The pigs were now very speedily secured in detail, and the great sow was dragged up to the farm-house, and quietly deposited, with her slaughtered family, in one of the carts.
“My brave fellow!” said Captain M’Taggart, the leader of the party, now advancing towards John, and shaking him heartily by the hand, “you must come along with us. A young man, so handsome, so active, so spirited, and so soldierly-looking,—and, above all, so capital a shot as you are,—was never intended by nature to hold the stilts of a plough, or to fill dung-carts. You were born to be an officer at the very least, and, for aught I know, to be a colonel or a general. We are already aware that you are stanch to the righteous cause of the true Prince. Now is the time for you to raise yourself in the world, by joining his royal standard. Come, then, and lend us your powerful aid in placing our lawful King upon the throne of his ancestors!—Come along with us, and I shall forthwith introduce you to Prince Charles, who may yet make a lord of you before you die.”
John Smith was, in truth, all that M’Taggart had called him, being a handsome, good looking man, as brave as a lion, and not altogether devoid of a certain natural ambition. But he was ignorant, thoughtless, and credulous, owing to his having been, up to that day, entirely without experience. He had never before seen anything like military array, and irregular and deficient, in many respects, as that was which he now beheld, still it was enough to captivate his unpractised eye. John had a strong attachment to his master and mistress, who had always been very kind to him. But his devotion to the Prince, whom he had never seen, was of a higher and holier order. Bestowing a few moments of reflection on the ceaseless and profitless plodding, and slavish drudgery of his present duties, all, in themselves, absolutely repugnant to the very nature of a Highlander, and comparing them with the ideal picture he had drawn to himself, of the gallant, gentlemanlike service of the Prince, whose soldiers, he believed, had not only daily opportunities of enriching themselves with honourable plunder,—a small specimen of which he had just witnessed—but who had the prospect opened to them of one day becoming great men, the contrast was by far too flattering in favour of the latter not to dazzle him. But if it had not had that effect, the promise which M’Taggart made him of introducing him to Prince Charles, the son of the true and legitimate King of Scotland, was enough of itself to have gained John’s consent in a moment.
“Ou, troth, she’ll no be lang o’ gangin’ wi’ her,” said John, “an she’ll but stop till she clean hersel’ a wee frae ta durt o’ ta fulthy bog, tat ta soo beast pat her intill,—and syne bids fereweel to ta leddy.”
“Whoo!” exclaimed M’Taggart.—“The lady! What, then, the Pensassenach is somewhere about the place after all, and you know where she is?—By holy St. Mary, but I will burn every house here, and force the rancorous whig she-devil to unkennel out of her hiding place!”
“Teel purn her nane sell’s fooliss tongue for namin’ ta leddy ava ava!” said John bitterly. “But she may e’en purn ta hale toon gin she likes—fint a bit o’ ta leddy can she purn.”
“Ha, my good fellow,” said M’Taggart, “since you have the secret knowledge of her place of concealment locked up in your bosom, what is to hinder me to use a thumbikin as a key to unlock it.—I have a great mind to try.”
“She may e’en puts ta toomkin on her nanesell’s neck, and she’ll no tell after a’,” said John resolutely. “And ponny pounties tat wad be surely for Shon Smiss to serve ta Prince.”
“Nay, my good fellow, I was only joking,” said M’Taggart, afraid to lose so good a volunteer; “trust me I meant you no harm.”
“Gin she purns ta toon, or gin she do ony mair ill aboot ta place, fouk wull be sayin’ tat Shon Smiss bid her do it,” continued John—“an tat wad be doin’ Shon mockell harm. Teevil ae stap wull Shon be gangin’ wi’ her at a’ at a’, an she do ony mair bad sings here.”