Red Cap Tales, Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North
TextII. THE ESCAPE
In a moment all was confusion. The Duke shouted and ordered. Men rode hither and thither in the fast-falling darkness, some really anxious to earn the hundred guineas which the Duke promised to the captor of his foe, but the most part trying rather by shouting and confusion to cover Rob's escape. At one time, indeed, he was hardly pressed, several shots coming very near him before he could lose himself in the darkness. He was compelled to come to the surface to breathe, but in some way he contrived to loosen his plaid, which, floating down the stream, took off the attention of his more inveterate pursuers while he himself swam into safety.
In the confusion Frank had been left alone upon the bank, and there he remained till he heard the baffled troopers returning, some with vows of vengeance upon himself.
"Where is the English stranger?" called one; "it was he who gave Rob the knife to cut the belt!"
"Cleave the pock-pudding to the chafts!" said another.
"Put a brace of balls into his brain-pan!" suggested yet another.
"Or three inches of cold iron into his briskit!"
So, in order to nullify these various amiable intentions, Frank Osbaldistone leaped from his horse, and plunged into a thicket of alder trees, where he was almost instantly safe from pursuit. It was now altogether dark, and, having nowhere else to go, Frank resolved to retrace his way back to the little inn at which he had passed the previous night. The moon rose ere he had proceeded very far, bringing with it a sharp frosty wind which made Frank glad to be moving rapidly over the heather. He was whistling, lost in thought, when two riders came behind him, ranging up silently on either side. The man on the right of Frank addressed him in an English tongue and accent strange enough to hear in these wilds.
"So ho, friend, whither so late?"
"To my supper and bed at Aberfoil!" replied Frank, curtly.
"Are the passes open?" the horseman went on, in the same commanding tone of voice.
"I do not know," said Frank; "but if you are an English stranger, I advise you to turn back till daybreak. There has been a skirmish, and the neighbourhood is not perfectly safe for travellers."
"The soldiers had the worst of it, had they not?"
"They had, indeed—an officer's party was destroyed or made prisoners."
"Are you sure of that?" persisted the man on horseback.
"I was an unwilling spectator of the battle!" said Frank.
"Unwilling! Were not you engaged in it?"
"Certainly not," he answered, a little nettled at the man's tone. "I was held a prisoner by the King's officer!"
"On what suspicion? And who and what are you?"
"I really do not know, sir," said Frank, growing quickly angry, "why I should answer so many questions put to me by a stranger. I ask you no questions as to your business here, and you will oblige me by making no inquiries as to mine."
But a new voice struck in, in tones which made every nerve in the young man's body tingle.
"Mr. Francis Osbaldistone," it said, "should not whistle his favourite airs when he wishes to remain undiscovered."
And Diana Vernon, for it was she, wrapped in a horseman's cloak, whistled in playful mimicry the second part of the tune, which had been on Frank's lips as they came up with him.
"Great heavens, can it be you, Miss Vernon," cried Frank, when at last he found words, "in such a spot—at such an hour—in such a lawless country!"
While Frank was speaking, he was trying to gain a glimpse of her companion. The man was certainly not Rashleigh. For so much he was thankful, at least, nor could the stranger's courteous address proceed from any of the other Osbaldistone brothers. There was in it too much good breeding and knowledge of the world for that. But there was also something of impatience in the attitude of Diana's companion, which was not long in manifesting itself.
"Diana," he said, "give your cousin his property, and let us not spend time here."
Whereupon Miss Vernon took out a small case, and with a deeper and graver tone of feeling she said, "Dear cousin, you see I was born to be your better angel. Rashleigh has been compelled to give up his spoil, and had we reached Aberfoil last night, I would have found some messenger to give you these. But now I have to do the errand myself."
"Diana," said the horseman, "the evening grows late, and we are yet far from our home."
