Fiction > Book editions > Leipzig, 1888 - Kidnapped

1 06 KIDNAPPED.
I
horses rode over the fetlocks in the best blood of the
north, Ardshiel had to flee like a poor deer upon the
mountains — he and his lady and his bairns. A sair
job we had of it before we got him shipped; and while
he still lay in the heather, the English rogues, that
couldnae come at his life, were striking at his rights.
They stripped him of his powers; they stripped him of
his lands; they plucked the weapons from the hands of
his clansmen, that had borne arms for thirty centuries;
ay, and the very clothes off their backs — so that it's
now a sin to wear a tartan plaid, and a man may be
cast into a gaol if he has but a kilt about his legs. One
thing they couldnae kill. That was the love the clans-
men bore their chief. These guineas are the proof of
it. And now, in there steps a man, a Campbell, red-
headed Colin of Glenure "
"Is that him you call the Red Fox?" said I. |
"Will ye bring me his brush?" cries Alan, fiercely.
"Ay, that's the man. In he steps, and gets papers from
King George, to be so-called King's factor on the lands
of Appin. And at first he sings small, and is hail-
fellow-well-met with Sheamus — that's James of the
Glens, my chieftain's agent. But by-and-bye, that came
to his ears that I have just told you; how the poor
commons of Appin, the farmers and the crofters and
the boumen, were wringing their very plaids to get a
second rent, and send it over-seas for Ardshiel and his
poor bairns. What was it ye called it, when I told
ye?"
"I called it noble, Alan," said I.
"And you little better than a common Whig!"
cries Alan. "But when it came to Colin Roy, the black