



Produced by David Widger




[Illustration: Bookcover]


[Illustration: Spines]


ROB ROY

By Sir Walter Scott


VOLUME TWO


[Illustration: Helen MacGregor--Frontispiece]


CHAPTER FIRST

                   And hurry, hurry, off they rode,
                       As fast as fast might be;
                   Hurra, hurra, the dead can ride,
                       Dost fear to ride with me?
                                            Burger.

There is one advantage in an accumulation of evils, differing in cause
and character, that the distraction which they afford by their
contradictory operation prevents the patient from being overwhelmed under
either. I was deeply grieved at my separation from Miss Vernon, yet not
so much so as I should have been, had not my father's apprehended
distresses forced themselves on my attention; and I was distressed by the
news of Mr. Tresham, yet less so than if they had fully occupied my mind.
I was neither a false lover nor an unfeeling son; but man can give but a
certain portion of distressful emotions to the causes which demand them;
and if two operate at once, our sympathy, like the funds of a compounding
bankrupt, can only be divided between them. Such were my reflections when
I gained my apartment--it seems, from the illustration, they already
began to have a twang of commerce in them.

I set myself seriously to consider your father's letter. It was not very
distinct, and referred for several particulars to Owen, whom I was
entreated to meet with as soon as possible at a Scotch town called
Glasgow; being informed, moreover, that my old friend was to be heard of
at Messrs. MacVittie, MacFin, and Company, merchants in the Gallowgate of
the said town. It likewise alluded to several letters,--which, as it
appeared to me, must have miscarried or have been intercepted, and
complained of my obdurate silence, in terms which would have, been highly
unjust, had my letters reached their purposed destination. I was amazed
as I read. That the spirit of Rashleigh walked around me, and conjured up
these doubts and difficulties by which I was surrounded, I could not
doubt for one instant; yet it was frightful to conceive the extent of
combined villany and power which he must have employed in the
perpetration of his designs. Let me do myself justice in one respect. The
evil of parting from Miss Vernon, however distressing it might in other
respects and at another time have appeared to me, sunk into a subordinate
consideration when I thought of the dangers impending over my father. I
did not myself set a high estimation on wealth, and had the affectation
of most young men of lively imagination, who suppose that they can better
dispense with the possession of money, than resign their time and
faculties to the labour necessary to acquire it. But in my father's case,
I knew that bankruptcy would be considered as an utter and irretrievable
disgrace, to which life would afford no comfort, and death the speediest
and sole relief.

My mind, therefore, was bent on averting this catastrophe, with an
intensity which the interest could not have produced had it referred to
my own fortunes; and the result of my deliberation was a firm resolution
to depart from Osbaldistone Hall the next day and wend my way without
loss of time to meet Owen at Glasgow. I did not hold it expedient to
intimate my departure to my uncle, otherwise than by leaving a letter of
thanks for his hospitality, assuring him that sudden and important
business prevented my offering them in person. I knew the blunt old
knight would readily excuse ceremony; and I had such a belief in the
extent and decided character of Rashleigh's machinations, that I had some
apprehension of his having provided means to intercept a journey which
was undertaken with a view to disconcert them, if my departure were
publicly announced at Osbaldistone Hall.

I therefore determined to set off on my journey with daylight on the
ensuing morning, and to gain the neighbouring kingdom of Scotland before
any idea of my departure was entertained at the Hall. But one impediment
of consequence was likely to prevent that speed which was the soul of my
expedition. I did not know the shortest, nor indeed any road to Glasgow;
and as, in the circumstances in which I stood, despatch was of the
greatest consequence, I determined to consult Andrew Fairservice on the
subject, as the nearest and most authentic authority within my reach.
Late as it was, I set off with the intention of ascertaining this
important point, and after a few minutes' walk reached the dwelling of
the gardener.

Andrew's dwelling was situated at no great distance from the exterior
wall of the garden--a snug comfortable Northumbrian cottage, built of
stones roughly dressed with the hammer, and having the windows and doors
decorated with huge heavy architraves, or lintels, as they are called, of
hewn stone, and its roof covered with broad grey flags, instead of
slates, thatch, or tiles. A jargonelle pear-tree at one end of the
cottage, a rivulet and flower-plot of a rood in extent in front, and a
kitchen-garden behind; a paddock for a cow, and a small field, cultivated
with several crops of grain, rather for the benefit of the cottager than
for sale, announced the warm and cordial comforts which Old England, even
at her most northern extremity, extends to her meanest inhabitants.

As I approached the mansion of the sapient Andrew, I heard a noise,
which, being of a nature peculiarly solemn, nasal, and prolonged, led me
to think that Andrew, according to the decent and meritorious custom of
his countrymen, had assembled some of his neighbours to join in family
exercise, as he called evening devotion. Andrew had indeed neither wife,
child, nor female inmate in his family. "The first of his trade," he
said, "had had eneugh o'thae cattle." But, notwithstanding, he sometimes
contrived to form an audience for himself out of the neighbouring <DW7>s
and Church-of-Englandmen--brands, as he expressed it, snatched out of the
burning, on whom he used to exercise his spiritual gifts, in defiance
alike of Father Vaughan, Father Docharty, Rashleigh, and all the world of
Catholics around him, who deemed his interference on such occasions an
act of heretical interloping. I conceived it likely, therefore, that the
well-disposed neighbours might have assembled to hold some chapel of ease
of this nature. The noise, however, when I listened to it more
accurately, seemed to proceed entirely from the lungs of the said Andrew;
and when I interrupted it by entering the house, I found Fairservice
alone, combating as he best could, with long words and hard names, and
reading aloud, for the purpose of his own edification, a volume of
controversial divinity.

"I was just taking a spell," said he, laying aside the huge folio volume
as I entered, "of the worthy Doctor Lightfoot."

"Lightfoot!" I replied, looking at the ponderous volume with some
surprise; "surely your author was unhappily named."

"Lightfoot was his name, sir; a divine he was, and another kind of a
divine than they hae now-adays. Always, I crave your pardon for keeping
ye standing at the door, but having been mistrysted (gude preserve us!)
with ae bogle the night already, I was dubious o' opening the yett till I
had gaen through the e'ening worship; and I had just finished the fifth
chapter of Nehemiah--if that winna gar them keep their distance, I wotna
what will."

"Trysted with a bogle!" said I; "what do you mean by that, Andrew?"

"I said mistrysted," replied Andrew; "that is as muckle as to say, fley'd
wi' a ghaist--Gude preserve us, I say again!"

"Flay'd by a ghost, Andrew! how am I to understand that?"

"I did not say flay'd," replied Andrew, "but _f