The adventures of Rob Roy

James Grant, Esq.

Author Of "Jack Manly," "Dick Rodney," "Second To None," Etc. Etc.

LONDON: GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS, THE BROADWAY, LUDGATE; NEW YORK: 416, BROOME STREET.

By James Grant.

Price 2s. each, Fancy Boards.

THE ROMANCE OF WAR. THE AIDE-DE-CAMP. THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER. BOTHWELL. JANE SETON; OR, THE QUEEN'S ADVOCATE. PHILIP ROLLO. LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH. MARY OF LORRAINE. OLIVER ELLIS; OR, THE FUSILIERS. LUCY ARDEN; OR, HOLLYWOOD HALL. FRANK HILTON; OR, THE QUEEN'S OWN. THE YELLOW FRIGATE. HARRY OGILVIE; OR, THE BLACK DRAGOONS. ARTHUR BLANE. LAURA EVERINGHAM; OR, THE HIGHLANDERS OF GLENORA. THE CAPTAIN OF THE GUARD. LETTY HYDE'S LOVERS. THE CAVALIERS OF FORTUNE SECOND TO NONE. THE CONSTABLE OF FRANCE. THE PHANTOM REGIMENT. THE KING'S OWN BORDERERS. THE WHITE COCKADE. FIRST LOVE AND LAST LOVE.

George Routledge And Sons, The Broadway, Ludgate.

Contents.

I COLIN AND OINA II THE CATERANS III THE ALARM IV THE HOLY STEEL V THE RED MACGREGOR VI THE PURSUIT VII HAND TO HAND VIII THE BATTLE OF GLENFRUIN IX THE DEVASTATION OF KIPPEN X THE DUEL XI ROB GOES TO ENGLAND XII THE GIPSIES XIII INVERSNAID PILLAGED XIV ROB AND THE DUKE XV DESOLATION XVI ROB TAKES THE TOWER OF CARDEN XVII THE JACOBITE BOND XVIII THE DESPATCHES CAPTURED XIX ABERUCHAIL XX ROB ROY RETREATS XXI JOINS KING JAMES XXII INVERSNAID GARRISONED XXIII THE SNARE XXIV WILL HE ESCAPE? XXV LITTLE RONALD XXVI PAUL CRUBACH XXVII THE HOUSE OF INVOCATION XXVIII ROB ROY'S CAVE XXIX THE STORMING OF INVERSNAID XXX THE FIGHT AT ABERFOYLE XXXI ROB SEIZES THE RENTS OF MONTROSE XXXII KILLEARN CARRIED OFF XXXIII KILLEARN'S FATE XXXIV GREUMOCH TAKEN XXXV ROB'S NARROW ESCAPE XXXVI A WEIRD STORY XXXVII THE HAUNTED WELL XXXVIII ROB ROY TAKEN XXXIX THE FORDS OF FREW XL SEAFORTH'S MESSENGER XLI ROB'S MARCH TO GLENSHEIL XLII A STRANGE MEETING XLIII MAJOR HUSKE'S REVENGE XLIV THE BATTLE OF GLENSHEIL XLV THE KNIGHT OF MALTA XLVI EILAN DONAN XLVII THE HARPER'S RANSOM XLVIII MORRAR NA SHEAN, OR THE LORD OF THE VENISON XLIX GUILT AND REMORSE OF MORRAR NA SHEAN L THE RUINED HOUSE IN GLENSTRAE LI HE FIGHTS THE LAIRD OF BARRA LII INVERNENTIE PUNISHED LIII ATTACKED BY THE DUKE OF ATHOLE LIV THE FINAL ATTEMPT OF ATHOLE LV ROB ROY IN LONDON LVI THE DUELS WITH INVERNAHYLE AND ARDSHEIL LVII THE CLOSING SCENE

[Transcriber's note: the source book had a list of illustrations (below) but no actual illustrations.]

List Of Illustrations.

1. The body of Colin Bane MacGregor

2. "He showered blow after blow upon MacRae"

3. "Waving his bare blade in a circle between her and the rest, who dared not advance"

4. "One night they were roused by some Travellers noisily demanding shelter"

5. "Clenching his right hand, he would have struck the Duke"

6. Rob Roy and the English Captain

7. "He sprang upon them and cut down two"

8. "The MacGregors were protected by ridges of rock"

The Adventures Of Rob Roy.

Chapter I.

Colin And Oina.

The sun of a September evening--we need not say in what year--was shining down a wild and lonely glen, a few miles eastward from the head of Loch Lomond, where a boy and a girl sat on the slope of the green hill-side, watching a herd of fifteen red-eyed, small, and shaggy black cattle, with curly fronts and long sharp horns, that were browsing mid-leg deep amid the long-leaved fern. The place was one of stern and solemn grandeur.

Leaping from ledge to ledge, and foaming between the grey and time-worn rocks, a mountain torrent, red and fierce, swept down the steep slope of the narrow glen, now disappearing in deep corries, that were covered by dwarf birch, hazel, and alder trees, and elsewhere emerging in mist and spray, white as the thistle's beard, till it reached the lake which reposed under the shadows of the vast Ben Lomond, whose summits were hidden in grey mist.

Ben Lawers, which towers above the source of the Tay, and Ben More, that looks down on the Dochart with its floating isle, are there; but the king of these is Ben Lomond, a name which means in English "the hill of the lake full of isles," for four-and-twenty stud the loch below; and the bare scalp of that mighty mountain rises to the height of 3,300 feet above the water. There the wild winds that came in sudden gusts down the glens, furrowed up the bosom of the loch, causing its waters to ripple on the silent shore, and on its verdant isles, with a weird and solemn sound.

But here where our story opens, the shrill note of the curlew, as he suddenly sprang aloft from the thick soft heather, made one start; while the rush of the many white watercourses that poured over the whinstone rocks, and woke the silence, was sharp and hissing. The setting sun shed a flood of purple light along the steep-sided glen, making the heather seem absolutely crimson.

The boy and girl, Colin Bane, the son of a widow, and Oina MacAleister, belonged to the clachan, or village--the smoking chimneys of which alone indicated its locality--about three miles off; for the walls of the little cottages so closely resembled the grey rocks of the glen, and their roofs, thatched with heather, blended so nearly with the mountainside, that, except for the forty little columns of white vapour that ascended into the clear evening sky, there was nothing else to indicate a human habitation.

Neither of these young people was above twelve years old; but the boy was tall, lithe, and manly for his age. His dark grey eyes were keen and sharp as those of the wiry otter terrier that sat beside him; and his bare legs, which his tattered kilt revealed from the knee, showed that he was handsome as well as strong--so strong, that he was already entitled to wear a man's bonnet, as a proof that he could lift and fling the "stone of strength,"--the test of manhood, which lay beside the door of Rob Roy's house, as beside that of every Highland chieftain, to test the muscle of his growing followers; for previous to being able to poise and hurl the _Clachneart_, a boy wore his hair simply tied with a thong.

A jacket of deerskin, fastened by wooden buttons and loops of thong; a pouch or sporan composed of a polecat's skin, with its face for a flap; and a skene dhu (or black knife) stuck in a waist-belt, completed the attire of Colin.

His pretty companion, who sat with her little bare feet paddling in a pool of water that gurgled from a rock, was enveloped in a short plaid of red tartan, fastened under her chin by a little silver brooch, and her thick brown hair, which she had wreathed with blue bells and golden broom, fell in masses on her shoulders.

But the faces of this boy and girl were thoughtful, keen, and anxious in expression; for they were children of a long-oppressed, outlawed, and broken tribe, the MacGregors, or Clan Alpine. Still, as they tended the cattle, they sang merrily; for when reaping in the fields, or rowing on the lochs, casting the shuttle at the loom, or marching in the ranks to battle, in those days the Scottish Highlander always sang.

Ever and anon the boy and girl would pause and utter a joyous shout, when a large brown salmon leaped amid a shower of diamonds from the rough stream that tore through the glen; or when a sharp-nosed fox, a shaggy otter, or a red polecat came stealthily out of the gorse and whins to drink of it; for as yet they had no other visitors, and saw not those who were secretly approaching.

Colin, who had started up to cast a stone at a wild swan, and pursue it a little way, returned breathless; but nevertheless, producing a chanter of hard black wood, mounted with ivory rings, from his girdle, in which it had been stuck, he said,--"Come, Oina--Mianna Bhaird a thuair aois--sing, and I shall play."

"It is a song of many verses, and is too long," replied the girl.

"Long! There are only two-and-thirty verses, and mother says that old Paul Crubach can remember as many more."

Colin commenced the air at once upon his chanter, and without further hesitation the girl began one of the old songs which are half sung and half recited, in a manner peculiar to the Highlands.

I have no intention of afflicting my readers with all the said song in Gaelic; but it ran somewhat in this fashion (a friend has translated it for me), and the girl, as she sang sweetly, splashed the sparkling water with her tiny feet:--

Lay us gently by the stream That wanders through our grassy meads; And thou, O sun! with kindly beam, Light up the bower that o'er us spreads.

Here softly on the grass we'll sit, Where flowerets bloom and breezes sigh; Our feet laved in the gentle tide That, slowly gliding, murmurs by.

Let roses bright and primrose fair With sweet perfume and lovely hues, Around us woo the ambient air, And breathe upon the falling dews.

Intent upon themselves and their simple occupation, and singing thus in the fulness of their young hearts to the objects of Nature, the boy and girl saw not those who were coming up the glen, creeping on their hands and feet, with keen eyes and open ears.

Place by my hand (with harp and shell), So long our solace and our pride, The shield that often roll'd the swell Of battle from our father's side!

Let Ossian blind and tuneful Dall Strike from their harps a solemn sound, And open wide their airy hall-- No bard will here, at eve, be found!

So closed the song, and at that moment a cry burst from Oina, while Colin sprang up with a hand on his knife, for suddenly there arose out of the long tossing leaves of the braken, or fern, the dark whins and matted gorse, amid which the cattle grazed, about twenty well-armed and fierce-looking Highlanders, whose tattered attire, green tartans, and wild bearing, all proclaimed them to be strangers and foes, who had come intent on spoil and hostility.

Chapter II.

The Caterans.

With her eyes dilated by terror, and her usually ruddy cheeks blanched and pale, the girl clung to her companion, who stood resolutely between her and those who had come so suddenly upon them. Barking furiously, the otter terrier erected his shaggy back and also shrunk close to the side of Colin.

These unwelcome visitors were all armed with basket-hilted swords, dirks, and pistols. He who seemed the leader bore a long _luagh_, or Lochaber axe, the head of which is adapted for the triple purpose of cutting, thrusting, or hooking an enemy. They all wore waistcoats and hose of untanned deerskin, rough, shaggy, and tied with thongs.

Their kilts and plaids were of tattered green tartan, and all wore woollen shirts of dark red dyes. Only a few had bonnets; but in these they wore a tuft of deer-grass, the badge of the MacKenzies. This, however, did not deceive the boy or girl, who knew them to be MacRaes, who followed the banner of Lord Seaforth.

The leader, a giant in stature, but fleet of foot and active as a roebuck, was a dark-visaged and savage-looking man, with eyebrows that met over his nose, and were shaggy as the moustache that curled round his fierce mouth, to mingle with his beard. His belted plaid was fastened by an antique silver brooch covered with twisted snakes, and silver tassels adorned his sporan, which was of otter-skin covered with white spots; and hence such skins are said in Scotland to belong to the king of the otters.

"Keep your cur quiet, boy," said this formidable-looking fellow, "or I must put a bullet into him. Go on with your song, my girl, and don't be alarmed; we shall not harm you."

"He is Duncan nan Creagh!" said Colin.

"And our cattle will be taken," sobbed Oina.

Indeed, while the boy and girl spoke their fears in whispers, the gillies, or followers of Duncan of the Forays, as he was named, ran round the cattle in a circle, driving them together, by holloing and striking them with cudgels or the flat sides of their claymores--occasionally using the point, to spur on the more lazy or refractory. Undaunted by the number of the caterans, Colin began to shout shrilly and wildly for succour; but aid was far off, and the echoes of the rocks alone replied.

"Silence!" exclaimed Duncan MacRae, fiercely, "or I shall fling you into the pool, with a big stone at your neck!"

The boy bravely brandished his skene, and dipping his bonnet in the rivulet, as a defence for his left hand, said,--

"Beware, you false cateran; these cattle are from the lands of Finlarig; and Finlarig belongs to Breadalbane."

The tall cateran grinned, and replied,--

"Ay; but the beasties belong to the MacGregors----"

"From whom all men may take their prey," added another.

"True, MacAulay, and were they Breadalbane's own, every hoof and horn should be mine, even though he were here, with all the Clan Diarmed of the Boar at his back. Hear you that, my little man? But the Griogarich--wheeugh!"

And the tall cateran snapped his fingers with contempt and grinned savagely, as he made a whistling sound.

This action, and the slighting manner in which his clan was spoken of, made Colin tremble with rage. His ruddy cheek grew pale with emotion, and his eyes flashed with light.

In pursuing a sturdy little bullock, one of the MacRaes dropped a pistol. Quick as lightning young Colin sprang forward, possessed himself of it, and fired full at the head of Duncan nan Creagh! The latter reeled, for the ball had pierced his bonnet, and grazed the scalp of his head, causing the blood to trickle over his sombre visage. Then, before he could recover himself, the fearless boy hurled the empty pistol, which was one of the heavy steel _tacks_ still worn with the Highland dress, at the cateran's head, which it narrowly missed.

Oina and he now turned to seek safety in flight; but the MacRae caught him by the hook of his long poleaxe, and fearing further violence, the brave Colin clung to his right arm with fierce energy. Duncan tried to shake him off; but in vain. At last, he fiercely _bit_ the hand of the poor boy, who relinquished his hold with a scream of pain.

At that moment the savage fellow exclaimed,--

"Wasp of a MacGregor, _that_ will take the sting out of you," and cut down Colin, by a single stroke of his ponderous axe, severing his right (some say his left) arm from his body.

Without a moan, Colin fell on the heather in a pool of blood.

"Quick, lads, quick!" exclaimed the remorseless Duncan; "drive on the prey; the MacGregors will soon scent the blood and be on our track."

At some distance from the bleeding and dying boy, Oina sank upon the ground, screaming wildly, and covering her face with her hands and hair.

"What shall we do with the girl?" said one; "she will soon reach and rouse all the clachan."

"Take her with us," suggested another.

"Oich--oich! that would be kidnapping."

"But she is only a MacGregor's daughter," said a third.

"And you shall soon be tracked by one MacGregor, who will revenge us," exclaimed the girl, whom excess of terror now endued with courage.

"Oich! and who may he be?" asked Duncan nan Creagh, mockingly.

"Rob Roy of Inversnaid."

"The Red MacGregor--is that all?"

"All! Conn Ceud Catha was a boy when compared to him, as you shall soon find, false thief of a MacRae."

"A swim in the linn will be good for one of your temper," said the tall Cateran, as he took up the girl, and regardless of her shrieks, rushing to where the torrent that flowed towards Loch Lomond poured over a brow of rock forming a cascade that plunged into a deep pool below, he tossed her in, without ruth or pity.

In falling, Oina caught the stem of a tough willow, and clung to it with all the tenacity a deadly fear could inspire. The rush of the foaming torrent was in her tingling ears, and its snowy spray covered her face, her dress, and floating hair, as she swung over it. She closed her eyes and dared not look; but her lips prayed for mercy in an inaudible manner, for the power of speech had left her. And now, with her weight, the willow bent so low that at last her feet and ankles dipped in the rushing water; while with a pitiless frown, the wild MacRae--for so this tribe was named, from their fierce, lawless, and predatory habits--surveyed her from the bank above. Then saying, "Oich--oich, but the Griogarich are folk that are hard to kill," by a slash of his long axe he severed the willow, and with a faint shriek Oina vanished into the cascade that foamed beneath!

Duncan nan Creagh then hastened to overtake his gillies, who by this time had driven the cattle across the stream, which they forded in the old Scottish fashion, with their swords in their teeth, and grasping each other's hands to stem the current, which, otherwise, must have swept them away singly, as it came up to their armpits.

