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

blood from the prisoner, and was, to all appearance, only extorted by the threat of a halter and the next tree, which Captain Thornton assured him should be his doom, if he did not give direct and special information.

“And now, my friend,” said the officer, “you will please inform me how many men your master has with him at present.”

Dougal looked in every direction except at the querist, and began to answer, “She canna just be sure about that.”

“Look at me, you Highland dog,” said the officer, “and remember your life depends on your answer. How many rogues had that outlawed scoundrel with him when you left him?”

“Ou, no aboon sax rogues when I was gane.”

“And where are the rest of his banditti?”

“Gane wi' the Lieutenant agane ta westland carles.”

“Against the westland clans?” said the Captain. “Umph—that is likely enough; and what rogue's errand were you despatched upon?”

“Just to see what your honour and ta gentlemen red-coats were doing doun here at ta Clachan.”

“The creature will prove fause-hearted, after a',” said the Bailie, who by this time had planted himself close behind me; “it's lucky I didna pit mysell to expenses anent him.”

“And now, my friend,” said the Captain, “let us understand each other. You have confessed yourself a spy, and should string up to the next tree—But come, if you will do me one good turn, I will do you another. You, Donald—you shall just, in the way of kindness, carry me and a small party to the place where you left your master, as I wish to speak a few words with him on serious affairs; and I'll let you go about your business, and give you five guineas to boot.”

“Oigh! oigh!” exclaimed Dougal, in the extremity of distress and perplexity; “she canna do tat—she canna do tat; she'll rather be hanged.”

“Hanged, then, you shall be, my friend” said the officer; “and your blood be upon your own head. Corporal Cramp, do you play Provost-Marshal—away with him!”

The corporal had confronted poor Dougal for some time, ostentatiously twisting a piece of cord which he had found in the house into the form of a halter. He now threw it about the culprit's neck, and, with the assistance of two soldiers, had dragged Dougal as far as the door, when, overcome with the terror of immediate death, he exclaimed, “Shentlemans, stops—stops! She'll do his honour's bidding—stops!”

“Awa' wi' the creature!” said the Bailie, “he deserves hanging mair now than ever; awa' wi' him, corporal. Why dinna ye tak him awa'?”

“It's my belief and opinion, honest gentleman,” said the corporal, “that if you were going to be hanged yourself, you would be in no such d—d hurry.”

This by-dialogue prevented my hearing what passed between the prisoner and Captain Thornton; but I heard the former snivel out, in a very subdued tone, “And ye'll ask her to gang nae farther than just to show ye where the MacGregor is?—Ohon! ohon!”

“Silence your howling, you rascal—No; I give you my word I will ask you to go no farther.—Corporal, make the men fall in, in front of the houses. Get out these gentlemen's horses; we must carry them with us. I cannot spare any men to guard them here. Come, my lads, get under arms.”

The soldiers bustled about, and were ready to move. We were led out, along with Dougal, in the capacity of prisoners. As we left the hut, I heard our companion in captivity remind the Captain of “ta foive kuineas.”

“Here they are for you,” said the officer, putting gold into his hand; “but observe, that if you attempt to mislead me, I will blow your brains out with my own hand.”

“The creature,” said the Bailie, “is waur than I judged him—it is a warldly and a perfidious creature. O the filthy lucre of gain that men gies themsells up to! My father the deacon used to say, the penny siller slew mair souls than the naked sword slew bodies.”

The landlady now approached, and demanded payment of her reckoning, including all that had been quaffed by Major Galbraith and his Highland friends. The English officer remonstrated, but Mrs. MacAlpine declared, if “she hadna trusted to his honour's name being used in their company, she wad never hae drawn them a stoup o' liquor; for Mr. Galbraith, she might see him again, or she might no, but weel did she wot she had sma' chance of seeing her siller—and she was a puir widow, had naething but her custom to rely on.”

Captain Thornton put a stop to her remonstrances by paying the charge, which was only a few English shillings, though the amount sounded very formidable in Scottish denominations. The generous officer would have included Mr. Jarvie and me in this general acquittance; but the Bailie, disregarding an intimation from the landlady to “make as muckle of the Inglishers as we could, for they were sure to gie us plague eneugh,” went into a formal accounting respecting our share of the reckoning, and paid it accordingly. The Captain took the opportunity to make us some slight apology for detaining us. “If we were loyal and peaceable subjects,” he said, “we would not regret being stopt for a day, when it was essential to the king's service; if otherwise, he was acting according to his duty.”

We were compelled to accept an apology which it would have served no purpose to refuse, and we sallied out to attend him on his march.

