"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.