They separated. MacLaren was choking with resentment, and vowed to have a terrible revenge; but Rob and his men merely laughed at him, as they marched off towards their new home on the braes of Balquhidder.
CHAPTER LIII.
ATTACKED BY THE DUKE OF ATHOLE.
Rob having retired further north-west, was living in comparative peace and ease at Balquhidder, though ever armed, watchful, and on the alert; but now his old and wanton enemy, the Duke of Athole—an enemy despite the cavalier sentiments of Tullibardine and his other sons, and the sympathies of the gentle Duchess Katherine—during the middle of 1724, made no less than three vigorous attempts to capture him, for he was still outlawed, and the warrants for his apprehension were yet in full force against him, with ample rewards for those who could achieve this hitherto perilous and difficult task. Of Athole's final attempts we shall briefly relate the success.
In retaliation for the trick so basely played him at the castle of Blair, Rob had certainly more than once ravaged the estates of the Duke of Athole, carried off the cattle, and put to the sword several Drummonds who resisted.
Though he had drawn these reprisals on himself, Athole could as little forgive such proceedings as his Grace of Montrose; and on his return from a visit to London he secretly despatched a party of Lord Polworth's Light Horse up the glens to Balquhidder, at a time when most of the MacGregors were absent at fairs, or on the mountains herding cattle.
MacLaren of Invernentie is said to have given them exact information of Rob's movements, for they came upon him most unexpectedly, during a fine summer evening when he was superintending a few of his people, who were cutting turf with the ceaba, a long, narrow spade of peculiar form, used by the Highlanders and Irish. Suddenly there was a cry of—
"The Redcoats! the Redcoats!" and the women threw down their keallochs, or creels, as a party of troopers, on light active horses, dashed round the shoulder of a rocky ridge, and came pellmell among them, with swords flashing in the sunshine.
Rob had only three men with him, and save their dirks, each was armed only with a turf-spade. While he swung one of these implements aloft, to use it like a poleaxe, resolved on making a desperate defence, its shaft was shattered in his hand, as a trooper adroitly broke it by a pistol-shot, and then spurred his horse right over him.
Rob lost his dirk, but plunged his skene-dhu deep into the bowels of the animal, which reared wildly and threw his rider head downward into the soft bog, where his spurred jack-boots stood upper-most in the air.