Whereupon the Bailie took it on himself to warn Captain Thornton that
the Highlanders, especially under a leader so daring as Rob Roy, were in
the habit of attacking their enemies in narrow passes where regular
troops had no chance against them. But the officer was not to be turned
aside. He had his orders and he meant to carry them out. Rob Roy was
certainly trapped, he said. All the upper passes were in the hands of
the Highlanders of the western clans. Garschattachin had closed in on
the south with the Lennox Horse. The latest tidings of the freebooter
were in accordance with the information so reluctantly given by Dougal,
and were to the effect that Rob Roy had sent away the larger part of his
clan, and was seeking escape alone, or with very few in his company,
trusting most likely to his superior knowledge of the passes.
Meanwhile Dougal their guide answered with a natural impatience to all
complaints that he was leading them by difficult or dangerous roads.
"If," he said, with an appearance of reason, "gentlemans were seeking
the Red Gregarach, they must expect some wee danger. And if they likit
grand roads, they should hae bided at Glasgow."
The party was continuing to follow the narrow path by the lake, till
they came to a halt at a place where the path left the water and climbed
upward by several zigzags to the top of a rock, on which the advance
guard reported that they had seen the bonnets of the Highlanders as well
as the shining barrels of their long muskets.
The officer now ordered the Corporal with three files to dislodge the
enemy from this stronghold. The soldiers accordingly moved forward while
Captain Thornton, with the rest of his party, followed in support. But
immediate attack was prevented by the appearance of a woman on the top
of the rock.
"Stand!" she cried in commanding tones, "and tell me what you seek in
Mac-Gregor's country."
[Illustration: "THE soldiers accordingly moved forward while Captain
Thornton, with the rest of his party, followed in support. But immediate
attack was prevented by the appearance of a woman on the top of the
rock.
"'Stand!' she cried in commanding tones, 'and tell me what you seek in
Mac-Gregor's country.'"]
She was tall and imposing in figure. Her features had once been
handsome, but were now wasted with grief and passion. She wore a man's
plaid and belt, a man's bonnet was on her head, and she held a naked
sword in her hand.
"That's Helen Mac-Gregor, Rob's wife," said the Bailie, in a whisper of
alarm; "there will be broken heads before long!"
"What seek ye here?" she demanded again of Captain Thornton, who had
advanced to reconnoitre.
"We seek the outlaw Rob Roy Mac-Gregor Campbell," said the officer; "we
make no war upon women. Therefore offer no opposition to the King's
troops and assure yourself of civil treatment."
"I am no stranger to your tender mercies," the woman said, "you have
left me neither name nor fame--neither house nor hold, blanket nor
bedding, cattle to feed us, nor flocks to clothe us! Ye have taken from
us all--all! The very name of our ancestors ye have taken away, and now
ye come for our lives!"
"I seek no man's life," said the officer. "I only execute my orders.
Forward there--march!"
"Hurrah, boys--for Rob Roy's head and a purse of gold!" cried the
Corporal, taking the word from his officer.
He quickened his pace to a run, followed by his six men. But as they
reached the first loop of the ascent of the cliff, there came the flash
of a dozen muskets from both sides of the pass. The Corporal, shot
through the body, still struggled to reach the summit. He clung to the
rock, but after a desperate effort his grasp relaxed. He slipped from
the bare face of the cliff into the deep lake, where he perished. Of the
soldiers three fell with him, while the others retired as best they
could upon their main body.
"Grenadiers, to the front!" cried the steady voice of Captain Thornton,
"open your pouches--handle your grenades--blow up your matches--fall
on!"
The whole party advanced with a shout, headed by Captain Thornton, the
grenadiers preparing to throw their grenades among the bushes, and the
rank and file ready to support them in a close and combined assault.
Dougal, finding himself forgotten in the scuffle, had wisely crept into
the thicket which overhung the road, and was already mounting the cliff
with the agility of a wild-cat. Frank hastily followed his example. For
the spattering fire, directed on the advancing party of soldiers, the
loud reports of muskets, and the explosion of the grenades, made the
path no comfortable place for those without arms. The Bailie, however,
had only been able to scramble about twenty feet above the path when,
his foot slipping, he would certainly have fallen into the lake had not
the branch of a ragged thorn caught his riding-coat and supported him in
mid-air, where he hung very like a sign in front of a hostelry. Andrew
Fairservice had made somewhat better speed, but even he had only
succeeded in reaching a ledge from which he could neither ascend nor yet
come down. On this narrow promontory he footed it up and down, much like
a hen on a hot girdle, and roared for mercy in Gaelic and English
alternately, accordingly as he thought the victory inclined toward the
soldiers or went in favour of the outlaws.
