"I was born a Highland gentleman, and can never accept that which would make me the disgrace of my family and the scoff of my country."
Shortly afterwards he died of starvation in the streets of Paris, when George III. was king.
In his thirteenth year Robin Oig shot MacLaren of Invernentie dead between the stilts of his plough, for insulting his mother; and the gun with which he perpetrated this terrible act is now at Abbotsford. He fled, became a soldier in the 42nd Regiment, and fought gallantly at Fontenoy, where he was wounded and taken prisoner by the French; but five years after the battle, by an overstrained power of the officers of the Crown, he died on the scaffold at Edinburgh. For the others, I must refer my readers to Burke's "Landed Gentry."
"Happily, now-a-days," says a recent writer, "the Celt and the Sassenach—Scotsman and Englishman—fight side by side, under one standard. How the brave soldiers of the Highlands fight has been shown in many a glorious struggle—at Talavera, Salamanca, and Waterloo; nor will history forget the thin red line of Balaclava, or the shrill pibroch of Havelock's small but gallant force, which came like home-music to the ears and hearts of those who defended Lucknow!"
* * * * *
At the east end of the old church of Balquhidder, within an enclosure formed by the foundations of the more ancient Catholic place of worship, lies the grave of Rob Roy.
It is covered by a rough stone of hard mica, on which a number of emblems are rudely sculptured. Among these the figure of a Highlander and a large broadsword can be distinctly traced.
Under this stone, in February, 1754, were also interred the remains of his son, Robin Oig.
Such is the story of ROB ROY the Outlaw.
THE END.