Rob Roy (38 page)

‘Assuredly, Mr. Jarvie,' said our friend Owen, ‘credit is the sum total; and if we can but save that, at whatever discount——'

‘Ye are right, Mr. Owen—ye are right; ye speak weel and wisely; and I trust bowls will row right, though they are
awee ajee e'enow. But touching Robin, I am of opinion he will befriend this young man if it is in his power. He has a gude heart, puir Robin; and though I lost a matter o' twa hunder punds wi' his former engagements, and haena muckle expectation ever to see back my thousand pund Scots that he promises me e'enow, yet I will never say but what Robin means fair by a' men.'

‘I am then to consider him,' I replied,'as an honest man?'

‘Umph!' replied Jarvie, with a precautionary sort of cough,—‘Ay, he has a kind o' Hieland honesty—he‘s honest after a sort, as they say. My father the deacon used aye to laugh when he tauld me how that by-word came up. Ane Captain Costlett was cracking crouse about his loyalty to King Charles, and Clerk Pettigrew (ye'll hae heard mony a tale about him) asked him after what manner he served the king, when he was fighting again him at Wor'ster in Cromwell's army; and Captain Costlett was a ready body, and said that he served him
after a sort.
My father used to laugh weel at that sport—and sae the by-word came up.'

‘But do you think,' I said, ‘that this man will be able to serve me after a sort, or should I trust myself to this place of rendezvous which he has given me?'

‘Frankly and fairly, it's worth trying. Ye see yoursell there's some risk in your staying here. This bit body Morris has gotten a custom-house place doun at Greenock—that's a port on the Firth doun by here; and tho' a' the warld kens him to be but a twa-leggit creature, wi' a goose's head and a hen's heart, that goes about on the quay plaguing folk about permits, and cockits, and dockits, and a' that vexatious trade, yet if he lodge an information—ou, nae doubt a man in magisterial duty maun attend to it, and ye might come to be clapped up between four wa's, whilk wad be ill-convenient to your father's affairs.'

‘True,' I observed; ‘yet what service am I likely to render
him by leaving Glasgow, which, it is probable, will be the principal scene of Rashleigh's machinations, and committing myself to the doubtful faith of a man of whom I know little but that he fears justice, and has doubtless good reasons for doing so; and that for some secret, and probably dangerous purpose, he is in close league and alliance with the very person who is like to be the author of our ruin?'

‘Ah! but ye judge Rob hardly,' said the Bailie,—‘ye judge him hardly, puir chield; and the truth is, that ye ken nae-thing about our hill country, or Hielands, as we ca' them. They are clean anither set frae the like o' huz; there's nae bailie-courts amang them—nae magistrates that dinna bear the sword in vain, like the worthy deacon that's awa'—and, I may say't, like mysell and other present magistrates in this city—But it's just the laird‘s command, and the loon maun loup and the never another law hae they but the length o' their dirks—the broadsword's pursuer, or plaintiff, as you Englishers ca' it, and the target is the defender; the stoutest head bears langest out—and there's a Hieland plea for ye.'

Owen groaned deeply; and I allow that the description did not greatly increase my desire to trust myself in a country so lawless as he described these Scottish mountains.

‘Now, sir,' said Jarvie, ‘we speak little o' thae things, because they are familiar to oursells; and where's the use o' vilifying ane's country, and bring a discredit on ane's kin, before southrons and strangers? it's an ill bird that files its ain nest.'

‘Well, sir, but as it is no impertinent curiosity of mine, but real necessity, that obliges me to make these inquiries, I hope you will not be offended at my pressing for a little farther information. I have to deal, on my father's account, with several gentlemen of these wild countries, and I must trust your good sense and experience for the requisite lights upon the subject.'

This little morsel of flattery was not thrown out in vain.

‘Experience!' said the Bailie, ‘I hae had experience, nae doubt, and I hae made some calculations—Ay, and to speak quietly amang oursells, I hae made some perquisitions through Andrew Wylie, my auld clerk; he's wi' MacVittie and Co. now—but he whiles drinks a gill on the Saturday afternoons wi' his auld master. And since ye say ye are willing to be guided by the Glasgow weaver-body's advice, I am no the man that will refuse it to the son of an auld correspondent, and my father the deacon was nane sic afore me. I have whiles thought o' letting my lights burn before the Duke of Argyle, or his brother Lord Ilay, (for wherefore should they be hidden under a bushel?) but the like o' thae grit men wadna mind the like o' me, a puir wabster-body—they think mair o' wha says a thing than o' what the thing is that's said. The mair's the pity—mair‘s the pity. Not that I wad speak ony ill of this MacCallum More—“Curse not the rich in your bedchamber,” saith the son of Sirach, for a bird of the air shall carry the clatter, and pint-stoups hae lang lugs.'

