cutting o' thrapples amang themsells, that nae civilised body kens or
cares onything anent.--Weel, but there's a new warld come up wi' this
King George (I say, God bless him, for ane)--there's neither like to be
siller nor pensions gaun amang them; they haena the means o' mainteening
the clans that eat them up, as ye may guess frae what I said before;
their credit's gane in the Lowlands; and a man that can whistle ye up a
thousand or feifteen hundred linking lads to do his will, wad hardly get
fifty punds on his band at the Cross o' Glasgow--This canna stand
lang--there will be an outbreak for the Stuarts--there will be an
outbreak--they will come down on the low country like a flood, as they
did in the waefu' wars o' Montrose, and that will be seen and heard tell
o' ere a twalmonth gangs round."

"Yet still," I said, "I do not see how this concerns Mr. Campbell, much
less my father's affairs."

"Rob can levy five hundred men, sir, and therefore war suld concern him
as muckle as maist folk," replied the Bailie; "for it is a faculty that
is far less profitable in time o' peace. Then, to tell ye the truth, I
doubt he has been the prime agent between some o' our Hieland chiefs and
the gentlemen in the north o' England. We a' heard o' the public money
that was taen frae the chield Morris somewhere about the fit o' Cheviot
by Rob and ane o' the Osbaldistone lads; and, to tell ye the truth, word
gaed that it was yoursell Mr. Francis,--and sorry was I that your
father's son suld hae taen to sic practices--Na, ye needna say a word
about it--I see weel I was mistaen; but I wad believe onything o' a
stage-player, whilk I concluded ye to be. But now, I doubtna, it has been
Rashleigh himself or some other o' your cousins--they are a' tarred wi'
the same stick--rank Jacobites and papists, and wad think the government
siller and government papers lawfu' prize. And the creature Morris is sic