Rob Roy

"Oh, I have heard of that smaik," said the Scotch merchant, interrupting him; "it is he whom your principal, like an obstinate auld fule, wad make a merchant o', wad he or wad he no,—and the lad turned a strolling stage-player, in pure dislike to the labour an honest man should live by. Weel, sir, what say you to your handiwork? Will Hamlet the Dane, or Hamlet's ghost, be good security for Mr. Owen, sir?"

"I don't deserve your taunt," I replied, "though I respect your motive, and am too grateful for the assistance you have afforded Mr. Owen, to resent it. My only business here was to do what I could (it is perhaps very little) to aid Mr. Owen in the management of my father's affairs. My dislike of the commercial profession is a feeling of which I am the best and sole judge."

"I protest," said the Highlander, "I had some respect for this callant even before I ken'd what was in him; but now I honour him for his contempt of weavers and spinners, and sic-like mechanical persons and their pursuits."

"Ye're mad, Rob," said the Bailie—"mad as a March hare—though wherefore a hare suld be mad at March mair than at Martinmas, is mair than I can weel say. Weavers! Deil shake ye out o' the web the weaver craft made. Spinners! ye'll spin and wind yourself a bonny pirn. And this young birkie here, that ye're hoying and hounding on the shortest road to the gallows and the deevil, will his stage-plays and his poetries help him here, dye think, ony mair than your deep oaths and drawn dirks, ye reprobate that ye are?—Will Tityre tu patulae, as they ca' it, tell him where Rashleigh Osbaldistone is? or Macbeth, and all his kernes and galla-glasses, and your awn to boot, Rob, procure him five thousand pounds to answer the bills which fall due ten days hence, were they a' rouped at the Cross,—basket-hilts, Andra-Ferraras, leather targets, brogues, brochan, and sporrans?"

"Ten days," I answered, and instinctively drew out Diana Vernon's packet; and the time being elapsed during which I was to keep the seal sacred, I hastily broke it open. A sealed letter fell from a blank enclosure, owing to the trepidation with which I opened the parcel. A slight current of wind, which found its way through a broken pane of the window, wafted the letter to Mr. Jarvie's feet, who lifted it, examined the address with unceremonious curiosity, and, to my astonishment, handed it to his Highland kinsman, saying, "Here's a wind has blown a letter to its right owner, though there were ten thousand chances against its coming to hand."

The Highlander, having examined the address, broke the letter open without the least ceremony. I endeavoured to interrupt his proceeding.

"You must satisfy me, sir," said I, "that the letter is intended for you before I can permit you to peruse it."

"Make yourself quite easy, Mr. Osbaldistone," replied the mountaineer with great composure.—"remember Justice Inglewood, Clerk Jobson, Mr. Morris—above all, remember your vera humble servant, Robert Cawmil, and the beautiful Diana Vernon. Remember all this, and doubt no longer that the letter is for me."