_Helen MacGregor._--In Burke's _Landed Gentry_ (Supplement, art. "MacGregor
of Craigrostan and Inversnaid") this redoubted heroine is described as "a
woman of _agreeable temper_ and domestic habits, active and careful in the
management of her family affairs." This is so directly opposed, not only to
Scott's description, but to the generality of traditions about her, that,
as Campbell says, "it makes the hair of one's literary faith stand on end."
Helen was, very likely, a different person from what she afterwards became,
ere the events happened that drove Rob Roy "to the hill-side to become a
broken man;" but one can hardly imagine her, in her most happy days, to
have been such a person as is above depicted--an amiable wife and clever
housekeeper. The pen of a descendant is evident, in the partial description
given of both husband and wife.