It is stated that MacGregor soon discovered that he had no ordinary antagonist in Henry Cunninghame; and having no particular animosity to him, and remembering, perhaps, how perilous to his own clan his death, or even a severe wound, would prove at that particular crisis, after a dozen passes or so, he lowered the point of his sword, and said,—
"Enough of this, Boquhan; I find you are brave as you are expert, and I yield to you." So he sheathed his sword, and they parted good friends; but Rob's enemies in the Lennox magnified his prudence into a humiliating defeat.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE JACOBITE BOND.
Roy Roy and those who adhered to him found themselves tolerably safe in the land of the Campbells—the more so as his mother was a daughter of that powerful clan which had been at enmity with the house of Montrose since the wars of the Covenant, since the slaughter of the Campbells at Inverlochy by the Great Marquis, and since the invasion of Lorn by his cavaliers. Fortunately for Rob Roy, the mutual hate between the Dukes of Argyll and Montrose was still as hot as ever.
The death of Queen Anne and the accession of George I. soon brought political matters to a crisis in Scotland, where the Jacobites had remained quiet enough under the rule of a sovereign who was a Stuart, and under none else could the union of the two kingdoms ever have been achieved.
But now, a rising for her brother to succeed as James VIII. of Scotland and III. of England was resolved on, and a great meeting of Jacobite leaders took place in Breadalbane. The better to mask their intentions from Government, it was entitled a hunting match, though among the secluded hills of the Scottish Highlands such a precaution seemed somewhat unnecessary.
The chiefs and chieftains—among the latter was Rob Roy—who assembled on the occasion, soon ascertained each other's sentiments and the number of men they could bring into the field; and ulterior plans were soon resolved upon, while a previously prepared bond, for their mutual faith to each other and to the exiled king, was produced, and thereunto each man appended his signature.
By some inexcusable neglect on the part of a gentleman who became its custodian, this important paper fell into the hands of Captain Campbell of Glenlyon (an officer whose name was unfortunately involved deeply in the Massacre of Glencoe), who was then stationed in the garrison of Fort William, near Lochiel.
Glenlyon retained the bond, and finding that among the names appended thereto were those of many who were his own immediate friends and relations, he did not, for a time, mention its tenor or even its existence; but the horror with which he was regarded in Scotland, as the tool of King William in the midnight slaughter of the Macdonalds, had spread even among his own kinsmen; and thus, when the Jacobite chiefs became aware that a man of a character so unscrupulous held a document that might give all their heads to the block and their estates to fire and sword, they became naturally anxious and alarmed, and a hundred futile plans were formed for its recovery or destruction.