"If he refuses?"
"Then, I will hang you, John Grahame of Killearn, on the highest tree that grows by the banks of Loch Katrine! Away with him, Greumoch. Good night, gentlemen all. Alpine, strike up; the glomain grows apace, and we must begone to the mountains with speed."
In less than an hour after this the unfortunate factor found himself on the march with Rob Roy's men among the hills of Buchanan, from whence the whole clan, with their spoil, departed under cloud of night, by Auchintroig and Gartmore, and through the pass of Aberfoyle towards the Trossachs.
In irony the piper played before him all the way, till, at a place near Loch Ard, Alpine suddenly stopped as they passed a green knoll.
"Why do you pause?" asked MacGregor.
Alpine pointed to the green knoll. It was a haunt of the fairies, who had decoyed therein his own grandfather, also a piper (for he played the clan into the action at Glenfruin), and he was seen no more till on a Halloween night, about fifty years after. His son, then an aged man, on passing, saw the hillock open like a chamber, and his father, still young and beardless, playing vigorously to hundreds of quaint little dancers in green doublets and conical hats.
On finding himself conveyed into that Highland wilderness, whither few Lowlanders dared to venture in those days, all hope for the future died away in the heart of the unhappy Grahame of Killearn.
Chance of escape he had none. He was secured by a rope round his waist, and this was tied to the girdle of Greumoch MacGregor, who, regardless of the failing strength and weak limbs of the dapper little chamberlain, marched sullenly on, with his poleaxe on his shoulder, a short tobacco-pipe in his mouth, and his vast plaid floating behind him, dragging his prisoner over rocks and stones, up steep ascents and down foaming watercourses, without pity or remorse, and without giving him time either to breathe or implore rest and pity.
With growing terror Grahame remembered his treatment of the wife of MacGregor, when he pillaged Inversnaid, though under colour and authority of the civil law; he knew that it was by his counsels that the powerful Duke of Montrose had ruined poor Rob, and driven him to the hillside as an outlaw and reiver; and he gave himself up for utterly lost when the wild pass of Aberfoyle closed upon the rear of the marching band, and the vast spoil of cattle they had collected at the point of the sword.