Chapter III: The Bailie Fights with Fire

When Frank Osbaldistone, the Bailie, and Andrew Fairservice, set forward toward the Highlands, their way lay for the first stage over barren wastes, with the blue line of the Grampian Hills continually before their eyes.

Andrew had as usual tried to cheat his master by getting rid of his own pony and buying another on Frank's account. But the Bailie soon caused Andrew to recover his old horse on the penalty of being at once haled off to prison.

Night came on before the little party of three arrived at the inn of the Clachan of Aberfoil, having previously crossed the infant Forth by an ancient bridge, high and narrow.

The inn was a mere hovel, but the windows were cheerfully lighted up. There was a sound of revelry within that promised good cheer to hungry men, and the party were on the point of entering, when Andrew Fairservice showed them a peeled wand which was set across the half-open door.

"That means," he said, "that some of their great men are birling at the wine within, and will little like to be disturbed."

It proved to be even so. The landlady was most anxious to keep them out. They could get rest and shelter, she promised them, within seven Scottish miles--that is to say, within at least double that number of English ones. Her house was taken up, and the gentlemen in possession would ill like to be intruded on by strangers. Better gang farther than fare worse.

But Frank, being an Englishman and hungry for his dinner, was ready to do battle against all odds in order to get it.

The interior of the inn of Aberfoil was low and dark. The smoke of the fire hung and eddied under the gloomy roof about five feet from the ground. But underneath all was kept clear by the currents of air that rushed about the house when the wind blew through the wicker door and the miserable walls of stone plastered with mud.

Three men were sitting at an oak table near the fire. Two of these were in Highland dress, the first small and dark, with a quick and irritable expression of countenance. He wore the "trews" of tartan, which in itself showed him a man of consideration. The other Highlander was a tall, strong man, with the national freckled face and high cheekbones. The tartan he wore had more of red in it than that of the other. The third was in Lowland dress, a bold, stout-looking man, in a showily laced riding-dress and a huge cocked hat. His sword and a pair of pistols lay on the table before him.

All three were drinking huge draughts of the Highland drink called "Usquebagh," and they spoke loudly and eagerly one to the other, now in Gaelic, now in English. A third Highlander, wrapped in his plaid and with his face hidden, lay on the floor, apparently asleep.

The three gentlemen were at first unconscious of the invasion. They continued their loud conversation, and it was not until Frank Osbaldistone called the landlady that they paused and looked at them, apparently stricken dumb by his audacity.

"You make yourself at home," said the lesser Celt, in very good English, which however he spoke with an air of haughty disdain.

"I usually do, sir," said Frank, "when I come into a house of public entertainment."

"And did she not see," demanded the taller man, "by the white wand at the door, that gentlemans had taken up the public house on their ain business?"

"I do not pretend to understand the customs of this country," said Frank, with firmness, "but I have yet to learn how any three persons are entitled to exclude all other travellers from the only place of shelter and refreshment for miles around."

The Bailie here offered a stoup of brandy as an appropriate means of establishing a good understanding, but the three natives proceeded to snuff the air and work themselves up into a passion with the evident intention of ending the quarrel by a fray.

"We are three to three," said the lesser Highlander, glancing his eyes at the intruding party. "If ye be pretty men, draw!"

And so saying, he drew his own broadsword and advanced upon Frank. The young Englishman, knowing the superiority of his rapier to the claymore, especially in the confined space, was in no fear as to the issue of the combat. But when the gigantic Highlander advanced upon the worthy magistrate of Glasgow, after trying in vain once or twice to draw his father's _shabble_, as he called it, from its sheath,--a weapon which had last seen the light at Bothwell Bridge,--the Bailie seized as a substitute the red-hot coulter of a plough, which had been sticking in the fire. At the very first pass he set the Highlander's plaid on fire, and thereafter compelled him to keep a respectful distance. Andrew Fairservice had, of course, vanished at the very first symptoms of a storm, but the Lowlander, disappointed of an antagonist, drew honourably off and took no share in the fight. Nevertheless the Bailie, built for more peaceful pursuits, was quickly getting the worst of it, when from the floor started up the sleeping Highlander, crying, "Hersel' has eaten the town bread at the Cross of Glasgow, and by her troth, she will fight for Bailie Jarvie at the Clachan of Aberfoil!"

