Rob Roy (52 page)

‘To my supper and bed at Aberfoil,' I replied.

‘Are the passes open?' he enquired, with the same commanding tone of voice.

‘I do not know,' I replied; ‘I shall learn when I get there; but,' I added, the fate of Morris recurring to my recollection, ‘if you are an English stranger, I advise you to turn back till daylight; there has been some disturbance in this neighbourhood, and I should hesitate to say it is perfectly safe for strangers.'

‘The soldiers had the worst?—had they not?' was the reply.

‘They had indeed; and an officer's party were destroyed or made prisoners.'

‘Are you sure of that?' replied the horseman.

‘As sure as that I hear you speak,' I replied. ‘I was an unwilling spectator of the skirmish.'

‘Unwilling?' continued the interrogator. ‘Were you not engaged in it then?'

‘Certainly no,' I replied; ‘I was detained by the king's officer.'

‘On what suspicion? and who are you? or what is your name?' he continued.

‘I really do not know, sir,' said I, ‘why I should answer so many questions to an unknown stranger. I have told you enough to convince you that you are going into a dangerous and distracted country. If you choose to proceed, it is your own affair; but as I ask you no questions respecting your name and business, you will oblige me by making no enquiries after mine.'

‘Mr. Francis Osbaldistone,' said the other rider, in a voice the tones of which thrilled through every nerve of my body, ‘should not whistle his favourite airs when he wishes to remain undiscovered.'

And Diana Vernon—for she, wrapped in a horseman's
cloak, was the last speaker—whistled in playful mimicry the second part of the tune, which was on my lips when they came up.

‘Good God!' I exclaimed, like one thunderstruck, ‘can it be you, Miss Vernon, on such a spot—at such an hour—in such a lawless country—in such——'

‘In such a masculine dress, you would say.—But what would you have?—The philosophy of the excellent Corporal Nym is the best after all—things must be as they may —
pauca verba.'

While she was thus speaking, I eagerly took advantage of an unusually bright gleam of moonshine, to study the appearance of her companion; for it may be easily supposed, that finding Miss Vernon in a place so solitary, engaged in a journey so dangerous, and under the protection of one gentleman only, were circumstances to excite every feeling of jealousy, as well as surprise. The rider did not speak with the deep melody of Rashleigh's voice; his tones were more high and commanding; he was taller, moreover, as he sate on horseback, than that first-rate object of my hate and suspicion. Neither did the stranger's address resemble that of any of my other cousins; it had that indescribable tone and manner by which we recognize a man of sense and breeding, even in the first few sentences he speaks.

The object of my anxiety seemed desirous to get rid of my investigation.

‘Diana,' he said, in a tone of mingled kindness and authority, ‘give your cousin his property, and let us not spend time here.'

Miss Vernon had in the meantime taken out a small case, and leaning down from her horse towards me, she said, in a tone in which an effort at her usual quaint lightness of expression contended with a deeper and more grave tone of sentiment, ‘You see, my dear coz, I was born to be your
better angel. Rashleigh has been compelled to yield up his spoil, and had we reached this same village of Aberfoil last night, as we purposed, I should have found some Highland sylph to have wafted to you all these representatives of commercial wealth. But there were giants and dragons in the way; and errant-knights and damsels of modern times, bold though they be, must not, as of yore, run into useless danger—Do not you do so either, my sweet coz.'

‘Diana,' said her companion, ‘let me once more warn you that the evening waxes late, and we are still distant from our home.'

‘I am coming, sir, I am coming—consider,' she added, with a sigh, ‘how lately I have been subjected to control— besides, I have not yet given my cousin the packet—and bid him farewell—for ever.—Yes, Frank,' she said,
‘for ever!
— there is a gulf between us—a gulf of absolute perdition— where we go, you must not follow—what we do, you must not share in—farewell—be happy!'

