Red Cap Tales, Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North

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 passes 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 passes 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 passes.

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 shining 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."

She was tall and imposing in figure. Her features had once been handsome, but were now wasted with grief and passion. 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 assure 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 pass. 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 assault.

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.

But on this occasion it was the Highlanders who were destined to win. They fought altogether under cover, and, from the number of musket flashes they held also a great superiority in point of numbers. At all events Frank soon saw the English officer stripped of his hat and arms, and his men, with sullen and dejected countenances, delivering up their muskets to the victorious foe.

The Bailie was, however, rescued by "the Dougal cratur," as the magistrate called him, who cut off the tails of his coat and lowered him to the ground. Then, when at last he was somewhat appeased, on account of Frank's seeming desertion, he counselled that they should be in no hurry to approach Mac-Gregor's wife, who would certainly be most dangerous in the moment of victory.

Andrew Fairservice had already been espied on his airy perch, from which the Highlanders soon made him descend, by threatening him with their guns and even firing a stray shot or two over his head, so that presently he fell to the earth among them. The outlaws stood ready to receive him, and ere he could gain his legs, they had, with the most admirable celerity, stripped him of periwig, hat, coat, doublet, stockings, and shoes. In other circumstances this might have been amusing for Frank to watch. For though Andrew fell to the earth a well-clothed and decent burgher—he arose a forked, uncased, bald-pated, and beggarly-looking scarecrow.

And indeed Frank and the Bailie would soon have shared the same fate, had not Dougal appeared on the scene in the nick of time, and compelled the plunderers to restore their spoil. So to Helen Mac-Gregor they were taken, Dougal fighting and screaming all the way, evidently determined to keep his captives to himself, or at least to prevent others from claiming them.

With many but (considering the time and occasion) somewhat ill-chosen words of familiarity, the Bailie claimed kindred with Rob Roy's wife. But in this he did himself more harm than good, for his ill-timed jocularity grated on Helen Mac-Gregor's ear, in her present mood of exaltation, and she promptly commanded that the Sassenachs should one and all be bound and thrown into the deeps of the lake.

But here Dougal threw himself between the angry woman and her prisoners with such vehemence that he was able to stave off, at least for a time, the execution of the supreme sentence. These men were, he said, friends of the Chief and had come up on his assurance to meet him at the Clachan of Aberfoil.

But at that very moment the wild strains of the pibroch were heard approaching, and a strong body of Highlanders in the prime of life arrived on the scene. It now appeared that those who had fought and beaten the troops were either beardless boys or old men scarcely able to hold a musket. But there was no joy of victory on the faces of the newcomers. The pipes breathed a heart-breaking lament.

Rob Roy was taken!

"Taken," repeated Helen Mac-Gregor, "taken!—And do you live to say so? Did I nurse you for this, coward dogs—that you should see your father prisoner, and come back to tell it?"

The sons of Rob Roy, the elder James, tall and handsome, the younger Robin Oig, ruddy and dark, both hung their heads. And after the first burst of her indignation was over, the elder explained how Rob Roy had been summoned to bide tryst with—(here Frank Osbaldistone missed the name, but it sounded like his own). Having, however, some suspicion of treachery, Rob Roy had ordered the messenger to be detained, and had gone forth attended by only Angus Breck and little Rory. Within half an hour Angus Breck came back with the tidings that the Chief had been captured by a party of the Lennox militia under Galbraith of Garschattachin, who were in waiting for him.

Helen Mac-Gregor had now two purposes to carry out. First, she sent messengers in every direction to gather assistance for an immediate attack on the Lowlanders, in order to effect the rescue of her husband. Second, she ordered the spy, whose false message had sent her husband to his doom, to be brought before her. For him there was no pity.

When he was haled, pale and trembling before the enraged wife of the Mac-Gregor, what was Frank's astonishment to discover that he was none other than Morris, the very same man who had accused him of the robbery of his portmanteau at Squire Inglewood's, and whom he had last seen in the Glasgow College Yards, walking and talking with Rashleigh Osbaldistone.

A brief command to her followers—and the wretched man was bound. A heavy stone was tied about his neck in a plaid, and he was hurled instantly into the depths of the lake, where he perished, amid the loud shouts of vindictive triumph which went up from the clan.

INTERLUDE OF EXPOSTULATION

"Oh, do go on," said Sweetheart, actually pushing the narrator's arm, as if to shake more of the tale out of him. "What a perfectly horrid place to stop at! Tell us what happened after."

 

"Nothing more happened to Morris, I can promise you that!" I replied.

"That's not nice of you," said Sweetheart. "I am quite sorry for the poor man—in spite of all he had done!"

"Well, I'm not," said Sir Toady Lion, truculently, "he deserved it all, and more. He has done nothing but tell lies and betray people all through the story—right from the very beginning."

"Besides, he was afraid!" said Hugh John, with whom this was the sin without forgiveness.

"Well," said Sweetheart, "so am I afraid often—of mice, and rats, and horrid creeping things."

