Rob Roy — Complete, Walter Scott [top fiction books of all time txt] 📗

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.