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

“Yes,” said I, “I mean who and what is he?”

“Why, he's—ahay!—he's—ahem!—Where did ye meet with Mr. Robert Campbell, as ye ca' him?”

“I met him by chance,” I replied, “some months ago in the north of England.”

“Ou then, Mr. Osbaldistone,” said the Bailie, doggedly, “ye'll ken as muckle about him as I do.”

“I should suppose not, Mr. Jarvie,” I replied;—“you are his relation, it seems, and his friend.”

“There is some cousin-red between us, doubtless,” said the Bailie reluctantly; “but we hae seen little o' ilk other since Rob gae tip the cattle-line o' dealing, poor fallow! he was hardly guided by them might hae used him better—and they haena made their plack a bawbee o't neither. There's mony ane this day wad rather they had never chased puir Robin frae the Cross o' Glasgow—there's mony ane wad rather see him again at the tale o' three hundred kyloes, than at the head o' thirty waur cattle.”

“All this explains nothing to me, Mr. Jarvie, of Mr. Campbell's rank, habits of life, and means of subsistence,” I replied.

“Rank?” said Mr. Jarvie; “he's a Hieland gentleman, nae doubt—better rank need nane to be;—and for habit, I judge he wears the Hieland habit amang the hills, though he has breeks on when he comes to Glasgow;—and as for his subsistence, what needs we care about his subsistence, sae lang as he asks naething frae us, ye ken? But I hae nae time for clavering about him e'en now, because we maun look into your father's concerns wi' all speed.”

So saying, he put on his spectacles, and sate down to examine Mr. Owen's states, which the other thought it most prudent to communicate to him without reserve. I knew enough of business to be aware that nothing could be more acute and sagacious than the views which Mr. Jarvie entertained of the matters submitted to his examination; and, to do him justice, it was marked by much fairness, and even liberality. He scratched his ear indeed repeatedly on observing the balance which stood at the debit of Osbaldistone and Tresham in account with himself personally.

“It may be a dead loss,” he observed; “and, conscience! whate'er ane o' your Lombard Street goldsmiths may say to it, it's a snell ane in the Saut-Market* o' Glasgow. It will be a heavy deficit—a staff out o' my bicker, I trow.

* [The Saltmarket. This ancient street, situate in the heart of Glasgow, has of late been almost entirely renovated.]

But what then?—I trust the house wunna coup the crane for a' that's come and gane yet; and if it does, I'll never bear sae base a mind as thae corbies in the Gallowgate—an I am to lose by ye, I'se ne'er deny I hae won by ye mony a fair pund sterling—Sae, an it come to the warst, I'se een lay the head o' the sow to the tail o' the grice.” *

* Anglice, the head of the sow to the tail of the pig.

I did not altogether understand the proverbial arrangement with which Mr. Jarvie consoled himself, but I could easily see that he took a kind and friendly interest in the arrangement of my father's affairs, suggested several expedients, approved several plans proposed by Owen, and by his countenance and counsel greatly abated the gloom upon the brow of that afflicted delegate of my father's establishment.

As I was an idle spectator on this occasion, and, perhaps, as I showed some inclination more than once to return to the prohibited, and apparently the puzzling subject of Mr. Campbell, Mr. Jarvie dismissed me with little formality, with an advice to “gang up the gate to the college, where I wad find some chields could speak Greek and Latin weel—at least they got plenty o' siller for doing deil haet else, if they didna do that; and where I might read a spell o' the worthy Mr. Zachary Boyd's translation o' the Scriptures—better poetry need nane to be, as he had been tell'd by them that ken'd or suld hae ken'd about sic things.” But he seasoned this dismission with a kind and hospitable invitation “to come back and take part o' his family-chack at ane preceesely—there wad be a leg o' mutton, and, it might be, a tup's head, for they were in season;” but above all, I was to return at “ane o'clock preceesely—it was the hour he and the deacon his father aye dined at—they pat it off for naething nor for naebody.”