"I come from Moffatdale; my auld mother bydes in a bit thatched housie at Cragieburnwood. Weary fall the day I ever left it to become a soldier!"
"Moffatdale," said Rob, ponderingly; "many a good drove of short-legged Argyleshires I have had driven through it to the southern markets at Carlisle and Penrith. I know well the place, the Hartfell——"
"And Queensbury Hill, Loch Skene, and the Greymare's Tail, and Yarrow wi' a' its dowie dens!" added the soldier, with kindling eyes.
"Once when there I fought some militiamen, and gave them good cause to remember Rob Roy; though perhaps the loons knew not my name."
"When was this?" asked the soldier, earnestly.
"A year or so after the Union. It was in a summer gloaming, when I was riding northward near Moffat village, I heard the cries of a woman in anguish. They came from a deep, dark hollow called the Gartpool Linn——"
"Weel ken I the place," said the soldier.
"A true Highlander has ever his sword at the service of a friend, or the defenceless. I rode into the dark dingle, and found some rascally militiamen, with a queen's officer, about to hang some unfortunate gipsies; but, by my faith! I gave them their kail through the reek. I threw one half of them into the water, drove off the rest, and passed two feet of my claymore through the body of the officer, who must have been a tough fellow, for he seemed never a bit the worse when I saw him last at the field of Sheriffmuir. I cut down the poor gipsies, who hung on the lower branch of a tree, but they were dead——"
"All?"
"All, except one—a boy about the age of Coll—my own boy Coll, whom I may never see again; in this world, at least," added MacGregor, with a burst of emotion.