They then wrung the water from their plaids, and driving the cattle at full speed by point and flat of sword, hurried up a gloomy and lonely ravine, and soon disappeared, where the sombre evening shadows were deepening over the vast mountain solitude.

Well did they know that the vengeful MacGregors, whom some aver to be the Children of the Mist, would soon be on their track, following them with blade and bullet, hound and horn.

The poor boy soon expired, but the girl was not destined to perish. She was swept by the torrent round an angle of the rocks, towards a pool, where a young man was fishing.

He saw her body whirling in the flood, and without a moment of hesitation, cast aside his bonnet and plaid, his rod and dirk, and plunging in, soon caught her in his arms.

Being powerfully athletic, he stemmed the fierce brown torrent, which ran like a flooded millrace, bearing along with it stones, clay, and dwarf trees, the spoil of the hills that look down on Loch Dochart; and, after a severe struggle, he reached the bank and laid the girl on the grass.

"Oina!" he exclaimed, with deep commiseration, on removing the masses of wet brown hair from her pallid face, for he recognized her to be the child of his own foster-brother.

She was pale, cold, severely bruised by being tossed from rock to rock, and lay there to all appearance dead. He placed a hand on her heart; he opened and patted her clenched fingers; he placed his warm ruddy cheek to her cold face, and his ear to her mouth, to ascertain whether or not she breathed.

Then taking her up in his arms as if she had been an infant, he wrapped his plaid around her, and with rapid strides, hastened towards the smoke, which curled greyly against the now darkened sky, and indicated where the clachan or village stood.

This man was Robert MacGregor of Inversnaid and Craigrostan, otherwise known as Rob Roy, or _the Red_, from the colour of his hair, and who, by the proscription of his entire clan, had been compelled by law to add the name of Campbell to his own, for reasons which will afterwards be given to the reader.

Chapter III.

The Alarm.

He soon reached Inversnaid, which lay about three miles distant.

At first he walked but slowly, comparatively speaking, as he believed the girl to be quite dead; but the motion of her limbs, as he proceeded, having caused the blood to circulate, he perceived with joy that she still lived, and then he increased his pace to a run, which soon brought him to the cottage of her father, Callam MacAleister (_i.e._, the son of the arrowmaker), to whose care he consigned her; and the bed of the little sufferer was rapidly surrounded by all the commiserating gossips and wise-women of the clachan.

No doctors were required by the hardy men of these secluded districts. Their wives and daughters knew well how to salve a sore; to bind up a slash from an axe or sword; to place lint on a bullet-hole, or on a stab from a dirk; while valerian, all-heal, liver-wort, and wild carrot, bruised in a quaichful of whisky, formed the entire _materia medica_ of the matron of a family. So men lived till patriarchal years, strong, active, and fearless as mountain-bulls; for sickness was unknown among them.

Of these female family physicians, Rob's wife, the Lady of Inversnaid, was the queen in her time and locality.

Inversnaid is a small hamlet on the estate of the same name which formed the patrimony of Rob Roy. It lies two miles eastward from Loch Lomond, on the bank of a small stream, which falls into the great sheet of water, from a lesser, named Loch Arklet, a place of gloomy aspect.

Northward, on the side of the latter, is a deep and wild cavern, which sheltered Robert Bruce after the battle of Dalree, in Strathfillan; and on more than one occasion, in time of peril, it became a place of concealment for our hero.

As MacGregor approached his own house--a large and square two-storied mansion, the walls of which were rough-cast with white lime, and which, though thatched with heather, had an air of comfort and consequence in that locality,--a wild cry, that pierced the still air of the evening, made him pause and turn round with his right hand on the hilt of his dirk.

Alarmed by the protracted absence of the boy, Fairhaired Colin, his widowed mother had sought the glen where the foray had been. The last red gleam of the sunset had faded upward from the summit of Ben Lomond, and the dark woods and deep glens about its base were buried in all the obscurity of night, till the moon arose, and then the mountain-stream, and the pools amid the moss and heather, glittered in its silver sheen.

The cattle had disappeared as well as their young watchers, and the heart of the widow became filled with vague alarm.

Now a mournful cry came at times upon the wind of the valley, and made her blood curdle. Was it the voice of a spirit of the air, or of a water-cow, that had come down the stream from the loch? Again and again it fell upon her ear, till at last she recognized it to be the howling of her son's companion and favourite, the little otter terrier; and she rushed forward to discover the dog, which was concealed by some tufts of broom.

The sweet perfume of the bog-myrtle was filling the atmosphere as the dew fell on its leaves; and now, deep down in the glen, where the soil had never been stirred, where the heather grew thick and soft, and where the yellow broom shed "its tassels on the lea," the poor woman found her son, her only child, lying dead, and covered with blood.

His right hand still grasped his skene dhu, and near him lay the chanter, to the notes of which Oina had sung, and a black, ravenous glede soared away from the spot as she approached.

At first, his white and ghastly face, his fixed and glazed eyes, struck terror on the mother's soul, and she shrunk back--shrunk from the babe she had borne, the child she had nursed; then she cast herself in wild despair beside the body--in such despair as had never filled her heart since the Grahames of Montrose had hanged her husband, Ian Bane, on the old yew-tree of Kincardine, for the crime of being a--MacGregor.

Then endued by frenzy with superhuman strength, she snatched up the dead boy, and bore him in her arms, sending shriek after shriek before her, as she rushed through the glen and across the moorland, towards the clachan of Inversnaid.

It was her cry that Rob Roy heard, as he paused at his own threshold, and turning away, he hastened to meet her, just as she sank at the door of her cottage.

The whole population of the clachan was speedily alarmed, and the wailing of the women mingled with the deep-muttered vengeance of the men, as they began to arm, and looked to Rob Roy for orders and instructions.

Chapter IV.

The Holy Steel.

The inhabitants of the little hamlet were soon assembled in and around the hut of the widow of Ian Bane.

The latter had been a brave man, sacrificed in their feud with the Grahames, after the battle of Killycrankie, where he had served under Viscount Dundee. He was long remembered on the Braes of Balquhidder, as an expert swordsman, a hardy deer-stalker, and a careful drover of cattle for the English and Lowland markets, where he had wont to march after his herds, with his sword at his side, and a target slung on his back, as was then the custom of the Highlanders to go to fair and market.

A few lines will describe the residence of his widow.

It was a somewhat spacious hovel, built without mortar, of turf and stone, taken from the river's bed, or from the adjacent moorland. It had a little window on each side, and these were wont to be opened alternately, according to the part from which the wind blew, to give light and air, opened by simply taking out the _wisp_ of fern which was stuffed into the aperture in lieu of glass and shutters.

A fire of turf and bog-fir blazed on the centre of the clay floor; and here, in this poor dwelling, the widow lived, amid smoke sufficient to suffocate her (had she not been used to it from her infancy), together with her slaughtered boy, her Fairhaired Colin, and a brood of hens, whose roost was among the rafters; a cow, two large dogs, and a sheep or so in winter, though sheep were little cared for in the Highlands then.

A few deer hams, and quantities of fishing gear, hung from the rafters, amid which the smoke curled towards an old herring cask, that was inserted in the thatched roof to form a chimney.

Fresh fir-cones and bogwood were cast upon the fire by order of Rob Roy; and now the ruddy blaze lit up a wild and striking scene. Near the centre of the hut, on a rudely-formed deal table, lay the dead body of poor Colin Bane MacGregor, the golden hair from whence he took his sobriquet all matted with purple blood; but a white sheet was now spread over the mangled form, which lay stiff and at full length in rigid angularity, with a platter of salt upon its breast, and sprigs of rosemary strewed crosswise over it.

At the feet of the dead, on her knees, knelt the sorrowing mother, with her grizzled hair dishevelled, and her face buried in her tremulous fingers, through which the tears were streaming, as she rocked her body to and fro.

Fully armed, three Highlanders of formidable aspect and stately bearing stood at the head of the corpse. These were Rob Roy, Callam MacAleister (his foster-brother and henchman), with Greumoch MacGregor, one of his most active and resolute followers. Each leant upon a brass-mounted and long-barrelled Spanish musket.

Grouped round were a band of hardy and weather-beaten men, in rough Highland dresses of home-spun and home-dyed tartan, all hushed into silence, with their keen grey eyes bent darkly on the corpse, or on each other, and with their brows knit as their hearts glowed for vengeance on the unknown perpetrator of this outrage; for as yet no information could be gathered from the half-drowned Oina.

Outside the door were the women of the clachan with their heads muffled in plaids, kerchiefs, and curchies, wailing as only the Celts of Scotland and Ireland wail, in a weird, wild cadence, muttering vengeance too, and suggesting to each other who might be the author of this new item to the terrible catalogue of wrongs that had been perpetrated on the MacGregors since the battle of Glenfruin had been fought, about a hundred years before.

And all this was seen by the red light of the bogwood fire, in the wavering gleams of which, as they played upon the winding-sheet, the corpse seemed always as if about to start and arise.

"Ochon, ochon, ochrie!" wailed thu mother of Colin, as she swayed herself to and fro; "the drops of the blessed dew that God sends on earth are resting on the cold cheek of my fair son this night; and they are not more pure than he was; but I knew he was doomed never to see the leaves of autumn fall!"

"How?" asked several, bending forward to listen.

"He drew the black-lot, when the cake was broken in Greumoch's bonnet on Beltane eve."

"Never say so, widow," said MacGregor; "think only that the lad died as became his father's son, boldly defending his own; God rest him!"

Here all bowed their heads, and many made the sign of the cross.

"A slash with an axe has slain him," resumed Rob Roy; "a sword would never cut so deep; but the brave boy has defended himself, for his skene is yet grasped in his better hand, so let it go to the grave with him."

Mutterings of grim approval went through the group.

"To you, Red Rob, I look for vengeance--for vengeance on the murderers!" cried the mother wildly, as she stretched her hands towards the chieftain.

"And vengeance you shall have, Jean; by the faith of our fathers, you shall!" replied Rob Roy. "I have little doubt that the same hand which slew Fair Colin, cast Callam's daughter into the river; but time will show."

"We have the cattle to recover too," said several; "let us to the hills--to the hills! The creagh (spoil) cannot be far off yet."

"What! are the cattle carried off?" asked Rob, with a darkening frown.

"The cattle I bought at Fil-ina-chessaig--that blessed 21st of March, at the fair of Callender--ay, every hoof and horn," said Greumoch.

"Well, the blackest mail we ever levied will I lay on these caterans, and the reddest blood we have shed shall be theirs, Jean! But there are other wounds here," continued Rob, as he turned down the winding-sheet; "look at the poor child's hand: it has been _bitten_!"

"Bitten as if by a wolf!" screamed the mother, with growing horror.

"Nay, bitten by a man who has lost every alternate tooth in his lower jaw, and by that mark shall we know him!"

"Where? among the Buchanans or Cclquhouns?" demanded several, while the excitement grew apace.

"Among neither," exclaimed a harsh and croaking voice.

"Why--why?" asked the crowd.

"For 'tis Duncan nan Creagh who did this; Duncan Mhor, from Kintail na Bogh."

"Who spoke?" said Rob Roy, peering through the smoke which obscured the atmosphere of the hut.

"I, Phail Crubach," replied a decrepit old man, for whom all now made way, with a strangely mingled bearing of respect and aversion; for this visitor was supposed to have the double gift of prophecy and the second sight.

Phail Crubach, or lame Paul MacGregor, was the keeper of a Holy Well near the church of Balquhidder. He had been educated in youth at the Scottish College of Douay; but on becoming partly insane, he returned to his native place, and became the custodian of a spring which St. Fillan had blessed in the times of old. Near this well he lived in a hut, which was an object of terror to the peasantry, as it was almost entirely lined and patched with fragments of old coffins from the adjacent churchyard.

At the door of this strange dwelling (on which was a rusty coffin-plate as an ornament) he usually sat and watched the well and the narrow highway, ready to afford any wayfarer a draught from the spring, for which he received a small remuneration, either in coin or food--such as meal, cheese, butter, and a bit of venison, which any man might then have for the shooting thereof.

He was clad in a coat and breeches of deerskin; he was wasted in form, wan in visage, and had red hazel eyes, that glared brightly through the long masses of white hair that overhung his wrinkled forehead.

Supporting himself on a knotty stick, which had a cross on its upper end, he hobbled forward through the shrinking crowd.

"How know you, Paul, that Duncan Mhor MacRae, from Kintail-of-the-cows, did this?" asked Rob Hoy.

"Even by the words you have spoken, had I not better evidence," replied the strange old man.

"Explain yourself, Paul; we have no time for trifling now," said Rob, softly.

"Duncan nan Creagh lost each alternate tooth in his lower jaw when fighting with Colin's father, at the fair of Callender, in the year that the field of Rin Ruari was stricken. They came to dirk and claymore about the price of a Clydesdale cow, and Ian Bane smote Duncan on the mouth with the hilt of his sword, and forced him to swallow a mouthful of his own teeth; and a bitter mouthful he found them."

"Dioul! well?"

"Since then he has been well-nigh a toothless man; but if you would overtake the creagh, lose no time, for I saw the spoil and the spoilers not two hours since."

"You saw them?" exclaimed all, bending forward.

"Yes, I," said Paul, brandishing his pilgrim-staff; "and not quite two hours ago."

"Where?" asked Red MacGregor.

"Crossing the Dochart, and taking the road towards Glenfalloch."

"Which--the military road?"

"No; Duncan nan Creagh knows better than to do that," said Paul, shaking his white locks; "they took the old Fingalian drove-road, right across the mountains towards the north-west."

"'Tis well, kinsman," said Rob Roy, sternly and gravely; "now, men of Clan Alpine, swear with me on the bare dirk, by the soul of Ciar Mhor, to revenge the murder of this boy, our kinsman's son, and then away to the hills--even the hills of Kintail, if need be!"

On this being said, every man unsheathed the long Highland dirk which hung at his right side, and passed round the dead body by the course of the sun, from east to west; for it was the custom in the Highlands to approach the grave thus, prior to laying the dead within it; thus to conduct the bride to the altar and to her home: it is a remnant of fire-worship, and, singularly enough, the wine-decanters and the whisky-bottle are to this hour sent round the dinner-table in Scotland, _deisalways_, from left to right, the last remnant of a superstition that is old as the days of the Druids.

Then Rob Roy, MacAleister, Greumoch, even old Paul Crubach, and every man present, laid his left hand on the cold head of the fair-haired Colin, and holding his bare dirk aloft, with outstretched arm, swore solemnly, by the souls of their fathers who slept on Inchcailloch, by their own souls, and by the memory of every wrong endured by the Clan of MacGregor since the field of Glenfruin was won by their swords, never to seek rest or repose, altar or shelter, till they had tracked out the spoilers, and avenged to the utmost the murder of the widow's only son.

Then each man pressed the bare blade to his lips, and this--the most solemn oath of the Scottish Highlanders--was named swearing on _the Holy Steel_; and he who broke that terrible vow, or wilfully failed in the task to which he had dedicated body and soul, was liable to be slain, even by his nearest kinsman, as a mansworn coward. The usual length of these Highland dirks is about sixteen inches in the blade; so that a stab may be given three inches _beyond_ the elbow, and their hilts are always covered with twisted knot-work, perhaps the last remnant of serpent-worship in Europe.

"Now be it dirk and claymore!" exclaimed Rob Roy. "Do men still think to outrage us because we are a broken and a landless clan? If so, we shall teach them who outlawed the race of Alpine, that if it is lawful to kill a MacGregor, it is also lawful to slay a MacRae, or a Colquhoun, like a faulty hound; so let us to the hills at once, and track the creagh! Meet me at the door of my own house in ten minutes, every man who holds dear the cry for vengeance on our enemies."

"We cannot overtake them to-night," said Greumoch; "for the Colquhouns of Luss have sunk the ferry-boat, or stolen it to Rossdhu; so let us cross the Loch-hean to-morrow."

