Rob Roy, Walter Scott [mystery books to read txt] 📗
- Author: Walter Scott
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“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.
CHAPTER EIGHTEENTH.
I've seen the last look of her heavenly eyes,—
I've heard the last sound of her blessed voice,—
I've seen her fair form from my sight depart;
My doom is closed.
Count Basil.
“I ken not what to make of you, Mr. Osbaldistone,” said MacGregor, as he pushed the flask towards me. “You eat not, you show no wish for rest; and yet you drink not, though that flask of Bourdeaux might have come out of Sir Hildebrand's ain cellar. Had you been always as abstinent, you would have escaped the deadly hatred of your cousin Rashleigh.”
“Had I been always prudent,” said I, blushing at the scene he recalled to my recollection, “I should have escaped a worse evil—the reproach of my own conscience.”
MacGregor cast a keen and somewhat fierce glance on me, as if to read whether the reproof, which he evidently felt, had been intentionally conveyed. He saw that I was thinking of myself, not of him, and turned his face towards the fire with a deep sigh. I followed his example, and each remained for a few minutes wrapt in his own painful reverie. All in the hut were now asleep, or at least silent, excepting ourselves.
MacGregor first broke silence, in the tone of one who takes up his determination to enter on a painful subject. “My cousin Nicol Jarvie means well,” he said, “but he presses ower hard on the temper and situation of a man like me, considering what I have been—what I have been forced to become—and, above all, that which has forced me to become what I am.”
He paused; and, though feeling the delicate nature of the discussion in which the conversation was likely to engage me, I could not help replying, that I did not doubt his present situation had much which must be most unpleasant to his feelings.
“I should be happy to learn,” I added, “that there is an honourable chance of your escaping from it.”
“You speak like a boy,” returned MacGregor, in a low tone that growled like distant thunder—“like a boy, who thinks the auld gnarled oak can be twisted as easily as the young sapling. Can I forget that I have been branded as an outlaw—stigmatised as a traitor—a price set on my head as if I had been a wolf—my family treated as the dam and cubs of the hill-fox, whom all may torment, vilify, degrade, and insult—the very name which came to me from a long and noble line of martial ancestors, denounced, as if it were a spell to conjure up the devil with?”
As he went on in this manner, I could plainly see, that, by the enumeration of his wrongs, he was lashing himself up into a rage, in order to justify in his own eyes the errors they had led him into. In this he perfectly succeeded; his light grey eyes contracting alternately and dilating their pupils, until they seemed actually to flash with flame, while he thrust forward and drew back his foot, grasped the hilt of his dirk, extended his arm, clenched his fist, and finally rose from his seat.
“And they shall find,” he said, in the same muttered but deep tone of stifled passion, “that the name they have dared to proscribe—that the name of MacGregor—is a spell to raise the wild devil withal. They shall hear of my vengeance, that would scorn to listen to the story of my wrongs—The miserable Highland drover, bankrupt, barefooted,—stripped of all, dishonoured and hunted down, because the avarice of others grasped at more than that poor all could pay, shall burst on them in an awful change. They that scoffed at the grovelling worm, and trode upon him, may cry and howl when they see the stoop of the flying and fiery-mouthed dragon.—But why do I speak of all this?” he said, sitting down again, and in a calmer tone—“Only ye may opine it frets my patience, Mr. Osbaldistone, to be hunted like an otter, or a sealgh, or a salmon upon the shallows, and that by my very friends and neighbours; and to have as many sword-cuts made, and pistols flashed at me, as I had this day in the ford of Avondow, would try a saint's temper, much more a Highlander's, who are not famous for that gude gift, as ye may hae heard, Mr. Osbaldistone.—But as thing bides wi' me o' what Nicol said;—I'm vexed for the bairns—I'm vexed when I think o' Hamish and Robert living their father's life.” And yielding to despondence on account of his sons, which he felt not upon his own, the father rested his head upon his hand.
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 connections 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 gray 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 inquiries until his mind should be in
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