Rob Roy Page 26

  ‘Pretty well in body, I thank you, Mr. Jarvie,’ drawled out poor Owen, ‘but sore afflicted in spirit.’

  ‘Nae doubt, nae doubt—ay, ay—it’s an awfu’ whummle—and for ane that held his head sae high too—human nature, human nature—Ay, ay, we’re a’ subject to a downcome. Mr. Osbaldistone is a gude honest gentleman; but I aye said he was ane o’ them wad make a spune or spoil a horn, as my father the worthy deacon used to say. The deacon used to say to me,“Nick—young Nick,” (his name was Nichol as weel as mine; sae folk ca’d us in their daffin’ young Nick and auld Nick)—“Nick,” said he, “never put out your arm farther than ye can draw it easily back again.” I hae said sae to Mr. Osbaldistone, and he dinna seem to take it a’thegither sae kind as I wished—but it was weel meant—weel meant.’

  This discourse, delivered with prodigious volubility, and a great appearance of self-complacency, as he recollected his own advice and predictions, gave little promise of assistance at the hands of Mr. Jarvie. Yet it soon appeared rather to proceed from a total want of delicacy than any deficiency of real kindness; for when Owen expressed himself somewhat hurt that these things should be recalled to memory in his present situation, the Glaswegian took him by the hand, and bade him ‘Cheer up a gliff! D’ye think I wad hae comed out at twal o’clock at night, and amaist broken the Lord’s day, just to tell a fa’en man o’ his backslidings? Na, na, that’s no Bailie Jarvie’s gate, nor was’t his worthy father’s the deacon afore him. Why, man! it’s my rule never to think on wardly business on the Sabbath, and though I did a’ I could to keep your note that I gat this morning out o’ my head, yet I thought mair on it a’ day, than on the preaching—And it’s my rule to gang to my bed wi’ the yellow curtains preceesely at ten o’clock—unless I were eating a haddock wi’ a neighbour, or a neighbour wi’ me—ask the lass-quean there, if it isna a fundamental rule in my household; and here hae I sitten up reading gude books, and gaping as if I wad swallow St. Enox Kirk, till it chappit twal, whilk was a lawfu’; hour to gie a look at my ledger just to see how things stood between us; and then, as time and tide wait for no man, I made the lass get the lantern, and came slipping my ways here to see what can be done anent your affairs. Bailie Jarvie can command entrance into the tolbooth at ony hour, day or night; sae could my father the deacon in his time, honest man, praise to his memory.’

  Although Owen groaned at the mention of the ledger, leading me grievously to fear that here also the balance stood in the wrong column; and although the worthy magistrate’s speech expressed much self-complacency, and some ominous triumph in his own superior judgment, yet it was blended with a sort of frank and blunt good-nature, from which I could not help deriving some hopes. He requested to see some papers he mentioned, snatched them hastily from Owen’s hand, and sitting on the bed, to ‘rest his shanks,’ as he was pleased to express the accommodation which that posture afforded him, his servant girl held up the lantern to him, while, pshawing, muttering, and spluttering, now at the imperfect light, now at the contents of the packet, he ran over the writings it contained.

  Seeing him fairly engaged in this course of study, the guide who had brought me hither seemed disposed to take an unceremonious leave. He made a sign to me to say nothing, and intimated, by his change of posture, an intention to glide towards the door in such a manner as to attract the least possible observation. But the alert magistrate (very different from my old acquaintance Mr. Justice Inglewood) instantly detected and interrupted his purposes. ‘I say, look to the door, Stanchells—shut and lock it, and keep watch on the outside.’

  The stranger’s brow darkened, and he seemed for an instant again to meditate the affecting his retreat by violence; but ere he had determined, the door closed, and the ponderous bolt revolved. He muttered an exclamation in Gaelic, strode across the floor, and then, with an air of dogged resolution, as if fixed and prepared to see the scene to an end, sate himself down on the oak table and whistled a strathspey.

  Mr. Jarvie, who seemed very alert and expeditious in going through business, showed himself master of that which he had been considering, and addressed himself to Mr. Owen in the following strain: ‘Weel, Mr. Owen, weel—your house are awin certain sums to Messrs. Mac-Vittie and MacFin (shame fa’ their souple snouts! they made that and mair out o’ a bargain about the aik-woods at GlenCailziechat, that they took out atween my teeth—wi’ help o’ your gude word, I maun needs say, Mr. Owen—but that makes nae odds now.)—Weel, sir, your house awes them this siller; and for diis, and relief of other engagements they stand in for you, they hae putten a double turn o’ Stanchells’ muckle key on ye.—Weel, sir, ye awe this siller— and maybe ye awe some mair to some other body too— maybe ye awe some to mysell, Bailie Nicol Jarvie.’

