And then there were Duncan and Hamish, with little Ronald, who was always in scrapes and turmoils, and exhibited more scars and bruises than even Greumoch, or the most veteran of the clan, what might their fate—their future be?
Their ruddy sunburnt faces, their hearty boyish voices, all came vividly to memory with the terrible question,—How were their lives to end?
By a tender succession of links in his boys, he had beheld a future life beyond his own; for by the natural course of events they were to see what he could never hope to see, or feel, or share in—the coming time, which they were to enjoy (or endure) when his strong hand was lying in the grave, when his sword had returned to the anvil, and when on earth he could avail them no more. But what an heritage of danger had he to bequeath them!
Then the future plans of the Jacobites (with whose success he identified the restoration of his people to their own name, and of his patrimony to himself) came before him, for he was deeply involved in their intrigues; and about the very time of this most unexpected capture he was to have met a messenger from the Marquis of Seaforth, as that noble was styled by the loyalists in Scotland—a messenger who was to precede an invasion of the Highlands from Spain.
Twilight stole over the scenery. The eagle had gone to its eyry in the rocks; the lazy cormorant and the long-legged heron had forsaken the shore, and all was silent, or nearly so, for no sound broke the stillness now, save the tramp of the horses, or at times a loud shriek that rung upon the wind, and wailed away in the distance.
It was the melancholy cry of the night-owl.
Darkness had set in when the leading files of the duke's column began with great deliberation and care to cross the Forth at Frew. Recent rains had swollen the river, which made a brawling sound at the fords, though it usually rolls silently and even somewhat sluggishly through its lovely valley, a winding course of ninety miles towards the sea.
While the centre and rear of the horsemen were halted by the margin of the river, the others crossed, half-fording and half-swimming, and thereafter scrambling up the rugged bank on the opposite side, Rob Roy began to converse in low tones with the quartermaster, James Stewart.
The grandson of the latter was some years ago an innkeeper at Loch Katrine, and a guide to tourists; and it was to his relation of this adventure that Sir Walter Scott was indebted for one of the most stirring passages in his novel, wherein, however, he designates the trooper to whom Rob was bound "Evan of the Brigglands."
Taking advantage of the darkness, the splashing, the shouting, and noise as the troopers crossed cautiously by two at a time, Rob implored Stewart, "by all the ties of old acquaintance, of common humanity, and good neighbourhood, to give him some chance of escape from an assured doom—a death of ignominy."