"Pray consider, sir," she said, lightly answering him, "how recently I have been under control. Besides, I have not yet given my cousin his packet—or bidden him farewell—farewell forever! Yes, Frank, forever. (She added the last words in a lower tone.) There is a gulf fixed between us! Where I go, you must not follow—what we do, you must not share in—farewell—be happy!"
In the attitude in which she bent from her Highland pony, the girl's face, perhaps not altogether unintentionally, touched that of Frank Osbaldistone. She pressed his hand, and a tear that had gathered on Die Vernon's eyelash found its way to the young man's cheek.
That was all. It was but a moment, yet Frank Osbaldistone never forgot that moment. He stood dumb and amazed with the recovered treasure in his hand, mechanically counting the sparkles which flew from the horses' hoofs which carried away his lost Diana and her unknown companion.
Frank was still dreaming over his almost unbelievable encounter with Miss Vernon—more concerned perhaps, be it said, about the fact that she had wept to part with him than about the recovery of his father's papers, when another traveller overtook him, this time on foot.
"A braw nicht, Mr. Osbaldistone," said a voice which there was no mistaking for that of the Mac-Gregor himself; "we have met at the mirk hour before now, I am thinking!"
Frank congratulated the Chieftain heartily on his recent wonderful escape from peril.
"Ay," said Rob Roy, coolly, "there is as much between the throat and the halter as between the cup and the lip. But tell me the news!"
He laughed heartily at the exploits of the Bailie and the red-hot coulter in the inn of Aberfoil, and at the apprehension of Frank and his companion by the King's officer.
"As man lives by bread," he cried, "the buzzards have mistaken my friend the Bailie for his Excellency, and you for Diana Vernon—oh, the most egregious night owlets!"
"Miss Vernon," said Frank, trying to gain what information he could, "does she still bear that name?"
But the wary Highlander easily evaded him.
"Ay, ay," he said, "she's under lawful authority now; and it's time, for she's a daft hempie. It's a pity that his Excellency is a thought elderly for her. The like of you or my son Hamish would have sorted better in point of years."
This blow, which destroyed all Frank's hopes, quite silenced him—so much so that Rob Roy had to ask if he were ill or wearied with the long day's work, being, as he said, "doubtless unused to such things."
But in order to divert his attention Mac-Gregor asked him as to the skirmish, and what had happened afterwards. It was with genuine agony that Rob Roy listened to the tale which Frank had to tell—though he modified, as far as he could, the treatment the Bailie and himself had met with from the Mac-Gregors.
"And the excise collector," said Rob Roy; "I wish he may not have been at the bottom of the ploy himself! I thought he looked very queer when I told him that he must remain as a hostage for my safe return. I wager he will not get off without ransom!"
"Morris," said Frank, with great solemnity, "has paid the last great ransom of all!"
"Eh—what?" cried the Mac-Gregor, "what d'ye say? I trust it was in the skirmish that he was killed?"
"He was slain in cold blood, after the fight was over, Mr. Campbell!"
"Cold blood!" he muttered rapidly between his teeth, "how fell this? Speak out, man, and do not Mister or Campbell me—my foot is on my native heath, and my name is Mac-Gregor!"
Without noticing the rudeness of his tone, Frank gave him a distinct account of the death of Morris. Rob Roy struck the butt of his gun with great vehemence on 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. He but drees the doom he intended for me. Hanging or drowning—it is just the same. But I wish, for all that, they had put a ball or a dirk through the traitor's breast. It will cause talk—the fashion of his death—though all the world knows that Helen Mac-Gregor has deep wrongs to avenge."
Whereupon he quitted the subject altogether, and spoke of Frank Osbaldistone's affairs. He was glad to hear that he had received the stolen papers from Diana Vernon's own hands.
"I was sure you would get them," he said; "the letter you brought me contained his Excellency's pleasure to that effect, and it was for that purpose I asked ye to come up the glen in order that I might serve you. But his Excellency has come across Rashleigh first."