I shall never forget the delightful sensation with which I exchanged the dark, smoky, smothering atmosphere of the Highland hut, in which we had passed the night so uncomfortably, for the refreshing fragrance of the morning air, and the glorious beams of the rising sun, which, from a tabernacle of purple and golden clouds, were darted full on such a scene of natural romance and beauty as had never before greeted my eyes. To the left lay the valley, down which the Forth wandered on its easterly course, surrounding the beautiful detached hill, with all its garland of woods. On the right, amid a profusion of thickets, knolls, and crags, lay the bed of a broad mountain lake, lightly curled into tiny waves by the breath of the morning breeze, each glittering in its course under the influence of the sunbeams. High hills, rocks, and banks, waving with natural forests of birch and oak, formed the borders of this enchanting sheet of water; and, as their leaves rustled to the wind and twinkled in the sun, gave to the depth of solitude a sort of life and vivacity. Man alone seemed to be placed in a state of inferiority, in a scene where all the ordinary features of nature were raised and exalted. The miserable little bourocks, as the Bailie termed them, of which about a dozen formed the village called the Clachan of Aberfoil, were composed of loose stones, cemented by clay instead of mortar, and thatched by turfs, laid rudely upon rafters formed of native and unhewn birches and oaks from the woods around. The roofs approached the ground so nearly, that Andrew Fairservice observed we might have ridden over the village the night before, and never found out we were near it, unless our horses' feet had “gane through the riggin'.”

From all we could see, Mrs. MacAlpine's house, miserable as were the quarters it afforded, was still by far the best in the hamlet; and I dare say (if my description gives you any curiosity to see it) you will hardly find it much improved at the present day, for the Scotch are not a people who speedily admit innovation, even when it comes in the shape of improvement.*

* Note I. Clachan of Aberfoil.

The inhabitants of these miserable dwellings were disturbed by the noise of our departure; and as our party of about twenty soldiers drew up in rank before marching off, we were reconnoitred by many a beldam from the half-opened door of her cottage. As these sibyls thrust forth their grey heads, imperfectly covered with close caps of flannel, and showed their shrivelled brows, and long skinny arms, with various gestures, shrugs, and muttered expressions in Gaelic addressed to each other, my imagination recurred to the witches of Macbeth, and I imagined I read in the features of these crones the malevolence of the weird sisters. The little children also, who began to crawl forth, some quite naked, and others very imperfectly covered with tatters of tartan stuff, clapped their tiny hands, and grinned at the English soldiers, with an expression of national hate and malignity which seemed beyond their years. I remarked particularly that there were no men, nor so much as a boy of ten or twelve years old, to be seen among the inhabitants of a village which seemed populous in proportion to its extent; and the idea certainly occurred to me, that we were likely to receive from them, in the course of our journey, more effectual tokens of ill-will than those which lowered on the visages, and dictated the murmurs, of the women and children. It was not until we commenced our march that the malignity of the elder persons of the community broke forth into expressions. The last file of men had left the village, to pursue a small broken track, formed by the sledges in which the natives transported their peats and turfs, and which led through the woods that fringed the lower end of the lake, when a shrilly sound of female exclamation broke forth, mixed with the screams of children, the whooping of boys, and the clapping of hands, with which the Highland dames enforce their notes, whether of rage or lamentation. I asked Andrew, who looked as pale as death, what all this meant.

“I doubt we'll ken that ower sune,” said he. “Means? It means that the Highland wives are cursing and banning the red-coats, and wishing ill-luck to them, and ilka ane that ever spoke the Saxon tongue. I have heard wives flyte in England and Scotland—it's nae marvel to hear them flyte ony gate; but sic ill-scrapit tongues as thae Highland carlines'—and sic grewsome wishes, that men should be slaughtered like sheep—and that they may lapper their hands to the elbows in their heart's blude—and that they suld dee the death of Walter Cuming of Guiyock,* wha hadna as muckle o' him left thegither as would supper a messan-dog—sic awsome language as that I ne'er heard out o' a human thrapple;—and, unless the deil wad rise amang them to gie them a lesson, I thinkna that their talent at cursing could be amended.

* A great feudal oppressor, who, riding on some cruel purpose through the forest of Guiyock, was thrown from his horse, and his foot being caught in the stirrup, was dragged along by the frightened animal till he was torn to pieces. The expression, “Walter of Guiyock's curse,” is proverbial.

The warst o't is, they bid us aye gang up the loch, and see what we'll land in.”

Adding Andrew's information to what I had myself observed, I could scarce doubt that some attack was meditated upon our party. The road, as we advanced, seemed to afford every facility for such an unpleasant interruption. At first it winded apart from the lake through marshy meadow ground, overgrown with copsewood, now traversing dark and close thickets which would have admitted an ambuscade to be sheltered within a few yards of our line of march, and frequently crossing rough mountain torrents, some of which took the soldiers up to the knees, and ran with such violence, that their force could only be stemmed by the strength of two or three men holding fast by each other's arms. It certainly appeared to me, though altogether unacquainted with military affairs, that a sort of half-savage warriors, as I had heard the Highlanders asserted to be, might, in such passes as these, attack a party of regular forces with great advantage. The Bailie's good sense and shrewd observation had led him to the