"No, no," he muttered; "'twere better that he should fall into other hands than mine, and find his way from thence to the castle of Dumbarton, or the kindly gallows of Crieff," for so the Highlanders ironically termed that formidable gibbet on which so many a sturdy cateran has taken his last farewell of the sun.
CHAPTER XV.
DESOLATION.
Full of his own thoughts, which were fiery and bitter, and feeling fully resolved to challenge Montrose to a combat, according to the laws of honour and of arms, Rob rode fast along the eastern shore of Loch Lomond: but darkness had set in before he drew near Inversnaid.
Then his heart began to swell with other and kindlier emotions as he pictured his home and his household—his wife and their fairhaired children welcoming him back; and already their voices seemed to sound in his ears, and their smiling faces to come before him.
The moon had risen, and shed its light upon that lovely lake of many isles, on the vast shadowy masses of Ben Lomond and its wondrous scenery, through which the rugged pathway wound, overhung in some places by gloomy pines, by impending rocks, or the feathery sprays of the silver birch.
With scorn and defiance of Montrose, certain emotions of pride and security swelled the heart of MacGregor, as he rode on; for again he was at home—in the home of the swordsman and shepherd—the abode of the wolf and the eagle, where yet, in the garb of old Gaul—
The hunter of deer and the warrior trod,
To his hills that encircle the sea.
From some points Loch Lomond resembled a great river, lying between lofty mountains, its bosom dotted with isles that are covered with trees, dark brushwood, or moss of emerald green. Bold headlands of rock seemed to jut forth in the water, which shone in the moonlight like a sheet of silver, and hills that were covered with wood filled up the background.
And there, in the moonlight, lay the loveliest of all Loch Lomond's green and woody isles, the MacGregors' burying-place—the Place of Sleep, Inchcailloch, or the Isle of Nuns, with its ruined chapel and all its solemn trees.