Rob Roy

"He was slain in cold blood after the fight was over, Mr. Campbell."

"Cold blood?—Damnation!" he said, muttering betwixt his teeth—"How fell that, sir? Speak out, sir, and do not Maister or Campbell me—my foot is on my native heath, and my name is MacGregor!"

His passions were obviously irritated; but without noticing the rudeness of his tone, I gave him a short and distinct account of the death of Morris. He struck the butt of his gun with great vehemence against the ground, and broke out—"I vow to God, such a deed might make one forswear kin, clan, country, wife, and bairns! And yet the villain wrought long for it. And what is the difference between warsling below the water wi' a stane about your neck, and wavering in the wind wi' a tether round it?—it's but choking after a', and he drees the doom he ettled for me. I could have wished, though, they had rather putten a ball through him, or a dirk; for the fashion of removing him will give rise to mony idle clavers—But every wight has his weird, and we maun a' dee when our day comes—And naebody will deny that Helen MacGregor has deep wrongs to avenge."

So saying, he seemed to dismiss the theme altogether from his mind, and proceeded to inquire how I got free from the party in whose hands he had seen me.

My story was soon told; and I added the episode of my having recovered the papers of my father, though I dared not trust my voice to name the name of Diana.

"I was sure ye wad get them," said MacGregor;—"the letter ye brought me contained his Excellency's pleasure to that effect and nae doubt it was my will to have aided in it. And I asked ye up into this glen on the very errand. But it's like his Excellency has foregathered wi' Rashleigh sooner than I expected."

The first part of this answer was what most forcibly struck me.

"Was the letter I brought you, then, from this person you call his Excellency? Who is he? and what is his rank and proper name?"

"I am thinking," said MacGregor, "that since ye dinna ken them already they canna be o' muckle consequence to you, and sae I shall say naething on that score. But weel I wot the letter was frae his ain hand, or, having a sort of business of my ain on my hands, being, as ye weel may see, just as much as I can fairly manage, I canna say I would hae fashed mysell sae muckle about the matter."

I now recollected the lights seen in the library—the various circumstances which had excited my jealousy—the glove—the agitation of the tapestry which covered the secret passage from Rashleigh's apartment; and, above all, I recollected that Diana retired in order to write, as I then thought, the billet to which I was to have recourse in case of the last necessity. Her hours, then, were not spent in solitude, but in listening to the addresses of some desperate agent of Jacobitical treason, who was a secret resident within the mansion of her uncle! Other young women have sold themselves for gold, or suffered themselves to be seduced from their first love from vanity; but Diana had sacrificed my affections and her own to partake the fortunes of some desperate adventurer—to seek the haunts of freebooters through midnight deserts, with no better hopes of rank or fortune than that mimicry of both which the mock court of the Stuarts at St. Germains had in their power to bestow.

"I will see her," I said internally, "if it be possible, once more. I will argue with her as a friend—as a kinsman—on the risk she is incurring, and I will facilitate her retreat to France, where she may, with more comfort and propriety, as well as safety, abide the issue of the turmoils which the political trepanner, to whom she has united her fate, is doubtless busied in putting into motion."

"I conclude, then," I said to MacGregor, after about five minutes' silence on both sides, "that his Excellency, since you give me no other name for him, was residing in Osbaldistone Hall at the same time with myself?"

"To be sure—to be sure—and in the young lady's apartment, as best reason was." This gratuitous information was adding gall to bitterness. "But few," added MacGregor, "ken'd he was derned there, save Rashleigh and Sir Hildebrand; for you were out o' the question; and the young lads haena wit eneugh to ca' the cat frae the cream—But it's a bra' auld-fashioned house, and what I specially admire is the abundance o' holes and bores and concealments—ye could put twenty or thirty men in ae corner, and a family might live a week without finding them out—whilk, nae doubt, may on occasion be a special convenience. I wish we had the like o' Osbaldistone Hall on the braes o' Craig-Royston—But we maun gar woods and caves serve the like o' us puir Hieland bodies."

"I suppose his Excellency," said I, "was privy to the first accident which befell"—

I could not help hesitating a moment.