount where the ascent became steep, advanced slowly, marshalling us forward at the head of the troop. As we advanced, we heard the wild notes of the bagpipes, which lost their natural discord from being mingled with the dashing sound of the cascade. When we came close, the wife of MacGregor came forward to meet us. Her dress was studiously arranged in a more feminine taste than it had been on the preceding day, but her features wore the same lofty, unbending, and resolute character; and as she folded my friend the Bailie in an unexpected and apparently unwelcome embrace, I could perceive, by the agitation of his wig, his back, and the calves of his legs, that he felt much like to one who feels himself suddenly in the gripe of a she-bear, without being able to distinguish whether the animal is in kindness or in wrath.
