CHAPTER TWENTIETH.
"Come ye hither my 'six' good sons,
Gallant men I trow ye be,
How many of you, my children dear,
Will stand by that good Earl and me?"
"Five" of them did answer make—
"Five" of them spoke hastily,
"O father, till the day we die,
We'll stand by that good Earl and thee."
The Rising in the North.
On the morning when we were to depart from Glasgow, Andrew Fairservice bounced into my apartment like a madman, jumping up and down, and singing, with more vehemence than tune,
The kiln's on fire—the kiln's on fire—
The kiln's on fire—she's a' in a lowe.
With some difficulty I prevailed on him to cease his confounded clamour, and explain to me what the matter was. He was pleased to inform me, as if he had been bringing the finest news imaginable, "that the Hielands were clean broken out, every man o' them, and that Rob Roy, and a' his breekless bands, wad be down upon Glasgow or twenty-four hours o' the clock gaed round."
"Hold your tongue," said I, "you rascal! You must be drunk or mad; and if there is any truth in your news, is it a singing matter, you scoundrel?"
"Drunk or mad? nae doubt," replied Andrew, dauntlessly; "ane's aye drunk or mad if he tells what grit folks dinna like to hear—Sing? Od, the clans will make us sing on the wrang side o' our mouth, if we are sae drunk or mad as to bide their coming."
I rose in great haste, and found my father and Owen also on foot, and in considerable alarm.
Andrew's news proved but too true in the main. The great rebellion which agitated Britain in the year 1715 had already broken out, by the unfortunate Earl of Mar's setting up the standard of the Stuart family in an ill-omened hour, to the ruin of many honourable families, both in England and Scotland. The treachery of some of the Jacobite agents (Rashleigh among the rest), and the arrest of others, had made George the First's Government acquainted with the extensive ramifications of a conspiracy long prepared, and which at last exploded prematurely, and in a part of the kingdom too distant to have any vital effect upon the country, which, however, was plunged into much confusion.