"Dioul! this counsel is not like yours, Greumoch,"

"By dawn the ford of the Dochart will be passable," replied the clansman.

"To-night; I say to-night!" exclaimed Rob, passionately.

"To-night!" reiterated all present, brandishing their swords; "to-night be it, or never!"

"We will take the ford as we find it," said Callam MacAleister; "if they passed it, so may _we_."

"Never let us put off till to-morrow that which we can do or begin to do to-day," said Rob Roy. "_Yesterday_ passes into eternity fast enough; and, Greumoch, it is a bitter reflection to a man, that yesterday was a _lost_ day--a day that never can be overtaken. All men's hands are against us; but I have sworn, by the Grey Stone of MacGregor, that vengeance shall yet be ours!"

"_Ard choille_, and away!" shouted Greumoch, waving his bonnet, yielding to the general impulse.

Within a few minutes he, with MacAleister, Alaster Roy MacGregor, and sixteen other picked men of the hamlet, mustered at the door of Rob Roy's mansion. Each had on his belted plaid, which means the kilt, with the loose end of the web fastened by a brooch to the left shoulder as a mantle. Each had slung on his back a round target of bull's hide, stretched over fir-boards, and thickly studded with brass knobs; and each was fully armed, with a basket-hilted sword, a long dirk, and claw-butted pistols. Their bullets were carried in pouches, and their powder in horns, slung under the right arm.

The bright moon that lit up the little street of the Highland hamlet, glittered on their weapons, and shone on their weather-beaten faces, which expressed dark anger, eagerness, and determination to overtake the perpetrators of the late outrage.

They spoke little, but, after the manner of their countrymen, hummed or whistled in a surly fashion, the sure precursor of a squabble among Highlanders; and busied themselves with the flints and priming of their pistols, or the thongs which tied their cuarans or home-made shoes, the sole and upper of which are in one piece, and worn like the Roman sandal. Armed like the rest, the Red MacGregor soon came forth, and was greeted by a murmur of applause. "Good wife--Helen," he exclaimed, "it is ill marching with a fasting stomach; bring forth cakes and the kebboc, with a dram of usquebaugh; for the lads must have their deoch an doruis ere we start."

With a short plaid folded over her head and shoulders, his wife, a young and pretty woman, appeared at the door, accompanied by two female servants, having oat-cakes, cheese, a bottle, glasses, and quaichs (_i.e._, little wooden cups) on an oval mahogany teaboard.

Doffing his bonnet to the black-eyed Dame of Inversnaid, each man took a dram of whisky and a morsel of bread and cheese; more as a ceremony, it seemed, than because it was necessary.

Little Coll MacGregor, then Rob's only child, was held up for his father to kiss. "Now, fare-ye-well, Bird Helen," said he; "ere we return, I will have laid the wolf's head on the heather;" and with his followers, he left the hamlet at a quick pace.

The wife of Rob Roy looked after them for a moment, as their tartans waved, and their bright arms flashed in the moonlight; then her eye glanced down the glen, where the burn wound in silver sheen towards Loch Lomond, and with a single pious hope for her husband's safety, she quietly shut the door, which was well secured by triple locks and bars of iron, and which had, moreover, two loopholes on each side, to fire muskets through. When not required for defence, these apertures were closed within, by a plug of wood. To her, the daughter of a proscribed race, the wife of a levier of black-mail, reared as she had been in the land of swordsmen, among fierce and predatory clans, the departure of her husband on such a mission was not a matter for much anxiety, and yet this pursuit of the MacRaes was the first important exploit of Rob Roy which appears in history.

Chapter V.

The Red Macgregor.

"History," says a noble author, "is a romance which is believed; romance, a history which is _not_ believed." Hence so much that is fabulous surrounds the name of Rob Roy, that, like Macbeth, his real history and character become almost lost; but I shall endeavour to tell the reader who and what he actually was. Rob Roy MacGregor, otherwise compelled by law (for reasons which shall be given elsewhere) to call himself _Campbell_, was in his twenty-fifth year at the time our story opens.

He was the second son of Lieutenant-Colonel Donald MacGregor, of Glengyle, in Perthshire, who commanded a regiment of infantry in the Scottish army of King James II. of England and VII. of Scotland. His mother was a daughter of Campbell of Glenfalloch, a powerful Highland chieftain, nearly related to the House of Breadalbane; consequently his birth was neither obscure nor ignoble. His elder brother was named John, and he had two sisters. His patrimony was the small estate of Inversnaid, near the head of Loch Lomond, and, through his mother, he had a right to a wild territory of rock and forest, named Craig-Royston, on the eastern shore of that beautiful loch, under the shadow of vast mountains; but, in virtue of the arbitrary Act of the Scottish Parliament, which abolished the name of MacGregor, he was always designated, in legal documents, Robert Campbell, of Inversnaid.

After the bloody clan-battle of Glenfruin, which led to the proscription of the whole of his surname, "few of the MacGregors were permitted to die a natural death," says the historian of the clan.* "As an inducement to murder, a reward was given for every head of a MacGregor that was conveyed to Edinburgh, and presented to the Council; and those who died a natural death were interred by their friends, quietly and expeditiously, as even the receptacles of the dead were not held sacred. When the grave of a MacGregor was discovered, it was common for the villains employed in this trade of slaughter, to dig him up, and mutilate the remains, by cutting off the head, to be sold to the Government, which seemed to delight in such traffic."

* Dr. MacLeay.

The historian proceeds to narrate that the chief purveyor of such goods was a certain petty Laird of Glenlochy, named Duncan Campbell, but more usually known as Duncan _nan Cean_--_i.e._, "of the heads."

It chanced one night that Lieutenant-Colonel MacGregor (the father of Rob Roy), accompanied by three soldiers of his surname, was passing near the ruins of the old castle of Cardross (wherein Robert Bruce breathed his last, and which were then visible, a little to the westward of the Leven, in Dumbartonshire), when, in a narrow pathway, they met a man leading a horse, on each side of which a pannier was swung.

The path was rough, as well as narrow, and on meeting four armed men suddenly in the dark, the man shrunk from the bridle of his horse, which reared, and caused the contents of the panniers to make a strange noise among the straw in which they were packed.

"Be not alarmed, good fellow," said Glengyle; "we are not thieves, but soldiers in the King's service. What have you in the panniers?"

The man hesitated, and endeavoured to pass on.

"Speak!" said the Colonel, whose suspicions became aroused; "is it plunder?"

"Heaven forbid--I am an elder of the kirk, sir."

"What then?"

"Heads for the Lords of Council at Edinburgh," replied the stranger, gathering courage.

"Heads of whom?"

"The King's enemies."

"Mean you gipsies, or westland Whigs?"

"Nay; of the clan Gregor."

"He is Duncan nan Cean! He is Duncan of the Heads!" exclaimed Glengyle, with ferocious joy, as he drew his sword. "Villain, I have sought thee long, and now _thy_ head shall keep them company!" and, by a single stroke, he, in an instant, decapitated him. The panniers were examined by his followers, who, with rage and horror, found therein several ghastly heads, packed in straw. These they immediately buried in a secret place, and resumed their way before dawn.

Rob Roy's father received the tribute called black-mail, for protecting, in arms, all who were unwilling or unable to protect themselves. This tribute was, in every sense, a legal tax, which the justices of the peace, in the counties along the Highland border, enforced upon the heritors and householders. We know not when the Laird of Glengyle died; but, on one occasion, he led three hundred of his clan against the Macphersons, who had given offence to his friend, the Earl of Moray, and, in marching through the forest of Gaich, he slew the deer, and the forester of Cluny, who had resented their passage.

Red Robert, his second son, was about the middle height, but had a frame possessed of vast strength and great powers of endurance and activity. His shoulders were broad, his chest ample, and his arms were so long that it was commonly said he could garter his hose, below the knee, without stooping. This, no doubt, is exaggeration; but he possessed

A wondrous length and strength of arm,

which gave him great advantage in combats with the broadsword. Of these he is said to have fought no less than _twenty-two_.

Even in boyhood he excelled in the use of the claymore and all other weapons; for this he was, no doubt, indebted to the tutelage of his father, old Donald of Glengyle, who had handled his sword in the wars of the Covenanters and Cavaliers.

No man was ever known to _wrench_ anything from Rob's hands; and so great was his muscular power that he would twist a horse's shoe, and drive his dirk, to the hilt, through a two-inch deal board; and on more than one occasion he has seized a mountain stag by the antlers, and held it fast, as if it had been a little kid. He never, save once, refused a challenge. This was when a peasant, named Donald Bane, drew a sword upon him.

"Beware, fellow," said Rob; "I never fight a duel but with a gentleman."

His character was open and generous, and it was ever his proudest boast that "he had never been known to turn his back _either on a friend or a foe!_"

His lands were frequently wasted, and his cattle carried off, by bands of caterans from the mountains of Ross-shire and Sutherland; hence, for his own protection, he was compelled to maintain a party of well-armed and resolute followers, who, like himself, acquired great experience in war, with habits of daring.

With an open and manly countenance, his features, in youth, are said to have been pleasing and cheerful in expression; but, by the course of life upon which unjust laws and adverse fortune hurried him, they gradually acquired that grave, and even morose, aspect, which we find depicted in the portrait of him possessed by Buchanan of Arden; the brows are knit, the eyes stern, and the firm lips compressed. He has a moustache, well twisted up, and a short curly beard, neither of which were then worn in England, or the Scottish Lowlands. He wears a round, blue bonnet, with a black cockade, and has his weather-beaten neck without collar or cravat.*

* Two other portraits of Rob Roy are in existence. One belongs to the Antiquarian Museum at Edinburgh; the other to the Duke of Argyle, and it had a narrow escape from the fire which consumed the castle of Roseneath in 1802.

His hair, from the colour of which he obtained his sobriquet of Roy (a corruption of _ruadh_, or red), was of a dark, ruddy hue, with short frizzly locks, which he wore without powder--a foolish fashion that was seldom found among the Highlanders, who usually tied their hair in a club behind. The circumstance that MacGregor was named _Red_ Robert, to distinguish him from others, is sufficient to show how false is the popular error which bestows hair of that colour upon every Highlander.

"In his conflicts," says Sir Walter Scott, in the introduction to the novel which bears our hero's name, "Rob Roy avoided every appearance of cruelty; and it is not averred that he was ever the means of unnecessary bloodshed, or the actor of any deed that could lead the way to it. Like Robin Hood of England, he was a _kind and gentle_ robber, and, while he took from the rich, was liberal in relieving the poor. This might be policy; but the universal tradition of the country speaks of it to have arisen from a better motive. All whom I have conversed with--and in my youth I have seen some who knew Rob Roy personally--gave him the character of _a humane and benevolent man_."

As yet, however, he was neither a robber nor an outlaw; but simply a Highland country gentleman, a chieftain of a broken clan, living under the protection of his mother's name and kindred; farming his little estate of Inversnaid; dealing in cattle, then the chief wealth of our northern mountains; and, being of a warlike disposition, occupying himself as the collector of black-mail--the local tax then paid by proprietors, whose estates lay south of the Highland frontier, to certain warlike chiefs and chieftains, northward of that line, for the armed protection of their lands and goods from the irruption of such caterans as those MacRaes, who had stolen the cattle from Inversnaid, and of whom we left Rob and his men in hot pursuit.

And it was the collection of this duty, _black-mail_, which, in 1729, ultimately led to the embodiment of the Black Watch, or 42nd Highland Regiment; and it was continued to be levied by certain chieftains so lately as the middle of the _last_ century--certainly until 1743. At the time we have introduced him to our readers Rob had been married for some time, to a daughter of MacGregor, the Laird of Comar.

Far from being the fighting amazon and fierce virago whom Sir Walter Scott has portrayed, Helen Mary, the goodwife of Inversnaid, was a kind, gentle, and motherly woman, who never flourished abroad with breast-plate, bonnet, and broadsword, as we see her on the stage, when opposing the bayonets of the redcoats; but who attended to her frugal household, her spinning, baking, and brewing; and who wore the simple kerchief and _tonnac_, or short plaid, which, until the close of the last century, formed the usual female costume in the Highlands; and never, save once, and then on a trifling occasion, did she act a stern and resolute part, in an episode to be narrated in its place.

The reader must bear in mind that Rob Roy was not a chief at the head of a clan, but merely the second son of a chieftain (the _second_ rank) at the head of a branch of the Clan Alpine, called the line of Dugald Ciar Mhor (or Dugald with the mouse-coloured hair), and the men of this branch adhered to him, as being his immediate kinsmen and tenants.

Deeply in the heart of Rob Roy MacGregor rankled the story of the wrongs and oppression to which his clan had been subjected by the Scottish Government--wrongs which, after the accession of William III., were rather increased than diminished; and thus he burned for an opportunity of avenging them at the point of his sword, on their chief enemies, the Grahames of Montrose, the Colquhouns of Luss, and others; and ere long an ample opportunity came. But meanwhile let us return from this necessary digression, lest Duncan of the Forays escape with his spoil.

Chapter VI.

The Pursuit.

The inroads of the Highlanders were generally made upon the Lowlanders, whom they still view as intruders and aliens; but since the proscription of the MacGregors, every man might outrage _them_, under protection of law, and "lift" their cattle, if he could do so; and a knowledge of this increased the wrath and resentment of Rob Roy and his followers as they hastened after the MacRaes; though why people of _that_ name, whose home was in Kintail, should have come so far to molest the MacGregors, no one can explain. In the bright moonlight the pursuers soon reached the place from which the creagh or spoil had been taken, the same where this history opened, and where the widow's son had been so cruelly slain.

There the MacGregor's sleuth-hound paused and howled, where Colin's bonnet and the chanter, with which he had accompanied Oina's song, lay on the heather, and again he uttered a low prolonged howl on snuffing the odour that came from a patch of heath, the darkness of which might make one shudder.

It was the crusted blood of the poor boy's death-wound which still lay there. "Callam, lead the dog across the stream," said Rob; "he must find the scent on the other side; let him but once snuff their footmarks, and then woe to the MacRaes!"

MacAleister, the henchman, dragged the fierce dog, by its leash, across the stream. It was a bloodhound of the oldest and purest breed, being all of a deep tan colour with black spots, about two feet four inches high, with strong limbs, a wide chest, broad savage muzzle, and pendulous upper lip.

Crossing the stream hand in hand, with their pistols in their teeth, to keep the flints and priming dry, the MacGregors reached the opposite bank, while the dog ran to and fro, till he suddenly uttered a growl. He had found a man's bonnet.

"Paul Crubach was right--here is the badge of Seaforth!" said Greumoch MacGregor, tearing a tuft of deer's-grass from the bonnet, and trampling upon it with vindictive hate.

"And there are the cattle-marks," added Rob Roy, who had been scrutinizing the grass and heath by the light of the moon; "cast loose the dog, Callam--the caterans can have gone up the glen but a little way yet."

The henchman let slip the leash, and the hound, without hesitation, placed his nose near the grass, and, uttering from time to time low growls of satisfaction, proceeded up the glen at a trot, which gave Rob and his armed companions, active though they were, some trouble to keep pace with him.

All traces of habitation were soon left behind, as the pursuers and their questing bloodhound penetrated among the dusky mountains, entering on a wild and silent region of sterile magnificence, above which towered the double cone of Ben More.

On they went, through the lengthened expanse of a glen that lay between two chains of barren hills, at the base of which a river, rushing among fragments of detached rock, foaming over precipices and plunging into deep dark pools, swept onward to mingle its waters with the Dochart. The dog went forward unerringly.

The hoof-marks of the hastily-driven cattle were occasionally seen among the ferns, the crushed leaves, the bruised stems and twigs of the wild bushes; but for a time these traces were lost when they entered on a great expanse of deep soft heather, broken only here and there by a pool of boggy water, which shone whitely in the light of the waning moon: it was a tract of vast extent, and all of a dun, dark hue.

