Outlaws -- Fiction; Rob Roy, 1671-1734 -- Fiction; Scotland -- History -- 1689-1745 -- Fiction
* ["The memory of Dunbar's legal (?) proceedings at Jedburgh is preserved
in the proverbial phrase _Jeddart Justice,_ which signifies trial _after_
execution."--_Minstrelsy of the Border,_ Preface, p. lvi.]
Sae I hae been thinking, that if ye will gang back to Glasgow wi' us,
being a strong-backit creature, ye might be employed in the warehouse
till something better suld cast up."
"Her nainsell muckle obliged till the Bailie's honour," replied Dougal;
"but teil be in her shanks fan she gangs on a cause-way'd street, unless
she be drawn up the Gallowgate wi' tows, as she was before."
In fact, I afterwards learned that Dougal had originally come to Glasgow
as a prisoner, from being concerned in some depredation, but had somehow
found such favour in the eyes of the jailor, that, with rather
overweening confidence, he had retained him in his service as one of the
turnkeys; a task which Dougal had discharged with sufficient fidelity, so
far as was known, until overcome by his clannish prejudices on the
unexpected appearance of his old leader.
Astonished at receiving so round a refusal to so favourable an offer, the
Bailie, turning to me, observed, that the "creature was a natural-born
idiot." I testified my own gratitude in a way which Dougal much better
relished, by slipping a couple of guineas into his hand. He no sooner
felt the touch of the gold, than he sprung twice or thrice from the earth
with the agility of a wild buck, flinging out first one heel and then
another, in a manner which would have astonished a French dancing-master.
He ran to the boatmen to show them the prize, and a small gratuity made
them take part in his raptures. He then, to use a favourite expression of
the dramatic John Bunyan, "went on his way, and I saw him no more."
The Bailie and I mounted our horses, and proceeded on the road to
Glasgow. When we had lost the view of the lake, and its superb
amphitheatre of mountains, I could not help expressing with enthusiasm,
my sense of its natural beauties, although I was conscious that Mr.
Jarvie was a very uncongenial spirit to communicate with on such a
subject.
"Ye are a young gentleman," he replied, "and an Englishman, and a' this
may be very fine to you; but for me, wha am a plain man, and ken
something o' the different values of land, I wadna gie the finest sight
we hae seen in the Hielands, for the first keek o' the Gorbals o'
Glasgow; and if I were ance there, it suldna be every fule's errand,
begging your pardon, Mr. Francis, that suld take me out o' sight o' Saint
Mungo's steeple again!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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