Red Cap Tales Part 18

"The girls surely don't want to play the villains'

parts," I began.

"Oh, but just don't they!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Maid Margaret, with the eyes of a child-saint momentarily disappointed of Paradise. "Why does a cat not eat b.u.t.ter for breakfast every morning?

Because it jolly well can't get it."

"Well, at any rate," said I, severely, "girls oughtn't to _want_ to play the villains' parts."

"No," said Sweetheart, with still, concentrated irony, "they ought always to do just what boys tell them to, of course--never think of wanting anything that boys want, and always be thankful for boys'

leavings! U-m-m! _I_ know!"

"You should wait till you hear what I meant to say, Sweetheart," I went on, with as much dignity as I could muster. "There are plenty of characters you will like to be, in every one of the books, but I think it would be fair always to draw lots for the first choice!"

"Yes--yes--oh, yes!" came the chorus, from three of the party. But Hugh John, strong in the indefeasible rights of man, only repeated, "_I_ said 'Bags Hatteraick!'"

"Well, then," I said, "for this time Hatteraick is yours, but for the future it will be fairer to draw lots for first choice."

"All right," growled Hugh John; "then I suppose I'll have to put up with a lot more heroes!

Milksops, I call them!"

"Which book shall we have next?" said Sweetheart, who was beginning to be rather ashamed of her heat.

"I don't believe that you could tell us _Rob Roy!_"

"Well, I can try," said I, modestly. For so it behooves a modern parent to behave in the presence of his children.

"_She_," said Hugh John, pointing directly at his sister, "she read nearly half the book aloud, and we never came to Rob at all. That's why she asks for _Rob Roy_."

"But there's all about Alan Breck in the preface--ripping, it is!" interpolated Sir Toady, who had been doing some original research, "tell us about him."

But Alan Breck was quite another story, and I said so at once. _Rob Roy_ they had asked for. _Rob Roy_ they should have. And then I would stand or fall by their judgment.

RED CAP TALES

TOLD FROM

ROB ROY

THE FIRST TALE FROM "ROB ROY"

FRANK THE HIGHWAYMAN

FRANK OSBALDISTONE had come back from France to quarrel with his father.

A merchant he would not be. He hated the three-legged stool, and he used the counting-house quills to write verses with.

His four years in Bordeaux had spoiled him for strict business, without teaching him anything else practical enough to please his father, who, when he found that his son persisted in declining the stool in the dark counting-room in Crane Alley, packed him off to the care of his brother, Sir Hildebrand Osbaldistone of Osbaldistone Hall in Northumberland, there to repent of his disobedience.

"I will have no idlers about me," he said, "I will not ask even my own son twice to be my friend and my partner. One of my nephews shall take the place in the firm which you have declined."

And old Mr. Osbaldistone, of the firm of Osbaldistone and Tresham, merchants in London town, being above all things a man of his word, Master Frank took to the North Road accordingly, an exile from his home and disinherited of his patrimony.

At first he was gloomy enough. He was leaving behind him wealth, ease, society. As he looked back from the heights of Highgate, the bells of the city steeples rang out their "Turn again, Whittington!" And to tell the truth, Frank Osbaldistone felt half inclined to obey. But the thought of his father's grave scorn held him to his purpose, and soon the delights of travel and the quickly changing scene chased the sadness from his heart. Indeed, as was natural to a young man, a good horse under his thigh and fifty guineas in his pocket helped amazingly to put him in the best humour with himself.

The company Frank met with on the North Road was commonplace and dull.

But one poor man, a sort of army officer in a gold-laced hat, whose martial courage was more than doubtful, amused Frank Osbaldistone by clinging desperately to a small but apparently very heavy portmanteau, which he carried on the pillion before him, never parting from it for a moment. This man's talk was all of well-dressed highwaymen, whose conversation and manners induced the unwary to join company with them.

Then in some shady dell whistling up their men, the unlucky traveller found himself despoiled--of his goods certainly, perhaps also of his life.

It delighted Frank's boyish humour beyond measure to play upon the fears of this gallant King's officer--which he proceeded to do by asking him first whether his bag were heavy or not, then by hinting that he would like to be informed as to his route, and finally by offering to take the bag on his own pillion and race him with the added weight to the nearest village.

This last audacious proposal almost took the man's breath away, and from that moment he was convinced that Frank was none other than the "Golden Farmer" himself in disguise.

At Darlington, the landlord of their inn introduced a Scotch cattle dealer, a certain Mr. Campbell, to share their meal. He was a stern-faced, dark-complexioned man, with a martial countenance and an air of instinctive command which took possession of the company at once.

The lawyer, the doctor, the clergyman, even Frank himself, found themselves listening with deference to the words of this plainly dressed, un.o.btrusive, Scottish drover. As for the man with the weighty bag, he fairly hung upon his words. And especially so when the landlord informed the company that Mr. Campbell had with his own hand beaten off seven highwaymen.

"Thou art deceived, friend Jonathan," said the Scot, "they were but two, and as beggarly loons as man could wish to meet withal!"

"Upon my word, sir," cried Morris, for that was the name of the man with the portmanteau, edging himself nearer to Mr. Campbell, "really and actually did you beat two highwaymen with your own hand?"

"In troth I did, sir," said Campbell, "and I think it nae great thing to mak' a sang about."

"Upon my word, sir," said Morris, eagerly, "I go northward, sir--I should be happy to have the pleasure of your company on my journey."

And, in spite of short answers, he continued to press his proposal upon the unwilling Scot, till Campbell had very unceremoniously to extricate himself from his grip, telling him that he was travelling upon his own private business, and that he could not unite himself to any stranger on the public highway.

The next day Frank approached Osbaldistone Hall, which stood under the great rounded range of the Cheviot Hills. He could already see it standing, stark and grey, among its ancestral oaks, when down the ravine streamed a band of huntsmen in full chase, the fox going wearily before, evidently near the end of his tether. Among the rout and nearer to Frank than the others, owing to some roughness of the ground, rode a young lady in a man's coat and hat--which, with her vest and skirt, made the first riding-habit Frank had ever seen.

The girl's cheeks were bright with the exercise. Her singular beauty was the more remarkable, chanced upon in so savage a scene. And when, after hearing the "Whoop--dead!" which told of poor Reynard's decease, she paused to tie up her loosened locks, Master Frank stared most undisguisedly and even impolitely.

One of the young huntsmen, clad in red and green, rode towards her, waving the brush in his hand as if in triumph over the girl.

"I see," she replied, "I see. But make no noise about it. If Phoebe here (patting the neck of her mare) had not got among the cliffs, _you_ would have had little cause for boasting."

Then the two of them looked at Frank and spoke together in a low tone.

The young man seemed sheepishly to decline some proposal which the girl made to him.

"Then if you won't, Thornie," she said at last, "I must."

And turning to Frank she asked him if he had seen anything of a friend of theirs, one Mr. Francis...o...b..ldistone, who for some days past had been expected at the Hall.

Frank instantly and gladly claimed kindred.

"Then," said the girl, smiling, "as this young man's politeness seems to have fallen asleep, I must e'en be master of the ceremonies, however improper it may be. So I beg to present to you young Squire Thorncliff Osbaldistone, your cousin, and Die Vernon, your accomplished cousin's poor kinswoman."