Rob Roy, Walter Scott [mystery books to read txt] 📗

* An outlaw.

The voice of the good citizen was broken by his contending feelings. He obviously, while he professed to contemn the pedigree of his Highland kinsman, attached a secret feeling of consequence to the connection, and he spoke of his friend in his prosperity with an overflow of affection, which deepened his sympathy for his misfortunes, and his regret for their consequences.

“Thus tempted and urged by despair,” said I, seeing Mr. Jarvie did not proceed in his narrative, “I suppose your kinsman became one of those depredators you have described to us?”

“No sae bad as that,” said the Glaswegian,—“no a'thegither and outright sae bad as that; but he became a levier of black-mail, wider and farther than ever it was raised in our day, a through the Lennox and Menteith, and up to the gates o' Stirling Castle.”

“Black-mail?—I do not understand the phrase,” I remarked.

“Ou, ye see, Rob soon gathered an unco band o' blue-bonnets at his back, for he comes o' a rough name when he's kent by his ain, and a name that's held its ain for mony a lang year, baith again king and parliament, and kirk too, for aught I ken—an auld and honourable name, for as sair as it has been worried and hadden down and oppressed. My mother was a MacGregor—I carena wha kens it—And Rob had soon a gallant band; and as it grieved him (he said) to see sic hership and waste and depredation to the south o' the Hieland line, why, if ony heritor or farmer wad pay him four punds Scots out of each hundred punds of valued rent, whilk was doubtless a moderate consideration, Rob engaged to keep them scaithless;—let them send to him if they lost sae muckle as a single cloot by thieving, and Rob engaged to get them again, or pay the value—and he aye keepit his word—I canna deny but he keepit his word—a' men allow Rob keeps his word.”

“This is a very singular contract of assurance,” said Mr. Owen.

“It's clean again our statute law, that must be owned,” said Jarvie, “clean again law; the levying and the paying black-mail are baith punishable: but if the law canna protect my barn and byre, whatfor suld I no engage wi' a Hieland gentleman that can?—answer me that.”

“But,” said I, “Mr. Jarvie, is this contract of black-mail, as you call it, completely voluntary on the part of the landlord or farmer who pays the insurance? or what usually happens, in case any one refuses payment of this tribute?”

“Aha, lad!” said the Bailie, laughing, and putting his finger to his nose, “ye think ye hae me there. Troth, I wad advise ony friends o' mine to gree wi' Rob; for, watch as they like, and do what they like, they are sair apt to be harried* when the lang nights come on.

* Plundered.

Some o' the Grahame and Cohoon gentry stood out; but what then?—they lost their haill stock the first winter; sae maist folks now think it best to come into Rob's terms. He's easy wi' a' body that will be easy wi' him; but if ye thraw him, ye had better thraw the deevil.”

“And by his exploits in these vocations,” I continued, “I suppose he has rendered himself amenable to the laws of the country?”

“Amenable?—ye may say that; his craig wad ken the weight o' his hurdies if they could get haud o' Rob. But he has gude friends amang the grit folks; and I could tell ye o' ae grit family that keeps him up as far as they decently can, to be a them in the side of another. And then he's sic an auld-farran lang-headed chield as never took up the trade o' cateran in our time; mony a daft reik he has played—mair than wad fill a book, and a queer ane it wad be—as gude as Robin Hood, or William Wallace—a' fu' o' venturesome deeds and escapes, sic as folk tell ower at a winter ingle in the daft days. It's a queer thing o' me, gentlemen, that am a man o' peace mysell, and a peacefu man's son—for the deacon my father quarrelled wi' nane out o the town-council—it's a queer thing, I say, but I think the Hieland blude o' me warms at thae daft tales, and whiles I like better to hear them than a word o' profit, gude forgie me! But they are vanities—sinfu' vanities—and, moreover, again the statute law—again the statute and gospel law.”

I now followed up my investigation, by inquiring what means of influence this Mr. Robert Campbell could possibly possess over my affairs, or those of my father.

“Why, ye are to understand,” said Mr. Jarvie in a very subdued tone—“I speak amang friends, and under the rose—Ye are to understand, that the Hielands hae been keepit quiet since the year aughty-nine—that was Killiecrankie year. But how hae they been keepit quiet, think ye? By siller, Mr. Owen—by siller, Mr. Osbaldistone. King William caused Breadalbane distribute twenty thousand oude punds sterling amang them, and it's said the auld Hieland Earl keepit a lang lug o't in his ain sporran. And then Queen Anne, that's dead, gae the chiefs bits o' pensions, sae they had wherewith to support their gillies and caterans that work nae wark, as I said afore; and they lay by quiet eneugh, saying some spreagherie on the Lowlands, whilk is their use and wont, and some cutting o' thrapples amang themsells, that nae civilised body kens or cares onything anent.—Weel, but there's a new warld come up wi' this King George (I say, God bless him, for ane)—there's neither like to be siller nor pensions gaun amang them; they haena the means o' mainteening the clans that eat them up, as ye may guess frae what I said before; their credit's gane in the Lowlands; and a man that can whistle ye up a thousand or feifteen hundred linking lads to do his will, wad hardly get fifty punds on his band at the Cross o' Glasgow—This canna stand lang—there will be an outbreak for the Stuarts—there will be an outbreak—they will come down on the low country like a flood, as they did in the waefu' wars o' Montrose, and that will be seen and heard tell o' ere a twalmonth gangs round.”

