Red Cap Tales Part 25

All three were drinking huge draughts of the Highland drink called "Usquebagh," and they spoke loudly and eagerly one to the other, now in Gaelic, now in English. A third Highlander, wrapped in his plaid and with his face hidden, lay on the floor, apparently asleep.

The three gentlemen were at first unconscious of the invasion. They continued their loud conversation, and it was not until Frank Osbaldistone called the landlady that they paused and looked at them, apparently stricken dumb by his audacity.

"You make yourself at home," said the lesser Celt, in very good English, which however he spoke with an air of haughty disdain.

"I usually do, sir," said Frank, "when I come into a house of public entertainment."

"And did she not see," demanded the taller man, "by the white wand at the door, that gentlemans had taken up the public house on their ain business?"

"I do not pretend to understand the customs of this country," said Frank, with firmness, "but I have yet to learn how any three persons are ent.i.tled to exclude all other travellers from the only place of shelter and refreshment for miles around."

The Bailie here offered a stoup of brandy as an appropriate means of establis.h.i.+ng a good understanding, but the three natives proceeded to snuff the air and work themselves up into a pa.s.sion with the evident intention of ending the quarrel by a fray.

"We are three to three," said the lesser Highlander, glancing his eyes at the intruding party. "If ye be pretty men, draw!"

And so saying, he drew his own broadsword and advanced upon Frank. The young Englishman, knowing the superiority of his rapier to the claymore, especially in the confined s.p.a.ce, was in no fear as to the issue of the combat. But when the gigantic Highlander advanced upon the worthy magistrate of Glasgow, after trying in vain once or twice to draw his father's _shabble_, as he called it, from its sheath,--a weapon which had last seen the light at Bothwell Bridge,--the Bailie seized as a subst.i.tute the red-hot coulter of a plough, which had been sticking in the fire. At the very first pa.s.s he set the Highlander's plaid on fire, and thereafter compelled him to keep a respectful distance. Andrew Fairservice had, of course, vanished at the very first symptoms of a storm, but the Lowlander, disappointed of an antagonist, drew honourably off and took no share in the fight. Nevertheless the Bailie, built for more peaceful pursuits, was quickly getting the worst of it, when from the floor started up the sleeping Highlander, crying, "Hersel' has eaten the town bread at the Cross of Glasgow, and by her troth, she will fight for Bailie Jarvie at the Clachan of Aberfoil!"

And seconding words with blows, he fell upon his tall countryman. As both were armed with targes made of wood and studded with bra.s.s, the combat was more remarkable for noise and clatter than for serious damage. And it was not long before the Lowlander cried out, taking upon himself the office of peacemaker: "Hold your hands, gentlemen--enough done, enough done! The strangers have shown themselves men of honour, and have given reasonable satisfaction."

There was no wish to continue the fray, save perhaps on the part of the Bailie's antagonist, who demanded to know who was going to pay for the hole burnt in his bonnie plaid, through which, he declared, any one might put a kail-pot.

But the Bailie, pleased with himself for having shown spirit, declared that the Highlander should have a new plaid, especially woven, of his own clan-colours. And he added that if he could find the worthy lad who had taken his quarrel upon himself, he would bestow upon him a gill of _aqua-vitae_.

But the Highlander who had been so ready on the Bailie's behalf was now nowhere to be found. The supper was brought in presently, as if the landlady had only been waiting for the end of the fray in order to serve the repast.

The Bailie had from the first recognised the Lowlander as one to whom the deacon his father had lent money, and with whose family there were many ties of cordiality and confidence. So while the friendly converse was thus proceeding indoors, Frank went out to find Andrew Fairservice, and on his way the landlady gave him a folded sc.r.a.p of paper, saying that she was glad to be rid of it--what with Saxons, soldiers, and robbers--life was not worth living on the Highland line!

By the light of a torch Frank read as follows, "For the honoured hands of Mr. F. O., a Saxon young gentleman--These!"

The letter proved to be from Campbell, and informed Frank that as there were night hawks abroad, he must hold no communication with any one lest it should lead to future trouble. The person who gave him the letter might be trusted, but that in the meantime it would be well to avoid a meeting with "R. M. C."

Frank was much disappointed at this deferring of the hope of aiding his father, by recovering the papers and t.i.tles which Rashleigh had stolen.

But still there was no help for it. And so, after dragging Andrew out of the corner of the shed, where he was hidden behind a barrel of feathers, he returned to the inn.

Here he found the Bailie high in dispute with his quondam friend, the Lowlander Galbraith. The quarrel concerned the Duke of Argyle and the Clan Campbell, but most of all a certain freebooter of the name of Rob Roy, who, as it now appeared, they were all a.s.sembled to pursue and make an end of.

North and east the pa.s.ses were being held. The westland clans were out.

Southward Major Galbraith was in command of a body of Lennox horse, and to a certainty Rob Roy would swing in a rope by the morrow's morn.

Scarcely were the words spoken when the ordered tramp of infantry on the march was heard, and an officer, followed by two or three files of soldiers, entered the apartment. It gave Frank a thrill of pleasure to remark his English accent, after the Scotch which he had been listening to ever since he left Osbaldistone Hall.

But he liked somewhat less what he was next to hear. The English officer had received instructions to place under arrest two persons, one young and the other elderly, travelling together. It seemed to him that Frank and the Bailie answered fairly well to this description.

In spite of the protests and threats of the honourable magistrate, he ordered them both to follow him in his advance into the Highland country, upon which he was immediately to set out.

The letter which Frank had received from the landlady of the inn, being found upon him, was held to be evidence that he had been in treasonable correspondence with Rob Roy, whose usual initials, indeed, were at the bottom of the note. Next the shock-headed Highlander who had taken the Bailie's quarrel upon him, having been captured, was brought before the officer, and commanded, on pain of being instantly hanged, to lead them to the place where he had left the Mac-Gregor. After long persuasion, some of it of the roughest sort, poor Dougal consented for five guineas to act as guide to the party of soldiers under Captain Thornton--for such was the name of the English officer.

