Chapter XXXV: Rob's Narrow Escape

The Duke of Montrose began to despair of ever capturing Rob Roy or of conquering his men; but he distributed among his tenantry a great number of muskets, bayonets, and swords, with plenty of ammunition, that they might be able to defend themselves if attacked; but all these military stores fell into the hands of the enemy, for Rob, MacAleister, Greumoch, Coll, and other MacGregors, by a systematic series of attacks or visits in the night, disarmed all the tenants in succession; so the duke gained nothing by the arrangement.

Another insurrection for the House of Stuart was expected in the Highlands; and as the MacGregors, by their conflicts, raids, and depredations, had collected a great quantity of weapons, more than were requisite for their personal equipment. Rob Roy had all these carefully oiled, packed in well-greased cowhides, and buried in secret places, where perhaps many of them remain undiscovered to this day.

The MacGregors daily became more daring, and sometimes drove away the cattle from the parks, beneath the very windows of Buchanan House, where the duke resided. The practice of "lifting," as it was termed, the cattle of a hostile clan was then, and for many years after, common in the Highlands; and as the feud between Rob and his grace was of the most bitter nature, he carried the system to the utmost extent.

The duke's rental was principally payable in kind. Thus Killearn had established large granaries for storing up corn, meal, butter, cheese, &c., at a place called Moulin and elsewhere, which he deemed secure. Yet at all these storehouses Rob Roy appeared regularly, when least expected, and demanded supplies of grain, meal, or cheese for the use of his family, his followers, or for the poor people of the district, who were all devoted to him, for he was deemed the friend and father, protector and champion, of all who were necessitous, unfortunate, or oppressed.

For the quantities thus taken he regularly gave signed receipts, which stated that he took these goods as a return in some part for the property of which the duke had so unjustly deprived him; and at times he frequently compelled the Montrose tenantry to convey the goods thus appropriated to his house at Portnellan, or wherever they were required.

In his desperation, Montrose resolved to attempt the capture of Rob in person, and applied to the Privy Council for authority to raise a body of horse and foot militia among his own dependants, supposing probably that they would be better suited to a warfare among the mountains than the troops of the line.

It is said that the duke had such a dread of the greater or more active enmity of Rob Roy that, singularly enough, "_his name_ was intentionally omitted, and the act was expressed in general terms, as being one to repress sorners, robbers, and broken men--to raise the hue-and-cry after them, to recover goods stolen by them, and to seize their persons."

In consequence of the state of society which then existed in the Highlands, where the people dwelt in tribes or communities and in sequestered glens, which were separated by great mountain ridges, by pathless forests, while deep defiles or narrow passes formed the only access to the country, sudden raids and onslaughts, if vigorously conducted, could be easily made, with great peril, however, and with certain subsequent vengeance.

The two bodies of horse and foot now mustered and armed by Montrose were composed of men entirely devoted to him, and more or less antagonistic to the MacGregors, at whose hands they had all suffered severely. They wore the duke's livery--blue coats faced with red, with trews of the Grahame tartan, and each wore in his bonnet a laurel leaf. There was not a man among them but had something to revenge, in the shape of a farm burned, a kinsman slain, or a herd carried off; so the measures now put in force against him compelled Rob Roy to be more than ever wary, for although hitherto most fortunate in all his achievements and escapes, he could not hope to be always so.

Selecting a time when many of the MacGregors were absent at distant fairs, on a dusky evening in the November of 1717, it was resolved to beat up Rob's quarters.

Assisted by a few of the horse grenadiers of MacDougal (now a lieutenant-colonel), the duke's militia, led by a gentleman named Colonel Grahame, a brave and determined fellow, who had served under Charles XII. in his war with Russia, passed rapidly and unseen through the pass of Aberfoyle, and about midnight reached the house and clachan of Portnellan, at the head of Loch Katrine.

There was no moon, and all was dark and still; not even a dog barked, when the house, which was thatched with heather, was completely surrounded on all sides by men with muskets loaded and bayonets fixed. The dragoons were led by the only unwilling member of the expedition--Willie Gemmil, now a sergeant.

The cottages wherein MacAleister, Greumoch, and others dwelt, adjoined the house of Rob, and formed a kind of small square, in the centre of which was a patch of ground, cultivated as a kitchen garden, and common to the whole community.

These cottages were built as such edifices are still constructed in the Highlands. The smoothed face of a rock made the floor; several large boulders of black whin formed the corners of the gables, and a few courses of turf plastered with clay made up the walls. On the rough pine _cabers_ of the roof lay the thatch, composed of fern with its root ends outwards, and tied with ropes of twisted heather.

As these humble edifices burned like a heap of straw, Colonel Grahame said,--

"Fire all these thatched roofs at once, and smoke the rascals out like foxes. Then shoot down every one who comes forth!"

"Nay, nay, colonel," said an old officer, a quartermaster named James Stewart; "under favour, sir, I will have no hand in such butcherly work. Our orders are----"

"To seize or destroy Rob Roy at all hazards!"

