Rob Roy

“ I say to-night!" exclaimed Rob, passionately.
"To-night!" reiterated all present, brandishing their swords; "to-night be it, or never!"
"We will take the ford as we find it," said Callam MacAleister; "if they passed it, so may we."
"Never let us put off till to-morrow that which we can do or begin to do to-day," said Rob Roy. "Yesterday passes into eternity fast enough; and, Greumoch, it is a bitter reflection to a man, that yesterday was a lost day—a day that never can be overtaken. All men's hands are against us ”

“ These were Rob Roy, Callam MacAleister (his foster-brother and henchman) , with Greumoch MacGregor, one of his most active and resolute followers. Each leant upon a brass-mounted and long-barrelled Spanish musket.
Grouped round were a band of hardy and weather-beaten men, in rough Highland dresses of home-spun and home-dyed tartan, all hushed into silence, with their keen grey eyes bent darkly on the corpse, or on each other, and with their brows knit as their hearts glowed for vengeance on the unknown perpetrator of this outrage ”

“ All whom I have conversed with—and in my youth I have seen some who knew Rob Roy personally—gave him the character of a humane and benevolent man."
As yet, however, he was neither a robber nor an outlaw; but simply a Highland country gentleman, a chieftain of a broken clan, living under the protection of his mother's name and kindred; farming his little estate of Inversnaid; dealing in cattle, then the chief wealth of our northern mountains ”

“ Rob Roy gave a grand entertainment in the old Highland fashion at Portnellan, and the joviality was great, for the formerly poor and penniless members of the clan he had enriched by the spoil of their oppressors.
On this occasion deer and beeves were roasted whole, and laid on hurdles or spars placed athwart the trunks of trees, so arranged as to form a rustic table, at which hundreds could seat themselves. For a hall they had the open valley, bordered by the great mountains that look down on Glengyle, canopied by the mists and clouds of heaven ”

“ But he was endowed with a vigorous intellect, and with an enthusiasm which had been deepened by the peculiar circumstances of his clan and kinsfolk. It is impossible to comprehend the character of Rob Roy, unless we look into the history of his race, as we have briefly done, and consider how strong must have been the impressions which hereditary feuds, and wrongs visited upon father and child, had made upon a mind of no common order. ”

“ Do not be cast down, my friends," said he, still speaking English to the prisoners, who were now huddled together in a crowd, and surrounded by the armed MacGregors; "you are not the first men who have come into the Highlands to shear, and have gone home closely shorn."
"But your terms: our fate, Mr. Rob Roy Campbell?" began Clifford, in a blundering way.
"'Sdeath and fury!" exclaimed Rob; "call me Campbell again, and I shall cleave you to the belt!"
"Excuse me; but I do not understand all this," said the officer; "are you not named MacGregor Campbell?" ”

“ His dark grey eyes were keen and sharp as those of the wiry otter terrier that sat beside him; and his bare legs, which his tattered kilt revealed from the knee, showed that he was handsome as well as strong—so strong, that he was already entitled to wear a man's bonnet, as a proof that he could lift and fling the "stone of strength,"—the test of manhood, which lay beside the door of Rob Roy's house, as beside that of every Highland chieftain, to test the muscle of his growing followers ”

“ With regard to Rob Roy's birthplace the contention is that it is practically impossible to construct a new reservoir in these days anywhere north of the Tweed which will not interfere in some way with one or other of the places where Rob Roy was born.
It is not only Scotchmen, however, who have been touched to the quick by this irreverent and thoughtless proposal. The whole literary profession is up in arms. A memorial is being prepared to be presented to the Prime Minister, under the heading, "Hands off Rob Roy!" ”

“ One night as he sat by the fireside, in the little farmhouse of Portnellan, where Ronald's absence formed a source of perpetual grief, he urged that before attacking Inversnaid the oracle of the "House of Invocation" should be consulted; but Rob Roy though brave as man could be, shrunk from seeking intercourse with the world of spirits. ”

“ Prior to the great Rising of the Clans in 1715, Rob Roy was engaged as usual in several small skirmishes and frays, in which his skill and strategy as a leader were prominent; and he gained yet more the reputation of being the protector of the poor against the rich, and of the defenceless against those who would oppress them.
In spite of the Duke of Montrose, he had re-established himself again at Craigrostan, from whence he never went abroad attended by less than twenty or thirty well-armed men, including his henchman and Greumoch. ”

“ On the man coming to the door of the cottage, having been instructed by the gipsy trooper what to do, he dismounted at the moment that Rob Roy, with the sergeant's permission, came forth to give the letter and some special message to Helen MacGregor.
Rob's emotion was great on recognizing in the messenger who had volunteered so readily, his foster-brother MacAleister, who had been hovering about Logierait in the hope of achieving something; but beyond a keen, quick glance nothing passed between them ”

“ ROB ROY IN LONDON.
From this time forward the life of the Red MacGregor was passed in ease and contentment; around him his sons grew to manhood, brave, active, and hardy; while the sons of those who had followed him to the battles of Sheriffmuir and Glensheil, to the storming of Inversnaid, the pass of Loch Ard, and to many a desperate conflict, became, under his care and advice, thriving cattle-dealers and industrious farmers. ”