Rob Roy's words made much clear to the young man, yet some things remained mysterious. He remembered that Diana Vernon had left the library and immediately returned with the letter which was afterwards claimed by Rob Roy in the tolbooth of Glasgow. The person whom he now called his Excellency must therefore have been in Osbaldistone Hall at the same time as himself, and unknown to all except Diana and possibly to her cousin Rashleigh. Frank remembered the double shadows on the windows, and thought that he could now see the reason of those.
But Rob would give him no clew as to who or what his Excellency was.
"I am thinking," he said cautiously, "that if you do not know that already, it cannot be of much consequence for you to know at all. So I will e'en pass over that part of it. But this I will tell you. His Excellency was hidden by Diana Vernon in her own apartment at the Hall, as best reason was, all the time you were there. Only Sir Hildebrand and Rashleigh knew of it. You, of course, were out of the question, and as for the young squires, they had not enough wit among the five of them to call the cat from the cream!"
The two travellers, thus talking together, had approached within a quarter of a mile from the village, when an outpost of Highlanders, springing upon them, bade them stand and tell their business. The single word Gregarach, pronounced in the deep commanding tones of Frank's companion, sufficed to call forth an answering yell of joyous recognition. The men threw themselves down before the escaped Chief, clasping his knees, and, as it were, worshipping him with eyes and lips, much as poor Dougal had done in the Glasgow tolbooth.
The very hills resounded with the triumph. Old and young, both sexes and all ages, came running forth with shouts of jubilation, till it seemed as if a mountain torrent was hurrying to meet the travellers. Rob Roy took Frank by the hand, and he did not allow any to come near him till he had given them to understand that his companion was to be well and carefully treated.
So literally was this command acted upon, that for the time being Frank was not even allowed the use of his limbs. He was carried—will he, nill he—in triumph toward the inn of Mrs. MacAlpine. It was in Frank's heart that he might possibly meet there with Diana Vernon, but when he entered and looked around, the only known face in the smoky hovel was that of the Bailie, who, with a sort of reserved dignity, received the greetings of Rob Roy, his apologies for the indifferent accommodation which he could give him, and his well-meant inquiries after his health.
"I am well, kinsman," said the Bailie, "one cannot expect to carry the Salt Market of Glasgow at one's tail, as a snail does his shell. But I am blithe to see that ye have gotten out of the hands of your unfriends!"
The Bailie, however, cheered by Highland refreshment, presently unbent and had many things to say. He would also have spoken concerning Helen Mac-Gregor. But Rob stopped him.
"Say nothing of my wife," he said sternly; "of me, ye are welcome to speak your full pleasure."
Next the Bailie offered to bind Rob's two sons as apprentices to the weaving trade, which well-meant proposition produced from the outlaw the characteristic anathema, mostly (and happily) conceived in Gaelic, "Ceade millia diaoul! My sons weavers! Millia molligheart! But I would rather see every loom in Glasgow, beam, traddles, and shuttles, burnt in the deil's ain fire sooner!"
However Rob Roy honestly paid the Bailie his thousand merks, principal and interest, in good French gold. And Frank quite won the outlaw's heart by the suggestion that the foreign influence of the house of Osbaldistone and Tresham could easily push the fortune of Hamish and Robin in the service of the King of France or in that of his Majesty of Spain. Rob could not for the present accept, he said. There was other work to be done at home. But all the same he thanked him for the offer, with, as it seemed, some considerable emotion. Already Frank was learning the truth that a hard man is always more moved by what one may do for his children, than with what one does for himself.
Lastly he sent "the Dougal cratur," dressed in Andrew Fairservice's ancient garments, to see them safe upon their way. He had a boat in waiting for them on Loch Lomond side, and there on the pebbles the Bailie and his cousin bade each other farewell. They parted with much mutual regard, and even affection—the Bailie at the last saying to Rob Roy that if ever he was in need of a hundred "or even twa hundred pounds sterling," he had only to send a line to the Salt Market. While the chief answered that if ever anybody should affront his kinsman, the Bailie had only to let him ken, and he would pull the ears out of his head if he were the best man in Glasgow!