Afar off, in the distance, rose the hills of Glenorchy; and now, being somewhat wearied by the long and arduous pursuit, Rob Roy and his men sat down beside one of those great grey stones which stud the Scottish hills and moorlands, marking either the site of a Druid's altar, an old battlefield, or a forgotten warrior's grave. On consulting his watch, Rob found the hour was midnight, and that they had travelled about twenty miles, over a road of unparalleled difficulty.

A dram from Greumoch's hunting-bottle revived them a little, and then MacAleister led the bloodhound in a circuit round the stone to find the scent again. These great tracts of heather are frequently to be met with in Scotland, and concerning them a singular tradition lingers in the Highlands.

It is said that the Pictish race were celebrated for brewing a pleasant beverage from the heather blossom, and that they usually cultivated great tracts of level muir for this purpose, carefully freeing them of stones.

On the extinction of their monarchy, and the fabled extirpation of the whole race by Kenneth II., King of the Scots, after the battle of the Tay, two Picts became his prisoners, a father and his son, who alone knew the _secret_ of manufacturing this beverage.

Urged by promises of liberal reward, continues the tradition, the father consented to reveal it, on condition that first they slew his son, whom a Scottish warrior thereupon shot through the heart with an arrow.

"Now," said the stern Pict, "do your worst; for never will I be prevailed upon to disclose a secret known to myself alone."

A second arrow whistled through his heart, and the secret perished with him.

It was on one of these moorland spots that the MacGregors halted. The eye could detect no living object in the distance, and the wind brought no sound to the ear, as by the great grey stone in the wilderness Rob and his men sat listening intently, and frequently with their ears close to the ground, conversing the while in their native Gaelic, which, though strange in sound and barbarous to English ears, is, like the Welsh, a strong, nervous, and poetical language, expressing the emotions of the human heart almost better than any other in Europe. His followers were beginning to lose heart; and fears that Colin's death might be unavenged and the cattle lost were freely expressed.

"Remember the oath we have sworn, and neither will come to pass," said Rob, with stern confidence. "By the soul of Ciar Mhor, and by all the bones that lie in the Island of the Cell, our swords shall cross theirs before another sunset, or my name is not MacGregor!"

"Four of the cattle are brown beasties of my own," observed Greumoch; "and if they should be lost, and Breadalbane does not see me righted, by St. Colme, I'll bring off the Spanish ram and the eight score of black-faced Galloways that are now in his park at Beallach, though every Campbell in Glenorchy puts his sword to the grindstone for it!"

"And I will back you, Greumoch, though Breadalbane is my own kinsman," said Rob Roy.

"We are Campbells by day, oich! oich!" said Greumoch, in a tone of singularly bitter irony, which drew muttered oaths from his companions; "but by night----"

"We are MacGregors like our fathers, and again the sons of Alpine!" said Rob, starting to his feet. "'S Rioghal mo dhream! Forward, lads! MacAleister shouts to us--the bloodhound has again got the scent."

The chieftain was right--the noble dog had discovered the trail; and once more the pursuit was resumed in a direction due north-west. As day broke, the distant hill-tops became yellow, and the wild moor gradually lightened around them. Rob and his followers had just doffed their bonnets, in reverence to the rising sun--a superstitious act, old as the days of Baal and the Druids--when a fox suddenly crossed their path.

"Shoot, MacAleister, shoot!" exclaimed a dozen voices in an excited manner, for the son of the arrow-maker was the best marksman on the shores of Loch Lomond.

"But the creagh--the caterans!" he urged, while unslinging his long Spanish gun.

"They cannot hear the shot, and, even if they did, the fox must not escape."

MacAleister took aim and fired. Then a cheer of satisfaction burst from the MacGregors, as the fox rolled over, feet uppermost, dead, about two hundred yards off; and the pursuit was resumed with fresh alacrity, as it was then a common Celtic belief, that to meet an armed man, when proceeding on a hostile expedition, portended success; but to have your path crossed by a four-footed animal without killing it, or by a woman without drawing blood from her forehead, ensured defeat and flight.

Roused by the report of the musket from their lair among the green feathery bracken, more than one red roebuck started up and fled towards the desert of Rannoch, on the skirts of which the MacGregors were now entering; and closely following the footsteps of the hound, they drew near the hills that bordered the vast sea of bog and heather.

"Halt!" cried Rob Roy; "do you see that?--it is another omen."

As he spoke, a black carnivorous raven daringly soused down upon a poor little lamb that was cropping a patch of grass near its dam, and, in a second, picked out his eyes. As the lamb bleated loudly, the mountain bird next seized and tore its tongue, but a shot from MacGregor's steel pistol killed them both.

"It foretells good fortune," said he, "and that we shall soon pounce on the MacRaes, even as the raven pounced on the lamb."

Greumoch proposed that they should light a fire of dry heather-root and broil a collop from the dead lamb; but Rob Roy, as he re-loaded and primed his pistol, now detected a faint column of blue smoke that rose at the edge of the moor; and, after breakfasting on a little meal and water, he ordered all to advance, but cautiously, towards it.

"We shall have our collop after we have punished the caterans, Greumoch," said he, good-naturedly. "You remember what the Earl of Mar said after the battle of Inverlochy, when supping cold crowdy out of his own cuaran with the blade of his dagger?"

"'That hunger is ever the best cook.'"

"Yes; so now, lads, forward again; and remember the widow's son."

The appearance of some cattle grazing near the smoke made the unwearied pursuers certain that those they sought were not far off; but, after drawing stealthily nearer, they discovered that the fire was lighted to cook the food of a family of gipsies, or itinerant tinkers, who were about to take to flight on seeing Rob and his armed band approach. On the former calling aloud that they came thither as friends, the eldest of the wanderers turned to hear what their visitors required of them.

MacGregor inquired if they had seen anything of the spoilers.

"They passed us towards the hills, with twenty head of cattle, only two hours ago," replied the gipsy, "and, by the smoke that is now rising from yonder corrie, I am assured that there they have made a halt."

"Good!" said MacGregor, with grim satisfaction. "What is your name, friend?"

"Andrew Gemmil."

"You are a Southland man?"

"Yes," replied the wanderer, doffing his bonnet with reverence, for the aspect and bearing of Roll Roy awed and oppressed him.

"From whence?"

"Moffat-dale. I will show you a track in the hills that will lead you to the corrie unseen."

Rob promised the old gipsy two Scottish crowns, and two silver buttons from his coat, if this service were done. Dividing his band into two, he led one party straight up the face of the hill, on their hands and knees; the other, under Greumoch, guided by Gemmil, the gipsy, made a detour, for the purpose of entering the corrie or deep ravine on another point, and thus cutting off the retreat of the marauders.

Chapter VII.

Hand To Hand.

The autumn morning stole in loveliness over the purple heather of the vast moor of Rannoch; the blue hills of Glenorchy, that rose in the distance, were brightened by the rising sun, and their grey mists were floating away on the skirt of the hollow wind.

The dark fir woods which then shrouded the base of that great spiral cone, the Black Mountain, tossed their branches in the breeze that swept through Glencoe--the Celtic "Vale of Tears"--Dutch William's Vale of _Blood_! A blue stream poured down the mountain-side, past an old grey-lettered stone, whose carvings told of the deeds of other times. Many are these battle-stones over all the Highland hills, for--in foreign or domestic strife--every foot of the soil has been soaked in the blood of brave men.

Creeping on their hands and bare knees, like stalkers stealing on a herd of deer, Rob and his men advanced up the mountain slope, dragging their swords and Spanish guns after them.

The gipsy who acted as their guide was in front. Thus they continued to ascend for three hundred yards, and soon the sound of voices and of laughter was heard. Then came the unmistakeable odour of broiled meat, and in a few minutes Rob Roy, on peering over a ledge of rock, that was fringed by the red heather, could perceive the party they were in search of and their spoil.

Seated round a large fire of dry bog-roots, on the embers of which they were broiling a road-collop as it was named, were the twenty caterans, conversing merrily, making rough jests on the MacGregors, and passing their leathern flasks (containing usquebaugh, no doubt) from hand to hand, in a spirit of right good fellowship. All wore the green MacRae tartan, and conspicuous among them was Duncan nan Creagh; near whom lay his long pole-axe and brass-studded shield, on which was painted a hand holding a sword, the crest of his surname,--for this unscrupulous marauder was not without pretensions to gentle blood.

His ferocious aspect was greatly enhanced by his large and irregular teeth, which were visible when he laughed.

"I was right," said Rob in a whisper to his henchman, who always stuck close to him as his shadow; "'twas his fangs that left a death-mark in the flesh of Colin Bane, the widow's son."

MacAleister levelled the barrel of his long gun through the heather full at Duncan's head.

"Hold," said MacGregor, half laughing and half angry; "I shall meet Duncan in open fight; but take your will of the rest, thou son of the arrow-maker!"

The deep corrie or hollow wherein the caterans lurked was shaped like a basin or crater, but was open at one end. At the other, or inner end, were all the cattle; so Rob's plans were soon taken. He knew that the conflict would be a severe one, for the men of this tribe were so fierce and tumultuary that they were, as we have stated, named the _Wild MacRaes_; but the clan almost disappeared from the West Highlands, when, a few years after, 600 of them enlisted in the Seaforth Fencibles, or old 78th Regiment.

Greumoch, with the rest of his party, now appeared creeping softly along the other side of the opening, where they set up the shout of _Ard Choille!_ This is the war-cry of Clan Alpine, and a volley from five or six muskets formed the sequel to it, and speedily altered the aspect of the carousing party; for the whole MacGregors rushed on them in front and flank, with swords drawn, and heads stooped behind their targets.

With a thousand reverberations the jagged rocks gave back the sharp report of the muskets and pistols. A yell rose from the hollow, and in a moment the MacRaes, three of whom were bleeding from bullet-wounds, were up and ready with sword, dirk, and target. Hand to hand they all met in close and deadly strife, the long claymores whirling, flashing, and ringing on each other, or striking sparks of fire from the long pike with which the centre of every target was armed.

Swaying his pole-axe, the gigantic Duncan nan Creagh kept the sloping side of the corrie against all who came near him, hurling every assailant down by the ponderous blows he dealt on their shields, till Rob Roy hewed a passage towards him, just as MacAleister, by a fortunate shot from his gun, broke the shaft of the cateran's axe, on which he cast away the fragment and drew his sword. While he and Rob eyed each other for a minute, each doubtful where to strike or where to thrust, so admirably were both skilled in the use of their sword and shield, the strong cateran, who was a head taller than his muscular assailant, laughed grimly, and said,--"We have drawn the first blood in this feud, Robert Campbell: so it is vain to attack us."

"Coward! the first blood was drawn from the heart of a poor boy," replied Rob; sternly; "and remember that, though I may be Campbell at the cross of Glasgow, or at the fair of Callender--yea, or at the gallows of Crieff, if it came to that--HERE, upon the free hillside, I am no Campbell, but a MacGregor, as my father was before me, thou dog and son of a dog!"

Again the tall robber laughed loudly, and said with pride, as he parried a thrust,--"Beware, Red MacGregor--I am a MacRae!"

"And wherefore should I beware of that?" asked Rob, delivering another thrust which the cateran received by a circular parry, that made both their arms tingle to the shoulder-blade.

"It was said of the first of our name--_Bhai Mac-ragh-aigh_--that he was the son of Good Fortune, and his spirit is with us to-day."

"We shall soon see whether it is so, though I believe that his spirit is in a warmer place than the Braes of Rannoch," retorted Rob, pressing vigorously up the rough stony side of the corrie, his great length of arm giving him, when thrusting, a superiority over his antagonist, whose blade he met constantly by his target and claymore, so that he seemed invulnerable.

A wound in the sword-arm now deprived MacGregor of all patience. He flung his target full at his enemy's head, and grasping with both hands his claymore--the same claymore with which his father, the Colonel, slew Duncan of the Heads--he showered blow after blow upon MacRae, whose target soon fell in fragments from his wearied arm; and the moment that protection was gone, Rob closed in, and thrust his sword through and through him!

Writhing his huge frame convulsively forward on the blade, MacRae made a terrible effort to get the victor within reach of the dirk that was chained to his left hand, but suddenly uttering a shriek which ended in a heavy sob, he sank down, to all appearance lifeless, with the blood gushing from his lips and nostrils.

This put an end to the fray, for all his followers fled down the hill-side, pursued by the MacGregors--all save one, a man of powerful form and ferocious aspect, who was naked to the waist, and had his kilt girdled round him by a belt of untanned bullhide.

This Celtic savage, whose name was Aulay MacAulay, flung himself upon MacAleister, who had stumbled and fallen. Seizing the henchman by the throat with his teeth, he grasped Greumoch MacGregor by the right foot, and with a fragment of his sword, which had been broken, endeavoured to despatch them both.

MacAleister strove vainly to release himself, and Greumoch struck MacAulay again and again on the head with his steel pistol clubbed; but finding that he might as well have hammered on a log of wood, he snatched a pistol from the belt of one who lay dead close by, and shot the marauder through the lower part of the head. He yelled and rolled away, biting the heather, and wallowing in blood; and from this wild man of the mountains--for, in truth, MacAulay was nothing better--that great literary foe of the Celtic race, the brilliant historian of England, was lineally descended.

Six of the MacRaes were left slain in or near the corrie, and several of those who escaped were severely wounded.

Alaster Roy and three other MacGregors were wounded, and one was killed by a musket shot. The cut on Rob's arm was deep, and, for a time, required all the medical skill of Helen to heal it.

It was thus that he avenged the foray of the MacRaes, and recovered the cattle, which he restored to their proper owners, who were poor cotters, to whom the loss would have been a severe one. All the weapons, ornaments, and spoil of the vanquished he gave to the widow whose son had been slain. On the coat of one they found a complete set of silver buttons, as large as pistol shot. Such buttons were frequently worn, even by the poorer classes, in the Highlands in those days, and came by inheritance through many generations. They were meant to serve as ornaments when living, and as the means of providing a decent funeral, if the owner fell in battle, or died far from the home of his kindred.

Rob Roy received considerable praise for this exploit, the scene of which was long marked by a cairn, and Mr. Stirling, of Carden, and many other gentlemen, whose estates lay near the Highland frontier, and who had been neglecting to pay their black-mail, now sent the tax in all haste to Inversnaid.

It was usually said of Rob that his sword was like the sword of Fingal, which was never required to give a _second blow_; but Duncan nan Creagh was not slain, for such men were hard to kill. He was borne away by his followers, who returned on the departure of the MacGregors, and bound up his wounds; so Duncan lived to fight at the battles of Sheriffmuir and Glenshiel.

Chapter VIII.

The Battle Of Glenfruin.

The preceding chapter will sufficiently have indicated that the clan of MacGregor was in a state of hostility with nearly all their neighbours, and that it proved a source of disquiet to Government.

We will now proceed to relate how this state of matters came to pass, and an explanation is the more necessary as it will serve to show the _secret spring_ of many of Rob Roy's hostile actions,--why he took up arms against the Government, and how, from being a gentleman farmer and levier of black-mail, he gradually became a rebel, an outlaw, and yet a patriot, with a price set upon his head. The clan and surname of MacGregor are descended from Alpine MacAchai, who was crowned King of Scotland in 787, hence their motto, "_'S Rioghal mo dhream_,"--"My race is royal!" They are named the Clan Alpine, and from their antiquity comes the old Scottish proverb:--

The woods, the waters and Clan Alpine, Are the oldest things in Albyn.

Long before charters or parchments were known in the North, their possessions were great; for they held lands in Glendochart, Strathfillan, Glenorchy, Balquhidder, Breadalbane, and Rannoch, and, until 1490, Taymouth, too, was theirs. They had four strong castles: Kilchurn, which crowns an insular rock in Loch Awe, Finlarig, and Ballach, at the east end of Loch Tay; an old fortress on an isle in Loch Dochart, and many minor towers.

But when the kings of Scotland sought to introduce into the Highlands the same feudal system which existed in England, and in their Lowland territories, and endeavoured to subvert the Celtic or patriarchal law by substituting Crown charters, which made chiefs into barons, who, in their single person, thus became lords of all the land in which their clan had previously a _joint_ right and share,--a right old as the days of the first settlers on British soil,--a bloody strife ensued between those who accepted such charters and those who refused and despised them.

