Chapter I: In the Hands of the Philistines

AFTER the victory of the Highlanders and the drowning of Morris the spy, it was for some little while touch-and-go whether the Bailie and Frank should be made to follow him to the bottom of the loch. But at last Frank was ordered to go as an ambassador to those who had captured Rob Roy, while the Bailie with Captain Thornton and all the other prisoners remained as hostages in the hands of the victorious Helen.

This was the message he was to carry to the Sassenach.

The whole district of the Lennox would be ravished if the Mac-Gregor were not set free within twelve hours. Farmhouses would be burned, stack-yard and byre made desolate. In every house there would be a crying of the death wail--the coronach of sorrow. Furthermore, to begin with, Helen Mac-Gregor promised that if her request was not granted within the time specified, she would send them this Glasgow Bailie, with the Saxon Captain, and all the captive soldiers, bundled together in a plaid, and chopped into as many pieces as there were checks in the tartan!

When the angry Chieftainess paused in her denunciations, the cool level voice of the soldier struck in: "Give my compliments--Captain Thornton's of the Royal's--to the commanding officer, and tell him to do his duty and secure his prisoner, without wasting a thought on me. If I have been fool enough to let myself be led into this trap, I am at least wise enough to know how to die for it without disgracing the service. I am only sorry for my poor fellows," he added, "fallen into such butcherly hands!"

But the Bailie's message was far different in tone.

"Whisht, man, whisht," he cried, "are ye weary of your life? Ye'll gie _my_ service, Bailie Nicol Jarvie's service--a magistrate o' Glasgow, as his father was before him--to the commanding officer, and tell him that there are here a wheen honest men in sore trouble, and like to come to mair. And tell him that the best thing he can do for the common good is just to let Rob come his ways up the glen, and nae mair about it! There has been some ill done already, but as it has lighted mostly on the exciseman Morris it will not be muckle worth making a stir about!"

So young Hamish Mac-Gregor led Frank Osbaldistone across the mountains to the place where his father's captors, the horsemen of the Lennox, had taken up their position on a rocky eminence, where they would be safe from any sudden attack of the mountaineers.

Before parting he made Frank promise not to reveal, either who had guided him thither, or where he had parted from his conductor. Happily Frank was not asked either of these questions. He and Andrew (who, in a tattered cloak and with a pair of brogues on his feet, looked like a Highland scarecrow) were soon perceived by the sentries and conducted to the presence of the commanding officer, evidently a man of rank, in a steel cuirass, crossed by the ribband of the Thistle, to whom the others seemed to pay great deference. This proved to be no other than his Grace the Duke of Montrose, who in person had come to conduct the operations against his enemy, Rob Roy.

Frank's message was instantly listened to, and very clearly and powerfully he pointed out what would occur if Rob Roy were not suffered to depart. But the Duke bade him return to those who sent him, and tell them that if they touched so much as a hair upon the heads of their hostages, he would make their glens remember it for a hundred years. As for Rob Roy, he must surely die!

But Frank Osbaldistone pointed out that to return with such a message would be to go to certain death, and pleaded for some reply which might save the lives of Captain Thornton, the Bailie, and the soldiers who were captive in Helen Mac-Gregor's hands upon the hostile shores of Loch Ard.

"Why, if you cannot go yourself, send your servant!" returned the Duke. At which Andrew burst forth. He had had, he said, enough and to spare of Highland hospitality.

"The deil be in my feet," quoth Andrew, "if I go the length of my toe on such an errand. Do the folk think I have a spare windpipe in my pocket, after John Highlandman has slit this one with his jocteleg? Or that I can dive down at one side of a Highland loch and come up at the other like a sheldrake? Na, na, every one for himself, and God for us all! Folk may just go on their own errands. Rob Roy is no concern of mine. He never came near my native parish of Dreepdaily to steal either pippin or pear from me or mine!"

The Duke seemed much affected by the hard case of the King's officer, but he replied that the state of the country must come first, and it was absolutely necessary that Rob Roy should die. He held to this resolution even when Galbraith of Garschattachin and others of his followers seemed inclined to put in a good word for Rob. He was about to examine the prisoner further, when a Highlander brought him a letter which seemed to cause the great man much annoyance. It announced that the Highland clans, on whom the Lowlanders had been relying, had made a separate peace with the enemy and had gone home.

As the night was now fast coming on, the Duke ordered Garschattachin to draw off his party in one direction, while he himself would escort the prisoner to a place called Duchray.

"Here's auld ordering and counter-ordering," growled Garschattachin between his teeth, "but bide a wee--we may, ere long, play at Change Seats--for the King's coming!"

The two divisions of cavalry began to move down the valley at a slow trot. One party, that commanded by Galbraith, turned to the right, where they were to spend the night in an old castle, while the other, taking along with them Frank Osbaldistone, escorted the prisoner to a place of safety. Rob Roy was mounted behind one of the strongest men present, one Ewan of Brigglands, to whom he was fastened by a horse-belt passed round both and buckled before the yeoman's breast. Frank was set on a troop-horse and placed immediately behind. They were as closely surrounded by soldiers as the road would permit, and there were always one or two troopers, pistol in hand, riding on either side of Rob Roy.

Nevertheless the dauntless outlaw was endeavouring all the time to persuade Ewan of Brigglands to give him a last chance for his life.

"Your father, Ewan," he said, so low that Frank had difficulty in catching the words, "would not thus have carried an old friend to the shambles, like a calf, for all the dukes in Christendom!"

To this Ewan returned no answer--only shrugging his shoulders as a sign that what he was doing was by no choice of his own.

"And when the Mac-Gregors come down the glen," the voice of the tempter went on in Ewan's ear, "and ye see empty folds, a bloody hearthstone, and the fire flashing out between the rafters of your house, ye may be thinking then, Ewan, that were your friend Rob Roy to the fore, you might have had that safe, which it will make your heart sore to lose!"

They were at this time halted on the river-bank, waiting for the signal to bring over the Mac-Gregor. Rob made one last attempt.

"It's a sore thing," said Rob Roy, still closer in the ear of his conductor, "that Ewan of Brigglands, whom Rob Roy has helped with hand, sword, and purse, should mind a gloom from a great man more than a friend's life."

Ewan, sorely agitated, was silent.

Then came the Duke's loud call from the opposite bank, "Bring over the prisoner!"

Dashing forward precipitately, Ewan's horse, with the two men on his back, entered the water. A soldier kept back Frank from following. But in the waning light he could see the Duke getting his people into order across the river, when suddenly a splash and a cry warned him that Rob had prevailed on Ewan of Brigglands to give him one more chance for life.