Rob Roy1995

[Argyll refuses Mary's initial pleas for help]

Mary MacGregor:
Your Grace, Robert finds himself in this position for taking Your Grace's part.

Duke of Argyll:
My part? What cause had he to do that? And in what manner?

Mary MacGregor:
He refused to bear false witness against you, when the Marquis asked him to say that you were a Jacobite, to slander your name at court.

Duke of Argyll:
Montrose asked this of him?

Mary MacGregor:
In remission of this debt. But Robert refused.

Duke of Argyll:
I did not know your husband bore me such goodwill.

Mary MacGregor:
Indeed, Your Grace, I think he favors you no more than any other great man. "As wolves at lambing," that is his word for you all. Robert refused, not for Your Grace, but for his own honor, which he values above his own family, his kin and his clan, and for which I have oft chided him. But were he otherwise, he would not be Robert Roy MacGregor. Robert would not approve of my coming here to ask you for help, nor come himself if he were here. [stands] But I have no choice, unless I give him up entire to his enemies. And though I love his honor, it is but a moon-cast shadow to the love I bear him. By the grace of God, I have his child inside me and I will have a father for it.

Duke of Argyll:
You do your man no dishonor, Mary. Faith, he is a man much blessed by fortune.