ROB

[Sir WALTER SCOTT. SHALL never forget the delightful sensation with which I exchanged the dark, smoky, smothering atmosphere of the Highland hut, in which we had passed the night so uncomfortably, for the refreshing fragrance of the morning air, and the glorious beams of the rising sun, which, from a tabernacle of purple and golden clouds, were darted full on such a scene of natural romance and beauty as had never before greeted my eyes. To the left lay the valley, down which the Forth wandered on its easterly course, surrounding the beautiful detached hill, with all its garland of woods. On the right, amid a profusion of thickets, knolls, and crags, lay the bed of a broad mountain lake, lightly curled into tiny waves by the breath of the morning breeze, each glittering in its course under the influence of the sunbeams.. High hills, rocks, and banks, waving with natural forests of birch and oak, formed the borders of this enchanting sheet of water; and, as their leaves rustled to the wind and twinkled in the sun, gave to the depth of solitude a sort of life and vivacity. Man alone seemed to be placed in a state of inferiority, in a scene where all the ordinary features of nature were raised and exalted. The miserable little bourocks, as the bailie termed them, of which about a dozen formed the village called the Clachian of Aberfoil, were composed of loose stones, cemented by clay instead of mortar, and thatched by turfs, laid rudely upon rafters formed of native and unhewn birches and oaks from the woods around. The roofs approached the ground so nearly, that Andrew Fairservice observed we might have ridden over the village, and never found out we were near it, unless our horses' feet had "gane through the riggin'."

From all we could see, Mrs. M'Alpine's house, miserable as were the quarters it afforded, was still by far the best in the hamlet; and I dare say you will hardly find it much improved at the present day, for the Scotch are not a people who speedily admit innovation, even when it comes in the shape of improvement.

The inhabitants of these miserable dwellings were disturbed by the noise of our departure; and as our party of about twenty soldiers drew up in rank before marching off, we were reconnoitred by many a beldame from the half-opened door of her cottage. As these sibyls thrust forth their grey

ROY.

See Page 116, Vol. I.]

heads, and showed their shrivelled brows, and long skinny arms, with various gestures, shrugs, and muttered expressions in Gaelic addressed to each other, my imagination recurred to the witches of Macbeth, and I imagined I read in the features of these cronies the malevolence of the weird sisters. The little children also, who began to crawl forth, some quite naked, and others very imperfectly covered with tatters of tartan stuff, clapped their tiny hands, and grinned at the English soldiers, with an expression of national hate and malignity which seemed beyond their years. I remarked particularly that there were no men, nor so much as a boy of ten or twelve years old, to be seen among the inhabitants of a village which seemed populous in proportion to its extent; and the idea certainly occurred to me, that we were likely to receive from them, in the course of our journey, more effectual tokens of ill-will than those which lowered on the visages, and dictated the murmurs, of the women and children.

It was not until we commenced our march that the malignity of the elder persons of the community broke forth into expressions. The last file of men had left the village, to pursue a small broken track, formed by the sledges in which the natives transported their peats and turfs, and which led through the woods that fringed the lower end of the lake, when a shrilly sound of female exclamation broke forth, mixed with the screams of children, the hooping of boys, and the clapping of hands with which the Highland dames enforce their notes, whether of rage or lamentation. I asked Andrew, who looked as pale as death, what all this meant.

"I doubt we'll ken that ower sune," said he. "Means? It means that the Highland wives are cursing and banning the red-coats, and wishing ill-luck to them, and ilka ane that ever spoke the Saxon tongue. I have heard wives flyte in England and Scotland-it's nae marvel to hear them flyte ony gate-but sic ill-scrapit tongues as thae Hieland carlines'-and sic grewsome wishes, that men should be slaughtered like sheep-and that they may lapper their hands to the elbows in their heart's blude-and that they suld dee the death of Walter Cuming of Guiyock, wha hadna as muckle o' him left thegither as would supper a messan-dog-sic awsome language as that I ne'er heard out o' a human thrapple; and, unless the deil wad rise amang them to gie them a lesson, I thinkna that their talent at cursing could be amended. The warst o't is, they bid us aye gang up the loch, and see what we'll land in."

