Chapter 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."

"'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"