I interrupted these prolegomena in which Mr. Jarvie was apt to be somewhat diffuse, by praying him to rely upon Mr. Owen and myself as perfectly secret and safe confidents.

‘it's no for that,' he replied, ‘for I fear nae man—what for suld I?—I speak nae treason—Only thae Hielandmen hae lang grips, and I whiles gang a wee bit up the glens to see some auld kinsfolks, and I wadna willingly be in bad blude wi' ony o' their clans. Howsumever, to proceed—Ye maun understand I found my remarks on figures, whilk, as Mr. Owen here weel kens, is the only true demonstrable root of human knowledge.'

Owen readily assented to a proposition so much in his own way, and our orator proceeded.

‘These Hielands of ours, as we ca' them, gentlemen, are
but a wild kind of warld by themsells, full of heights and howes, woods, caverns, lochs, rivers and mountains, that it wad tire the very deevil's wings to flee to the tap o' them. And in this country, and in the isles, whilk are little better or, to speak the truth, rather waur than the mainland, there are about twa hunder and thirty parochines, including the Orkneys, where, whether they speak Gaelic or no, I wotna, but they are an uncivilized people.—Now, sirs, I sall haud ilk parochine at the moderate estimate of eight hundred examinable persons, deducting children under nine years of age, and then adding one-fifth to stand for bairns of nine years auld and under, the whole population will reach the sum of—let us add one-fifth to 800 to be the multiplier, and 230 being the multiplicand——'

‘The product,' said Mr. Owen, who entered delightedly into these statistics of Mr. Jarvie, ‘will be 230,000.'

‘Right, sir—perfectly right; and the military array of this Hieland country, were a‘the men-folk between aughteen and fifty-six brought out that could bear arms, couldna come weel short of fifty-seven thousand five hundred men. Now, sir, it's a sad and awfu' truth, that there is neither wark, nor the very fashion nor appearance of wark, for the tae half of thae puir creatures; that is to say, that the agriculture, the pasturage, the fisheries, and every species of honest industry about the country, cannot employ the one moiety of die population, let them work as lazily as they like and they do work as if a pleugh or a spade burnt their fingers. Aweel, sir, this moiety of unemployed bodies, amounting to——'

‘To one hundred and fifteen thousand souls,' said Owen, ‘being the half of the above product.'

‘Ye hae't, Maister Owen—ye hae't—whereof there may be twenty-eight thousand seven hundred able-bodied gillies fit to bear arms, and that do bear arms, and will touch
or look at nae honest means of livelihood even if they could get it—which, lack-a-day, they cannot.'

‘But is it possible,' said I, ‘Mr. Jarvie, that this can be a just picture of so large a portion of the island of Britain?'

‘Sir, I'll make it as plain as Peter Pasley's pike-staff—I will allow that ilk parochine, on an average, employs fifty pleughs, whilk is a great proportion in sic miserable soil as thae creatures hae to labour, and that there may be pasture eneugh for pleugh-horses, and owsen, and forty or fifty cows; now, to take care o' the pleughs and cattle, we'se allow seventy-five families of six lives in ilk family, and we'se add fifty mair to make even numbers, and ye hae five hundred souls, the tae half o' the population, employed and maintained in a sort o' fashion, wi' some chance of sour milk and crowdie; but I wad be glad to ken what the other five hundred are to do?'

‘In the name of God!' said I, ‘what
do
they do, Mr. Jarvie? It makes me shudder to think of their situation.'

