Rob Roy Page 32

  I next attempted to lead the discourse on the character and history of the person whom we were going to visit; but on this topic Mr. Jarvie was totally inaccessible, owing perhaps in part to the attendance of Mr. Andrew Fairservice, who chose to keep so close in our rear that his ears could not fail to catch every word which was spoken, while his tongue assumed the freedom of mingling in our conversation as often as he saw an opportunity. For this he occasionally incurred Mr. Jarvie’s reproof.

  ‘Keep back, sir, as best sets ye,’ said the Bailie, as Andrew pressed forward to catch the answer to some question I had asked about Campbell.—‘Ye wad fain ride the fore-horse an ye wist how—That chield’s aye for being out o’ the cheése-fat he was moulded in.—Now, as for your questions, Mr. Osbaldistone, now that the chield’s out of ear-shot, I’ll just tell ye it’s free to you to speer, an it’s free to me to answer, or no—Gude I canna say muckle o’ Rob, puir chield; ill I winna say o’ him, for, forby that he’s my cousin, we’re coming near his ain country, and there may be ane o’ his gillies ahint every whin-bush for what I ken—And if ye’ll be guided by my advice, the less ye speak about him, or where we are gaun, ot what we are gaun to do, we’ll be the mair likely to speed us in our errand. For it’s like we may fa’ in wi’ some o’ his unfreends—there are e’en ower mony o’ them about—and his bonnet sits even on his brow yet for a’ that; but I doubt they’ll be upsides wi’ Rob at the last—air day or late day, the fox’s hide finds aye the flaying knife.’

  ‘I will certainly,’ I replied, ‘be entirely guided by your experience.’

  ‘Right, Mr. Osbaldistone—right,—but I maun speak to this gabbling skyte too, for bairns and fules speak at the Cross what they hear at the ingle side.—D’ye hear, you, Andrew—What’s your name—Fairservice!’

  Andrew, who at the last rebuff had fallen a good way behind, did not choose to acknowledge the summons.

  ‘Andrew, ye scoundrel!’ repeated Mr. Jarvie; ‘here, sir! here!’

  ‘Here is for the dog,’ said Andrew, coming up sulkily.

  ‘I’ll gie you dog’s wages, ye rascal, if ye dinna attend to what I say t’ye—We are gaun into the Hielands a bit——’

  ‘I judged as muckle,’ said Andrew.

  ‘Haud your peace, ye knave, and hear what I have to say till ye—We are gaun a bit into the Hielands——’

  ‘Ye tauld me sae already,’ replied the incorrigible Andrew.

  ‘I’ll break your head,’ said the Bailie, rising in wrath, ‘if ye dinna haud your tongue.’

  ‘A hadden tongue,’ replied Andrew, ‘makes a slabbered mouth.’

  It was now necessary I should interfere, which I did by commanding Andrew, with an authoritative tone, to be silent at his peril.

  ‘I am silent,’ said Andrew. ‘I’se do a’ your lawfu’ bidding without a nay-say.—My puir mither used aye to tell me,

  “Be it better, be it worse,

  Be ruled by him that has the purse.”

  Sae ye may e’en speak as lang as ye like, baith the tane and the tither o’ you, for Andrew.’

  Mr. Jarvie took the advantage of his stopping after quoting the above proverb, to give him the requisite instructions.

  ‘Now, sir, it’s as muckle as your life’s worth—that wad be dear o’ little siller, to be sure—but it is as muckle as a’ our lives are worth, if ye dinna mind what I say to ye. In this public whar we are gaun to, and whar it is like we may hae to stay a’ night, men o’ a’ clans and kindred—Hieland and Lawland—tak up their quarters—And whiles there are mair drawn dirks than open Bibles amang them, when the usquebaugh gets uppermost. See ye neither meddle nor mak, nor gie nae offence wi’ that clavering tongue o’ yours, but keep a calm sough, and let ilka cock fight his ain battle.’

