"By the grave of Cior Mhor, Aberuchail shall repent of this false whiggery!" exclaimed Rob, as he took a horn from his belt, and blew a blast so loud and shrill that the whole house and the woods around it rang with echoes.
Then anew the cattle bellowed, and the porter shut the eyelet-hole and fled, lest he might be pistolled.
Four pipers now struck up the "Battle of Glenfruin;" the MacGregors uttered a shout, and assailing the gate soon forced it; for the clach neart—the putting-stone of strength—which lay beside it, was dashed like a cannon-ball upon its planks by the most powerful of the band, till the barrier crumbled to pieces before them; after which they proceeded with drawn swords to goad and drive off the cattle.
On this, the baronet of Aberuchail came hastily to the door of the tower, and taking Rob Roy by the hand, made many apologies for what he alleged to be the stupidity of the porter, and led his unwelcome visitor into the house, where, however, neither Livingstone nor Luss appeared.
Then he handed him the "black-mail," for which MacGregor gave his receipt; they drank a bottle of claret together, and separated, to all appearance, good friends. The cattle were all left in the parks, and the MacGregors marched back to Craigrostan.
But does it not seem strange that when Pope was writing at Twickenham, when Addison and Steele were contributing to the Spectator, and when Betterton was acting at Old Drury Lane, this wild work was being done among the Highland hills?
CHAPTER XX.
ROB ROY RETREATS.
In January, 1714, Rob commanded 500 men among the gathering of 2,000 Highlanders who, on the 28th of that month, fully armed on all points, attended the great funeral of Campbell of Lochnell. At their head were a pair of standards, belonging to the Earl of Breadalbane, preceded by thirteen pipers; for, in fact, this great Celtic funeral was in reality a Jacobite meeting—the dead body having been kept unburied for nearly a month, that an assemblage of Cavalier chiefs might take place, to consider and arrange during the march to the interment and the feast that followed it, the measures to be taken for a rising in favour of the Stuarts.
After maintaining, as already related, a vexatious predatory warfare against Montrose, who long since repented bitterly his injustice to the unfortunate Rob Roy, the MacGregors assembled in such numbers under the latter that they began to threaten the Western Lowlands, towards the lower end of Loch Lomond, from whence, marching into Monteith and the Lennox, they disarmed all whom their leader deemed inimical to the cause of James VIII.