“Dinna despair, sir—dinna despair,” said Mr. Jarvie; “I hae taen sae muckle concern wi’ your affairs already, that it maun e’en be ower shoon ower boots wi’ me now. I am just like my father the deacon (praise be wi’ him!), I canna meddle wi’ a friend’s business, but I aye end wi’ making it my ain—Sae, I’ll een pit on my boots the morn, and be jogging ower Drymen Muir wi’ Mr. Frank here; and if I canna mak Rob hear reason, and his wife too, I dinna ken wha can—I hae been a kind freend to them afore now, to say naething o’ ower-looking him last night, when naming his name wad hae cost him his life—I’ll be hearing o’ this in the council maybe frae Bailie Grahame, and MacVittie, and some o’ them. They hae coost up my kindred to Rob to me already—set up their nashgabs! I tauld them I wad vindicate nae man’s faults; but set apart what he had done again the law o’ the country, and the hership o’ the Lennox, and the misfortune o’ some folk losing life by him, he was an honester man than stude on ony o’ their shanks—And whatfor suld I mind their clavers?—If Rob is an outlaw, to himsell be it said—there is nae laws now about reset of intercommuned persons, as there was in the ill times o’ the last Stewarts—I trow I hae a Scotch tongue in my head—if they speak, I’se answer.”

It was with great pleasure that I saw the Bailie gradually surmount the barriers of caution, under the united influence of public spirit and good-natured interest in our affairs, together with his natural wish to avoid loss and acquire gain, and not a little harmless vanity. Through the combined operation of these motives he at length arrived at the doughty resolution of taking the field in person, to aid in the recovery of my father’s property. His whole information led me to believe, that if the papers were in possession of this Highland adventurer, it might be possible to induce him to surrender what he could not keep with any prospect of personal advantage; and I was conscious that the presence of his kinsman was likely to have considerable weight with him. I therefore cheerfully acquiesced in Mr. Jarvie’s proposal that we should set out early next morning.

That honest gentleman was indeed as vivacious and alert in preparing to carry his purpose into execution, as he had been slow and cautious in forming it. He roared to Mattie to “air his trot-cosey, to have his jack-boots greased and set before the kitchen fire all night, and to see that his beast be corned, and a’ his riding gear in order.” Having agreed to meet him at five o’clock next morning, and having settled that Owen, whose presence could be of no use to us upon this expedition, should await our return at Glasgow, we took a kind farewell of this unexpectedly zealous friend. I installed Owen in an apartment in my lodgings, contiguous to my own, and, giving orders to Andrew Fairservice to attend me next morning at the hour appointed, I retired to rest with better hopes than it had lately been my fortune to entertain.