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They soon came; and Will's lynx eye caught, in a moment, the face of the President, whom, to his great satisfaction, he now found to be a thin, spare, portable individual, and very far from the unwieldy personage which his judge's dress made him appear to be when sitting on the bench a reversing of the riever's thoughts, in reference to the spareness and fatness of his object of seizure, that brought a twinkle to his eye in spite of the serious task in which he was engaged.
I once thought that the highest of human enjoyments was a victory lost and won, with a hundred head of cattle driven before the returning host, in triumph, to Henderland; but, in yon withdrawing-room in the west wing, in which your cunning hands have placed the seductive couch, where one may lie and see roses blooming so near that he may smell their odours, and hear witching strains stealing from these musical things of wood and wire, the charm of the foray is broken, and the riever's spirit overcome.
But all Margaret's arguments and Will's courage were on one occasion overturned, by the riever's apprehension for stealing a cow, belonging to a farmer at Stobbs, of the name of Grant. He was carried to Jedburgh jail, and indicted to stand his trial before the Lord Justice-General at the next circuit.
She sobbed and cried bitterly, till the Gilnockie ravens and owls, kindred spirits, were terrified from the riever's tower. "What is this o't?" she exclaimed, in the midst of her tears.
"I really think the prospect's worth it," she replied. "Besides, Riever's fresh and needs humoring." She shook the whip, and as they clattered away down the steep, twisting road, Nasmyth glanced with satisfaction to left and right. He had seen wilder and grander lands, but none of them appealed to him like this high, English waste.
"Strange, strange are the ways of heaven," cried she, wringing her hands. "Ralph, you must be the messenger to my husband. Haste and saddle my grey jennet, and flee by the Riever's Road, to Tushielaw. Tell Henderland and Adam Scott, that King James comes, with a halter, to avenge the rights of royalty and peace. Cry it forth in the midst of their battle.
Yet, stay shall I not go myself? One messenger hath failed already shall a wife fail in the cause of her husband's life?" "The mountain torrents are swelled, my Leddie," replied Thomas of the Woodburn, "an' will be noo sweepin owre the Riever's Road, carryin baith man an' horse to the howes; an' nane but an auld hill-roadster may ken the richt tract frae that to ruin in the midst o' the darkness.
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