  ‘I cannot deny, sir, but the balance may of this date be brought out against us, Mr. Jarvie,’ said Owen; ‘but you’ll please to consider——’

  ‘I hae nae time to consider e’enow, Mr. Owen—Sae near Sabbath at e’en, and out o’ ane’s warm bed at this time o’ night, and a sort o’ drow in the air besides—there’s nae time for considering—But, sir, as I was saying, ye awe me money —it winna deny—ye awe me money, less or mair, I’ll stand by it—But then, Mr. Owen, I canna see how you, an active man that understands business, can redd out the business ye’re come down about, and clear us a’ aff—as I have gritt hope ye will—if ye’re keepit lying here in the tolbooth of Glasgow.—Now, sir, if you can find caution judicio sisti, that is, that ye winna flee the country, but appear and relieve your caution when ca’d for in our legal courts, ye may be set at liberty this very morning.’

  ‘Mr. Jarvie,’ said Owen, ‘if any friend would become surety for me to that effect, my liberty might be usefully employed, doubtless, both for the house and all connected with it.’

  ‘Aweel, sir,’ continued Jarvie, ‘and doubtless such a friend wad expect ye to appear when ca’d on, and relieve him o‘his engagement.’

  ‘And I should do so as certainly, bating sickness or death, as that two and two make four.’

  ‘Aweel, Mr. Owen,’ resumed the citizen of Glasgow, ‘I dinna misdoubt ye, and I’ll prove it, sir—I’ll prove it. I am a carefu’ man, as is weel kend, and industrious, as the hale town can testify: and I can win my crowns, and keep my crowns, and count my crowns, wi’ ony body in the Saut-Market, or it may be in the Gallowgate. And I’ a prudent man, as my father the deacon was before me; but rather than an honest civil gentleman, that understands business, and is willing to do justice to all men, should lie by the heels this gate, unable to help himsell or ony body else— why, conscience, man! I’ll be your bail mysell—But ye’ll mind it’s a bail judicio sisti, as our town-clerk says, not judicatum solvi; ye’ll mind that, for there’s muckle difference.’

  Mr. Owen assured him, that as matters then stood, he could not expect any one to become security for the actual payment of the debt, but that there was not the most distant cause for apprehending loss from his failing to present himself when lawfully called upon.

  ‘I believe ye—I believe ye. Eneugh said—eneugh said. We’se hae your legs loose by breakfast-time,—And now let’s hear what thir chamber chiels o’ yours hae to say for themselves, or how, in the name of unrule, they got here at this time o’ night.’

  CHAPTER XXIII

  Hame came our gudeman at e’en,

  And hame came he,

  And there he saw a man

  Where a man suldna be

  ‘How’s this now, kimmer ?

  How’s this ? quo he,—

  How came this carle here

  Without the leave’ me ?’

  Old Song

  THE magistrate took the light out of his servant-maid’s hand, and advanced to his scrutiny, like Diogenes in the street of Athens, lantern-in-hand, and probably with as little expectation as that of the cynic, that he was likely to encounter any especial treasure in the course of his researches. The first whom he approached was my mysterious guide, who, seated on a table as I have a
lready described him, with his eyes firmly fixed on the wall, his features arranged into the utmost inflexibility of expression, his hands folded on his breast with an air betwixt carelessness and defiance, his heel patting against the foot of the table, to keep time with the tune which he continued to whistle, submitted to Mr. Jarvie’s investigation with an air of absolute confidence and assurance, which, for a moment, placed at fault the memory and sagacity of the acute and anxious investigator.

  ‘Ah!—Eh!—Oh!’ exclaimed the Bailie. ‘My conscience! —it’s impossible—and yet—no!—Conscience, it canna be! —and yet again—Deil hae me! that I suld say sae—Ye robber—ye cateran—ye born deevil that ye are, to a’ bad ends and nae gude ane—can this be you?’

  ‘E’en as ye see, Bailie,’ was the laconic answer.

  ‘Conscience! if I am na clean bumbaized— you, ye cheat-the-wuddy rogue, you here on your venture in the tolbooth o’ Glasgow?—What d’ye think’s the value o’ your head?’

  ‘Umph!—why; fairly weighed, and Dutch weight, it might weigh down one provost’s, four bailies’ a town-clerk’s, six deacons’, besides stentmasters——’

  ‘Ah, ye reiving villain!’ interrupted Mr. Jarvie. ‘But tell ower your sins, and prepare ye, for if I say the word ——’

  ‘True, Bailie,’ said he who was thus addressed, folding his hands behind him with the utmost nonchalance,’ but ye will never say that word.’