But on this occasion it was the Highlanders who were destined to win.
They fought altogether under cover, and, from the number of musket
flashes they held also a great superiority in point of numbers. At all
events Frank soon saw the English officer stripped of his hat and arms,
and his men, with sullen and dejected countenances, delivering up their
muskets to the victorious foe.
The Bailie was, however, rescued by "the Dougal cratur," as the
magistrate called him, who cut off the tails of his coat and lowered him
to the ground. Then, when at last he was somewhat appeased, on account
of Frank's seeming desertion, he counselled that they should be in no
hurry to approach Mac-Gregor's wife, who would certainly be most
dangerous in the moment of victory.
Andrew Fairservice had already been espied on his airy perch, from which
the Highlanders soon made him descend, by threatening him with their
guns and even firing a stray shot or two over his head, so that
presently he fell to the earth among them. The outlaws stood ready to
receive him, and ere he could gain his legs, they had, with the most
admirable celerity, stripped him of periwig, hat, coat, doublet,
stockings, and shoes. In other circumstances this might have been
amusing for Frank to watch. For though Andrew fell to the earth a
well-clothed and decent burgher--he arose a forked, uncased, bald-pated,
and beggarly-looking scarecrow.
And indeed Frank and the Bailie would soon have shared the same fate,
had not Dougal appeared on the scene in the nick of time, and compelled
the plunderers to restore their spoil. So to Helen Mac-Gregor they were
taken, Dougal fighting and screaming all the way, evidently determined
to keep his captives to himself, or at least to prevent others from
claiming them.
With many but (considering the time and occasion) somewhat ill-chosen
words of familiarity, the Bailie claimed kindred with Rob Roy's wife.
But in this he did himself more harm than good, for his ill-timed
jocularity grated on Helen Mac-Gregor's ear, in her present mood of
exaltation, and she promptly commanded that the Sassenachs should one
and all be bound and thrown into the deeps of the lake.
But here Dougal threw himself between the angry woman and her prisoners
with such vehemence that he was able to stave off, at least for a time,
the execution of the supreme sentence. These men were, he said, friends
of the Chief and had come up on his assurance to meet him at the Clachan
of Aberfoil.
But at that very moment the wild strains of the pibroch were heard
approaching, and a strong body of Highlanders in the prime of life
arrived on the scene. It now appeared that those who had fought and
beaten the troops were either beardless boys or old men scarcely able to
hold a musket. But there was no joy of victory on the faces of the
newcomers. The pipes breathed a heart-breaking lament.
_Rob Roy was taken!_
"Taken," repeated Helen Mac-Gregor, "taken!--And do you live to say so?
Did I nurse you for this, coward dogs--that you should see your father
prisoner, and come back to tell it?"
The sons of Rob Roy, the elder James, tall and handsome, the younger
Robin Oig, ruddy and dark, both hung their heads. And after the first
burst of her indignation was over, the elder explained how Rob Roy had
been summoned to bide tryst with--(here Frank Osbaldistone missed the
name, but it sounded like his own). Having, however, some suspicion of
treachery, Rob Roy had ordered the messenger to be detained, and had
gone forth attended by only Angus Breck and little Rory. Within half an
hour Angus Breck came back with the tidings that the Chief had been
captured by a party of the Lennox militia under Galbraith of
Garschattachin, who were in waiting for him.
Helen Mac-Gregor had now two purposes to carry out. First, she sent
messengers in every direction to gather assistance for an immediate
attack on the Lowlanders, in order to effect the rescue of her husband.
Second, she ordered the spy, whose false message had sent her husband to
his doom, to be brought before her. For him there was no pity.
When he was haled, pale and trembling before the enraged wife of the
Mac-Gregor, what was Frank's astonishment to discover that he was none
other than Morris, the very same man who had accused him of the robbery
of his portmanteau at Squire Inglewood's, and whom he had last seen in
the Glasgow College Yards, walking and talking with Rashleigh
Osbaldistone.
A brief command to her followers--and the wretched man was bound. A
heavy stone was tied about his neck in a plaid, and he was hurled
instantly into the depths of the lake, where he perished, amid the loud
shouts of vindictive triumph which went up from the clan.