“Yet still,” I said, “I do not see how this concerns Mr. Campbell, much less my father's affairs.”

“Rob can levy five hundred men, sir, and therefore war suld concern him as muckle as maist folk,” replied the Bailie; “for it is a faculty that is far less profitable in time o' peace. Then, to tell ye the truth, I doubt he has been the prime agent between some o' our Hieland chiefs and the gentlemen in the north o' England. We a' heard o' the public money that was taen frae the chield Morris somewhere about the fit o' Cheviot by Rob and ane o' the Osbaldistone lads; and, to tell ye the truth, word gaed that it was yoursell Mr. Francis,—and sorry was I that your father's son suld hae taen to sic practices—Na, ye needna say a word about it—I see weel I was mistaen; but I wad believe onything o' a stage-player, whilk I concluded ye to be. But now, I doubtna, it has been Rashleigh himself or some other o' your cousins—they are a' tarred wi' the same stick—rank Jacobites and papists, and wad think the government siller and government papers lawfu' prize. And the creature Morris is sic a cowardly caitiff, that to this hour he daurna say that it was Rob took the portmanteau aff him; and troth he's right, for your custom-house and excise cattle are ill liket on a' sides, and Rob might get a back-handed lick at him, before the Board, as they ca't, could help him.”

“I have long suspected this, Mr. Jarvie,” said I, “and perfectly agree with you. But as to my father's affairs”—

“Suspected it?—it's certain—it's certain—I ken them that saw some of the papers that were taen aff Morris—it's needless to say where. But to your father's affairs—Ye maun think that in thae twenty years by-gane, some o' the Hieland lairds and chiefs hae come to some sma' sense o' their ain interest—your father and others hae bought the woods of Glen-Disseries, Glen Kissoch, Tober-na-Kippoch, and mony mair besides, and your father's house has granted large bills in payment,—and as the credit o' Osbaldistone and Tresham was gude—for I'll say before Mr. Owen's face, as I wad behind his back, that, bating misfortunes o' the Lord's sending, nae men could be mair honourable in business—the Hieland gentlemen, holders o' thae bills, hae found credit in Glasgow and Edinburgh—(I might amaist say in Glasgow wholly, for it's little the pridefu' Edinburgh folk do in real business)—for all, or the greater part of the contents o' thae bills. So that—Aha! d'ye see me now?”

I confessed I could not quite follow his drift.

“Why,” said he, “if these bills are not paid, the Glasgow merchant comes on the Hieland lairds, whae hae deil a boddle o' siller, and will like ill to spew up what is item a' spent—They will turn desperate—five hundred will rise that might hae sitten at hame—the deil will gae ower Jock Wabster—and the stopping of your father's house will hasten the outbreak that's been sae lang biding us.”

“You think, then,” said I, surprised at this singular view of the case, “that Rashleigh Osbaldistone has done this injury to my father, merely to accelerate a rising in the Highlands, by distressing the gentlemen to whom these bills were originally granted?”

“Doubtless—doubtless—it has been one main reason, Mr. Osbaldistone. I doubtna but what the ready money he carried off wi' him might be another. But that makes comparatively but a sma' part o' your father's loss, though it might make the maist part o' Rashleigh's direct gain. The assets he carried off are of nae mair use to him than if he were to light his pipe wi' them. He tried if MacVittie & Co. wad gie him siller on them—that I ken by Andro Wylie—but they were ower auld cats to draw that strae afore them—they keepit aff, and gae fair words. Rashleigh Osbaldistone is better ken'd than trusted in Glasgow, for he was here about some jacobitical papistical troking in seventeen hundred and seven, and left debt ahint him. Na, na—he canna pit aff the paper here; folk will misdoubt him how he came by it. Na, na—he'll hae the stuff safe at some o' their haulds in the Hielands, and I daur say my cousin Rob could get at it gin he liked.”

“But would he be disposed to serve us in this pinch, Mr. Jarvie?” said I. “You have described him as an agent of the Jacobite party, and deeply connected in their intrigues: will he be disposed for my sake, or, if you please, for the sake of justice, to make an act of restitution, which, supposing it in his power, would, according to your view of the case, materially interfere with their plans?”

“I canna preceesely speak to that: the grandees among them are doubtfu' o' Rob, and he's doubtfu' o' them.—And he's been weel friended wi' the Argyle family, wha stand for the present model of government. If he was freed o' his hornings and captions, he would rather be on Argyle's side than he wad be on Breadalbane's, for there's auld ill-will between the Breadalbane family and his kin and name. The truth is, that Rob is for his ain hand, as Henry Wynd feught*—he'll take the side that suits him best; if the deil was laird, Rob wad be for being tenant; and ye canna blame him, puir fallow, considering his circumstances.

* Two great clans fought out a quarrel with thirty men of a side, in presence of the king, on the North Inch of Perth, on or about the year 1392; a man was