With these assurances of high mutual consideration, the boat bore away for the southwest angle of the lake. Rob Roy was left alone on the shore, conspicuous by his long gun, waving tartans, and the single tall feather in his bonnet which denoted the chieftain.
The travellers arrived safely in Glasgow, when the Bailie went instantly home, vowing aloud that since he had once more gotten within sight of St. Mungo's steeple, it would be a long day and a short one before he ventured out of eye-shot of it again.
As for Frank, he made his way to his lodgings in order to seek out Owen. The door was opened by Andrew Fairservice, who set up a joyous shout, and promptly ushered the young man into the presence of the Head Clerk. But Mr. Owen was not alone. Mr. Osbaldistone the elder was there also, and in another moment Frank was folded in his father's arms.
III. THE DEATH OF RASHLEIGH
Mr. Osbaldistone's first impulse seemed to be to preserve his dignity. But nature was too strong for him.
"My son—my dear son!" he murmured.
The head of the firm of Osbaldistone and Tresham had returned from Holland sooner than was expected, and with the resources which he had gathered there, and being now in full credit, he had no difficulty in solving the financial problems which had weighed so heavily upon the house in his absence. He refused, however, every tender of apology from MacVittie and Company, settled the balance of their account, and announced to them that that page of their ledger, with all the advantages connected with it, was closed to them forever.
Soon after the home-coming of Frank Osbaldistone from the Highlands and his reconciliation with his father, the great Jacobite rebellion of 1715 broke out, in which the greater part of the Highlands burst into a flame, as well as much of the more northerly parts of England. Sir Hildebrand led out his sons to battle—all, that is to say, with the exception of Rashleigh, who had changed his politics and become a spy on behalf of the government of King George.
But it was not the will of Fate that the name of Osbaldistone should make any figure in that short and inglorious campaign. Thorncliff was killed in a duel with one of his brother officers. The sot Percie died shortly after, according to the manner of his kind. Dickon broke his neck in spurring a blood mare beyond her paces. Wilfred the fool died fighting at Proud Preston on the day of the Barricades; and his gallantry was no less that he could never remember an hour together for which king he was doing battle.
John also behaved boldly and died of his wounds a few days after in the prison of Newgate, to the despair of old Sir Hildebrand, who did not long survive him. Indeed he willingly laid himself down to die, after having first disinherited Rashleigh as a traitor, and left his much encumbered estates to his nephew, Frank Osbaldistone.
Mr. Osbaldistone the elder now took an unexpected view of his son's prospects. He had cared nothing for his family in the past—indeed, never since he had been expelled from Osbaldistone Hall to make way for his younger brother. But now he willingly spent his money in taking up the mortgages upon the Osbaldistone estates, and he urged upon Frank the necessity of going down at once to the Hall, lest Rashleigh should get before him in that possession which is nine points of the law.
So to Osbaldistone Hall went Frank once more, his heart not a little sore within him for the good days he had spent in it, and especially because of the thought that he would now find there no madcap Die Vernon to tease and torment him out of his life.
First of all, to make his title clear, Frank had been desired to visit the hospitable house of old Justice Inglewood, with whom Sir Hildebrand had deposited his will. As it chanced, it was in that good gentleman's power to give the young man some information which interested him more than the right of possession to many Osbaldistone Halls.
After dinner in the evening Frank and the Justice were sitting together, when all of a sudden Squire Inglewood called upon his companion to pledge a bumper to "dear Die Vernon, the rose of the wilderness, the heath-bell of Cheviot, that blossom transported to an infamous convent!"
