"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.