  ‘And why suld I not, sir?’ exclaimed the magistrate— ‘Why suld I not? Answer me that—why suld I not?’

  ‘For three sufficient reasons, Bailie Jarvie.—First, for auld langsyne;—second, for the sake of the auld wife ayont the fire at Stuckavrallachan, that made some mixture of our bluids, to my own proper shame be it spoken! that has a cousin wi’ accounts, and yarn winnles, and looms, and shuttles, like a mere mechanical person;—and lastly, Bailie, because if I saw a sign o’ your betraying me, I would plaster that wa’ with your hams ere the hand of man could rescue you!’

  ‘Ye’re a bauld desperate villain,’ retorted the undaunted Bailie; ‘and ye ken that I ken ye to be sae, and that I wadna stand a moment for my ain risk.’

  ‘I ken weel,’ said the other,’ye hae gentle bluid in your veins, and I wad be laith to hurt my ain kinsman. But I’ll gang out here as free as I came in, or the very wa’s o’ Glasgow tolbooth shall tell o’t these ten years to come.’

  ‘Weel, weel,’ said Mr Jarvie, ‘bluid’s thicker than water; and it liesna in kith, kin, and ally, to see motes in ilk other’s een if other een see them no. It wad be sair news to the auld wife below the Ben of Stuckavrallachan, that you, ye Hieland limmer, had knockit out my harns, or that I had kilted you up in a tow. But ye’ll own, ye dour deevil, that were it no your very sell, I wad hae grippit the best man in the Hielands.’

  ‘Ye wad hae tried, cousin,’ answered my guide, ‘that I wot weel; but I doubt ye wad hae come aff wi’ the short measure; for we gang-there-out Hieland bodies are an unchancy generation when you speak to us o’ bondage. We downa bide the coercion of gude braid-cloth about our hinderlans; let a be breeks o’ freestone, and garters o‘ iron.’

  ‘Ye’ll find the stane breeks and the aim garters, ay, and the hemp cravat, for a’ that, neighbour,’ replied the Bailie. ‘Nae man in a civilized country ever played the pliskies ye hae done—but e’;en pickle in your ain pock-neuk—I hae gi’en ye warning.’

  ‘Well, cousin,’ said die odier, ‘ye’ll wear black at my burial?’

  ‘Deil a black cloak will be there, Robin, but the corbies and the hoodie-craws, I’se gie ye my hand on that. But whar’s the gude thousand pund Scots that I lent ye, man, and when am I to see it again?’

  ‘Where it is,’ replied my guide, after the affectation of considering for a moment, ‘I cannot justly tell—probably where last year’s snaw is.’

  ‘And that’s on the tap of Schehallion, ye Hieland dog,’ said Mr. Jarvie;’and I look for payment frae you where ye stand.’

  ‘Ay,’ replied the Highlander, ‘but I keep neither snaw nor dollars in my sporran. And as to when you’ll see it— why, just when the king enjoys his ain again, as the auld sang says.’

  ‘Want of a’, Robin,’ retorted the Glaswegian,—‘I mean, ye disloyal traitor—Warst of a’!—Wad ye bring popery in on us, and arbitrary power, and a foist and a warming-pan, and the set forms, and the curates, and the auld enormities o’ surplices and cearments? Ye had better stick to your auld trade o’ theft-boot, black-mail, spreaghs, and gillravaging— better stealing nowte than ruining nations.’

  ‘Hout, man, whisht wi’ your whiggery,’ answered the Celt, ‘we hae kend ane anither mony a lang day. I’se take care your counting-room is no cleaned out when the Gillon-a-naillie1 come to redd up the Glasgow buiths, and dear them o’ their auld shop-wares. And, unless it just fa’ in the preceese way o’ your duty, ye maunna see me oftener, Nicol, than I am disposed to be seen.’

  ‘Ye are a dauring villain, Rob,’ answered the Bailie;’and ye will be hanged, that will be seen and heard tell o’; but I’se ne’er be the ill bird and foul my nest, set apart strong necessity and the skreigh of duty, which no man should hear and be inobedient.—And wha the deevil’s this?’ he continued, turning to me—’Some gillravager that ye hae listed, I daur say. He looks as if he had a bauld heart to the high-way, and a lang craig for the gibbet.’

  ‘This, good Mr. Jarvie,’ said Owen, who, like myself, had been struck dumb during this strange recognition, and no less strange dialogue, which took place betwixt these extraordinary kinsmen—’This, good Mr. Jarvie, is young Mr. Frank Osbaldistone, only child of the head of our house, who should have been taken into our firm at the time Mr. Rashleigh Osbaldistone, his cousin, had the luck to be taken into it’—(Here Owen could not suppress a groan)—‘But, howsoever’——

  ‘O, I have heard of that smaik,’ said the Scotch merchant, interrupting him;’it is he whom your principal, like an obstinate auld fule, wad make a merchant o’, wad he or wad he no, and the lad turned a strolling stage-player, in pure dislike to the labour an honest man should live by.— Weel, sir, what say you to your handiwark? Will Hamlet the Dane, or Hamlet’s ghost, be good security for Mr. Owen, sir?’