And seconding words with blows, he fell upon his tall countryman. As both were armed with targes made of wood and studded with brass, the combat was more remarkable for noise and clatter than for serious damage. And it was not long before the Lowlander cried out, taking upon himself the office of peacemaker: "Hold your hands, gentlemen--enough done, enough done! The strangers have shown themselves men of honour, and have given reasonable satisfaction."

There was no wish to continue the fray, save perhaps on the part of the Bailie's antagonist, who demanded to know who was going to pay for the hole burnt in his bonnie plaid, through which, he declared, any one might put a kail-pot.

But the Bailie, pleased with himself for having shown spirit, declared that the Highlander should have a new plaid, especially woven, of his own clan-colours. And he added that if he could find the worthy lad who had taken his quarrel upon himself, he would bestow upon him a gill of _aqua-vitæ_.

But the Highlander who had been so ready on the Bailie's behalf was now nowhere to be found. The supper was brought in presently, as if the landlady had only been waiting for the end of the fray in order to serve the repast.

The Bailie had from the first recognised the Lowlander as one to whom the deacon his father had lent money, and with whose family there were many ties of cordiality and confidence. So while the friendly converse was thus proceeding indoors, Frank went out to find Andrew Fairservice, and on his way the landlady gave him a folded scrap of paper, saying that she was glad to be rid of it--what with Saxons, soldiers, and robbers--life was not worth living on the Highland line!

By the light of a torch Frank read as follows, "For the honoured hands of Mr. F. O., a Saxon young gentleman--These!"

The letter proved to be from Campbell, and informed Frank that as there were night hawks abroad, he must hold no communication with any one lest it should lead to future trouble. The person who gave him the letter might be trusted, but that in the meantime it would be well to avoid a meeting with "R. M. C."

Frank was much disappointed at this deferring of the hope of aiding his father, by recovering the papers and titles which Rashleigh had stolen. But still there was no help for it. And so, after dragging Andrew out of the corner of the shed, where he was hidden behind a barrel of feathers, he returned to the inn.

Here he found the Bailie high in dispute with his quondam friend, the Lowlander Galbraith. The quarrel concerned the Duke of Argyle and the Clan Campbell, but most of all a certain freebooter of the name of Rob Roy, who, as it now appeared, they were all assembled to pursue and make an end of.

North and east the passes were being held. The westland clans were out. Southward Major Galbraith was in command of a body of Lennox horse, and to a certainty Rob Roy would swing in a rope by the morrow's morn.

Scarcely were the words spoken when the ordered tramp of infantry on the march was heard, and an officer, followed by two or three files of soldiers, entered the apartment. It gave Frank a thrill of pleasure to remark his English accent, after the Scotch which he had been listening to ever since he left Osbaldistone Hall.

But he liked somewhat less what he was next to hear. The English officer had received instructions to place under arrest two persons, one young and the other elderly, travelling together. It seemed to him that Frank and the Bailie answered fairly well to this description.

In spite of the protests and threats of the honourable magistrate, he ordered them both to follow him in his advance into the Highland country, upon which he was immediately to set out.

The letter which Frank had received from the landlady of the inn, being found upon him, was held to be evidence that he had been in treasonable correspondence with Rob Roy, whose usual initials, indeed, were at the bottom of the note. Next the shock-headed Highlander who had taken the Bailie's quarrel upon him, having been captured, was brought before the officer, and commanded, on pain of being instantly hanged, to lead them to the place where he had left the Mac-Gregor. After long persuasion, some of it of the roughest sort, poor Dougal consented for five guineas to act as guide to the party of soldiers under Captain Thornton--for such was the name of the English officer.

This sinful compliance of Dougal's angered the Bailie so much that he cried to the soldiers to take Dougal away, because now he deserved hanging for his treachery more than ever.

This drew the retort from the Corporal who was acting as hangman, that if it were the Bailie who was going to be hanged, he would be in no such desperate hurry!

But Dougal promised to be faithful, and in a few minutes the English officer had paid the reckonings of the three gentlemen whom Frank had found drinking at the inn of Aberfoil. The hot and smoky atmosphere of the miserable inn was exchanged for the wide hill breezes. But on their passage through the villages the hatred of the natives, mostly women and children, for the "red soldiers" broke forth into shrill cursing. Andrew Fairservice, who alone of the three understood Gaelic, grew pale with terror at the threats which were lavished upon them.

"And the worst of all is," he said, trembling, "that the owercome o' their sang is that we are to gang up the glen and see what we are to get."