Alpine and other pipers played, nor were harpers from the Western Isles wanting to make music there, and plenteous libations of whisky (that never paid duty to the king), of claret landed by French smugglers, and of Helen's home-brewed ale went round in stoups and quaichs and luggies.
There on Rob's right hand sat his aged mother, with the little English boy, Harry Huske, upon her knee, for the child was alternately the plaything and pet of her and of her daughter-in-law, Helen MacGregor.
After this great open-air banquet reels were danced on the smooth turf, and torches of blazing pine were tied to poles when the light of the long, clear midsummer night began to fail.
But lo! a sudden gathering of dark clouds, and the playing of green lightning about the summit of Benvenue, announced a coming storm, warning all to separate and seek shelter ere midnight came. Many supposed the sudden storm which so rapidly followed this entertainment was ominous of coming evil; but a few hours after it was discovered to have been the means, perhaps, of saving Rob Roy and all his followers from death or capture.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
GREUMOCH TAKEN.
On the evening of the rustic banquet, in compliance with the request of the Duke of Montrose, three bodies of troops were on their march, by three different routes, to surprise the whole of the MacGregors.
One party of the 15th Foot (then as we have said called Harrison's Regiment) advanced from Glasgow; another of the South British Fusiliers, under Major Huske, came from Stirling, accompanied by the ungrateful Grahame of Killearn as Sheriff Depute of Dumbartonshire; and a third party consisting of the Scots Royals (or 1st Regiment of the Line) advanced from Finlarig.
But their marching was slow and devious, for the country was strange, especially to the English troops, none of whom could be quartered in Scotland prior to the Union in 1707. The Highlands were then without roads, and the Government possessed "no correct map of those unexplored regions which," as a recent writer says, "were almost as little known south of the Tweed—or we may rather say, south of the Tay—as the African deserts, or the interior of North America."
Hence, a night march among those pathless mountains was an arduous task in these times; and on this occasion the rain descended in blinding torrents; the water-courses became white cascades; mere runnels were swollen to streams, and streams became dark impassable floods. The guides led the troops astray, either wilfully or by mischance; so that all arrived too late at the passes, and ere the storm was fairly over, Rob Roy (whom they had hoped to pounce upon when in bed) had intelligence of his unwelcome visitors, and got all his men under arms.