In the attitude in which she bent from her horse, which was a Highland pony, her face, not perhaps altogether unwillingly, touched mine—She pressed my hand, while the tear that trembled in her eye found its way to my cheek instead of her own. It was a moment never to be forgotten —inexpressibly bitter, yet mixed with a sensation of pleasure so deeply soothing and affecting, as at once to unlock all the flood-gates of the heart. It was
but
a moment, however; for, instantly recovering from the feeling to which she had involuntarily given way, she intimated to her companion she was ready to attend him, and putting their horses to a brisk pace, they were soon far distant from the place where I stood.

Heaven knows, it was not apathy which loaded my frame and my tongue so much, that I could neither return Miss Vernon's half embrace, nor even answer her farewell. The
word, though it rose to my tongue, seemed to choke in my throat like the fatal
guilty,
which the delinquent who makes it his plea knows must be followed by the doom of death. The surprise—the sorrow, almost stupefied me. I remained motionless with the packet in my hand, gazing after them, as if endeavouring to count the sparkles which flew from the horses' hoofs. I continued to look after even these had ceased to be visible, and to listen for their footsteps long after the last distant trampling had died in my ears. At length, tears rushed to my eyes, glazed as they were by the exertion of straining after what was no longer to be seen. I wiped them mechanically, and almost without being aware that they were flowing, but they came thicker and thicker. I felt the tightening of the throat and breast, the
hysterica passio
of poor Lear; and, sitting down by the wayside, I shed a flood of the first and most bitter tears which had flowed from my eyes since childhood.

Dangle.
Egad, I think the interpreter is the harder to be understood of the two.

Critic

I HAD scarce given vent to my feelings in this paroxysm, ere I was ashamed of my weakness. I remembered that I had been for some time endeavouring to regard Diana Vernon, when her idea intruded itself on my remembrance, as a friend, for whose welfare I should indeed always be anxious, but with whom I could have little further communication. But the almost unrepressed tenderness ofher manner, joined to the romance of our sudden meeting where it was so little to have been expected, were circumstances which threw me entirely off my guard. I recovered, however, sooner than might have been expected, and without giving myself
time accurately to examine my motives, I resumed the path on which I had been travelling when overtaken by this strange and unexpected apparition.

I am not, was my reflection, trangressing her injunction so pathetically given, since I am but pursuing my own journey by the only open route. If I have succeeded in recovering my father's property, it still remains incumbent on me to see my Glasgow friend delivered from the situation in which he has involved himself on my account; besides, what other place of rest can I obtain for the night excepting at the little inn of Aberfoil? They also must stop there, since it is impossible for travellers on horseback to go farther—Well, then, we shall meet again—meet for the last time perhaps—but I shall see and hear her—I shall learn who this happy man is who exercises over her the authority of a husband—I shall learn if there remains, in the difficult course in which she seems engaged any difficulty which my efforts may remove, or aught that I can do to express my gratitude for her generosity—for her disinterested friendship.

As I reasoned thus with myself, colouring with every plausible pretext which occurred to my ingenuity, my passionate desire once more to see and converse with my cousin, I was suddenly hailed by a touch on the shoulder; and the deep voice of a Highlander, who, walking still faster than I, though I was proceeding at a smart pace, accosted me with, ‘A braw night, Maister Osbaldistone— we have met at the mirk hour before now.'

There was no mistaking the tone of MacGregor; he had escaped the pursuit of his enemies, and was in full retreat to his own wilds and to his adherents. He had also contrived to arm himself, probably at the house of some secret adherent, for he had a musket on his shoulder, and the usual Highland weapons by his side. To have found myself alone with such a character in such a situation, and at this late hour in the
evening, might not have been pleasant to me in any ordinary mood of mind; for, though habituated to think of Rob Roy in rather a friendly point of view, I will confess frankly that I never heard him speak but that it seemed to thrill my blood. The intonation of the mountaineers gives a habitual depth and hollowness to the sound of their words, owing to the gutteral expression so common in their native language, and they usually speak with a good deal of emphasis. To these national peculiarities Rob Roy added a sort of hard indifference of accent and manner, expressive of a mind neither to be daunted, nor surprised, nor affected, by what passed before him, however dreadful, however sudden, however afflicting. Habitual danger, with unbounded confidence in his own strength and sagacity, had rendered him indifferent to fear; and the lawless and precarious life he led had blunted, though its dangers and errors had not destroyed, his feelings for others. And it was to be remembered, that I had very lately seen the followers of this man commit a cruel slaughter on an unarmed and suppliant individual.

