"Well, anyway," said Sweetheart, thinking that possibly the tale-teller might feel aggrieved at these uncomplimentary remarks, "_I_ think it is just a beautiful story, and I love the dear Bailie for being willing to go all that way with Frank, and get hung up in the tree by the coat-tails and all!"
"Rats!" said Hugh John, contemptuously, "think if he had known _that_, he would ever have left Glasgow--not much!"
"Well, it was beautiful, I think," said Sweetheart, "but I _am_ sorry that they drowned the poor man Morris, especially when he was so very frightened."
But the instant indignant outcry of the boys silenced her. Lochs twelve feet deep, it speedily appeared, ought to be provided by law everywhere over the kingdoms three, for the accommodation of such "sweeps" and "sneaks" and "cowards."
Then Mistress Margaret spoke up for the first time. She had been sitting with her eyes fixed dreamily on the sparkle of the logs in the library fireplace.
"What a blessing it is," she said, "that this is a rainy Saturday, and so we do not need to wait for more. Please go on with the story--JUST where you left off."
And Maid Margaret's form of government being absolute monarchy, I did so, and the result was
AFTER the victory of the Highlanders and the drowning of Morris the spy, it was for some little while touch-and-go whether the Bailie and Frank should be made to follow him to the bottom of the loch. But at last Frank was ordered to go as an ambassador to those who had captured Rob Roy, while the Bailie with Captain Thornton and all the other prisoners remained as hostages in the hands of the victorious Helen.
This was the message he was to carry to the Sassenach.
The whole district of the Lennox would be ravished if the Mac-Gregor were not set free within twelve hours. Farmhouses would be burned, stack-yard and byre made desolate. In every house there would be a crying of the death wail--the coronach of sorrow. Furthermore, to begin with, Helen Mac-Gregor promised that if her request was not granted within the time specified, she would send them this Glasgow Bailie, with the Saxon Captain, and all the captive soldiers, bundled together in a plaid, and chopped into as many pieces as there were checks in the tartan!