“I canna preceesely speak to that: the grandees among them are doubtfu' o' Rob, and he's doubtfu' o' them.—And he's been weel friended wi' the Argyle family, wha stand for the present model of government. If he was freed o' his hornings and captions, he would rather be on Argyle's side than he wad be on Breadalbane's, for there's auld ill-will between the Breadalbane family and his kin and name. The truth is, that Rob is for his ain hand, as Henry Wynd feught*—he'll take the side that suits him best; if the deil was laird, Rob wad be for being tenant; and ye canna blame him, puir fallow, considering his circumstances.
* Two great clans fought out a quarrel with thirty men of a side, in presence of the king, on the North Inch of Perth, on or about the year 1392; a man was amissing on one side, whose room was filled by a little bandy-legged citizen of Perth. This substitute, Henry Wynd—or, as the Highlanders called him, Gow Chrom, that is, the bandy-legged smith—fought well, and contributed greatly to the fate of the battle, without knowing which side he fought on;—so, “To fight for your own hand, like Henry Wynd,” passed into a proverb. [This incident forms a conspicuous part of the subsequent novel, “The Fair Maid of Perth.”]
But there's ae thing sair again ye—Rob has a grey mear in his stable at hame.”
“A grey mare?” said I. “What is that to the purpose?”
“The wife, man—the wife,—an awfu' wife she is. She downa bide the sight o' a kindly Scot, if he come frae the Lowlands, far less of an Inglisher, and she'll be keen for a' that can set up King James, and ding down King George.”
“It is very singular,” I replied, “that the mercantile transactions of London citizens should become involved with revolutions and rebellions.”
“Not at a', man—not at a',” returned Mr. Jarvie; “that's a' your silly prejudications. I read whiles in the lang dark nights, and I hae read in Baker's Chronicle* that the merchants o'London could gar the Bank of Genoa break their promise to advance a mighty sum to the King o' Spain, whereby the sailing of the Grand Spanish Armada was put aff for a haill year—What think you of that, sir?”
* [The Chronicle of the Kings of England, by Sir Richard Baker, with continuations, passed through several editions between 1641 and 1733. Whether any of them contain the passage alluded to is doubtful.]
“That the merchants did their country golden service, which ought to be honourably remembered in our histories.”
“I think sae too; and they wad do weel, and deserve weal baith o' the state and o' humanity, that wad save three or four honest Hieland gentlemen frae louping heads ower heels into destruction, wi' a' their puir sackless* followers, just because they canna pay back the siller they had reason to count upon as their ain—and save your father's credit—and my ain gude siller that Osbaldistone and Tresham awes me into the bargain.