Like all his brothers, young Robin was baptized in water brought by Paul Crubach from the holy well of St. Fillan; and during the ceremony was held over his father's broadsword, for it was a Highland superstition that the voices of children who died without receiving this warlike consecration were heard faintly wailing in the woods and other lonely places at night.
Robin grew a sturdy but wild young Highlander; and afterwards bore that sword with honour in the ranks of the 42nd Regiment.
At Muirlaggan, in Balquhidder, Rob built a comfortable house for his mother, then a very aged woman; and he began to hope that the government troops, the civil authorities, Athole, Montrose, and Killearn, had forgotten him, and that he would be permitted to spend a few years of his life in peace; but he hoped in vain!
To the land he now leased or occupied in Balquhidder he had an hereditary claim, as a descendant of Dugald Ciar Mhor; but the MacLarens of Invernentie had some similar right, and ere long this proved the cause of much strife and bloodshed.
With great generosity Rob offered a portion of his share of the Spanish treasure to redeem another bond which a neighbouring proprietor held over the lands of his nephew, MacGregor of Glengyle.
Hamish MacLaren of Invernentie had lent a sum of money to Glengyle, and by the tenor of the bond, the lands so held, or named therein, "if the money was not repaid within ten years, were to be forfeited to the lender, though the sum was less than half their value."
Knowing well that the utmost advantage would be taken of this unjust contract, Rob Roy gave his nephew money sufficient to repay Invernentie.
As the bond had but a few months now to run, Glengyle, with gratitude and joy, hastened to his creditor and offered the money so generously lent by his uncle.
Hamish MacLaren was a man of rough and forbidding exterior, with a low forehead and black eyebrows that were thick, shaggy, and joined in one. His face was one of the lowest of the Celtic type, and consequently expressed intense cunning, falsehood, and cruelty. He received Glengyle coldly—all the more so, perhaps, because he was a near kinsman of that MacLaren whom MacAleister had flung into the millrace at Comar.
"I cannot take the money," said he, bluntly.