CHAPTER XXXIX.
THE FORDS OF FREW.
In his exultation at having personally made captive a prisoner so important to the State, and for whose seizure a reward had been so long offered, as a rebel, traitor, outlaw, and robber, the Duke of Montrose ordered his trumpets to play and his kettledrummers to beat, when the smoke, the steep ridge, the castled rock, and grey old walls of Stirling appeared in the distance rising amid the green and lovely valley of the Forth.
MacGregor gazed sullenly and fiercely at the distant fortress, wherein, for a brief time, he would be a prisoner, if he could not escape by the way.
They had now crossed Lanrick Mead and the green Braes of Doune, and before them lay the long snaky windings of the Forth, which the duke ordered his troopers to pass by the Fords of Frew—those deep and treacherous fords which Rob knew so well that, as history tells us, and as already related, he guided the army of Mar through them after the battle of Sheriffmuir.
As they drew near the river, the duke, for the greater security of his prisoner, ordered him to be bound anew with a horse-girth to Quartermaster James Stewart, one of the most powerful and resolute of his followers, adding, as he saw the buckle secured under his own eye,—
"And you shall keep him company thus until we have him in the care of the captain of Stirling Castle, or the goodman of the Tolbooth."
Stewart evinced some repugnance to this mode of conducting the prisoner, for the latter and he were old acquaintances, who had frequently trafficked in cattle in more peaceful and happy times.
Rob submitted in silence to this new arrangement; again the brass trumpets sounded shrilly, and the kettledrums rang, as the horse began their march towards the fords; but Rob heeded little this display of pride and triumph, for all his thoughts were elsewhere,—at the fireside of Portnellan, with his aged mother, his wife, and children.
Again a prisoner! Oh, how his brave heart yearned for them, and trembled for their future, all the more that now the faithful and unflinching MacAleister was gone.
Coll was now a man, strong, brave, and active; but had he sufficient skill or strategy to maintain with success the desperate career which his father might bequeath to him from the scaffold at Stirling?