"Huh," said Sir Toady, crinkling up his nose, "you are a girl—of course you are afraid!"

"And I know," retorted Sweetheart, "two noble, brave, gallant, fearless, undaunted boys, who daren't go up to the garret in the dark—there!"

"That's not fair," said Hugh John; "that was only once, after father had been telling us about the Hand-from-under-the-Bed that pulled the bedclothes off! Anybody would have been frightened at that. You, yourself—"

"Oh, but I don't pretend," cried Sweetheart; "I don't need to. I am only a girl. But for all that, I went up and lit the candle in a bedroom belonging to two boys, who dared not even go up the stair holding each other by the hand!"

"If you say that, I'll hit you," said Sir Toady.

"Will you!" said Sweetheart, clearing for action; "we'll see about that. It's only mice I am afraid of—not cowardly boys!"

I hastened to still the rising storm, and in order to bring the conversation back to the subject of Rob Roy, I asked Hugh John if this were not more to his taste in the matter of heroes.

"Oh, Rob Roy's all right," he said; "that is, when once you get to him. But Frank Osbaldistone is just like the rest—always being tied up, or taken round where he doesn't want to go. Besides, he ran away at the battle!"

"Well," said I, "he had no arms, and besides it was not his quarrel. He couldn't fight either for the soldiers or for the Highlanders. At any rate, you can't deny that he did fight with Rashleigh in the College Yards of Glasgow!"

"Yes, and he got wounded. And then Rob Roy threatened to lick them both—I don't count that much!" said the contemner of heroes. "But, at any rate, it was something. And he didn't go spooning about after girls—that's good, anyway."

"Don't be too sure," said Sweetheart; "there's Die Vernon in the background."

"Well, of course, a fellow has to do some of it if he's a hero," said Hugh John, who has always high ideas of the proper thing; "it's in his part, you see, and he has to—else he wouldn't be respected. But I think if ever I had to be a hero, I would dress up Sir Toady for the girl's part. Then if he monkeyed too much, why—I could welt him well after. But (he added with a sigh), with a girl, you can't, of course."

"Well, anyway," said Sweetheart, thinking that possibly the tale-teller might feel aggrieved at these uncomplimentary remarks, "I think it is just a beautiful story, and I love the dear Bailie for being willing to go all that way with Frank, and get hung up in the tree by the coat-tails and all!"

"Rats!" said Hugh John, contemptuously, "think if he had known that, he would ever have left Glasgow—not much!"

"Well, it was beautiful, I think," said Sweetheart, "but I am sorry that they drowned the poor man Morris, especially when he was so very frightened."

But the instant indignant outcry of the boys silenced her. Lochs twelve feet deep, it speedily appeared, ought to be provided by law everywhere over the kingdoms three, for the accommodation of such "sweeps" and "sneaks" and "cowards."

Then Mistress Margaret spoke up for the first time. She had been sitting with her eyes fixed dreamily on the sparkle of the logs in the library fireplace.

"What a blessing it is," she said, "that this is a rainy Saturday, and so we do not need to wait for more. Please go on with the story—JUST where you left off."

And Maid Margaret's form of government being absolute monarchy, I did so, and the result was

THE THIRD TALE FROM "ROB ROY"

I. IN THE HANDS OF THE PHILISTINES

After the victory of the Highlanders and the drowning of Morris the spy, it was for some little while touch-and-go whether the Bailie and Frank should be made to follow him to the bottom of the loch. But at last Frank was ordered to go as an ambassador to those who had captured Rob Roy, while the Bailie with Captain Thornton and all the other prisoners remained as hostages in the hands of the victorious Helen.

This was the message he was to carry to the Sassenach.

The whole district of the Lennox would be ravished if the Mac-Gregor were not set free within twelve hours. Farmhouses would be burned, stack-yard and byre made desolate. In every house there would be a crying of the death wail—the coronach of sorrow. Furthermore, to begin with, Helen Mac-Gregor promised that if her request was not granted within the time specified, she would send them this Glasgow Bailie, with the Saxon Captain, and all the captive soldiers, bundled together in a plaid, and chopped into as many pieces as there were checks in the tartan!

When the angry Chieftainess paused in her denunciations, the cool level voice of the soldier struck in: "Give my compliments—Captain Thornton's of the Royal's—to the commanding officer, and tell him to do his duty and secure his prisoner, without wasting a thought on me. If I have been fool enough to let myself be led into this trap, I am at least wise enough to know how to die for it without disgracing the service. I am only sorry for my poor fellows," he added, "fallen into such butcherly hands!"

But the Bailie's message was far different in tone.

"Whisht, man, whisht," he cried, "are ye weary of your life? Ye'll gie my service, Bailie Nicol Jarvie's service—a magistrate o' Glasgow, as his father was before him—to the commanding officer, and tell him that there are here a wheen honest men in sore trouble, and like to come to mair. And tell him that the best thing he can do for the common good is just to let Rob come his ways up the glen, and nae mair about it! There has been some ill done already, but as it has lighted mostly on the exciseman Morris it will not be muckle worth making a stir about!"

