"I ken well," said the other, "ye have gentle blood in your veins, and I would be loath to hurt my own kinsman. But I go out of here free as I came in, or the very walls of Glasgow tolbooth shall tell the tale these ten years to come!"
"Well, well," said Mr. Jarvie, "after all, blood is thicker than water. Kinsfolk should not see faults to which strangers are blind. And, as you say, it would be sore news to the auld wife below the Ben, that you, ye Hieland limmer, had knockit out my brains, or that I had got you strung up in a halter. But, among other things, where is the good thousand pound Scots that I lent you, and when am I to be seeing it?"
"Where is it?" said the unknown, grimly, "why, where last year's snow is, I trow!"
"And that's on the tap o' Schehallion, ye Hieland dog," said Mr. Jarvie, "and I look for payment from ye where ye stand."
"Ay," said the Highlander, unmoved, "but I carry neither snow nor silver in my sporran. Ye will get it, Bailie—just when the King enjoys his ain again, as the auld sang says!"
Then the magistrate turned to Frank.
"And who may this be?" he demanded, "some reiver ye hae listed, Rob? He looks as if he had a bold heart for the highway, and a neck that was made express for the hangman's rope!"
"This," said Owen, horrified at the Bailie's easy prediction as to the fate of his young master, "this is Mr. Francis Osbaldistone, only son of the head of our house—"
"Ay, I have heard of him," said the Bailie, still more contemptuously, "he that ran away and turned play-actor, through pure dislike to the work an honest man should live by!"
"Indeed," said the Highlander, "I had some respect for the callant even before I kenned what was in him. But now I honour him for his contempt of weavers and spinners, and sic-like mechanical persons."