Adding Andrew's information to what I had

myself observed, I could scarce doubt that some attack was meditated upon our party. The road, as we advanced, seemed to afford every facility for such an unpleasant interruption. At first it winded apart from the lake through marshy meadow ground, overgrown with copsewood; now traversing dark and close thickets which would have admitted an ambuscade to be sheltered within a few yards of our line of march; and frequently crossing rough mountain torrents, some of which took the soldiers up to the knees, and ran with such violence, that their force could only be stemmed by the strength of two or three men holding fast by each other's arms. It certainly appeared to me, though altogether unacquainted with military affairs, that a sort of halfsavage warriors, as I had heard the Highlanders asserted to be, might, in such passes as these, attack a party of regular forces with great advantage. The bailie's good sense and shrewd observation had led him to the same conclusion, as I understood from his requesting to speak with the captain, whom he addressed nearly in the following terms :-" Captain, it's no to fleech ony favour out o' ye, for I scorn it-and it's under protest that I reserve my action and pleas of oppression and wrongous imprisonment; but, being a friend to King George and his army, I take the liberty to speer-Dinna ye think ye might tak a better time to gang up this glen? If ye are seeking Rob Roy, he's kend to be better than half a hunder men strong when he's at the fewest; and if he brings in the Glengyle folk, and the Glenfinlas and Balquidder lads, he may come to gie you your kail through the reek; and it's my sincere advice, as a king's friend, ye had better take back again to the Clachan, for thae women at Aberfoil are like the scarts and seamaws at the Cumries-there's aye foul weather follows their skirling."

"Make yourself easy, sir," replied Captain Thornton; "I am in the execution of my orders. And as you say you are a friend to King George, you will be glad to learn, that it is impossible that this gang of ruffians, whose licence has disturbed the country so long, can escape the measures now taken to suppress them. The horse squadron of militia, commanded by Major Galbraith, is already joined by two or more troops of cavalry, which will оссиру all the lower passes of this wild country; three hundred Highlanders, under the two gentlemen you saw at the inn, are in possession of the upper part, and various strong parties from the garrison are securing the hills and glens in different directions. Our last accounts of Rob Roy correspond with what this fellow has confessed, that, finding himself surrounded on all sides, he had dismissed the greater part of his followers, with the purpose either of lying con

cealed, or of making his escape through his superior knowledge of the passes."

"I dinna ken," said the bailie; "there's mair brandy than brains in Garschattachin's head this morning. And I wadna, an I were you, captain, rest my main dependence on the Hielandmen— hawks winna pike out hawks' een. They may quarrel amang themsells, and gie ilk ither ill names, and maybe a slash wi' a claymore, but they are sure to join in the lang run against a' civilised folk that wear breeks on their hinder ends, and hae purses in their pouches."

He

Apparently these admonitions were not altogether thrown away on Captain Thornton. reformed his line of march, commanded his soldiers to unsling their firelocks and fix their bayonets, and formed an advanced and rearguard, each consisting of a non-commissioned officer and two soldiers, who received strict orders to keep an alert look-out. Dougal underwent another and very close examination, in which he steadfastly asserted the truth of what he had before affirmed; and being rebuked on account of the suspicious and dangerous appearance of the route by which he was guiding them, he answered with a sort of testiness that seemed very natural, "Her nainsell didna mak ta roadan shentlemans likit grand roads, she suld hae pided at Glasco."

All this passed off well enough, and we resumed our progress.

Our route, though leading towards the lake, had hitherto been so much shaded by wood, that we only from time to time obtained a glimpse of that beautiful sheet of water. But the road now suddenly emerged from the forest ground, and, winding close by the margin of the loch, afforded us a full view of its spacious mirror, which now, the breeze having totally subsided, reflected in still magnificence the high, dark, heathy mountains, huge grey rocks, and shaggy banks, by which it is encircled. The hills now sunk on its margin so closely, and were so broken and precipitous, as to afford no passage except just upon the narrow line of the track which we occupied, and which was overhung with rocks, from which we might have been destroyed merely by rolling down stones, without much possibility of offering resistance. Add to this, that, as the road winded round every promontory and bay which indented the lake, there was rarely a possibility of seeing a hundred yards before us. Our commander appeared to take some alarm at the nature of the pass in which he was engaged, which displayed itself in repeated orders to his soldiers to be on the alert, and in many threats of instant death to Dougal, if he should be found to have led them into danger. Dougal received those threats with an air of stupid impenetrability, which might arise

"If shentlemens were seeking ta Red Gregarach," he said, "to be sure they couldna expect to find her without some wee danger."

