Bound and manacled like the fugitive bankrupt, the rebel and outlaw they had made him, and which they so ungenerously assumed him to be, MacGregor for a time felt all the bitterness and despair that could sting a spirit so generous, so proud and untameable, when reflecting on the perfidious stroke of fortune which thus placed him so completely at the mercy of his tormentors.
He thought of the joy and triumph of Montrose and Killearn, of Carden, Luss, Aberuchail, and others, whom his sword had so long kept at bay; he thought of the grief of his homeless wife and children, whom that sword had been so often drawn to feed and to defend. He thought of the shameful and ignominious death which awaited him as surely as the breath of Heaven was in his nostrils; he thought of his landless, nameless, broken and degraded clan, left without a head to direct, or a leader to avenge them, and he well-nigh wept in his agony of soul!
MacAleister, on beholding him dragged across the lawn, surrounded by a company of soldiers, uttered a shout of grief and rage, as he sprang from one of the windows of the castle.
Some there were who rashly made an effort to stop him, but with his sword in one hand and his dirk in the other he dashed them aside like children, and escaping a few shots that were fired after him, fled with the speed of a roebuck towards the river Tilt, into which he plunged and disappeared.
Some averred that he was drowned, as the stream was swollen by a summer flood; but it was otherwise, for he reached in safety the hut where Helen MacGregor resided, and related what had happened,
"A Dhia!" she exclaimed, as she threw up her hands in despair; "not Fingal's self could save him now!"
"The Red MacGregor is not out of the land of the heather yet," said MacAleister, hopefully, as he prepared to return to watch over, and, if possible, to succour him.
But Helen experienced all the bitterness of a sorrow that was without hope.