Feuds and local wars began, and all who resisted the King were termed broken clans, and to be thus stigmatized was tantamount to a denunciation of outlawry. By their sturdy adherence to the system of their forefathers, the Clan Alpine soon became eminently obnoxious to James VI., the meanest monarch that ever occupied a European throne; the more so, that in 1602, a long and bitter quarrel between them and the Colquhouns of Luss (who had murdered two wandering MacGregors) came to a terrible issue in a place called Glenfruin. Its name signifies the Glen of Sorrow, and it is a deep vale intersected by the Fruin, and overlooked by ridges of dark heathy mountains, that are more than eighteen hundred feet in height.

Here, then, on the 9th of February Sir Humphry Colquhoun, of Luss, at the head of a great force of horse and foot, composed of his own clan, the Grahames, and the burghers of Dumbarton, under Tobias Smollet, their provost,--met Alaster Roy MacGregor of Glenstrae, who had only four hundred swordsmen; but his superior bravery and skill soon decided the disastrous conflict.

Glenstrae divided his little force into two parties. Reserving two hundred to himself, he gave two hundred to his brother Ian MacGregor, with orders to make a long circuit, and attack Luss in the rear.

This manoeuvre was most successfully executed, and a dreadful hand-to-hand conflict ensued in the narrow vale. The Clan Gregor cast aside their shields, and plying their sharp claymores, with both hands clenched in the iron hilts, assailed both horse and foot in front and rear, threw them into confusion, and swept them in rout and dismay down Glenfruin towards Loch Lomond.

Two hundred Buchanans and Colquhouns were slain on the field, and though many of the Clan Alpine were wounded in their furious charge, it is remarkable that only Ian MacGregor and another of the clan were slain.

They lie buried on the field, under a large block, which is named "The Grey Stone of MacGregor."

A little rivulet near it is still named "the stream of ghosts;" for there Fletcher of Cameron, a follower of the Clan Alpine, is said to have slaughtered a number of clerical scholars, who had come from Dumbarton to see the battle; and it is still believed that if a MacGregor crosses it after sunset he will be scared by dreadful spectres. Yet, to preserve these boys from bullets and arrows in the hour of battle, it is alleged that Alaster of Glenstrae humanely enclosed them in a little church, the thatched roof of which was fired accidentally by the wadding of a musket, and they all perished in the flames. Others say they were all dirked by Dugald Ciar Mhor, from whom Rob Roy was lineally descended, and that he slew them like sheep, at a large stone, from which the blood can never be effaced.

Being mounted on a powerful horse, Sir Humphry Colquhoun, minus sword and helmet, escaped from the field, and fled to the castle of Bannochar, where he was afterwards slain, when concealed in one of the vaults, not by MacGregors, but by some of the MacFarlanes, though the blame of the deed was unjustly thrown on the former.

To James VI., his successor and friends made a doleful report of the battle, in their own fashion, and there came before that monarch, at Stirling, a strange procession of eleven score of women, bearing each, upon a spear, a bloody shirt, purporting to be that of a husband or kinsman slain in Glenfruin.

These females had been mostly hired at so much per head, in Glasgow, for the pageant, and the blood on the woollen shirts was that of a cow, bled expressly for the purpose; but this melo-dramatic exhibition was singularly successful.

James was so incensed that, without further inquiry, he issued letters of fire and sword against the MacGregors; and then the Colquhouns, the Buchanans, the Camerons, and the Clan Ronald joined with others, in a species of crusade, to crush them. They were hunted throughout the land, like wild animals, but could never be suppressed; for, whenever a MacGregor fell, the sword of another appeared to avenge him.

Captured by treachery, Alaster of Glenstrae, the gallant victor of Glenfruin, was ignominiously hanged, at the cross of Edinburgh, with all his nearest kinsmen, the sole honour awarded to him being a loftier gibbet than the rest.

By an Act of the Scottish Legislature, the surname of MacGregor was abolished, and they were compelled to adopt others. Some called themselves Gregory and Gregorson, and some Mallet, of whom the grandfather of the poet of that name was one. Many took the name of Grahame, but many more allied themselves with the powerful House of Argyle, taking the surname of "the Great Clan;" hence, a hundred years after the grass had grown above the graves of the dead in Glenfruin, we find Rob Roy designating himself _Campbell_, the name of his mother!

The same Act ordained that none of the race of Alpine should have in their possession any other weapon than a pointless knife, wherewith to cut their food; yet, in defiance of the Act, the Clan Gregor went armed to the teeth as usual.

Bloodhounds were employed to track them in their retreats; and their very children were abstracted, and brought up in hatred of the blood they inherited. But the Celtic nature was soon averse to such modes of suppressing a warlike and time-honoured clan; and the Camerons alone maintained the war against the MacGregors, who, on being joined by the MacPhersons, met them in battle in Brae Lochaber, and gave one-half of them a lesson in charity, by cutting the other to pieces.

After the battle of Glenfruin, seven MacGregors, who were pursued by a body of Colquhouns, came over the mountains of Glencoe and Glenorchy, down by the lone and lovely shore of Lochiel and the birchen woods that border on the wild waters of the Spean, till they found a brief shelter in the farmhouse of Tirindrish, which was then occupied by a Cameron.

Alarmed by the approach of the Colquhouns, they fled again, and took shelter in a cavern, which the Cameron, actuated either by treachery or timidity, pointed out to the pursuers. The toil-worn fugitives were attacked with sword and pistol. Six were slain, and lie buried, where some pines, the badge of their clan, were lately planted, in memory of the event. The seventh fled to a little distance, but was overtaken, beheaded, and buried beside a stream, where a friend of the author lately found his skull, which the water had laid bare, by washing away the bank, in which the other bones lie yet embedded.

After their slaughter, the Colquhouns went back to Luss; but the farmhouse of Tirindrish was now said to be haunted from time to time by a headless figure. The Cameron became alarmed, and brought thither a _Taischatr_, or seer, who saw it also--the dim outline of a shadowy and bare-legged Highlander, without a head, but with a remarkable swelling on the right knee, a disease of which the treacherous farmer had long complained; and hence the seer intimated that the figure represented _himself_!

It proved but the shadow of a coming event; for soon after a party of MacGregors, true to the old Celtic instinct of revenge, came to Tirindrish, and, to punish the Cameron for having discovered the cavern to the Colquhouns, struck off his head, by order of Dugald Ciar Mhor. The place where the six fugitives perished is still named the MacGregor's Cave, and a cairn was built there by the MacDonalds in memory of the event.

Hundreds of such episodes followed the battle of Glenfruin; and more fully to suppress the fated surname, no minister of the church could, at baptism, give the name of Gregor to a child, under pain of banishment and deprivation; and the heads of the Clan Alpine became a marketable commodity under King William III., as the story of Duncan nan Cean remains to testify.

Yet in spite of all these savage laws the clan grew and flourished in the fastnesses of the Highlands, and in the battles of Montrose their shout of _Ard Choille_ was heard farthest amid the ranks of the routed Covenanters. Hence the spirit of their Gathering--

The moon's on the lake, and the mist's on the bay, And the clan _has a name_ that is _nameless_ by day-- Then gather, gather, gather, Grigalach! * * * * * * While there's leaves on the forest, or foam on the river, MacGregor, despite them, shall flourish for ever! Then gather, gather, gather, Grigalach!

Hence in 1645 they could muster a thousand swordsmen; a hundred years later seven hundred swordsmen, and when the Highland regiment of Clan Alpine was raised by the chief in 1799, one thousand two hundred and thirty of the clan and their kindred enlisted to fight for George III.

So little do tyranny and oppression avail in the end! They served but to bind Clan Alpine together like bands of steel; but they were never restored to their ancient rights, surname, or liberty, till an Act of the British Parliament was passed in their favour, _only twenty-four_ years before the regiment was embodied.

The wrongs of his name and kindred made a deep impression on Rob Roy, and he thirsted for an opportunity of seeing them righted, either by the restoration of the House of Stuart, or by the destruction of their more immediate oppressors.

He knew and writhed under the unjust laws by which the whole clan, for the deeds of a few, so long ago as the field of Glenfruin, were stigmatized as cut-throats and traitors, and by which they were nominally disarmed--the deepest disgrace that could be inflicted upon a Highlander; by which they were degraded in name and station, and only permitted to live as Campbells, Grahames, or Drummonds--a landless and broken race.

In his soul he longed for an opportunity of avenging all this on the King and Parliament, and for becoming a champion of the old Scottish patriarchal system, and opposing the new, which made feudal lords of Celtic chiefs, with power of gallows and dungeon, over free men--but these were visions wild and vain!

Proud of the past, however vague, the Red MacGregor, like all his Celtic countrymen, believed in the words of the bard, that--

Ere ever Ossian raised his song, To tell of Fingal's fame; Ere ever from their sunny clime The Roman eagles came:

The hills had given to heroes birth, Brave e'en amid the brave; Who taught, above tyrannic dust, The thistle tufts to wave!

And this belief in a lofty and warlike ancestry has ever been the Highlander's greatest incentive to moral character and heroic bearing.

Chapter IX.

The Devastation Of Kippen.

In the days of Rob Roy there were no police, troops, or garrisons in his part of the Highlands, and no law was recognized save that of the sword.

William III. had recently been placed on the throne, and he exasperated the MacGregors by restoring all the oppressive Acts passed against them--Acts which had been cancelled for a time by Charles II. Thus they were again compelled to assume other names than their own, or forfeit land, arms, and all means of livelihood. The memory of William of Orange is still abhorred by the Highlanders. He was a king whose cowardice lost the battle of Steinkirke, and by whose behest torture was last judicially used, on Neville Payne, an Englishman, in a Scottish court of law. He introduced flogging into the army, keelhauling into the navy; "and he," says Sir William Napier, "is the _only_ general on record to whom attaches the detestable distinction of sporting with men's lives by wholesale; and who fought the battle of St. Denis with the Peace of Nimeguen in his pocket, because he would not deny himself a _safe_ lesson in his trade;" and he it was who, by his own sign manual, condemned the whole inhabitants of a Scottish valley to be slaughtered in their beds at midnight, and this was _after_ he had _ratified_ the Treaty of Achalader!

Hatred of this king and of those who adhered to him determined Rob Roy to punish some of the Whigs in his neighbourhood, and remembering how active the Buchanans had made themselves since the days of Glenfruin, he resolved to fall upon them.

Assembling about two hundred men, and attended by MacAleister and Greumoch, he marched from Inversnaid towards Kippen, giving out that he went "in the name of King James VII. to plunder the rebel Whigs." After a fifteen miles' march, they halted for the first night on the northern shore of the Loch of Monteith, amid the thick groves of oak, chestnut, and ancient plane-trees which flourish there. They shot some deer, lighted fires, and proceeded to cook and regale themselves on the venison, with all the greater relish that it belonged to their hereditary enemies the Grahames of Monteith; and after posting sentinels, they passed the night in carousing, and singing those long songs still so common in the Highlands, where the air and the theme have been carried down, from the days perhaps of the Druids, who, when seeking to cultivate the people by music and poetry, framed their songs with long choruses in which all could join.

And now, under the rustling leaves of the old forest, the MacGregors, wrapped in their red tartan plaids, sat round the glowing watch-fires, and made the dingles echo, as they sang one of the ballads of the female bard of Scarba--Mary, the daughter of Red Alister. Two hours before daybreak they were all on the march again, and eight miles or so further brought them, in the early dusk of the autumn morning, to Kippen. This village lies within ten miles of the guns of Stirling Castle, and for centuries it had belonged to the Buchanans. Here the fertile valley through which the Forth flows was studded with prosperous farms and handsome country seats, surrounded by luxuriant crops in some places, by the stubble-fields in others--a rural scene, amid which the rocky bluff of the Abbeycraig and the wooded summit of Craigforth start up boldly and abruptly, with their faces to the west; and Rob Roy took care to choose the time of his invasion when most of the crops were stored in the barn, and when the cattle and sheep were gathered in pen and fold.

On the approach of the MacGregors, the old castle of Ardfinlay (of which no trace now remains) and the tower of Arnprior were abandoned by the Buchanans, without a shot being fired, while the village of Kippen was evacuated by its inhabitants, who fled towards Stirling, with whatever they could carry. Carts and horses were now seized by the MacGregors, and loaded with grain, food, furniture, and whatever they could lay their hands upon. The cattle, horses, and sheep were collected in herds and flocks; and after sweeping the parish, Rob's men were about to depart for Inversnaid, with pipes playing triumphantly in front, when a body of men, armed with muskets and bayonets, swords and pikes, appeared with drums beating, ready to oppose them, about an hour after sunrise.

These men had been hastily collected and armed by Sir James Livingstone, a gentleman who had served in foreign wars, and who was resolved that Rob Roy should not harry the district without a blow being struck in its defence. On the open ground known as the Moor of Kippen, they came in sight of each other.

Rob halted his men with the spoil they had collected, and resolutely advanced to the front, attended by his henchman, by Greumoch, Alaster Roy, and a few others on whom he most relied. By his bearing and the richness of his weapons, as well as by his ruddy-coloured hair and beard, and the two eagle feathers in his blue bonnet, Sir James Livingstone recognized the Laird of Inversnaid, and he also came forward from his line, attended by a faithful servant, who was well armed.

Under his ample red coat, which was open, Sir James wore a cuirass of polished steel; his hat was cocked up by gold cord, and his full, white periwig flowed over his shoulders. Under the cuirass he wore a buff waistcoat, which reached nearly to his knees; he had his sword drawn in his right hand, and carried a brace of loaded pistols in his girdle, to which they hung by steel hooks.

"Have I the honour of addressing MacGregor of Inversnaid?" said he, politely lifting his hat when within ten paces of Rob Roy, who replied sternly--

"I am MacGregor. Had you styled me by another name than that which my father left me, I would have killed you on the instant. And you----"

"I am Sir James Livingstone. I have nothing to do with the laws which seek the suppression of your name and the destruction of your clan, save that I reprobate them; but I demand by what right you have broken the King's peace, and come hither in arms to plunder a peaceful district?"

"For three sufficient causes," replied Rob; "first, I have the old Highland right by which we can at any time make a warlike inroad on our enemies, which the Buchanans of Kippen and Arnprior have been since that black day in Glenfruin; secondly, I break the peace of him you name a king because I deem him a Dutch usurper; and thirdly, I take from cowards that which they have not the heart to defend."

"I regret to hear all this," replied Sir James, persuasively, "for there will be much blood shed, MacGregor, if you do not yield up the spoil your people have collected."

"Yield it--to whom?" asked MacGregor, loftily.

"To me."

"Little care we for bloodshed," said the other, bitterly; "your foreign kings and Lowland laws have made Clan Alpine like the Arabs of the desert, whose hands are against all men, because the hands of all men are uplifted against them. Yet I, personally, have no wish to slay any of your people. You are a gentleman and a soldier, whose character I value and honour; thus, if you choose, I will fight with you here, hand to hand, with target and claymore, in front of our men, and the spoil shall belong to him who draws the _first blood_."

"Agreed," replied Sir James, sternly; "but, though expert enough in the use of the sword, I am unused to such a defence as the target."

"That shall be no hindrance," said Rob, as he handed to MacAleister his round shield, which was composed of triple bull's-hide, stretched over wood, covered with antique brass bosses, and had a long spike of steel screwed into its centre.

The friends of Sir James now crowded around him, and bade him be wary, and remember the vast strength of Rob Roy; the great skill he possessed, the weight of his sword, and the advantage his length of arm gave him over others. These warnings were not without effect on Sir James, who was too brave to be without prudence. He came forward, and, lifting his little three-cocked hat, the edge of which was bound with feathers, like those of all the officers who served in King William's wars, he said,--

"I agree to meet you, MacGregor, as a gentleman, on the distinct understanding that the entire spoil shall remain with him who is fortunate enough to draw the first blood; but, as being the person challenged, I claim the right to choose my weapon, and for many reasons prefer the pistol."