"Is not Miss Vernon, then, married?" cried Frank, in great astonishment, "I thought his Excellency—"
"Pooh—pooh! His Excellency and his Lordship are all a humbug now, you know," said the Justice; "mere St. Germains titles—Earl of Beauchamp and ambassador plenipotentiary from France, when the Duke Regent scarce knew that he lived, I daresay. But you must have seen old Sir Frederick Vernon at the hall, when he played the part of Father Vaughan?"
"Good Heavens," cried Frank, "then Father Vaughan was Miss Vernon's father?"
"To be sure he was," said the Justice, coolly; "there's no use keeping the secret now, for he must be out of the country by this time—otherwise no doubt it would be my duty to apprehend him. Come, off with your bumper to my dear lost Die!"
So Frank fared forth to Osbaldistone Hall, uncertain whether to be glad or sorry at Squire Inglewood's news. Finally he decided to be glad—or at least as glad as he could. For Diana, though equally lost to him, was at least not wedded to any one else.
Syddall, the old butler of Sir Hildebrand, seemed at first very unwilling to admit them, but Frank's persistence, together with Andrew Fairservice's insolence, made a way into the melancholy house. Frank ordered a fire to be lighted in the library. Syddall tried to persuade him to take up his quarters elsewhere, on the plea that the library had not been sat in for a long time, and that the chimney smoked.
To the old man's confusion, however, when they entered the room, a fire was blazing in the grate. He took up the tongs to hide his confusion, muttering, "It is burning clear now, but it smoked woundily in the morning!"
Next Frank ordered Andrew to procure him two stout fellows of the neighbourhood on whom he could rely, who would back the new proprietor, in case of Rashleigh attempting any attack during Frank's stay in the home of his fathers.
Andrew soon returned with a couple of his friends—or, as he described them, "sober, decent men, weel founded in doctrinal points, and, above all, as bold as lions."
Syddall, however, shook his head at sight of them.
"I maybe cannot expect that your Honour should put confidence in what I say, but it is Heaven's truth for all that. Ambrose Wingfield is as honest a man as lives, but if there be a false knave in all the country, it is his brother Lancie. The whole country knows him to be a spy for Clerk Jobson on the poor gentlemen that have been in trouble. But he's a dissenter, and I suppose that's enough nowadays."
The evening darkened down, and trimming the wood fire in the old library Frank sat on, dreaming dreams in which a certain lady occupied a great place. He chanced to lift his eyes at a sound which seemed like a sigh, and lo! Diana Vernon stood before him. She was resting on the arm of a figure so like the portrait on the wall that involuntarily Frank raised his eyes to the frame to see whether it was not indeed empty.
But the figures were neither painted canvas nor yet such stuff as dreams are made of. Diana Vernon and her father—for it was they—stood before the young man in actual flesh and blood. Frank was so astonished that for a while he could not speak, and it was Sir Frederick who first broke the silence.
"We are your suppliants, Mr. Osbaldistone," he said; "we claim the refuge and protection of your roof, till we can pursue a journey where dungeons and death gape for me at every step!"
"Surely you cannot suppose—" Frank found words with great difficulty—"Miss Vernon cannot suppose that I am so ungrateful—that I could betray any one—much less you!"
"I know it," said Sir Frederick, "though I am conferring on you a confidence which I would have been glad to have imposed on any one else. But my fate, which has chased me through a life of perils, is now pressing me hard, and, indeed, leaving me no alternative."
At this moment the door opened, and the voice of Andrew Fairservice was heard without. "I am bringing in the candles—ye can light them when ye like—'can do' is easy carried about with one!"
Frank had just time to rush to the door and thrust the officious rascal out, shutting the door upon him. Then, remembering the length of his servant's tongue, he made haste to follow him to the hall to prevent his gabbling of what he might have seen. Andrew's voice was loud as Frank opened the door.
"What is the matter with you, you fool?" he demanded; "you stare and look wild as if you had seen a ghost."
"No—no—nothing," stammered Andrew, "only your Honour was pleased to be hasty!"
