"To-night; I say to-night!" exclaimed Rob, passionately.
"To-night!" reiterated all present, brandishing their swords; "to-night be it, or never!"
"We will take the ford as we find it," said Callam MacAleister; "if they passed it, so may we."
"Never let us put off till to-morrow that which we can do or begin to do to-day," said Rob Roy. "Yesterday passes into eternity fast enough; and, Greumoch, it is a bitter reflection to a man, that yesterday was a lost day—a day that never can be overtaken. All men's hands are against us; but I have sworn, by the Grey Stone of MacGregor, that vengeance shall yet be ours!"
"Ard choille, and away!" shouted Greumoch, waving his bonnet, yielding to the general impulse.
Within a few minutes he, with MacAleister, Alaster Roy MacGregor, and sixteen other picked men of the hamlet, mustered at the door of Rob Roy's mansion. Each had on his belted plaid, which means the kilt, with the loose end of the web fastened by a brooch to the left shoulder as a mantle. Each had slung on his back a round target of bull's hide, stretched over fir-boards, and thickly studded with brass knobs; and each was fully armed, with a basket-hilted sword, a long dirk, and claw-butted pistols. Their bullets were carried in pouches, and their powder in horns, slung under the right arm.
The bright moon that lit up the little street of the Highland hamlet, glittered on their weapons, and shone on their weather-beaten faces, which expressed dark anger, eagerness, and determination to overtake the perpetrators of the late outrage.
They spoke little, but, after the manner of their countrymen, hummed or whistled in a surly fashion, the sure precursor of a squabble among Highlanders; and busied themselves with the flints and priming of their pistols, or the thongs which tied their cuarans or home-made shoes, the sole and upper of which are in one piece, and worn like the Roman sandal. Armed like the rest, the Red MacGregor soon came forth, and was greeted by a murmur of applause. "Good wife—Helen," he exclaimed, "it is ill marching with a fasting stomach; bring forth cakes and the kebboc, with a dram of usquebaugh; for the lads must have their deoch an doruis ere we start."
With a short plaid folded over her head and shoulders, his wife, a young and pretty woman, appeared at the door, accompanied by two female servants, having oat-cakes, cheese, a bottle, glasses, and quaichs (i.e., little wooden cups) on an oval mahogany teaboard.
Doffing his bonnet to the black-eyed Dame of Inversnaid, each man took a dram of whisky and a morsel of bread and cheese; more as a ceremony, it seemed, than because it was necessary.