‘Sir,' replied the Bailie, ‘ye wad maybe shudder mair if ye were living near-hand them. For, admitting that the tae half of them may make some little thing for themsells honestly in the Lowlands by shearing in harst, droving, haymaking, and the like; ye hae still mony hundreds and thousands o' lang-legged Hieland gillies that will neither work nor want, and maun gang thigging and sorning
¹
about on their acquaintance, or live by doing the laird‘s bidding, be‘t right or be‘t wrang. And mair especially, mony hundreds o' them come down to the borders of the low country, where there's gear to grip, and live by stealing, reiving, lifting cows, and the like depredations! A thing deplorable
in ony Christian country—the mair especially, that they take pride in it, and reckon driving a spreagh (whilk is, in plain Scotch, stealing a herd of nowte) a gallant manly action, and mair befitting of pretty
¹
men (as sic reivers will ca' themsells) than to win a day's wage by ony honest thrift. And the lairds are as bad as the loons: for if they dinna bid them gae reive and harry, the deil a bit they forbid them; and they shelter them, or let them shelter themsells, in their woods, and mountains, and strongholds, whenever the thing's dune. And every ane o' them will maintain as mony o' his ane name, or his clan, as we say, as he can rap and rend means for; or, whilk's the same thing, as mony as can in ony fashion, fair or foul, mainteen themsells—and there they are wi' gun and pistol, dirk and dourlach, ready to disturb the peace o' the country whenever the laird likes; and that's the grievance of the Hielands, whilk are, and hae been for this thousand years by-past, a bike o' the maist lawless unchristian limmers that ever disturbed a douce, quiet, God-fearing neighbourhood, like this o' ours in the west here.'

‘And this kinsman of yours, and friend of mine, is he one of those great proprietors who maintain the household troops you speak of ?' I enquired.

‘Na, na,' said Bailie Jarvie; ‘he's nane o' your great grandees o' chiefs, as they ca' them, neither. Though he is weel born, and lineally descended frae auld Glenstrae—I ken his lineage—indeed he is a near kinsman, and, as I said, of gude gentle Hieland blude, though ye may think weel that I care little about that nonsense—it's a' moonshine in water —waste threads and thrums, as we say—but I could show ye letters frae his father, that was the third aff Glenstrae, to my
father Deacon Jarvie (peace be wi' his memory!) beginning, Dear Deacon, and ending, your loving kinsman to command,—they are amaist a' about borrowed siller, sae the gude deacon, that's dead and gane, keepit them as documents and evidents—He was a carefu' man.'

‘But if he is not,' I resumed, ‘one of their chiefs or patriarchal leaders, whom I have heard my father talk of, this kinsman of yours has, at least, much to say in the Highlands, I presume?'

‘Ye may say that—nae name better kend between the Lennox and Breadalbane. Robin was anes a weel-doing, pains-taking drover, as ye wad see amang ten thousand—It was a pleasure to see him in his belted plaid and brogues, wi' his target at his back, and claymore and dirk at his belt, following a hundred Highland stots, and a dozen o' the gillies, as rough and ragged as the beasts they drave. And he was baith civil and just in his dealings, and if he thought his chapman had made a hard bargain, he wad gie him a luck-penny to the mends. I hae kend him gie back five shillings out o' the pund sterling.'

‘Twenty-five per cent.,' said Owen—‘a heavy discount.'

‘He wad gae it though, sir, as I tell ye; mair especially if he thought the buyer was a puir man, and couldna stand by a loss. But the times cam hard, and Rob was venturesome. It wasna my faut—it wasna my faut; he canna wyte me. I aye tauld him o't—And the creditors, mair especially some grit neighbours o' his, grippit to his living and land; and they say his wife was turned out o' the house to the hill-side, and sair misguided to the boot. Shamefu'! shamefu'!—I am a peacefu' man and a magistrate, but if ony ane had guided sae muckle as my servant quean, Mattie, as it's like they guided Rob‘s wife, I think it suld hae set the shabble
¹
that my father the deacon had at Bothwell Brigg a-walking again.
Weel, Rob came hame, and fand desolation, God pity us! where he left plenty; he looked east, west, south, north, and saw neither hauld nor hope—neither beild nor shelter; sae he e'en pu'd the bonnet ower his brow, belted the broadsword to his side, took to the brae-side, and became a broken-man.'
¹

The voice of the good citizen was broken by his contending feelings. He obviously, while he professed to contemn the pedigree of his Highland kinsman, attached a secret feeling of consequence to the connexion, and he spoke of his friend in his prosperity with an overflow of affection, which deepened his sympathy for his misfortunes, and his regret for their consequences.

‘Thus tempted, and urged by despair,' said I, seeing Mr. Jarvie did not proceed in his narrative, ‘I suppose your kinsman became one of those depredators you have described to us?'

‘No sae bad as that,' said the Glaswegian,—‘no a'thegither and outright sae bad as that; but he became a levier of black-mail, wider and farther than ever it was raised in our day, a' through the Lennox and Menteith, and up to the gates o' Stirling Castle.'