Red Cap Tales, Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North. Вальтер СкоттЧитать онлайн книгу.
to a certainty be hanged or imprisoned if he went south. Nevertheless, Edward persisted in "running his hazard." The Chief, though wishful to keep him, did not absolutely say him nay. Flora, instead of coming down to bid him good-bye, sent only excuses. So altogether it was in no happy frame of mind that Edward rode away to the south upon the Chief's horse, Brown Dermid, and with Callum Beg for an attendant in the guise of a Lowland groom.
Callum warned his master against saying anything when they got to the first little Lowland town, either on the subject of the Highlands, or about his master, Vich Ian Vohr.
"The people there are bitter Whigs, teil burst them!" he said fiercely. As they rode on they saw many people about the street, chiefly old women in tartan hoods and red cloaks, who seemed to cast up their hands in horror at the sight of Waverley's horse. Edward asked the reason.
"Oh," said Callum Beg, "it's either the muckle Sunday hersel', or the little government Sunday that they caa the Fast!"
It proved to be the latter, and the innkeeper, a severe sly-looking man, received them with scanty welcome. Indeed, he only admitted them because he remembered that it was in his power to fine them for the crime of travelling on a Fast Day by an addition to the length of his reckoning next morning.
But as soon as Edward announced his wish for a horse and guide to Perth, the hypocritical landlord made ready to go with him in person. Callum Beg, excited by the golden guinea which Waverley gave him, offered to show his gratitude by waiting a little distance along the road, and "kittlin' the landlord's quarters wi' her skene-occle"—or, in other words, setting a dagger in his back. Apparently Vich Ian Vohr's page thought no more of such a deed than an ordinary English boy would have thought of stealing an apple out of an orchard.
THE THIRD INTERLUDE—BEING MAINLY A FEW WORDS UPON HEROES
Among the listeners there was somewhat less inclination than before to act this part of the story. For one thing, the boys were righteously indignant at the idea of any true hero being in love—unless, indeed, he could carry off his bride from the deck of a pirate vessel, cutlass in hand, and noble words of daring on his lips.
As for the girls, well—they knew that the bushes were dripping wet, and that if they set their feet upon their native heath, they would certainly be made to change their stockings as soon as they went home. This was a severe discourager of romance. There was nothing to prevent any one of them from asking questions, however. That was a business in which they excelled.
"But why did the Highland people want to rebel, anyway?" demanded Hugh John. "If I could have hunted like that, and raided, and carried off cattle, and had a castle with pipes playing and hundreds of clansmen to drill, I shouldn't have been such a soft as to rebel and get them all taken away from me!"
"It was because they were loyal to their rightful King," said Sweetheart, who is a Cavalier and a Jacobite—in the intervals of admiring Cromwell, and crying because they shot down the poor Covenanters.
"I think," said Sir Toady, who had been sitting very thoughtful, "that they just liked to fight, and King George would not let them. So they wanted a king who would not mind. Same as us, you know. If we are caught fighting in school, we get whipped, but father lets us fight outside as much as we want to. Besides, what did old Vich Ian Vohr want with all these silly Highlanders, eating up everything in his castle, if there were never any battles that they could fight for him?"
This was certainly a very strong and practical view, and so much impressed the others that they sat a long while quiet, turning it over in their minds.
"Well, at any rate," said Sweetheart, dropping her head with a sigh to go on with her seam, "I know that Flora Mac-Ivor was truly patriotic. See how she refused to listen to Waverley, all because she wanted to give her life for the cause."
"Humph," said Hugh John, disrespectfully turning up his nose, "that's all girls think about—loving, an' marrying, an' playing on harps—"
"I don't play on harps," sighed Sweetheart, "but I do wish I had a banjo!"
"I wish I had a targe and a broadsword, and the Chief's horse, Brown Dermid, to ride on," said Hugh John, putting on his "biggety" look.
"And a nice figure you would cut," sneered Sir Toady Lion, provokingly; "Highlanders don't fight on horseback! You ought to know that!"
Whereupon the first engagement of the campaign was immediately fought out on the carpet. And it was not till after the intervention of the Superior Power had restored quiet that the next tale from Waverley could be proceeded with.
THE FOURTH TALE FROM "WAVERLEY"
HERE AND THERE AMONG THE HEATHER
Not long after Callum Beg had been left behind, and indeed almost as soon as the innkeeper and Edward were fairly on their way, the former suddenly announced that his horse had fallen lame and that they must turn aside to a neighbouring smithy to have the matter attended to.
"And as it is the Fast Day, and the smith a religious man, it may cost your Honour as muckle as sixpence a shoe!" suggested the wily innkeeper, watching Edward's face as he spoke.
For this announcement Edward cared nothing. He would gladly have paid a shilling a nail to be allowed to push forward on his journey with all speed. Accordingly to the smithy of Cairnvreckan they went. The village was in an uproar. The smith, a fierce-looking man, was busy hammering "dogs' heads" for musket-locks, while among the surrounding crowd the names of great Highland chiefs—Clanronald, Glengarry, Lochiel, and that of Vich Ian Vohr himself, were being bandied from mouth to mouth.
Edward soon found himself surrounded by an excited mob, in the midst of which the smith's wife, a wild witchlike woman, was dancing, every now and then casting her child up in the air as high as her arms would reach, singing all the while, and trying to anger the crowd, and especially to infuriate her husband, by the Jacobite songs which she chanted.
At last the smith could stand this provocation no longer. He snatched a red-hot bar of iron from the forge, and rushed at his wife, crying out that he would "thrust it down her throat." Then, finding himself held back by the crowd from executing vengeance on the woman, all his anger turned upon Edward, whom he took to be a Jacobite emissary. For the news which had caused all this stir was that Prince Charles had landed and that the whole Highlands was rallying to his banner.
So fierce and determined was the attack which the angry smith of Cairnvreckan made on Edward that the young man was compelled to draw his pistol in self-defence. And as the crowd threatened him and the smith continued furiously to attack with the red-hot iron, almost unconsciously his finger pressed the trigger. The shot went off, and immediately the smith fell to the ground. Then Edward, borne down by the mob, was for some time in great danger of his life. He was saved at last by the interference of the minister of the parish, a kind and gentle old man, who caused Edward's captors to treat him more tenderly. So that instead of executing vengeance upon the spot as they had proposed, they brought him before the nearest magistrate, who was, indeed, an old military officer, and, in addition, the Laird of the village of Cairnvreckan, one Major Melville by name.
The latter proved to be a stern soldier, so severe in manner that he often became unintentionally unjust. Major Melville found that though the blacksmith's wound proved to be a mere scratch, and though he had to own that the provocation given was a sufficient excuse for Edward's hasty action, yet he must detain the young man prisoner upon the warrant issued against Edward Waverley, which had been sent out by the Supreme Court of Scotland.
Edward, who at once owned to his name, was astonished beyond words to find that not only was he charged with being in the company of actual rebels, such as the Baron of Bradwardine and Vich Ian Vohr, but also with trying to induce his troop of horse to revolt by means of private letters addressed to one of them, Sergeant Houghton, in their barracks at Dundee. Captain Waverley was asserted to have effected this through the medium of a pedlar named Will Ruthven, or Wily Will—whose very name Edward had never heard up to that moment.
As the magistrate's examination proceeded, Waverley was astonished to find that, instead of clearing himself, everything he said, every article he carried about his person, was set down by Major Melville as an additional