And they should keep who can.”
Blackstone would probably have regarded this as a feeble tenure of property, and Scott was too good a lawyer to excuse the robber and blackmailer on such primitive and poetic principles. He puts a more natural and sensible excuse in the mouth of the honest bailie, Nicol Jarvie: “Robin was anes a weel-doing, pains-taking drover, as ye wad see amang ten thousand. It was a pleasure to see him in his belted plaid and brogues, wi’ his target at his back, and claymore and dirk at his belt. And he was baith civil and just in his dealings; and if he thought his chapman had made a hard bargain, he would gie him back five shillings out o’ the pund sterling. But the times came hard, and Rob was venturesome, and the creditors, mair especially some grit neighbors o’ his, grippit to his living and land; and they say his wife was turned out o’ the house to the hillside, and sair misguided to the boot. Weel, Rob cam hame, and fand desolation, God pity us! where he left plenty; he looked east, west, south, north, and saw neither hauld nor hope—neither beild nor shelter, sae he e’en pu’d the bonnet ower his brow, belted the broadsword to his side, took to the brae-side, and became a broken man.”
He had indeed suffered, and the harsh treatment which his wife had received from the soldiery was enough to have roused a less ferocious man to revenge. Her spirit seems to have been cast in the same mould, and Scott presents her in heroic guise, assuming the command of the clan in her husband’s absence. “Stand,” she said, with a commanding tone to the English soldiers, “and tell me what ye seek in Mac Gregor’s country?” “She wore her plaid, not drawn around her head and shoulders, as is the fashion of the women in Scotland, but disposed around her body, as the Highland soldiers wear theirs. She had a man’s bonnet, with a feather in it, an unsheathed sword in her hand, and a pair of pistols at her girdle.”
“What seek ye here?” she asked again of Captain Thornton, who had himself advanced to reconnoiter. “We seek the outlaw, Rob Roy Mac Gregor Campbell,” answered the officer, “and make no war on women; therefore offer no vain opposition to the king’s troops, and assure yourself of civil treatment.”
“Ay,” retorted the Amazon, “I am no stranger to your tender mercies. You have left me neither name nor fame—my mother’s bones will shrink aside in their grave when mine are laid beside them—ye have left me neither house nor hold, blanket nor bedding, cattle to feed us, or flocks to clothe us—ye have taken from us all—all! The very names of our ancestors have ye taken away, and now ye come for our lives.”
There is another character which lives long and pleasantly in the reader’s memory—the warm hearted bumptious bailie, Nicol Jarvie, a Scotchman profoundly impressed with a sense of his own extraordinary ability, who never forgot to quote from his father, the deacon, and never lost his appreciation of the “siller.” Scott has drawn this character with marvelous art. It stands out like a living portrait, and the reader loves him because he is as brave as he is canny. The scene in the Highland inn, where he found his sword rusted fast in the scabbard, and seized the red hot poker for a weapon, is at once dramatic and humorous.
The shifting of the scene of the story from the north of England to Glasgow, and thence to the Highlands, is naturally done, and without creaking of machinery. We have just enough of the villain Rashley and his nefarious plotting to give the continuous interest of uncertainty; and Die Vernon (pardon me, reader, for compressing her in a closing paragraph), with ready wit and sterling sense, flits about like a hoydenish angel—but in spite of eccentricities a ministering angel of peace and comfort. In the happiness of Frank Osbaldistone, who wins her hand in the closing chapter, we forget the defeat of the Jacobite party, or the fact that the Pretender is again an exile from the throne of his fathers.
“The Heart of Midlothian” opens with a description of the celebrated Porteous Mob at Edinburgh, in 1736. Two smugglers, Wilson and Robertson, who were reduced to poverty, robbed the collector to make good their own loss. They were arrested, tried, and condemned to death. As the Parliament was endeavoring to make the income of Scotland a source of revenue to the common exchequer, smuggling was not looked upon by the people as a very heinous offense. In fact, it was almost universal in every port north of the Tweed during the reigns of George the First and George the Second. The people, unaccustomed to duties, considered them in the light of national oppression; and the sentence of death pronounced against Wilson and Robertson was considered severe and unjust. The prisoners attempted an escape, but were discovered. The day of execution came. It was customary for persons sentenced to death to attend preparatory service at the kirk. On this occasion the church was thronged. Wilson, who was a very powerful man, at the conclusion of the exercises seized two of the guards with his hands, at the same time catching the collar of the third with his teeth. He cried to his companion to run, and the crowd, whose sympathies were with the prisoners, allowed Robertson to mix with the people and escape. Wilson was executed. The City Guard, under the command of Porteous, was insulted by the citizens. The Guard fired upon them with deadly aim. Porteous was tried and condemned for murder. King George at this time was on the Continent, and Queen Caroline, acting in his absence, sent a reprieve to Porteous. Edinburgh was now thoroughly aroused. They asked if a poor smuggler, accused of stealing, should hang without a reprieve, while a hard hearted and despised man, who shot down the people of their chief city without mercy, should go scathless. A mob, apparently of the better class of citizens, too orderly to need even a leader, attacked the Tolbooth. Porteous was taken by force and hung at night in the Grassmarket.
The Queen was incensed. “A bill was prepared and brought into Parliament for the punishment of the city of Edinburgh, in a very vindictive spirit, proposing to abolish the city charter, demolish the city walls, take away the town guard, and declare the provost incapable of holding any office of public trust.” Scotland was fortunate at that time in possessing a great leader, John, Duke of Argyle and Greenwich. His talents as a statesman and a soldier were generally admitted; he was not without ambition, but “without the illness that attends it”—that irregularity of thought and aim which often excites great men to grasp the means of raising themselves to power, at the risk of throwing a kingdom into confusion. Pope has distinguished him as
“Argyle, the state’s whole thunder born to wield,