"Be it so," replied Rob, laughing, as Sir James divested himself of his glittering cuirass: "I am not an old trooper like you, yet am a good marksman nevertheless."

"Are your pistols loaded?"

"The pistols of a MacGregor are seldom otherwise, in these times," said Rob, as his countenance darkened; "and yours?"

"Are loaded, too."

"Shall we fire together, or toss up for the first shot?" asked MacGregor.

"We will toss for the first shot, if you please," replied Livingstone, who, aware that he was a deadly marksman, and had fought several duels in France and Flanders with terrible success, had no fears as to the result, if the lot fell to him.

"Then, Sir James, toss for me, but remain where you are," said MacGregor, with indifference.

"And you will take my word for the coin--for the result!" exclaimed Livingstone, with something of admiration in his tone and face.

"Had I doubted your word, I would not fight with you. On equal terms I meet none but gentlemen."

A servant of Sir James, a man in livery, armed with a musket, now came hastily forward to suggest some trickery, which his master repelled with scorn--even with anger.

He threw up the coin--a crown piece; it glittered in the air, and then fell on the grass.

"A head!" said MacGregor.

"I regret to say it is not a head," replied Sir James, touching his hat, while his cheek flushed with triumph: "so I have won the first shot!"

A shout of anger burst from the MacGregors on hearing this; but Livingstone's followers waved their bonnets and clapped their hands in exultation.

It was strange, the scene which took place on that morning, on the wide moor of Kippen. On one side the grim band of armed MacGregors, in their red tartans, with drawn swords, Lochaber axes, and long muskets, guarding the whole spoil of the parish, and keeping together the herds of lowing cattle and tethered horses, laden with bags of bedding, and household utensils.

On the other, the well-armed retainers of Sir James Livingstone, cross-belted and armed with pike and musket; and midway between, the striking and picturesque figures of the two combatants, who were to decide the affray, standing about twelve paces apart, with a pistol in each hand.

Chapter X.

The Duel.

Sir James drew up his tall and soldier-like figure to its full height, and buttoning to the throat his long-skirted scarlet coat, the breast of which was covered with broad bars of silver lace, he fixed his keen dark eyes steadily on the figure of Rob Roy. He then levelled a pistol at the full length of his right arm, and every eye was bent upon the muzzle from which death was expected to issue.

Rob's coat was of rough, home-made, brown stuff, destitute of lace or ornament; but his great belted plaid of scarlet tartan filled up the eye. His pistols were bright as silver, and came from the famous workshop established at Doune, so long ago as 1646, by Thomas Cadell. A silver chain suspended his splendidly carved powder-horn, and his dirk and broadsword were elaborately mounted with silver. Sir James covered him with his pistol and fired!

A shout of rage and dismay burst from the MacGregors, as Rob's bonnet was turned round on his head, and, cut by the bullet, one of his eagle feathers floated away on the breeze.

"That was a good shot, Sir James," said Rob, smiling, as he replaced his bonnet; "an inch lower, and there would have been one MacGregor less in the world to persecute. Under favour, sir, it is now my turn."

Raising one of the claw-butted, steel, Highland pistols, he cocked and levelled it straight at the head of Livingstone, whose eye never quailed, and whose gallant spirit never flinched. Then suddenly lowering the weapon, he said, "One cannot always be a hero like Fingal, but one may always be a gentleman. I am, as you know, Sir James, a deadly shot, and at this moment could kill you without reloading. I have no desire to slay men unnecessarily--brave men like you, who may live to serve their mother, Scotland, least of all! In short, I wish to spare you; but as the creagh must belong to him who sheds the first blood, I must send this bullet either through your head or your hand. If you prefer the latter, please to hold it up."

Scarcely knowing what he did, Sir James held up his left hand. Rob fired, and his bullet whistled through the palm of the upheld hand, which was instantly covered with blood, when Livingstone uttered an exclamation of pain and suddenly lowered his arm.

"We now part on the first blood drawn--your own terms, Livingstone. To the hills, lads!" exclaimed MacGregor; "to the hills with the gear of the Dutch king's rebel Whigs!"

A yell of triumph from the MacGregors rent the sky, the pipes struck up "The Battle of Glenfruin," and the whole cavalcade moved off towards the mountains. But the matter did not end here, for as Rob tarried a moment, to take a more courteous farewell of his adversary, and to bind up his wounded hand, Livingstone's liveried valet levelled a pistol at his head. Fortunately it flashed in the pan; and MacAleister, who was close by, shot him dead with his musket!

"Only one man, a servant to Sir James Livingstone, was killed on this occasion," says the statistical account; "and this depredation was remembered by the fathers of several persons still living, and is known as the 'Her'ship of Kippen.'"

It does not appear that any means were taken to recover the cattle and goods thus carried to the fastnesses of the MacGregors; but at this time the whole Highlands, from the German to the Atlantic Ocean, were full of those scenes of war and plunder which succeeded the victory of the loyal clans at Killycrankie, and the fall of their idol, the gallant Dundee.

Chapter XI.

Rob Goes To England.

All hope of restoring the exiled House of Stuart having ceased for a time, Rob Roy, for some years subsequent to the establishment of the Revolution, lived quietly on his estate of Inversnaid; only assuming the sword to protect himself, his neighbours, or those whose properties lay south of the Highland frontier, and who paid the usual tax of black-mail for that security of life and goods which he and others afforded them. He dealt largely in cattle, and speculated so fortunately, that before the year 1707 he had cleared the lands of Craigrostan from certain bonds held over them by James, Marquis of Montrose; and he generously relieved the estate of Glengyle, the property of his nephew, Gregor MacGregor, famous in Scottish history as _Glun dhu_, or the Black-knee, from similar incumbrances of a heavy kind; and being, by law, the guardian, or, as it is termed in Scotland, the tutor of Glengyle, Rob had great influence over the whole clan, though nameless, broken, and scattered.

Rob and his gillies, clad in their red tartans, and armed with sword, dirk, and pistol, and with a target slung on the left shoulder, each carrying, moreover, a heavy cudgel, driving some thousand head of cattle, with pipers playing in front, to the fair of Callender, or the Trysts of Falkirk, which were then held on the Reddingrig Moor, and had been so since 1701, presented an appearance so animated, and an aspect so formidable, that few cared to meddle with the Red MacGregor and his followers.

Affrays were frequent at those fairs, and, indeed, everywhere else in Scotland: political and religious differences made men rancorous, and arms were readily resorted to. It was not until 1727 that the Provost of Edinburgh prohibited wearing of pistols and daggers openly in the streets of the city, for brawls had become incessant.

"It may well be supposed that in those days no Lowland, and much less English drovers, _ventured into the Highlands_," says Scott. "The cattle, which were the staple commodity of the mountains, were escorted down to the fairs by a party of Highlanders, with all their arms rattling about them, and who dealt, however, in all honour and faith with their southern customers. A fray, indeed, would sometimes arise, when the Lowland men, chiefly Borderers, who had to supply the English market, used to dip their bonnets in the next brook, and wrapping them round their hands, oppose the cudgels to the naked broadsword, which had not always the superiority. I have heard from aged persons who had been in such affrays, that the Highlanders used remarkably fair play, never using the point of the sword, far less their pistols or daggers; so that a slash or two, or a broken head, was easily accommodated; and as the trade was of benefit to both parties, trifling skirmishes were not allowed to interrupt its harmony."

King William having restored all the severe laws against the clan, Rob was compelled to resume the name of Campbell, when in 1703, his nephew, Gregor Glun Dhu, who was likewise compelled to call himself James Graham, was married to Mary Hamilton of Bardowie, in the November of that year, and our hero signed their contract as "Robert Campbell of Inversnaid."

While he was acquiring wealth and popularity of a local and peaceful kind by his frequent visits to the Borders, his wife, Helen Mary, managed his household at Inversnaid, and earned the reputation of being a thrifty, active, and careful housewife. Gentle in manner, and gently bred, she could play the old Highland harp with great skill, as she had been taught by Rori Dall, or Blind Roderick, who was bard to MacLeod of that Ilk, and was, moreover, the _last_ harper of the Hebrides.

A Highland housewife had plenty of occupation in those days. The corn was then dressed in an ancient fashion by the women. The straw was fired, that the heat might parch the grain, which, though blackened, was gathered into the handmills, or querns, and ground into meal or flour, just as the Israelites ground theirs of old. They had also the management of the sheep. No flocks were then kept in the Highlands; but every family had from the Hebrides a few sheep of a small breed, which were never permitted to range the mountain but were carefully housed at night.

In the household of Inversnaid the spinning-wheels were never idle; hence there was plenty of industry and comfort, but few luxuries. All the furniture was of black oak, or Scottish pine; the only piece of mahogany being an oval teaboard, a portion of Helen's "plenishing," when she left her father's house at Comar. On ordinary days her dress was linsey-woolsey and a tartan plaid; and though dignified with the title of _lady_ in Gaelic, as being the wife of a chieftain, and on certain occasions, such as birthdays or anniversaries (the Gowrie conspiracy, the Restoration, or the imaginary succession of James VIII.), wearing silk and fine lace, they were all made up at home, for in those sequestered regions the name and business of a milliner were unknown. Of their five sons, only four had as yet been born,--Coll, Ronald, Hamish, and Duncan.

We are now rapidly approaching those events which scattered Helen's happy household, and drove her brave and trusty, generous and humane husband "to the hillside, to become a broken man," branded as an outlaw and traitor, with a price upon his head. King James VII. was dead, and his son, though in exile, had assumed the title of James III. of England and VIII. of Scotland.

In 1707 the English endeavoured to _force_ the Scots into a union; and, as a preliminary, very unwisely seized all their merchant ships that were in southern ports. On this Scotland prepared for war by strengthening her garrisons, and proposing to raise sixty thousand infantry; so England resorted to other means, and by bribery achieved the measure so long desired. Thus that which was hitherto a weak and federal union, became a powerful and combined one; each country, however, retaining its own church and laws.

Before this great treaty was complete, the Scottish Government restricted the importation of cattle into England; but free intercourse being one of the happy results of the Union, various persons speculated in this traffic. Among others, Rob Roy engaged in a joint adventure with James, Marquis of Montrose, who had received a sum of money for his Union vote, and in the month _preceding_ that measure had been created a duke, with the office of Lord Privy Seal for Scotland.

"The capital to be advanced," says Dr. Browne, in his "History of the Highlands," "was fixed at ten thousand _merks_ each, and Rob Roy was to purchase cattle therewith, and drive them to England for sale."

The Duke's money he received from his factor or chamberlain, John Grahame of Killearn, partly in cash and partly in bills of exchange, drawn through the Bank of Scotland on Grahame of Gorthy. He soon collected a vast herd, and leaving his trusty henchman and foster-brother, MacAleister, in charge of his household, departed for Carlisle.

The system of fosterage, which consisted in the mutual exchange of children for the purpose of being nursed and bred, was a custom peculiar to the Scots and Irish, who were wont to allege that there was no love or faith in the world like that which existed between foster-brethren; so Rob departed in confidence on his important mission with a herd worth twenty thousand Scottish merks.

Prior to his leaving Inversnaid, Paul Crubach had come there, and sprinkled all the cattle with water from his holy well. On such occasions he was always provided with certain flint arrow-heads, which he had found where a battle had been fought, long, long ago. These _elfshots_ he duly dipped in the water of his well, and then sprinkled it over the herd to prevent any spell an evil eye, or another elfshot, might cast upon them before they reached the great market at "Merry Carlisle."

Chapter XII.

The Gipsies.

The trade of cattle-dealing was liable at that time, as at every other, to sudden depressions and miscalculations; thus, on his arrival at Carlisle, Rob Roy--unfortunately for the success of the joint speculation in which he was engaged--found the southern markets, where Highland cattle had been so long in great demand, completely overstocked. Many other speculators were now in the field. The prices fell lower than they had ever been before, and he was compelled to dispose of the whole stock of cattle far below prime cost. As his herds diminished, he gradually sent all his drovers and gillies home to the Highlands. The last he despatched was Greumoch MacGregor, with whom he entrusted a letter (dated from an hostelry in Castle Street, where he lodged) addressed to the Duke of Montrose, detailing their mutual loss.

When the last cow was sold, Rob secured the money which remained for the Duke and himself in his sporan, as the pouch worn in front of the kilt is named. It was made of the skin of an otter, shot by himself in the Dochart, and was adorned by its face and claws, and closed by a curious steel clasp.

With his pistols carefully primed and loaded (as the roads were then infested by footpads, mounted highwaymen, and gipsies), he left Carlisle by the Scottish gate, and in very low spirits took his homeward way, mounted on a stout little Highland horse.

Carlisle was then, and for long after, girt by walls and towers as a defence against the Scots, whom the English could scarcely view yet as fellow-subjects.

Without any occurrence he travelled about forty-five miles, and on the evening of the second day found himself entering Moffatdale, a deep and pastoral valley, which is overshadowed by mountains of great height, at the foot of which the Evan and the Annan unite their waters in one. The sunlight had faded from the green summits of the Moffat Alps--of Hartfell and Queensberry, and the deep shady valleys were growing dark. The night-hawk was winging its way towards the lonely banks of Loch Skene; the shrill whistle of the curlew as he rose from among the green waving fern or purple heather bells, and the coo of the sweet cushat dove in the birchen thicket, were alone breaking the silence, when Rob Roy drew his bridle near the village of Moffat to consider where he should quarter himself for the night.

He was in a strange place, and had about him more money than he cared to lose. There were several ruins of old peel-houses, towers, and cattle-sheilings on the hills, and in one of these a hardy Highlander could sleep comfortably enough when rolled in his plaid; but there was no necessity for faring so roughly.

A meteor which shot across the darkening sky, near the spire of a distant village church, made Rob thoughtful; for it is an old Celtic superstition, that when a falling star is seen by any one near a burying-ground, it portends that death is near. At the moment he paused a cry of distress pierced the air. He listened intently and instinctively, and drawing forth a pistol, glanced at the flint and priming, to be prepared for any emergency. Again the cry reached him, and it seemed to be uttered by a female in distress. Urging his strong and active Highland garron in the direction from whence the cries came, he entered a deep and savage dell named Gartpool Linn, where he beheld a very startling sight.

A large and gnarled tree spread its broad branches like a leafy arch above this dell, and beneath them the last red gleam of the western sky shone full into the hollow. There an officer and a party of soldiers were deliberately preparing to hang four peasants on the lower limb of the old chestnut. At the foot of the latter, on her knees, with hair dishevelled and disordered dress, there knelt a young girl, who was alternately bewailing the fate of the four victims, and imploring mercy for them; and, from what she said, they proved to be her father and three brothers.

In the oldest peasant MacGregor almost immediately recognized Andrew Gemmil, the gipsy wanderer who had acted as his guide when he followed Duncan nan Creagh to the Braes of Rannoch. Being single-handed, ignorant of the crime of which the prisoners were accused, and finding himself before eighteen soldiers and an officer, who were all fully armed, and who by their jack-boots, buff breeches, and blue coats, evidently belonged to a Border militia regiment, Rob Roy stood by for some time in bewilderment, and soon saw the four unfortunates flung in succession off a ladder, and all swinging and writhing in the agonies of death between him and the ruddy western sky.

The officer now commanded his men to seize the girl, who had cast herself with her face on the grass, that she might shut out the dreadful scene; he added they were to bind her hands and feet together, and then throw her head foremost into the stream, which then swept in full flood through this savage ravine, and was all the more fierce and deep that heavy rains had fallen of late. Rob's blood began to boil. He thought, perhaps, upon the words of Ossian:--"Within this bosom is a voice--it comes not to other ears--that bids Ossian succour the helpless in their hour of need."

Four soldiers tied her hands and feet, and were about to obey the order of the officer, when Rob, exasperated by such unmanly cruelty, commanded them in a loud voice to pause, and then he demanded sternly, "Why do you treat a helpless female in a manner so barbarous?"