  ‘Muckle needs to tell me that,’ said Andrew contemptuously, ‘as if I had never seen a Hielandman before, and kend nae how to manage them. Nae man alive can cuitle up Donald better than mysell—I hae bought wi’ them, sauld wi’ them, eaten wi’ them, drucken wi’ them——’

  ‘Did ye ever fight wi’ them?’ said Mr. Jarvie.

  ‘Na, na,’ answered Andrew, ‘I took care o’ that; it wad ill hae set me, that am an artist and half a scholar to my trade, to be fighting amang a wheen kilted loons that dinna ken the name o’ a single herb or flower in braid Scots, let abee in the Latin tongue.’

  ‘Then,’ said Mr. Jarvie, ‘as ye wad keep either your tongue in your mouth, or your lugs in your head, (and ye might miss them, for as saucy members as they are,) I charge ye to say nae word, gude or bad, that ye can weel get by, to ony body that might be in the Clachan. And ye’ll specially understand that ye’re no to be bleezing and blasting about your master’s name and mine, or saying that this is Mr. Bailie Nicol Jarvie o’ the Saut-Market, son o’ the Worthy Deacon Nicol Jarvie, that a’body has heard about; and this is Mr. Frank Osbaldistone, son of the managing partner of the great house of Osbaldistone and Tresham, in the City.’

  ‘Eneuch said,’ answered Andrew—‘eneuch said! What need ye think I wad be speaking about your names for?—I hae mony things o’ mair importance to speak about, I trow.’

  ‘It’s thae very things of importance that I am feared for, ye blethering goose; ye maunna speak ony thing, gude or bad, that ye can by any possibility help.’

  ‘If ye dinna think me fit,’ replied Andrew in a huff, ‘to speak like ither folk, gie me my wages and my board wages, and I’se gae back to Glasgow—There’s sma’ sorrow at our parting, as the auld mear said to the broken cart.’

  Finding Andrew’s perverseness again rising to a point which threatened to occasion me inconvenience, I was under the necessity of explaining to him, that he might return if he thought proper, but that in that case I would not pay him a single farthing for his past services. The argument ad crumenam, as it has been called by jocular logicians, has weight with the greater part of mankind, and Andrew was in that particular far from affecting any trick of singularity. He ‘drew in his horns,’ to use the Bailie’s phrase, on the instant, professed no intention whatever to disoblige, and a resolution to be guided by my commands, whatever they might be.

  Concord being thus happily restored to our small party, we continued to pursue our journey. The road, which had ascended for six or seven English miles, began now to descend for about the same space, through a country which, neither in fertility or interest, could boast any advantage over that which we had passed already, and which afforded no variety, unless when some tremendous peak of a Highland mountain appeared at a distance. We continued, however, to ride on without pause; and even when night fell and overshadowed the desolate wilds which we traversed, we were, as I understood from Mr. Jarvie, still three miles and a bittock distant from the place where we were to spend the night.

  CHAPTER XXVIII

  Baron of Bucklivie,

  May the foul fiend drive ye,

  And a’ to pieces rive ye,

  For building sic a town,

  Where there’s neither horse meat, nor man’s meat, nor a chair to sit down.

  Scottish Popular Rhymes on a bad Inn

  THE night was pleasant, and the moon afforded us good light for our journey. Under her rays, the ground over which we passed assumed a more interesting appearance than during the broad daylight, which discovered the extent of its wasteness. The mingled light and shadows gave it an interest which naturally did not belong to it; and, like the effect of a veil flung over a plain woman, irritated our curiosity on a subject which had in itself nothing gratifying.

  The descent, however, still continued, turned, winded, left the more open heaths, and got into steeper ravines, which promised soon to lead us to the banks of some brook or river, and ultimately make good their presage. We found ourselves at length on the bank of a stream, which rather resembled one of my native English rivers than those I had hitherto seen in Scotland. It was narrow, deep, still, and silent; although the imperfect light, as it gleamed on its placid waters, showed also that we were now
among the lofty mountains which formed its cradle. ‘That’s the Forth,’ said the Bailie, with an air of reverence, which I have observed the Scotch usually pay to their distinguished rivers. The Clyde, the Tweed, the Forth, the Spey, are usually named by those who dwell on their banks with a sort of respect and pride, and I have known duels occasioned by any word of disparagement. I cannot say I have the least quarrel with this sort of harmless enthusiasm. I received my friend’s communication with the importance which he seemed to think appertained to it. In fact, I was not a little pleased, after so long and dull a journey, to approach a region which promised to engage the imagination. My faithful squire, Andrew, did not seem to be quite of the same opinion, for he received the solemn information, ‘That is the Forth,’ with a ‘Umph!—an he had said that’s the public house, it wad hae been mair to the purpose.’