Frank Osbaldistone immediately dismissed the two men whom Andrew had found for him, giving them a crown-piece to drink his health, and they withdrew, apparently contented and unsuspicious. They certainly could have no further talk with Andrew that night, and it did not seem possible that in the few moments which Andrew had spent in the kitchen before Frank's arrival, he could have had time to utter two words.
But sometimes only two words can do a great deal of harm. On this occasion they cost two lives.
"You now know my secret," said Diana Vernon; "you know how near and dear is the relative who has so long found shelter here. And it will not surprise you, that, knowing such a secret, Rashleigh should rule me with a rod of iron."
But in spite of all that had happened, Sir Frederick was a strict and narrow Catholic, and Frank found him more than ever determined to sacrifice his daughter to the life of the convent.
"She has endured trials," he said, "trials which might have dignified the history of a martyr. She has spent the day in darkness and the night in vigil, and never breathed a syllable of weakness or complaint. In a word, Mr. Osbaldistone, she is a worthy offering to that God to whom I dedicate her, as all that is left dear or precious to Frederick Vernon!"
Frank felt stunned and bewildered when at last they retired. But he had sufficient forethought to order a bed to be made up for him in the library, and dismissed Syddall and Andrew with orders not to disturb him till seven o'clock in the morning.
That night Frank lay long awake, and was at last dropping over to sleep when he was brought back to consciousness by a tremendous noise at the front door of Osbaldistone Hall. He hastened downstairs only in time to hear Andrew Fairservice bidding Syddall stand aside.
"We hae naething to fear if they come in King George's name," he was saying; "we hae spent baith bluid and gold for him."
In an agony of terror Frank could hear bolt after bolt withdrawn by the officious scoundrel, who continued to boast all the while of his master's loyalty to King George. He flew instantly to Diana's room. She was up and dressed.
"We are familiar with danger," she said with a sad smile. "I have the key of the little garden door. We will escape by it. Only keep them a few moments in play! And dear, dear Frank, again—for the last time, farewell!"
By this time the men were on the stairway, and presently rapping on the library door.
"You robber dogs!" cried Frank, wilfully misunderstanding their purpose; "if you do not instantly quit the house, I will fire a blunderbuss upon you through the door!"
"Fire a fool's bauble," returned Andrew Fairservice; "it's Clerk Jobson with a legal warrant—"
"To search for, take, and apprehend," said the voice of that abominable pettifogger, "the bodies of certain persons in my warrant named, charged of high treason under the 13th of King William, chapter third."
The violence on the door was renewed.
"I am rising, gentlemen," said Frank, trying to gain as much time as possible; "commit no violence—give me leave to look at your warrant, and if it is formal and legal, I shall not oppose it."
"God save great George our King," cried Andrew Fairservice, "I telled ye that ye would find no Jacobites here!"
At last the door had to be opened, when Clerk Jobson and several assistants entered. The lawyer showed a warrant for the arrest of Diana Vernon, her father,—and, to his surprise, of Frank himself.
Clerk Jobson, evidently well-informed, went directly to Diana's chamber.
"The hare has stolen away," he said brutally, "but her form is still warm. The greyhounds will have her by the haunches yet."
A scream from the garden announced that he had prophesied too truly. In five minutes more Rashleigh entered the library with Diana and her father, Sir Frederick, as his prisoners.
"The fox," he said, "knew his old earth, but he forgot it could be stopped by a careful huntsman. I had not forgot the garden gate, Sir Frederick—or, if the title suits you better, my most noble Lord Beauchamp!"
"Rashleigh," said Sir Frederick, "thou art a most detestable villain!"
"I better deserved the name, my Lord," said Rashleigh, turning his eyes piously upward, "when under an able tutor I sought to introduce civil war into a peaceful country. But I have since done my best to atone for my errors."
Frank Osbaldistone could hold out no longer.
"If there is one thing on earth more hideous than another," he cried, "it is villainy masked by hypocrisy!"