Perceiving that he was plainly attired in a rough coat of Galloway frieze, with a tartan plaid thrown over his left shoulder, and a broad blue bonnet drawn down close to his eyes, and perhaps unaware that he had a good sword by his side and pistols at his girdle, the officer replied haughtily,--

"Sir, you had better begone about your own business, whatever it may be, less we add you to the goodly company who await the crows on that branch, if you dare to interrupt those who act in the Queen's name and under her authority."

"Miscreant!" exclaimed Rob, "the good Queen Anne never gave you warrant for such deeds as these."

"Then the Lords of her Council do--so it matters not to me."

"Who are these people?" asked Rob, firmly.

"Enemies of Church and State," replied the officer, "and therefore they must suffer. Throw in the woman!"

"Hold, I command you!" exclaimed MacGregor, with a voice like a trumpet, and leaping from his saddle, he unsheathed his claymore. The fury and indignation which filled his heart added such strength to his muscular arm, that in an incredibly short time he had tossed eight of the soldiers into the stream, and rescued the girl, waving his bare blade in a circle between her and the rest, who dared not advance. Confounded by the audacity of the man, by his sudden onslaught, and the whole catastrophe, the officer remained for a moment gazing alternately at the bold intercessor, and at his men, who were struggling, shouting, swearing, and scrambling to the river bank as they best could. With a slash of his skene dhu Rob cut the cords which bound the girl's hands and feet, and bade her "begone and God-speed."

By this time the officer had rallied his energies, and drawing his sword, attacked Rob, who instantly ran him through the body, on which the soldiers, believing that some large force of assailants was at hand, fled without firing a shot, and left him in possession of the field.

He then cut down those who had just been executed. All were motionless and still; but not all dead, for ere long one who had been last thrown off the ladder showed signs of life, and began to revive.

Rob committed him and the girl, his sister, to the care of the peasantry, some of whom were now assembled. He did more, for he carefully bound up the wound of the officer, who was borne away to the village; and then MacGregor, not knowing how the matter might end, or of _what_ the persons rescued were accused, put some money into the hands of the half-dead girl, and remounting his horse, galloped through Moffatdale as fast as its heels could bear him.

The author who relates this adventure of Rob Roy, terms the persons who were executed "fanatics;" but it is much more probable that they were all Border gipsies, against whom there were then, and for long after, laws in existence even as severe as those which oppressed the Clan Gregor.

Chapter XIII.

Inversnaid Pillaged.

On receipt of Rob Roy's letter, containing intelligence that the cattle speculation had been a failure, and that their money was nearly lost, his Grace the Duke of Montrose burst into a very undignified fit of indignation, and instantly summoned his chamberlain, John Grahame of Killearn, who was a remote relation of his own, and in every sense a devoted and unscrupulous follower.

Poor Greumoch, whose rough and weather-beaten exterior, with homespun Highland dress, with a target slung on his back, all combined to gain him but little favour with Montrose's pampered valets, was speedily bowed out by them, and had the door shut in his face, notwithstanding the eagle's feather in his bonnet, which evinced his claim, when on the mountain side, to be considered a gentleman.

Then the angry duke laid the letter of Rob before his chamberlain, who in the Scottish fashion was simply named always by the title of his property.

"Well, Killearn," said Montrose, grimly; "here is a braw business! Ten thousand merks nearly have been made away with by this Highland limmer, and am I to be at the loss of them?"

"Assuredly not, your grace--assuredly not," replied Killearn. "Rob has property; there are both Inversnaid and Craigrostan."

"Craigrostan--bah! it is only a tract of grey rock and red heather, where even the deer can scarcely find shelter," replied the duke, contemptuously.

"But Inversnaid has a comfortable house, with steading, barn, and byre, forbye garden and meadow ground."

"Then, by heaven, I shall take Inversnaid, though all that bear the surname of MacGregor were on the hills to oppose me!" exclaimed the duke, passionately.

Killearn seemed uneasy as the duke made this outburst, and he twisted his well-powdered wig to and fro, as if the heat of it oppressed him. He was a dapper little personage, who was always accurately attired in a square-skirted coat, having immense cuffs and pocket flaps, a long-bodied vest and small clothes all of black velvet. His cravat, wig, and ruffles were always white as snow; he did not approve of swords, and never wore one, though for more than sixty years after this time every gentleman in Scotland did.

In one huge pocket he carried a silver snuff-box, and in the other a small thick breeches Bible, which he produced on every occasion; for he was one of those religious pretenders of whom Scotland has always produced a plentiful crop.

To describe his face would be difficult; but it expressed a singular combination of suavity, secret ferocity, cunning, and meanness. Montrose was the chief of his name; hence Killearn regarded him as a demigod, and all the more so because he was a duke, and one who paid him well.

So between them it was arranged, that as Rob Roy was absent--luckily for their scheme--possession, in the meantime, should be taken of all the moveables in his house and on his estate; that a warrant for his apprehension should be procured, and a reward offered for his capture by advertisements in the Edinburgh newspapers. Such lawless and arbitrary proceedings were as easily managed as proposed in those days.

"Take a well-armed party of my own people with you," said the duke; "Rob has many enemies in Dumbarton and the Lennox, who have long been resenting his collection of black-mail, and you will find plenty of hands willing enough to aid you in driving his men farther into the hills. There is Stirling of Carden will help you if required; and I dare say MacDougal's Dragoons could be marched up Loch Lomond side, with the Buchanans of Kippen; and," he added, with a sour smile, "perhaps the Laird of Luss may move in the matter, if he has not forgotten the battle of Glenfruin, and the blood that yet stains the floor of a certain vault in the castle of Bannochar. See to this, Killearn, and bring me news when all is arranged."

Killearn was somewhat aghast on hearing this rapid sketch of a campaign in which he was to figure as leader. He had no desire to head an armed raid into the MacGregors' country if he could avoid it; but he resolved to proceed in regular form of law; and in the duke's name he did so, with marvellous rapidity.

All Rob Roy's farm stock and furniture, and ultimately his house and estates, Inversnaid and Craigrostan, were unjustifiably made objects for arrest and sale; and while he was lingering in Glasgow, endeavouring to raise money to repay the duke, the "warrant of distress," as it would be called in England, was enforced with great strictness and even barbarity.

Another account of these proceedings would make it appear that Rob was compelled to assign his possessions in mortgage to the Duke of Montrose, under a solemn promise that they should revert to him when he could restore the money lost in the transaction at Carlisle; that afterwards, when his finances improved, he offered the sum for which the two little properties were held in hand; but Montrose and Killearn replied that, besides the principal, there was now interest thereon, and various other expenses, so that much time would be required to make up a statement of the whole sum, and that, in "this equivocal manner, he was amused, and ultimately _deprived of all his property_." Whatever their proceedings were, of the _latter fact_ there is no doubt.

With a band of well-armed followers to support the officers of the law, Killearn appeared at the house of Inversnaid, when, fortunately for himself and for those who accompanied him, the men of the village were absent--some with the cattle on the mountains, others cutting peat in the bogs; some fishing in the loch, and others hunting in the woods.

Rob's crops of barley, rye, peas, and small black oats were all stored in his granary; and stacks of dark brown peats, drawn from the bog on sledges for winter fuel, were piled before the door. The young women of the village were busy carrying manure to the fields in conical baskets, for now the little wooden ploughs were at work on the upland slopes; and the old people sat at their doors, knitting, spinning, or basking in the autumn sun, that poured his yellow glory down the rugged glen, where the voices of the children rang merrily, for a band of bare-headed and bare-legged urchins were having a boisterous and gleeful game, with clubs and balls, in the middle of the clachan, when, to the terror of all, John Grahame of Killearn appeared with his followers.

He had come up Loch Lomond, with one or two large boats, armed with brass swivel-guns, accompanied by several of the Buchanans, and, as some say, by Stirling of Carden, who hated Rob Roy, and dreaded him too, as he had long and unjustly withheld the tax of black-mail.

With all his duplicity and cunning, Killearn must have been a bold fellow in attempting to enforce, in those days of dirks and broadswords--and more especially in the country of Rob Roy--the same harsh measures which similar factors carry out so successfully among the now unarmed population of the North; spreading desolation through Rossshire, Sutherland, and Breadalbane. Yet, anomalous as it may appear, he did so. It is said that on the night before this visit, Rob's staghounds howled in a melancholy and ominous manner, for the old grey Highland dog possesses a sagacity so remarkable, and an attachment so strong for his master, that the people believe he can foresee approaching evil and death with the eyes of a seer.

Of the interview which took place bekveen Mr. Grahame and Helen MacGregor, only traditional accounts have been preserved; but all who have written on the subject assert that he forcibly entered the house of Inversnaid, and roughly and summarily expelled her, with her four children and all her servants; and that his bearing was harsh, brutal, and unjustifiable.

"Grahame of Killearn," says the "History of Stirlingshire," "over-zealous in his master's service, had recourse to a mode of expulsion inconsistent with the rights of humanity, by insulting Mrs. Campbell in her husband's absence."

The furniture, crops, farm-stock, food, clothing, and everything were carried off to be sold at Glasgow or Dumbarton, and the door of the empty house was closed upon the now homeless family. The poor huts of Greumoch, Alaster Roy, and their more immediate followers, were burned or levelled, that they too might be without shelter; and re-embarking, after achieving these outrageous proceedings, Killearn, with all his plunder, spread his sails, and proceeded down Loch Lomond with all speed.

More than once the long Spanish gun of Rob's foster-brother covered the dapper figure of the duke's chamberlain; but Greumoch arrested the weapon, and bade him tarry in his vengeance till the Red MacGregor returned.

On beholding the total ruin of her household, Helen MacGregoi is said to have cast her plaid around her little boys, as they shrunk to her side, and exclaimed, in a piercing voice, "Oh! St. Mary, now with the archangels, look here!" For a time she abandoned herself to the wildest grief; then, when thoughts more fierce and bitter came, she wiped away her tears, and registered a terrible vow for vengeance on their oppressors.

"It is certain," says Scott, "that she felt extreme anguish on being expelled from the banks of Loch Lomond, and gave vent to her feelings in a fine piece of pipe music, which she composed, and which is still well known by the name of 'Rob Roy's Lament.'"

One of the children was sickly and feeble, and thus they were all thrust forth upon the mountain side, in the last days of autumn, when a Highland winter, with all its severities, was at hand, and when the forest of pine--the badge of their name--would be their only shelter; so Helen longed for the return of her husband, and for the vengeance that was sure to follow!

Chapter XIV.

Rob And The Duke.

Ignorant of what had passed--that the fire on his hearth was extinguished--and that his household had been driven forth like beasts of prey--Rob Roy, after failing to procure in Glasgow a sum requisite to gratify the avarice of Montrose, appeared one afternoon at the residence of the latter, the castle of Mugdock, which is nine miles distant from Glasgow, and is situated in Strathblane.

The valets muttered among themselves of what their titled master had done, and marvelled what might be the object of this visit from MacGregor; the latter, especially since his inroad into Kippen, had been somewhat used to be treated with a respect that was not unmingled with fear, so the sudden interest his appearance excited was unnoticed by him, as he was ushered into the library.

The castle of Mugdock, now a ruin, was then a regularly fortified tower. It is of great antiquity, and was protected on the east and north by the water of a lake, which was drawn round it in the manner of a fosse.

The central keep or donjon was surrounded by a barbican, built so as to form an obtuse angle with the latter, so that a cross shower of missiles would protect the arched gateway from any besiegers who might assail it, for _defence_ was the first principle of Scottish architecture in the olden time.

Through the grated windows of the library poor Rob gazed wistfully down Strathblane, "the vale of the warm river," as it is named in the figurative language of his native country. He could see the wooded landscape stretching to the westward far away, the gentle uplands, the pine thickets, the shining lochlets and the winding stream; the insulated cone of Dumgoaic, covered to its summit with waving foliage, and in the distance, closing the familiar view, the vast outline of Ben Lomond, that overshadowed its lake of the Twenty-four Isles, and looked down on Inversnaid, where, as he fondly believed, Helen, their little ones, MacAleister, and the household awaited his return!

Alas! how little he knew of all that had happened there within the last few weeks; and as little dared his titled host to tell him.

A step fell on his ear, as a person in high-heeled riding-boots, with gilt maroquin gambadoes and gold spurs, trod on the polished oak floor. Rob turned, and found himself face to face with the chief of "the gallant Grahams," the Duke of Montrose.

The latter was not a little startled on finding himself, during such a crisis in their affairs, confronted by a man of such known resolution as the Red MacGregor, so he blushed redly to the roots of his ample periwig.

He wore the square-cut coat with buckram skirts and the long-flapped waistcoat of Queen Anne's reign. These were of dark blue silk, covered with gold embroidery, and he looked every way the great-grandson of the High Cavalier Marquis, whose portrait, by Anthony Vandycke, in wig and armour, with sword and scarlet baton, hung upon the wall--the same great Montrose who had been so cruelly butchered by the Covenanters in 1650.

As the duke entered, he had in his hand a newspaper, which he hastily crushed and concealed in his pocket, changing colour as he did so, for that identical paper was the _Edinburgh Evening Courant_, containing the advertisement offering a reward for Rob's seizure, dead or alive, a copy of which Grahame of Killearn had just sent to Mugdock by a special messenger.

Though armed with sword, dirk, and pistols, the bearing of Rob Roy assured the startled duke in an instant that his visit was not hostile, and that he was ignorant, or as yet happily unconscious, of the wreck of his peace and honour, the destruction of his property, and the desolation of his home; so Montrose bowed courteously with a courtier's greeting.

"I salute you, gentleman," said Rob, as in Gaelic there are no terms descriptive of rank. The duke, whose right hand was still buried in his pocket, clutching the paper, as if he dreaded that it would fly out and unfold itself, held forth the other; but Rob drew back with a lofty air of offended dignity, saying,--

"My father's son would not take the _left_ hand of a king--nay, not even of him who is far away in France; God save and send him safely to his own again! And so, duke, why should I take _yours_?"

"Please yourself, MacGregor," replied the duke, with chilling _hauteur_; "but remember that I have good reason to be offended."

"Offended!" echoed Rob, with surprise.

"You have used me ill."

"You got my letter from Carlisle by the hand of my most trusted kinsman, Greumoch?" asked Rob, hastily.

"A gillie--a drover," sneered Montrose.

"A _duinewassal_ of the Clan Alpine, James Grahame, name him as you will," said Rob Roy, becoming flushed with anger.

"What is all this to me?" asked Montrose, haughtily.

"Dioul!" exclaimed Rob, passionately; "did you not get my letter?"

"I did."

"Then it fully explained all."

"It explained that being undersold in the southern markets, or something to that effect, you had parted with our cattle below prime cost."

"Far below it, as I can assure your grace."

"Well, MacGregor Campbell?"

"'Sdeath! MacGregor only!" interrupted Rob, whose fury was fast rising, and he stamped his foot on the floor.

"I decline to bear my share in this loss, and have insisted upon repayment of the _whole sum_ originally subscribed, with the interest due thereon."

"You have insisted?" repeated Rob.

"The affair is in the hand of my chamberlain," aaid the duke, evasively. "I am not now to learn the tricks of Highland drovers, and how your band of landless reivers and broken sorners, who drove those cattle south, are likely to serve me." The Duke made this offensive speech for the express purpose of working himself, and Rob too, into a passion.

"Montrose," said the latter, sternly; "those whom you stigmatize as landless reivers and broken sorners are better men than ever inherited your blood, duke now though you be! And if this is the way you mean to treat me, by the Grey Stone in Glenfruin, and by the souls of those who died there, I shall not consider it _my_ interest to pay your interest, nor my interest either to pay even the principal!"

"Dare you say this to me?" exclaimed the duke, flushing with real anger; "to me, under my own roof-tree?"

MacGregor laughed, and patted the basket-hilt of his sword, put on his bonnet, and arose. Saying, "I would say something more if you stood on the open heather, under the canopy of heaven. But now let us understand each other; big words never scared MacGregor, and they are not likely to do so now. I have but £200 to offer you, and yours it should have been had you acted justly or generously; but now----"

"You will keep it, of course?"