Yet such was the state of my mind, that I welcomed the company of the outlaw leader as a relief to my overstrained and painful thoughts; and was not without hopes, that through his means I might obtain some clew of guidance through the maze in which my fate had involved me. I therefore answered his greeting cordially, and congratulated him on his late escape in circumstances when escape seemed impossible.

‘Ay,' he replied, ‘there is as much between the craig and the woodie
¹
as there is between the cup and the lip. But my peril was less than you may think, being a stranger to this
country. Of those that were summoned to take me, and to keep me, and to retake me again, there was a moiety, as cousin Nicol Jarvie calls it, that had nae will that I suld be either taen, or keepit fast, or retaen; and of t'other moiety, there was ae half was feared to stir me; and so I had only like the fourth part of fifty or sixty men to deal withal.'

‘And enough too, I should think,' replied I.

‘I dinna ken that,' said he; ‘but I ken, that turn every ill-wilier that I had amang them out upon the green before the Clachan of Aberfoil, I wad find them play with broadsword and target, one down and another come on.'

He now enquired into my adventures since we entered his country, and laughed heartily at my account of the battle we had in the inn, and at the exploits of the Bailie with the red-hot poker.

‘Let Glasgow Flourish!' he exclaimed. ‘The curse of Cromwell on me, if I wad hae wished better sport than to see cousin Nicol Jarvie singe Inverach's plaid, like a sheep's head between a pair of tongs. But my cousin Jarvie,' he added more gravely, ‘has some gentleman's bluid in his veins, although he has been unhappily bred up to a peaceful and mechanical craft, which could not but blunt any pretty man's spirit.—Ye may estimate the reason why I could not receive you at the Clachan of Aberfoil, as I purposed. They had made a fine hose-net for me when I was absent twa or three days at Glasgow, upon the king's business—but I think I broke up the league about their lugs—they'll no be able to hound one clan against another, as they hae dune.—I hope soon to see the day when a' Hielandmen win stand shouther to shouther.—But what chanced next?'

I gave him an account of the arrival of Captain Thornton and his party, and the arrest of the Bailie and myself, under pretext of our being suspicious persons; and upon his more special enquiry I recollected the officer had mentioned that,
besides my name sounding suspicious in his ears, he had orders to secure an old and young person, resembling our description. This again moved the outlaw's risibility.

‘As man lives by bread,' he said, ‘the buzzards have mis-taen my friend the Bailie for his Excellency, and you for Diana Vernon—O, the most egregious night-howlets!'

‘Miss Vernon?' said I, with hesitation, and trembling for the answer—‘Does she still bear that name?—She passed but now, along with a gentleman who seemed to use a style of authority.'

‘Ay, ay!' answered Rob, ‘she's under lawfu' authority now; and full time, for she was a daft hempie—But she's a mettle quean. It's a pity his Excellency is a thought eldern. The like o' yoursell, or my son Hamish, wad be mair sortable in point of years.'

Here, then, was a complete downfall of those castles of cards which my fancy had, in despite of my reason, so often amused herself with building. Although in truth I had scarcely any thing else to expect, since I could not suppose that Diana could be travelling in such a country, at such an hour, with any but one who had a legal title to protect her, I did not feel the blow less severely when it came, and Mac-Gregor's voice, urging me to pursue my story, sounded in my ears without conveying any exact import to my mind.

‘You are ill,' he said, at length, after he had spoken twice without receiving an answer; ‘this day's wark has been ower muckle for ane doubtless unused to sic things.'

The tone of kindness in which this was spoken recalling me to myself, and to the necessities of my situation, I continued my narrative as well as I could.—Rob Roy expressed great exultation at the successful skirmish in the pass.