  ‘I don’t deserve your taunt,’ I replied,’though I respect your motive, and am too grateful for the assistance you have afforded Mr. Owen, to resent it. My only business here was to do what I could (it is perhaps very little) to aid Mr. Owen in the management of my father’s affairs. My dislike of the commercial profession is a feeling of which I am the best and solejudge.’

  ‘I protest,’ said the Highlander, ‘I had some respect for this callant even before I kend what was in him; but now I honour him for his contempt of weavers and spinners, and sic-like mechanical persons and their pursuits.’

  ‘Ye’re mad, Rob,’ said the Bailie—’mad as a March hare,—though wherefore a hare suld be mad at March mair than at Martinmas, is mair than I can weel say. Weavers! Deil shake ye out o’ the web the weaver craft made. Spinners!—ye’ll spin and wind yourself a bonny pirn. And this young birkie here, that ye’re hoying and hounding on the shortest road to the gallows and the deevil, will his stage-plays and his poetries help me here, d’ye think, ony mair than your deep oaths and drawn dirks, ye reprobate, that ye are?— Will Tityre tu patulœ, as they ca’ it, tell him where Rashleigh Osbaldistone is? or Macbeth, and all his kernes and galla-glasses, and your awn to boot, Rob, procure him five thousand pounds to answer the bills which fa11 due ten days hence, were they a’ rouped at the Cross, basket-hilts, Andra-Ferraras, leather targets, brogues, brochan, and sporrans?’

  ‘Ten days?’ I answered, and instinctively drew out Diana Vernon’s packet; and the time being elapsed during which I was to keep the seal sacred, I hastily broke it open. A sealed letter fell from a blank enclosure, owing to the trepidation with which I opened the parcel. A slight current of wind, which found its way through a broken pane of the window, wafted the letter to Mr. Jarvie’s feet, who lifted it, examined
the address with unceremonious curiosity, and, to my astonishment, handed it to his Highland kinsman, saying, ‘Here’s a wind has blown a letter to its right owner, though there were ten thousand chances against its coming to hand.’

  The Highlander, having examined the address, broke the letter open without the least ceremony. I endeavoured to interrupt his proceeding.

  ‘You must satisfy me, sir,’ said I, ‘that the letter is intended for you before I can permit you to peruse it.’

  ‘Make yourself quite easy, Mr. Osbaldistone,’ replied the mountaineer, with great composure;—’remember Justice Inglewood, Clerk Jobson, Mr. Morris—above all, remember your vera humble servant, Robert Cawmil, and the beautiful Diana Vernon. Remember all this, and doubt no longer that the letter is for me.’

  I remained astonished at my own stupidity. Through the whole night, the voice, and even the features of this man, though imperfectly seen, haunted me with recollections to which I could now assign no exact local or personal associations. But now the light dawned on me at once,—this man was Campbell himself. His whole peculiarities flashed on me at once,—the deep strong voice,—the inflexible stern, yet considerate cast of features,—the Scottish brogue, with its corresponding dialect and imagery, which, although he possessed the power at times of laying them aside, recurred at every moment of emotion, and gave pith to his sarcasm, or vehemence to his expostulation. Rather beneath the middle size than above it, his limbs were formed upon the very strongest model that is consistent with agility, while, from the remarkable ease and freedom of his movements, you could not doubt his possessing the latter quality in a high degree of perfection. Two points in his person interfered with the rules of symmetry—his shoulders were so broad in proportion to his height, as, notwithstanding the lean and lathy appearance of his frame, gave him something the air of being too square in respect to his stature; and his arms, though round, sinewy, and strong, were so very long as to be rather a deformity. I afterwards heard that this length of arm was a circumstance on which he prided himself; that when he wore his native Highland garb, he could tie the garters of his hose without stooping; and mat it gave him great advantage in the use of the broadsword, at which he was very dexterous. But certainly this want of symmetry destroyed the claim he might otherwise have set up, to be accounted a very handsome man; it gave something wild, irregular, and, as it were, unearthly, to his appearance, and reminded me involuntarily, of the tales which Mabel used to tell of the old Picts who ravaged Northumberland in ancient times, who, according to her tradition, were a sort of half-goblin, half-human beings, distinguished, like this man, for courage, cunning, ferocity, the length of their arms, and the squareness of their shoulders.