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One dark night he was walking along one of the country lanes with his sweetheart when a body of tars fell upon him, and, after a sharp fight, carried him off to an old stable in the town that served as a temporary lockup. Very early the next morning Jean Nicol knocked gently at the stable door. "Are ye there, Jack?" said she.
'Oh, man, it was a gruesome place, said Nicol, who did not want to make too little of the perils he had encountered. 'What did ye see? 'How could I see anything? But I felt plenty on the way down; and I'm sure it's fu' o' creeping things and beasts. And then when I was near the foot, I put my hand on something leevin', and it flew up and hit me; and in a meenit the whole place was alive.
He now inquired into my adventures since we entered his country, and laughed heartily at my account of the battle we had in the inn, and at the exploits of the Bailie with the red-hot poker. "Let Glasgow Flourish!" he exclaimed. "The curse of Cromwell on me, if I wad hae wished better sport than to see cousin Nicol Jarvie singe Iverach's plaid, like a sheep's head between a pair of tongs.
Nicol Brinn clenched his jaws hard. The girl had fallen into a trap. He turned rapidly, facing the house. Only at one point did the shrubbery approach the wall, but for that point he set out hot foot, passing from bush to bush with Indian cleverness, tense, alert, and cool in despite of his long vigil.
Through life his word had been his bond, and Nicol Brinn was incapable of compromising with his conscience. But the direct way was barred to him. Nevertheless, no task could appal the inflexible spirit of the man, and he had registered a silent vow that Ormuz Khan should never leave England alive.
Nicol the King's bookseller and I attempted to controvert the maxim, 'better that ten guilty should escape, than one innocent person suffer; and were answered by Dr. Johnson with great power of reasoning and eloquence.
Here again he was received with marked respect, and treated with the same Highland hospitality that had so charmed him at Blair; and here also the pleasure of the whole party was spoilt by the ill-natured jealousy of Nicol.
Nicol Jarvie, as they occasioned at times disputes and coldness between the English house and their correspondent, which were only got over by a sense of mutual interest, as, moreover, Owen's personal vanity sometimes suffered a little in the discussions to which they gave rise, you cannot be surprised, Tresham, that our old friend threw at all times the weight of his influence in favour of the civil, discreet, accommodating concern of MacVittie and MacFin, and spoke of Jarvie as a petulant, conceited Scotch pedlar, with whom there was no dealing.
"My cousin Nicol Jarvie means well," he said, "but he presses ower hard on the temper and situation of a man like me, considering what I have been what I have been forced to become and, above all, that which has forced me to become what I am."
"My dear Professor," replied Nicol Hendry a little coldly, "those who write stories about our profession always say that it is our invariable rule to suspect everybody, but we have a little common-sense, and we know the records of these ladies and gentlemen in the minutest detail from the Prince himself to Fraülein Hulda. We have not the slightest reason to suspect any of them."
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