understands business, and is willing to do justice to all
men, should lie by the heels this gate, unable to help himsell or onybody
else--why, conscience, man! I'll be your bail myself--But ye'll mind it's
a bail _judicio sisti,_ as our town-clerk says, not _judicatum solvi;_
ye'll mind that, for there's muckle difference."

Mr. Owen assured him, that as matters then stood, he could not expect any
one to become surety for the actual payment of the debt, but that there
was not the most distant cause for apprehending loss from his failing to
present himself when lawfully called upon.

"I believe ye--I believe ye. Eneugh said--eneugh said. We'se hae your
legs loose by breakfast-time.--And now let's hear what thir chamber
chiels o' yours hae to say for themselves, or how, in the name of unrule,
they got here at this time o' night."

[Illustration: Rob Roy in Prison--68]

CHAPTER SIXTH.

Hame came our gudeman at e'en,
And hame came he,
And there he saw a man
Where a man suldna be.
"How's this now, kimmer?
How's this?" quo he,--
"How came this carle here
Without the leave o' me?"
Old Song.

The magistrate took the light out of the servant-maid's hand, and
advanced to his scrutiny, like Diogenes in the street of Athens,
lantern-in-hand, and probably with as little expectation as that of the
cynic, that he was likely to encounter any especial treasure in the
course of his researches. The first whom he approached was my mysterious
guide, who, seated on a table as I have already described him, with his
eyes firmly fixed on the wall, his features arranged into the utmost
inflexibility of expression, his hands folded on his breast with an air
betwixt carelessness and defiance, his heel patting against the foot of
the table, to keep time with the tune which he continued to whistle,
submitted to Mr. Jarvie's investigation with an air of absolute
confidence and assurance which, for a moment, placed at fault the memory
and sagacity of the acute investigator.

"Ah!--Eh!--Oh!" exclaimed the Bailie. "My conscience!--it's
impossible!--and yet--no!--Conscience!--it canna be!--and yet
again--Deil hae me, that I suld say sae!--Ye robber--ye cateran--ye born
deevil that ye are, to a'