"Ha, my gentle cousin," said Rashleigh, holding a candle toward Frank and surveying him from head to foot, "right welcome to Osbaldistone Hall. I can forgive your spleen. It is hard to lose an estate and a sweetheart in one night. For now we must take possession of this poor manor-house in the name of the lawful heir, Sir Rashleigh Osbaldistone!"
But though Rashleigh braved it out thus, he was clearly far from comfortable, and especially did he wince when Diana told him that what he had now done had been the work of an hour, but that it would furnish him with reflections for a lifetime.
"And of what nature these will be," she added, "I leave to your own conscience, which will not slumber forever!"
So presently the three prisoners were carried off. Syddall and Andrew were ordered to be turned out of the house, the latter complaining bitterly.
"I only said that surely my master was speaking to a ghost in the library—and that villain Lancie—thus to betray an auld friend that has sung aff the same Psalm-book wi' him for twenty years!"
However, Andrew had just got clear of the avenue when he fell among a drove of Highland cattle, the drivers of which questioned him tightly as to what had happened at the Hall. They then talked in whispers among themselves till the lumbering sound of a coach was heard coming down the road from the house. The Highlanders listened attentively. The escort consisted of Rashleigh and several peace-officers.
So soon as the carriage had passed the avenue gate, it was shut behind the cavalcade by a Highlandman, stationed there for the purpose. At the same time the carriage was impeded in its further progress by some felled trees which had been dragged across the road. The cattle also got in the way of the horses, and the escort began to drive them off with their whips.
"Who dares abuse our cattle," said a rough voice; "shoot him down, Angus!"
"A rescue—a rescue!" shouted Rashleigh, instantly comprehending what had taken place, and, firing a pistol, he wounded the man who had spoken.
"Claymore!" cried the leader of the Highlanders, and an affray instantly engaged. The officers of the law, unused to such prompt bloodshed, offered little real resistance. They galloped off in different directions as fast as their beasts would carry them. Rashleigh, however, who had been dismounted, maintained on foot a desperate and single-handed conflict with the leader of the band. At last he dropped.
"Will you ask forgiveness for the sake of God, King James, and auld friendship?" demanded a voice which Frank knew well.
"No, never!" cried Rashleigh, fiercely.
"Then, traitor, die in your treason!" retorted Mac-Gregor, and plunged his sword into the prostrate antagonist.
Rob Roy then drew out the attorney Clerk Jobson from the carriage, more dead than alive, and threw him under the wheel.
"Mr. Osbaldistone," he said in Frank's ear, "you have nothing to fear. Your friends will soon be in safety. Farewell, and forget not the Mac-Gregor!"
"And that," I said, "is all!"
But I was instantly overwhelmed by the rush of a living wave.
"No, no," cried the children, throwing themselves upon me, "you must tell us what became of Rob Roy—of the Bailie—of Dougal!"
These demands came from the boys.
"And if Diana married Frank, or went to the convent?" interjected Sweetheart.
"Well," I said, "I can soon answer all these questions. Sir Frederick died soon after, but before his end he relieved his daughter from her promise to enter a convent. She married Mr. Frank Osbaldistone instead."
"And lived happy ever after?" added Maid Margaret, who was at the "fairy princess" stage of literature.
"Except when she got cross with him," commented Sir Toady, an uncompromising realist, with pessimistic views on womenkind.
"And Rob Roy held his ground among his native mountains until he died."
"Tell us about the Bailie," said Hugh John; "I liked the Bailie—he's jolly!"
I told him that he was far from being alone in that opinion.
"The Bailie," I answered, "lived, as the Maid says, happily ever after, having very wisely married his servant Mattie. He carried on all the northern affairs of Osbaldistone and Tresham, now a greater commercial house than ever, and lived to be Lord Provost of the city of Glasgow."
"Let Glasgow flourish!" cried Sir Toady, spontaneously. And the audience concluded the fourth tale and last from Rob Roy with a very passable imitation of a Highland yell.