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!"