"Ay, every God's-penny, and lay it out in the king's service."

"What king?"

"Can _you_ ask?" exclaimed Rob, with a glance of surprise, that was blended almost with ferocity. "I mean King James VIII. of Scotland. Queen Anne is ill, so men told me in the south; the day is not far distant when the flag will hang half-hoisted on the walls of Carlisle; and the first news that the Hanoverian Elector has landed in England will make the Highland hills bristle with broadswords--yea, bristle like a stubble-field! The heather will be on fire from Strathspey to Inverary, and this £200, Montrose, the sum exactly for which, as men say, you sold your country, when bribed to make the Union, I shall lay out in the service of him who has sworn to break it. Ochon! the ills that are coming upon us are a pregnant example of the folly of a people allowing their fatherland to be the property of kings! Thus, ours succeeded to the kingdom of England, just as they might have done to a farm or a barony; but England being the richer and the greater, they soon forgot the old house in which their good forefathers lived and died. And now, Montrose, learn from this hour that MacGregor is your enemy!"

The duke, who was too high-spirited to brook being bearded in his own house, raised his hand to the bell to summon his servants, but paused on seeing the stern frown that gathered on MacGregor's face, and that his right hand was on the pistol in his girdle.

With a mock reverence Rob left his presence, reached the barbican, mounted his horse, and was soon galloping down Strathblane towards the banks of the Enrich.

The duke's first intention was to have him overtaken by a mounted party and made prisoner; but he speedily dismissed the idea, for to waylay one who had just left his own threshold would cover his name with disgrace and reprobation throughout the north; and, moreover, the castle of Mugdock was uncomfortably near the Highland frontier.

"No, no," he muttered; "'twere better that he should fall into other hands than mine, and find his way from thence to the castle of Dumbarton, or the _kindly_ gallows of Crieff," for so the Highlanders ironically termed that formidable gibbet on which so many a sturdy cateran has taken his last farewell of the sun.

Chapter XV.

Desolation.

Full of his own thoughts, which were fiery and bitter, and feeling fully resolved to challenge Montrose to a combat, according to the laws of honour and of arms, Rob rode fast along the eastern shore of Loch Lomond: but darkness had set in before he drew near Inversnaid.

Then his heart began to swell with other and kindlier emotions as he pictured his home and his household--his wife and their fairhaired children welcoming him back; and already their voices seemed to sound in his ears, and their smiling faces to come before him.

The moon had risen, and shed its light upon that lovely lake of many isles, on the vast shadowy masses of Ben Lomond and its wondrous scenery, through which the rugged pathway wound, overhung in some places by gloomy pines, by impending rocks, or the feathery sprays of the silver birch.

With scorn and defiance of Montrose, certain emotions of pride and security swelled the heart of MacGregor, as he rode on; for again he was at home--in the home of the swordsman and shepherd--the abode of the wolf and the eagle, where yet, in the garb of old Gaul--

The hunter of deer and the warrior trod, To his hills that encircle the sea.

From some points Loch Lomond resembled a great river, lying between lofty mountains, its bosom dotted with isles that are covered with trees, dark brushwood, or moss of emerald green. Bold headlands of rock seemed to jut forth in the water, which shone in the moonlight like a sheet of silver, and hills that were covered with wood filled up the background.

And there, in the moonlight, lay the loveliest of all Loch Lomond's green and woody isles, the MacGregors' burying-place--the Place of Sleep, Inchcailloch, or the Isle of Nuns, with its ruined chapel and all its solemn trees.

The Red MacGregor gazed on it wistfully, for there had all the dead of his persecuted clan been gathered, generation after generation, ever since the days of Donngheal, the son of King Alpin; and now he whipped his lagging horse, and ere long reached the narrow track which led to his home at Inversnaid.

The stillness began to surprise him--no cattle lowed on the hills, no dog barked or bayed to the moon as she waded through the fleecy clouds, and one or two cottages, whose inmates he knew, seemed to have fallen in or been levelled.

A strange foreboding of evil stole into his breast.

At last his own house, with its whitewashed walls and its roof thatched with heather, rose before him in the glen; but no smoke curled from its chimneys--no light appeared in any of its windows, and all was solemnly and oppressively still in the homestead around it--still and silent as the islet of the dead that lay in the shining lake below.

Dismounting, he led his horse by the bridle, and was about to approach the door, when three Highlanders appeared suddenly before him: one carried a gun, and was fully armed; the other two bore a dead deer, which was slung by the feet from the branch of a tree that rested on their shoulders.

He with the gun came boldly forward, and demanded "who went there?"

"The Red MacGregor," replied Rob, in Gaelic.

"Inversnaid!" exclaimed the three men, joyously; and, dropping the deer, they almost embraced him, for they proved to be Greumoch and two other MacGregors, who were among his most trusted and valued followers.

"What does all this mean?" he exclaimed; "why is my house shut, and where are the people?"

"Ask Montrose!" said Greumoch, fiercely.

"Montrose! I left him but a few hours ago in Strathblane," replied Rob.

"And he told you nothing?"

"Only that I owed him money, and that this money he would have--every penny. But speak quickly--Helen, the boys--what has happened?"

The resentment of Rob Roy was deep, fierce, and bitter when he found that his house and homestead had been swept of everything, and that nothing remained for him and his family but an abode in the woods or on the mountain side; and he uttered a terrible vow for vengeance on Killearn and on the duke his master.

Ponderous locks now secured the door of his own house against him. These Greumoch's gun might soon have blown to pieces, and thus he might have forced an entrance; or he might have repaired to the house of his nephew at Glengyle. But Rob did neither; he simply desired Greumoch to conduct him to Helen, who now had found shelter in a little cottage--a veritable hut--in a glen at some distance; and the first boding sound that reached his ear as he approached it was the melancholy wail of the bagpipe, as Alpine, the family piper, played Helen's _Lament_, which we believe has never been committed to paper, but has been handed down from one generation to another.

The presence of his wife and children (one of the latter sick and ailing, too), instead of soothing Rob Roy, added fuel to the flame that burned within him; and the alternate grief and energy of Helen spurred his longing for vengeance on those who had so foully wronged him.

Next, his followers crowded around him, detailing their losses and insults, grasping significantly the hilts of their swords and dirks, and gradually lashing each other into greater fury, for hitherto they had lacked but a leader, and now that Rob had returned they expected him to march them at once against the Grahams, or whoever might come in their way. But Rob Roy had greater aims in view than the mere gratification of private revenge; so he resolved to be patient for a time.

"And when that time comes, Helen," said he, with solemn energy, "I will lay the Lennox in flames, and harry Mugdock to its groundstone. There is not a house or homestead, a castle or village, but I shall lay in ashes, between this and the Trongate of Glasgow, unless my hopes and measures fail me."

Helen answered only by her tears, and pressed her sick baby closer to her breast.

"Woe to you, Killearn," said Greumoch, while feeling the edge of his poleaxe; "if you fall into my hands you shall have a short life!"

Next morning Rob placed Helen on a strong Highland garron, and slung the children in two panniers on the back of the horse he had ridden from Glasgow. Greumoch, MacAleister, and others shouldered their long Spanish muskets, the pipers struck up "MacGregors' March," and in this fashion the family of Inversnaid departed to seek a wilder part of the country, where, rent free, they might dwell amid the hills.

Rob retired twelve Scottish (or twenty English) miles further into the Highlands, but he still remained upon what he considered his own territory; and there, building what was termed a creel-house, resolved to live in open war with, and defiance of, the Duke of Montrose, who, by a regular form of law, had now become, for a time, legal proprietor of Inversnaid and Craigrostan!

In the wilds of Glendochart Rob began to frame daring political schemes, which the protection afforded to him by his kinsman, Sir John Campbell, of Glenorchy, now Earl of Breadalbane, enabled him to mature, and arms were collected and hidden in secret places, and men were prepared for the coming strife.

Aware that the Paper Court of Dunedin (as the Highlanders disdainfully term the College of Justice at Edinburgh) was not a place where a Celt--especially a MacGregor--was likely to obtain equity, when opposed to a powerful duke who supported the Whigs, whose government Rob abhorred--he resolved to set all law at defiance, and, like a true Scot of the olden time, to confide in his sword alone.

In addition to the seizure of all he possessed on earth, the advertisements which appeared, again and again, in the columns of the "Edinburgh Evening Courant," stung him to the soul; for therein he was stigmatized as a fraudulent bankrupt, an outlaw, and robber--as if it was sought to make him one, for the express purpose of destroying him. One runs as follows:--

"All magistrates and officers of his Majesty's forces are entreated to seize upon Rob Roy, and the money which he carries with him, until the persons concerned in the money may be heard against him; and that notice be given, when he is apprehended, to the keepers of the Exchange Coffee-house at Edinburgh, and the keeper of the Coffee-house at Glasgow, where the parties concerned will be advertised, and the seizers shall be very reasonably rewarded for their pains." (_Edinburgh Courant_, No. 1,058.)

"Now, Helen," said he, trampling the paper under foot, and then casting it into the bogwood fire that blazed on the floor of their cabin, "by the soul o' Ciar Mhor, our foes shall find that the days of Glenfruin are come again! Henceforward, all is at end between us and the Lowlanders, and we shall devote ourselves to war and death!"

When Craigrostan, the last of his patrimony, was taken from him, MacGregor was so exasperated (to quote Browne's "Highland History") "that he declared perpetual war against the duke, and resolved that in future he should supply himself with cattle from his grace's estates, a resolution which he literally kept, and for THIRTY years he carried off the duke's flocks with impunity, and disposed of them publicly in different parts of the country."

The historian adds that these cattle generally belonged to the duke's tenants, who were thus impoverished and unable to pay their rents. He so levied, at the point of the sword, contributions in meal and money, but never until it had first been delivered by the poor tenants to the duke's storekeeper, to whom he always delivered a receipt for the quantity he carried off. At settling the money rents, he frequently attended with a strong band of chosen men, and giving receipts in due form, pocketed the rents of Montrose, who soon began to repent, in bitterness, that he had ever molested Rob Roy.

Chapter XVI.

Rob Takes The Tower Of Carden.

The hills abounded with red deer, the moors and forests with other game--the lochs and rivers teemed with fish--the pastures of the Grahames were full of cattle; thus, Rob and his outlawed followers lived sumptuously in their mountain fastnesses, whither none, as yet, dared to follow them.

Montrose and Killearn were, at that time, beyond Rob's reach; so on Archibald Stirling, of Carden, who had long withheld his tribute of black-mail for service and protection rendered, fell the first burst of his indignation.

It was on a day in the harvest of 1710, that he marched about two hundred and fifty men, in hostile array, with pipes playing, through the parish of Kippen, after passing through the wild glens that lie at the feet of Benmore and Benledi.

This force suddenly appeared before the castle of Carden, which stood on an eminence or island, formed by what was then a loch, but the bed of which is now a rich green meadow, and its name signifies "Caer-dun," or, the fort on the height. No vestige of this castle remains now; though so lately as 1760 a portion of the great tower was standing.

Archibald Stirling was a high cavalier, who, two years before, had been indicted for treason, for having drunk the health of James VIII. at the cross of Dunkeld, accompanied by the Stirlings of Keir and Kippendavie, while swords were flourished, trumpets sounded, and muskets fired.

On the occasion of Rob's visit, Stirling and his lady were both from home, with many of their servants. No inroad was expected from any quarter, and, as the drawbridge was down, the MacGregors, who had been prepared to take the place by storm, quietly took possession of the gates, spread themselves over the whole house, and the contents of the cellars and pantries were quickly investigated.

When the family returned, about sunset, they found the gates shut, the bridge drawn up, and the windows and bartizan full of grim-looking MacGregors, in their red tartans, and bristling with swords, axes, and long guns; while Rob's favourite piper, Alpine, strode to and fro on the roof, playing his invariable air of defiance, "The Battle of Glenfruin."

Outwitted and alarmed, the laird tied a white handkerchief to the point of his sword, and dismounting from the saddle, behind which his terrified lady rode upon a pillion, he advanced to the outer edge of the moat, and waved thrice his impromptu flag of truce. On this the pibroch ceased, and Rob Roy, with bonnet and feather, broadsword and target, appeared at a window of the hall.

"What is the meaning of all this, MacGregor?" asked the laird, sternly; "wherefore do I find your people here, and my own gates shut against me?"

"Carden, remember the black-mail!" replied the outlaw, with equal sternness. "You have long withheld the reward of that protection I once afforded you; and you must yield it now, or see your house burned to the groundstone."

"I will not yield you a shilling--nay, not a farthing of it. I am able to protect myself against all reivers and thieves whatsoever."

"Our being _in_, and your being _out_, at present, cannot look very like it," said MacGregor, laughing; "and here shall we stay, Carden----"

"Till I rouse the Lennox on you, or get a party of troops from Dumbarton. Remember that MacDougal's dragoons are lying at Kylsyth!" exclaimed Carden, furiously, as he turned towards his horse.

"Hold!" cried Rob, sternly, and the appearance of MacAleister's gun, levelled from the tower-head, made Carden pause; then a scream burst from his wife, when perceiving that Rob held from the window their youngest child, which he had taken from the cradle, as she feared with some cruel intention--perhaps to cast it into the lake! Her husband had the same dread, for he grew deadly pale.

"MacGregor, hold!" he exclaimed; "hold, for Heaven's sake, and spare my child!"

"Who spared mine, when you and Killearn came like wolves in my absence, and made my household desolate? Though my youngest-born was sick and ailing, you stood coldly by, while it and its mother were driven forth, from my house at Inversnaid, like the dam and cubs of a wolf; so if I am the wretch that you and others seek to make me, wherefore should I not dash this youngling at your feet, or cast it into the loch?"

For a moment both father and mother were speechless with terror and anxiety; but Rob was too humane to torment them thus. He laughed, kissed and toyed with the poor child, whose plump fingers played with his rough, red beard, and then he resigned it to the nurse, who was well-nigh scared out of her senses.

"MacGregor," cried the Laird of Carden, "unbar the gate, and lower the bridge, and you shall have your black-mail, every penny, with all arrears."

"'Tis well, Carden; now you speak like a reasonable man, and shall be alike welcome to your own rooftree, and to share with me a glass of wine from your own cellar. Admit the laird, Greumoch," he added to that personage, who had charge of the bridge and gate. He then hurried down, and after courteously assisting the lady to alight from her pillion, he conducted her into the castle, where he soon received the tax, granted a receipt for it in legal form, and drawing off his men, marched under cloud of night, and with all speed, towards the mountains.

Since the battle of Glenfruin, and its subsequent severities, the MacGregors had been a scattered clan; but they now began to flock to Rob Roy in such numbers that he soon found himself at the head of five hundred swordsmen.

As the representative of Glengyle, his influence over them was very great, and they all regarded him as the man ordained by Heaven to avenge their injuries on the Lowlanders; for a wrong done to one member of a clan was a wrong done to all, as they were all kinsmen, and related by blood.

Habituated to war and the use of arms, to a love of each other and of their chief, a clan was endued with what an historian terms the two most active principles of human nature--attachment to one's friends and hatred of their enemies.

"Thus," says Sir John Dalrymple, "the humblest of a clan, knowing himself to be as well born as the head of it, revered in his chief his own honour; loved in his clan his own blood; complained not of the difference of station into which fortune had thrown him, and respected himself. The chief in return bestowed a protection founded equally on gratitude and the consciousness of his own interest. Hence the Highlanders, whom more savage nations called savage, carried in the outward expression of their manners the politeness of courts without their vices, and in their bosoms the highest point of honour without its follies."*

* "Memoirs of Great Britain."

Notwithstanding the reward offered for his apprehension, Rob Roy was often rash enough to venture from his fastness alone, and into the very territories of his enemies, for he had become openly an adherent of the exiled House of Stuart, and deep schemes were on foot for maturing the plans of an insurrection; and the conduct of many of these intrigues was committed to his care.

On one of these m