  The Forth, however, as far as the imperfect light permitted me to judge, seemed to merit the admiration of those who claimed an interest in its stream. A beautiful eminence of the most regular round shape, and clothed with copse-wood of hazels, mountain-ash, and dwarf-oak, intermixed with a few magnificent old trees, which, rising above the underwood, exposed their forked and bared branches to the silver moonshine, seemed to protect the sources from which the river sprung. If I could trust the tale of my companion, which, while professing to disbelieve every word of it, he told under his breath, and with an air of something like intimidation, this hill, so regularly formed, so richly verdant, and garlanded with such a beautiful variety of ancient trees and thriving copsewood, was held by the neighbourhood to contain, within its unseen caverns, the palaces of the fairies; a race of airy beings, who formed an intermediate class between men and demons, and who, if not positively malignant to humanity, were yet to be avoided and feared, on account of their capricious, vindictive, and irritable dispositions.

  ‘They ca’ them,’ said Mr. Jarvie, in a whisper, ‘Daoine Schie, whilk signifies, as I understand, men of peace; meaning thereby to make their gude-will. And we may e’en as weel ca’ them that too, Mr. Osbaldistone, for there’s nae gude in speaking ill o’ the laird within his ain bounds,’ But he added presently after, on seeing one or two lights which twinkled before us, ‘It’s deceits o’ Satan, after a’, and I fearna to say it—for we are near the manse now, and yonder are the lights in the Clachan of Aberfoil.’

  I own I was well pleased at the circumstance to which Mr. Jarvie alluded; not so much that it set his tongue at liberty, in his opinion, with all safety to declare his real sentiments with respect to the Daoine Schie, or fairies, as that it promised some hours’ repose to ourselves and our horses, of which, after a ride of fifty miles and upwards, both stood in some need.

  We crossed the infant Forth by an old-fashioned stone bridge, very high and very narrow. My conductor, however, informed me, that to get through this deep and important stream, and to clear all its tributary dependencies, the general pass from the Highlands to the southward lay by what was called the Fords of Frew, at all times deep and difficult of passage, and often altogether unfordable. Beneath the Fords there was no pass of general resort until so far east as the bridge of Stirling; so that the river of Forth forms a defensible line betwixt the Highlands and Lowlands of Scotland, from its source nearly to the Frith, or inlet of the ocean, in which it terminates. The subsequent events which we witnessed led me to recall with attention what the shrewdness of Bailie Jarvie suggested, in his proverbial expression, that ‘Forth bridles the wild Highlandman.’

  About half a mile’s riding, after we crossed the bridge, placed us at the door of the public-house where we were to pass the evening. It was a hovel rather worse than better than that in which we had dined; but its little windows were lighted up, voices were heard from within, and all intimated a prospect of food and shelter, to which we were by no means indifferent. Andrew was the first to observe that there was a peeled willow-wand placed across the half-open door of the little inn. He hung back, and advised us not to enter. ‘For,’ said Andrew, ‘some of their chiefs and grit men are birling at the usquebaugh in by there, and dinna want to be disturbed; and the least we’ll get, if we gang ram-stam in on them, will be a broken head, to learn us better havings, if we dinna come by the length of a cauld dirk in our wame, whilk is just as likely.’

  I looked at the Bailie, who acknowledged, in a whisper, ‘that the gowk had some reason for singing, anee in the year.’

  Meantime a staring half-clad wench or two came out of the inn and the neighbouring cottages, on hearing the sound of our horses’ feet. No one bade us welcome, nor did any one offer to take our horses, from which we had alighted; and to our various enquiries, the hopeless response of’Ha niel Sassenach,’ was the only answer we could extract. The Bailie, however found (in his experience) a way to make them speak English. ‘If I gie ye a bawbee,’ said he to an urchin of about ten years old, with a fragment of tattered plaid about him, ‘will you understand Sassenach?’

