THE ADVENTURES OF ROB ROY.

BY

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.