This sinful compliance of Dougal's angered the Bailie so much that he cried to the soldiers to take Dougal away, because now he deserved hanging for his treachery more than ever.

This drew the retort from the Corporal who was acting as hangman, that if it were the Bailie who was going to be hanged, he would be in no such desperate hurry!

But Dougal promised to be faithful, and in a few minutes the English officer had paid the reckonings of the three gentlemen whom Frank had found drinking at the inn of Aberfoil. The hot and smoky atmosphere of the miserable inn was exchanged for the wide hill breezes. But on their pa.s.sage through the villages the hatred of the natives, mostly women and children, for the "red soldiers" broke forth into shrill cursing. Andrew Fairservice, who alone of the three understood Gaelic, grew pale with terror at the threats which were lavished upon them.

"And the worst of all is," he said, trembling, "that the owercome o'

their sang is that we are to gang up the glen and see what we are to get."

IV. THE DROWNING OF THE SPY

Whereupon the Bailie took it on himself to warn Captain Thornton that the Highlanders, especially under a leader so daring as Rob Roy, were in the habit of attacking their enemies in narrow pa.s.ses where regular troops had no chance against them. But the officer was not to be turned aside. He had his orders and he meant to carry them out. Rob Roy was certainly trapped, he said. All the upper pa.s.ses were in the hands of the Highlanders of the western clans. Garschattachin had closed in on the south with the Lennox Horse. The latest tidings of the freebooter were in accordance with the information so reluctantly given by Dougal, and were to the effect that Rob Roy had sent away the larger part of his clan, and was seeking escape alone, or with very few in his company, trusting most likely to his superior knowledge of the pa.s.ses.

Meanwhile Dougal their guide answered with a natural impatience to all complaints that he was leading them by difficult or dangerous roads.

"If," he said, with an appearance of reason, "gentlemans were seeking the Red Gregarach, they must expect some wee danger. And if they likit grand roads, they should hae bided at Glasgow."

The party was continuing to follow the narrow path by the lake, till they came to a halt at a place where the path left the water and climbed upward by several zigzags to the top of a rock, on which the advance guard reported that they had seen the bonnets of the Highlanders as well as the s.h.i.+ning barrels of their long muskets.

The officer now ordered the Corporal with three files to dislodge the enemy from this stronghold. The soldiers accordingly moved forward while Captain Thornton, with the rest of his party, followed in support. But immediate attack was prevented by the appearance of a woman on the top of the rock.

"Stand!" she cried in commanding tones, "and tell me what you seek in Mac-Gregor's country."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE soldiers accordingly moved forward while Captain Thornton, with the rest of his party, followed in support. But immediate attack was prevented by the appearance of a woman on the top of the rock.

"'Stand!' she cried in commanding tones, 'and tell me what you seek in Mac-Gregor's country.'"]

She was tall and imposing in figure. Her features had once been handsome, but were now wasted with grief and pa.s.sion. She wore a man's plaid and belt, a man's bonnet was on her head, and she held a naked sword in her hand.

"That's Helen Mac-Gregor, Rob's wife," said the Bailie, in a whisper of alarm; "there will be broken heads before long!"

"What seek ye here?" she demanded again of Captain Thornton, who had advanced to reconnoitre.

"We seek the outlaw Rob Roy Mac-Gregor Campbell," said the officer; "we make no war upon women. Therefore offer no opposition to the King's troops and a.s.sure yourself of civil treatment."

"I am no stranger to your tender mercies," the woman said, "you have left me neither name nor fame--neither house nor hold, blanket nor bedding, cattle to feed us, nor flocks to clothe us! Ye have taken from us all--all! The very name of our ancestors ye have taken away, and now ye come for our lives!"

"I seek no man's life," said the officer. "I only execute my orders.

Forward there--march!"

"Hurrah, boys--for Rob Roy's head and a purse of gold!" cried the Corporal, taking the word from his officer.

He quickened his pace to a run, followed by his six men. But as they reached the first loop of the ascent of the cliff, there came the flash of a dozen muskets from both sides of the pa.s.s. The Corporal, shot through the body, still struggled to reach the summit. He clung to the rock, but after a desperate effort his grasp relaxed. He slipped from the bare face of the cliff into the deep lake, where he perished. Of the soldiers three fell with him, while the others retired as best they could upon their main body.

"Grenadiers, to the front!" cried the steady voice of Captain Thornton, "open your pouches--handle your grenades--blow up your matches--fall on!"

The whole party advanced with a shout, headed by Captain Thornton, the grenadiers preparing to throw their grenades among the bushes, and the rank and file ready to support them in a close and combined a.s.sault.

Dougal, finding himself forgotten in the scuffle, had wisely crept into the thicket which overhung the road, and was already mounting the cliff with the agility of a wild-cat. Frank hastily followed his example. For the spattering fire, directed on the advancing party of soldiers, the loud reports of muskets, and the explosion of the grenades, made the path no comfortable place for those without arms. The Bailie, however, had only been able to scramble about twenty feet above the path when, his foot slipping, he would certainly have fallen into the lake had not the branch of a ragged thorn caught his riding-coat and supported him in mid-air, where he hung very like a sign in front of a hostelry. Andrew Fairservice had made somewhat better speed, but even he had only succeeded in reaching a ledge from which he could neither ascend nor yet come down. On this narrow promontory he footed it up and down, much like a hen on a hot girdle, and roared for mercy in Gaelic and English alternately, accordingly as he thought the victory inclined toward the soldiers or went in favour of the outlaws.