"Yes; but we have not King William's sign-manual in our pockets to make another Glencoe at the head of Loch Katrine," retorted the quartermaster.

"Sirrah--do you dispute my orders?" began the colonel, furiously, when Sergeant Gemmil approached and said,--

"Please your honours, to fire the cottages would rouse the whole country on us, as if the fiery cross went through it; and we should all be cut to pieces, horse and man, before we could escape by Aberfoyle, or the pass of Loch Ard."

"Egad, you are right, sergeant; so let us beat up this rogue's quarters more quietly," replied Grahame.

Though the house was humble, being merely a cottage with stone walls, the door was strong; but it was soon dashed open by a musket butt; then all shrunk back, with their bayonets at the charge, expecting MacGregor, like a baited lion, to spring forth upon them sword in hand, for all dreaded the length and strength of his arm; but instead there appeared only three women trembling in their night-dresses.

One of these, an aged woman, was Rob's mother; the others were Helen MacGregor and her foster-sister, who, when she married, had come with her from her father's house of Comar, which stood on the eastern slope of Ben Lomond.

On Colonel Grahame imperiously demanding "where Robert MacGregor Campbell was?" they assured him that he and all his followers were absent; and that if this was doubted, the house might be searched.

"Absent--where?" said Grahame, biting his long leather gauntlet with undisguised vexation.

Ere the ladies could speak, a scout or spy named MacLaren--the same person whom Rob had met at the inn of Chapelerroch--arrived, breathlessly, to inform the colonel that on the preceding evening he had seen MacGregor with a chosen party of his men at a change-house, or wayside tavern, near Crianlarich in Strathfillan.

"You are sure of this?" said the colonel, sternly and suspiciously.

"Sure as that I now address you, sir."

"If this be true, you shall have ten guineas; but woe to you, rascal, if you deceive us! Sergeant Gemmil, look to this fellow, and if he attempts to give us the slip before we reach Strathfillan shoot him down."

Leaving the farmhouse untouched, for to fire it would have defeated the object in view, the colonel's party, guided by the spy, proceeded up Glengyle, from thence across the Braes of Balquhidder, and just as day began to brighten the mountain peaks, they found themselves at the lonely change-house of Crianlarich, which stood in a sequestered and pastoral part of Strathfillan.

Rob Roy, as the spy informed them, was then in the house; but his men, to the number of twenty, occupied a barn which adjoined it. In that place they feared no surprise, and kept no watch; thus, Colonel Grahame, when he dismounted and approached the barn, on peeping through one of the air openings in the wall, saw the MacGregors lying asleep on some bundles of straw, with their swords, shields, and muskets beside them.

"You are right, fellow," said he to MacLaren, to whom he gave at once the promised guineas. "There are twenty rogues asleep here, and we shall cut them off to a man; but the master thief must be taken before we rouse his followers. Then I shall hang the keeper of this tavern, and burn it down, without studying the scruples of our quartermaster," he added, with a dark frown at Mr. Stewart.

A dismounted trooper applied the heel of his heavy jackboot to the door of the house, and with a single kick made it fly open.

Softly though the troop had approached the dwelling, by riding on the grass or heather, Rob had heard them, and was up, clad, and armed, with his target braced upon his left arm, at the moment the door was broken open.

He put forth his bonnet upon the point of a stick, and in the grey twilight of the morning twenty muskets were discharged at it. Then, before the soldiers could reload, he sprang upon them with a shout, and cut down two. The noise of the volley having brought all his men to their feet, they rushed from the barn and assailed the Grahames in the rear, driving them and the horse grenadiers pell-mell round the house, and severely wounding several of them.

"To the hills! to the hills! and follow me!" shouted Rob, as he slung his shield on his back, and dashed off at his utmost speed towards the mountains.

Under a fire of muskets and carbines, he and his men crossed unhurt a torrent that foamed through the valley, and seeking a path, where few infantry and certainly no cavalry could follow, they began a leisurely retreat up the mountains towards the head of Loch Lomond.

Exasperated by this sudden and unlooked-for escape, Colonel Grahame ordered the horse to make a detour, and the infantry to follow in direct pursuit.

Then began a desultory skirmish, in which the MacGregors had all the advantage; for their tartans blended with the dun-coloured heather and green ferns, while the militia were fatally conspicuous in their blue uniforms. Thus, several were shot, and MacAleister threw the spy, MacLaren, into a mill-race, near the House of Comar, where he was swept away and drowned.

After this, "the Grahames thought proper to withdraw," and thus ended another attempt to capture Rob Roy.

To avenge this defeat, and the capture of his factor, it is related in the "Domestic Annals of Scotland," that the Duke of Montrose got all his farmers in the Lennox armed and mounted, for the purpose of attacking Rob; but Glune-dhu, the nephew of the latter, with the MacGregors of Glengyle, attacked his grace's men, and surrounded and disarmed them. Of this encounter we are unable to furnish the details; but, unfortunately for our hero, the next attempt had a very different result.