Rob Roy — Volume 02

Оглавление

Вальтер Скотт. Rob Roy — Volume 02

CHAPTER FIRST

CHAPTER SECOND

CHAPTER THIRD

CHAPTER FOURTH

CHAPTER FIFTH

CHAPTER SIXTH

CHAPTER SEVENTH

CHAPTER EIGHTH

CHAPTER NINTH

CHAPTER TENTH

CHAPTER ELEVENTH

CHAPTER TWELFTH

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEENTH

CHAPTER NINETEENTH

CHAPTER TWENTIETH

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIRST

CHAPTER TWENTY-SECOND

POSTSCRIPT

STATE PAPER OFFICE,

NOTES TO ROB ROY

Отрывок из книги

At the first Scotch town which we reached, my guide sought out his friend and counsellor, to consult upon the proper and legal means of converting into his own lawful property the "bonny creature," which was at present his own only by one of those sleight-of-hand arrangements which still sometimes took place in that once lawless district. I was somewhat diverted with the dejection of his looks on his return. He had, it seems, been rather too communicative to his confidential friend, the attorney; and learned with great dismay, in return for his unsuspecting frankness, that Mr. Touthope had, during his absence, been appointed clerk to the peace of the county, and was bound to communicate to justice all such achievements as that of his friend Mr. Andrew Fairservice. There was a necessity, this alert member of the police stated, for arresting the horse, and placing him in Bailie Trumbull's stable, therein to remain at livery, at the rate of twelve shillings (Scotch) per diem, until the question of property was duly tried and debated. He even talked as if, in strict and rigorous execution of his duty, he ought to detain honest Andrew himself; but on my guide's most piteously entreating his forbearance, he not only desisted from this proposal, but made a present to Andrew of a broken-winded and spavined pony, in order to enable him to pursue his journey. It is true, he qualified this act of generosity by exacting from poor Andrew an absolute cession of his right and interest in the gallant palfrey of Thorncliff Osbaldistone — a transference which Mr. Touthope represented as of very little consequence, since his unfortunate friend, as he facetiously observed, was likely to get nothing of the mare excepting the halter.

Andrew seemed woeful and disconcerted, as I screwed out of him these particulars; for his northern pride was cruelly pinched by being compelled to admit that attorneys were attorneys on both sides of the Tweed; and that Mr. Clerk Touthope was not a farthing more sterling coin than Mr. Clerk Jobson.

.....

"Nought that I can do? — Be it so. But do you not fear the consequences of being found with one whose very name whispered in this lonely street would make the stones themselves rise up to apprehend him — on whose head half the men in Glasgow would build their fortune as on a found treasure, had they the luck to grip him by the collar — the sound of whose apprehension were as welcome at the Cross of Edinburgh as ever the news of a field stricken and won in Flanders?"

"And who then are you, whose name should create so deep a feeling of terror?" I replied.

.....