Just as the Highlander uttered these words, a halt was made by the corporal commanding the advance, who sent back one of the file who formed it, to tell the captain that the path in front was occupied by Highlanders, stationed on a commanding point of particular difficulty. Almost at the same instant a soldier from the rear came to say, that they heard the sound of a bagpipe in the woods through which we had just passed. Captain Thornton, a man of conduct as well as courage, instantly resolved to force the pass in front, without waiting till he was assailed from the rear; and assuring his soldiers that the bagpipes which they heard were those of the friendly Highlanders who were advancing to their assistance, he stated to them the importance of advancing and securing Rob Roy, if possible, before these auxiliaries should come up to divide with them the honour, as well as the reward which was placed on the head of this celebrated freebooter. He therefore ordered the rear-guard to join the centre, and both to close up to the advance, doubling his files, so as to occupy with his column the whole practicable part of the road, and to present such a front as its breadth admitted. Dougal, to whom he said in a whisper, "You dog, if you have deceived me you shall die for it!" was placed in the centre, between two grenadiers, with positive orders to shoot him if he attempted an escape. The same situation was assigned to us, as being the safest, and Captain Thornton, taking his half-pike from the soldier who carried it, placed himself at the head of his little detachment, and gave the word to march forward.

The party advanced with the firmness of English soldiers. Not so Andrew Fairservice, who was frightened out of his wits; and not so, if truth must be told, either the bailie or I myself, who, without feeling the same degree of trepidation, could not with stoical indifference see our lives exposed to hazard in a quarrel with which we had no concern. But there was neither time for remonstrance nor remedy.

We approached within about twenty yards of the spot where the advanced guard had seen some appearance of an enemy. It was one of those promontories which run into the lake, and round the base of which the road had hitherto winded in the manner I have described. In the present case, however, the path, instead of keeping the water's edge, scaled the promontory by one or two rapid zigzags, carried in a broken track along the precipitous face of a slaty grey rock, which would otherwise have been absolutely inaccessible.

On

road so broken, so narrow, and so precarious, the corporal declared he had seen the bonnets and long-barrelled guns of several mountaineers, apparently couched among the long heath and brushwood which crested the eminence. Captain Thornton ordered him to move forward with three files, to dislodge the supposed ambuscade, while at a more slow but steady pace he advanced to his support with the rest of his party.

The attack which he meditated was prevented by the unexpected apparition of a female upon the summit of the rock. Stand!" she said, with a commanding tone, "and tell me what ye seek in M'Gregor's country?"

I have seldom seen a finer or more commanding form than this woman. She might be between the term of forty and fifty years, and had a countenance which must once have been of a masculine cast of beauty; though now, imprinted with deep lines by exposure to rough weather, and perhaps by the wasting influence of grief and passion, its features were only strong, harsh, and expressive. She wore her plaid, not drawn around her head and shoulders, as is the fashion of the women in Scotland, but disposed around her body as the Highland soldiers wear theirs. She had a man's bonnet, with a feather in it, an unsheathed sword in her hand, and a pair of pistols at her girdle.

"It's Helen Campbell, Rob's wife," said the bailie, in a whisper of considerable alarm; “and there will be broken heads amang us or it's lang."

"What seek ye here?" she asked again at Captain Thornton, who had himself advanced to reconnoitre.

"We seek the outlaw, Rob Roy M'Gregor Campbell," answered the officer, "and make no war on women; therefore offer no vain opposition to the king's troops, and assure yourself of civil treatment."

"Ay," retorted the Amazon, "I am no stranger to your tender mercies. Ye have left me neither name nor fame. My mother's bones will shrink aside in their grave when mine are laid beside them. Ye have left me and mine neither house nor hold, blanket nor bedding, cattle to feed us, or flocks to clothe us-ye have taken from us all -all-the very name of our ancestors have ye taken away, and now ye come for our lives."

"I seek no man's life," replied the captain; "I only execute my orders. If you are alone, good woman, you have nought to fear-if there are any with you so rash as to offer useless resistance, their own blood be on their own heads. Move forward, sergeant."

"Forward-march," said the non-commissioned officer. "Huzza, my boys, for Rob Roy's head and a purse of gold!"

