d thinking little of
it, interrupted Dougal with some words in Gaelic.

Whereupon the turnkey, taking a lantern, led the young man up the
winding stair and introduced him to a cell, where, lying on a bed, he
recognised--no other than Owen, the head clerk of his father's house.

At first the good Owen could only bemoan the hardness of fate, thinking
that Frank also had met with the same treatment as himself, by being
sent to prison. He had, it seemed, as in duty bound, gone at once to
Messrs. MacVittie, MacFin, and Company and exposed to them his case,
stating the difficulty in which the house were placed by Rashleigh's
disappearance. Hitherto they had been most smooth and silver-tongued,
but at the first word of difficulty as to payment, they had clapped poor
Owen into prison on the charge of meditating flight out of the country.

He had, he continued, sent a note to Bailie Nicol Jarvie, the other
correspondent of the house in Glasgow. But, as he said, "If the civil
house in the Gallowgate used him thus, what was to be expected from the
cross-grained old crab-stock in the Salt Market?"

It had fallen out even as he had expected. Bailie Nicol Jarvie had not
so much as answered his letter, though it had been put into his hand as
he was on his way to church that morning.

Hardly were the words out of Owen's mouth, when from below came the
voice of Dougal the turnkey, evidently urging Frank's guide to conceal
himself.

"Gang upstairs and hide behind the Sassenach gentleman's bed. Ay,
ay--coming--coming!"

The Highlander hastily entered Owen's cell, and, stripping off his heavy
coat, stood at bay, evidently gathering himself for a leap at the
officers, should it indeed prove to be the provost, magistrates, and
guard of the city of Glasgow, as Dougal believed. It was obvious that he
meant to spring right at any who might be seeking to apprehend him. But
instead of a guard with fixed bayonets, it was only a good-looking young
woman in kilted petticoats holding a lantern in her hand, who ushered in
a magistrate, stout, bob-wigged, bustling, and breathless. At the sight
of his face Frank's conductor instantly drew back and resumed the
muffling cloak which hid the lower part of his features.

The chief captain of the jail now showed himself at the door, having
descended hastily to wait on the great man. But the Bailie's anger was
huge against all and sundry.

"A bonny thing, Captain Stanchells," he cried, "that I, a mag