So young Hamish Mac-Gregor led Frank Osbaldistone across the mountains to the place where his father's captors, the horsemen of the Lennox, had taken up their position on a rocky eminence, where they would be safe from any sudden attack of the mountaineers.

Before parting he made Frank promise not to reveal, either who had guided him thither, or where he had parted from his conductor. Happily Frank was not asked either of these questions. He and Andrew (who, in a tattered cloak and with a pair of brogues on his feet, looked like a Highland scarecrow) were soon perceived by the sentries and conducted to the presence of the commanding officer, evidently a man of rank, in a steel cuirass, crossed by the ribband of the Thistle, to whom the others seemed to pay great deference. This proved to be no other than his Grace the Duke of Montrose, who in person had come to conduct the operations against his enemy, Rob Roy.

Frank's message was instantly listened to, and very clearly and powerfully he pointed out what would occur if Rob Roy were not suffered to depart. But the Duke bade him return to those who sent him, and tell them that if they touched so much as a hair upon the heads of their hostages, he would make their glens remember it for a hundred years. As for Rob Roy, he must surely die!

But Frank Osbaldistone pointed out that to return with such a message would be to go to certain death, and pleaded for some reply which might save the lives of Captain Thornton, the Bailie, and the soldiers who were captive in Helen Mac-Gregor's hands upon the hostile shores of Loch Ard.

"Why, if you cannot go yourself, send your servant!" returned the Duke. At which Andrew burst forth. He had had, he said, enough and to spare of Highland hospitality.

"The deil be in my feet," quoth Andrew, "if I go the length of my toe on such an errand. Do the folk think I have a spare windpipe in my pocket, after John Highlandman has slit this one with his jocteleg? Or that I can dive down at one side of a Highland loch and come up at the other like a sheldrake? Na, na, every one for himself, and God for us all! Folk may just go on their own errands. Rob Roy is no concern of mine. He never came near my native parish of Dreepdaily to steal either pippin or pear from me or mine!"

The Duke seemed much affected by the hard case of the King's officer, but he replied that the state of the country must come first, and it was absolutely necessary that Rob Roy should die. He held to this resolution even when Galbraith of Garschattachin and others of his followers seemed inclined to put in a good word for Rob. He was about to examine the prisoner further, when a Highlander brought him a letter which seemed to cause the great man much annoyance. It announced that the Highland clans, on whom the Lowlanders had been relying, had made a separate peace with the enemy and had gone home.

As the night was now fast coming on, the Duke ordered Garschattachin to draw off his party in one direction, while he himself would escort the prisoner to a place called Duchray.

"Here's auld ordering and counter-ordering," growled Garschattachin between his teeth, "but bide a wee—we may, ere long, play at Change Seats—for the King's coming!"

The two divisions of cavalry began to move down the valley at a slow trot. One party, that commanded by Galbraith, turned to the right, where they were to spend the night in an old castle, while the other, taking along with them Frank Osbaldistone, escorted the prisoner to a place of safety. Rob Roy was mounted behind one of the strongest men present, one Ewan of Brigglands, to whom he was fastened by a horse-belt passed round both and buckled before the yeoman's breast. Frank was set on a troop-horse and placed immediately behind. They were as closely surrounded by soldiers as the road would permit, and there were always one or two troopers, pistol in hand, riding on either side of Rob Roy.

Nevertheless the dauntless outlaw was endeavouring all the time to persuade Ewan of Brigglands to give him a last chance for his life.

"Your father, Ewan," he said, so low that Frank had difficulty in catching the words, "would not thus have carried an old friend to the shambles, like a calf, for all the dukes in Christendom!"

To this Ewan returned no answer—only shrugging his shoulders as a sign that what he was doing was by no choice of his own.

"And when the Mac-Gregors come down the glen," the voice of the tempter went on in Ewan's ear, "and ye see empty folds, a bloody hearthstone, and the fire flashing out between the rafters of your house, ye may be thinking then, Ewan, that were your friend Rob Roy to the fore, you might have had that safe, which it will make your heart sore to lose!"

They were at this time halted on the river-bank, waiting for the signal to bring over the Mac-Gregor. Rob made one last attempt.

"It's a sore thing," said Rob Roy, still closer in the ear of his conductor, "that Ewan of Brigglands, whom Rob Roy has helped with hand, sword, and purse, should mind a gloom from a great man more than a friend's life."

Ewan, sorely agitated, was silent.

Then came the Duke's loud call from the opposite bank, "Bring over the prisoner!"

Dashing forward precipitately, Ewan's horse, with the two men on his back, entered the water. A soldier kept back Frank from following. But in the waning light he could see the Duke getting his people into order across the river, when suddenly a splash and a cry warned him that Rob had prevailed on Ewan of Brigglands to give him one more chance for life.