  ‘Ay, ay, that will I,’ replied the brat, in very decent English.

  ‘Then gang and tell your mammy, my man, there’s twa Sassenach gentlemen come to speak wi’ her.’

  The landlady presently appeared, with a lighted piece of split fir blazing in her hand. The turpentine in this species of torch (which is generally dug from out the turf-bogs) makes it blaze and sparkle readily, so that it is often used in the Highlands in lieu of candles. On this occasion such a torch illuminated the wild and anxious features of a female, pale, thin, and rather above the usual size, whose soiled and ragged dress, though aided by a plaid or tartan screen, barely served the purposes of decency, and certainly not those of comfort. Her black hair, which escaped in uncombed elf-locks from under her coif, as well as the strange and embarrassed look with which she regarded us, gave me the idea of a witch disturbed in her unlawful rites. She plainly refused to admit us into the house. We remonstrated anxiously, and pleaded the length of our journey, the state of our horses, and the certainty that there was not another place where we could be received nearer than Callander, which the Bailie stated to be seven Scots miles distant. How many these may exactly amount to in English measurement, I have never been able to ascertain, but I think the double ratio may be pretty safely taken as a medium computation. The obdurate hostess treated our expostulation with contempt. ‘Better gang farther than fare waur,’ she said, speaking the Scottish Lowland dialect, and being indeed a native of the Lennox district—‘Her house was ta’en up wi’ them wadna like to be intruded on wi’ strangers. She didna ken what mair might be there—redcoats, it might be, frae the garrison.’ (These last words she spoke under her breath, and with very strong emphasis.) ‘The night,’ she said, ‘was fair abune head—a night amang the heather wad caller our bloods—we might sleep in our claes as mony a gude blade does in the scabbard—there wasna muckle flow-moss in the shaw, if we took up our quarters right, and we might pit up our horses to the hill, naebody wad say naething against it.’

  ‘But, my good woman,’ said I, while the Bailie groaned and remained undecided, ‘it is six hours since we dined, and we have not taken a morsel since. I am positively dying with hunger, and I have no taste for taking up my abode supperless among these mountains of yours. I positively must enter; and make the best apology you can to your guests for adding a stranger or two to their number. Andrew, you will see the horses put up.’

  The Hecate looked at me with surprise, and then ejaculated, ‘A wilfu’ man will hae his way—them that will to Cupar maun to Cupar! To see thae English belly-gods—he has had ae fu’ meal the day already, and he’ll venture life and liberty rather than he’ll want a het supper! Set roasted beef and pudding on the opposite side o’ the pit o’ Tophet and an Englishman will mak a spang at it—But I wash my hands o’t—Follow me, sir,’ (to Andrew), ‘and I’se show ye where to pit the beasts.’

  I own I was somewhat dismayed at my landlady’s expressions, which seemed to be ominous of some approaching danger. I did not, however, choose to shrink back after having
declared my resolution, and accordingly I boldly entered the house; and after narrowly escaping breaking my shins over a turf back and a salting-tub, which stood on either side of the narrow exterior passage, I opened a crazy half-decayed door, constructed not of plank, but of wicker, and, followed by the Bailie, entered into the principal apartment of this Scottish caravansary.

  The interior presented a view which seemed singular enough to southern eyes. The fire, fed with blazing turf and branches of dried wood, blazed merrily in the centre; but the smoke, having no means to escape but through a hole in the roof, eddied round the rafters of the cottage, and hung in sable folds at the height of about five feet from the floor. The space beneath was kept pretty clear, by innumerable currents of air which rushed towards the fire from the broken panel of basket-work which served as a door, from two square holes, designed as ostensible windows, through one of which was thrust a plaid, and through the other a tattered great-coat; and moreover, through various less distinguishable apertures, in the walls of the tenement, which, being built of round stones and turf, cemented by mud, let in the atmosphere at innumerable crevices.