He quickened his pace into a run, followed by

The

the six soldiers; but as they obtained the first traverse of the ascent, the flash of a dozen of firelocks from various parts of the pass parted in quick succession and deliberate aim. sergeant, shot through the body, still struggled to gain the ascent, raised himself by his hands to clamber up the face of the rock, but relaxed his grasp, after a desperate effort, and falling, rolled from the face of the cliff into the deep lake, where he perished. Of the soldiers three fell, slain or disabled; the others retreated on their main body, all more or less wounded.

"Grenadiers, to the front!" said Captain Thornton. You are to recollect that in those days this description of soldiers actually carried that destructive species of firework from which they derive their name. The four grenadiers moved to the front accordingly. The officer commanded the rest of the party to be ready to support them, and only saying to us, Look to your safety, gentlemen," gave, in rapid succession, the word to the grenadiers-" Open your pouches-handle your grenades-blow your matches-fall on."

The whole advanced with a shout, headed by Captain Thornton, the grenadiers preparing to throw their grenades among the bushes where the ambuscade lay, and the musketeers to support them by an instant and close assault. Dougal, forgotten in the scuffle, wisely crept into the thicket which overhung that part of the road where we had first halted, which he ascended with the activity of a wild cat. I followed his example, instinctively recollecting that the fire of the Highlanders would sweep the open track. I clambered until out of breath; for a continued spattering fire, in which every shot was multiplied by a thousand echoes, the hissing of the kindled fusees of the grenades, and the successive explosion of those missiles, mingled with the huzzas of the soldiers, and the yells and cries of their Highland antagonists, formed a contrast which added-I do not shame to own it-wings to my desire to reach a place of safety. The difficulties of the ascent soon increased so much that I despaired of reaching Dougal, who seemed to swing himself from rock to rock, and stump to stump, with the facility of a squirrel, and I turned down my eyes to see what had become of my other companions. Both were brought to a very awkward still-stand.

The bailie, to whom, I suppose, fear had given a temporary share of agility, had ascended about twenty feet from the path, when his foot slipping, as he straddled from one huge fragment of rock to another, he would have slumbered with his father the deacon, whose acts and words he was so fond of quoting, but for a projecting branch of a ragged thorn, which, catching hold of the skirts of his riding coat, supported him in mid air,

where he dangled not unlike to the sign of the Golden Fleece over the door of a mercer in the Trongate of his native city.

As for Andrew Fairservice, he had advanced with better success, until he had attained the top of a bare cliff, which, rising above the wood, exposed him, at least in his own opinion, to all the dangers of the neighbouring skirmish, while, at the same time, it was of such a precipitous and impracticable nature, that he dared neither to advance nor retreat. Footing it up and down upon the narrow space which the top of the cliff afforded (very like a fellow at a country fair dancing upon a trencher), he roared for mercy in Gaelic and English alternately, according to the side on which the scale of victory seemed to predominate, while his exclamations were only answered by the groans of the bailie, who suffered much, not only from apprehension, but from the pendulous posture in which he hung suspended by the loins.

On perceiving the bailie's precarious situation, my first idea was to attempt to render him assistance; but this was impossible without the concurrence of Andrew, who continued to pour forth piteous prayers for mercy, which no one heard, and to skip to and fro, writhing his body into all possible antic shapes to avoid the balls which he conceived to be whistling around him.

At

In a few minutes this cause of terror ceased, for the fire, at first so well sustained, now sunk at once, a sure sign that the conflict was concluded. To gain some spot from which I could see how the day had gone was now my object, in order to appeal to the mercy of the victors, who, I trusted (whichever side might be gainers), would not suffer the honest bailie to remain suspended, like the coffin of Mahomet, between heaven and earth, without lending a hand to disengage him. length, by dint of scrambling, I found a spot which commanded a view of the field of battle. It was indeed ended; and, as my mind already augured, from the place and circumstances attending the contest, it had terminated in the defeat of Captain Thornton. I saw a party of Highlanders in the act of disarming that officer, and the scanty remainder of his party. They consisted of about twelve men, most of whom were wounded, who, surrounded by treble their number, and without the power either to advance or retreat, exposed to a murderous and well-aimed fire, which they had no means of returning with effect, had at length laid down their arms by the order of their officer, when he saw that the road in his rear was occupied, and that protracted resistance would be only wasting the lives of his brave followers. By the Highlanders who fought under cover, the victory was cheaply bought, at the expense of one man slain and two wounded by the grenades.