“ I would, were it possible, always see "Rob Roy" in Edinburgh, "Le Tartuffe " in Paris, and "She Stoops to Conquer" in England. "Rob Roy," as exhibited in America, is a burlesque; we do not even know how the hardy mountaineer of this rigid country throws on his plaid, or wears his cap or his front piece, beautifully made of several tails of the red deer; neither can we render the shrill tone of the horn bugle that hangs at his side, the merry bagpipe is wanted, also the scenery. ”

“ Seven years after the release from Newgate, Rob Roy died at Innerlochlarig-beg, on the 28th of December, 1734. He was buried in Balquhidder churchyard, half a dozen miles from where he died, and he was, at the time of his death, sixty-three years and some odd months old.
An honest man, one who served his country well, but who has not been celebrated in romance like Rob Roy, was missed from the Southwark side of the Thames, where his figure had been daily familiar for a long period to the inhabitants, namely, Sir Rowland Gwyn. On the last Monday in January, this venerable baronet died. ”

“ Rob Roy's birth, as a gentleman, and his respectable connexions, when he attained to manhood, procured him access to the first families, and admission into the best company in the country, He formed a matrimonial engagement with a daughter of M'Gregor of Comar, a woman of an agreeable temper and domestic habits, active and economical in the management of her family. ”

“ Yet was Rob Roy as wise as brave;
Forgive me if the phrase be strong;—
A Poet worthy of Rob Roy
⁠Must scorn a timid song. ”

“ It is generally admitted that Rob Roy was a man of good birth and connections, though belonging to a family or clan which for upwards of a century had been under proscription, and obliged to live a rather skulking kind of life. ”

“ Among others, Rob Roy engaged in a joint adventure with James, Marquis of Montrose, who had received a sum of money for his Union vote, and in the month preceding that measure had been created a duke, with the office of Lord Privy Seal for Scotland.
"The capital to be advanced," says Dr. Browne, in his "History of the Highlands," "was fixed at ten thousand merks each, and Rob Roy was to purchase cattle therewith, and drive them to England for sale." ”

“ On the day before his departure from the house of his learned relative, Rob Roy, who had pondered deeply how he might requite his cousin's kindness, took Dr. Gregory aside, and addressed him to this purport:—"My dear kinsman, I have been thinking what I could do to show my sense of your hospitality. Now, here you have a fine spirited boy of a son, whom you are ruining by cramming him with your useless book-learning, and I am determined, by way of manifesting my great good-will to you and yours, to take him with me and make a man of him." ”

“ On the 16th of February, Lady Louisa Stuart wrote:—
"I have read Rob Roy twice.... The scale with me would be Waverley, Old Mortality, Guy Mannering—so far I am sure. I am not sure which of the others I could positively prefer; there are striking beauties in each. In Rob Roy the painting of character is as vivid as in anything the author ever wrote. Rob himself, Die Vernon, Nicol Jarvie, Andrew Fairservice, not to speak of the Tory baronet and his cubs, or the Jesuit Rashleigh. The beginning and end, I am afraid, I quarrel with; ... but beginnings signify little; ends signify more. ”

“ The king, however, could not annul the effects of three centuries of civil warfare and vengeful retribution, nor prevent Rob Roy from inheriting some of the traits of his 'mouse-coloured' ancestor. Rob is described as a man of medium height, but of extraordinary strength. His powers of endurance were greater than those of any other member of his clan. His arms were said to be seven inches longer than those of the average man. This gave him a great advantage with the broadsword, which he could wield with uncommon skill and effectiveness. ”

“ James Gregory, distinguished in science as the inventor of the reflecting telescope. With such a family it may seem our friend Rob could have had little communion. But civil war is a species of misery which introduces men to strange bed-fellows. Dr. Gregory thought it a point of prudence to claim kindred, at so critical a period, with a man so formidable and influential. He invited Rob Roy to his house, and treated him with so much kindness, that he produced in his generous bosom a degree of gratitude which seemed likely to occasion very inconvenient effects. ”

“ Even in boyhood he excelled in the use of the claymore and all other weapons; for this he was, no doubt, indebted to the tutelage of his father, old Donald of Glengyle, who had handled his sword in the wars of the Covenanters and Cavaliers.
No man was ever known to wrench anything from Rob's hands; and so great was his muscular power that he would twist a horse's shoe, and drive his dirk, to the hilt, through a two-inch deal board; and on more than one occasion he has seized a mountain stag by the antlers, and held it fast, as if it had been a little kid. ”

“ In giving an account of a Highlander, his pedigree is first to be considered. That of Rob Roy was deduced from Ciar Mhor, the great mouse-coloured man, who is accused by tradition of having slain the young students at the battle of Glenfruin.
Without puzzling ourselves and our readers with the intricacies of Highland genealogy, it is enough to say, that after the death of Allaster MacGregor of Glenstrae, the clan, discouraged by the unremitting persecution of their enemies, seem not to have had the means of placing themselves under the command of a single chief. ”

“ On sending Greumoch to ascertain the cause of all this, he soon returned, with his drawn dirk gleaming in one hand, while by the other he dragged forward a harper, in whom, by the firelight, Rob immediately recognized Gillian Ross the Islesman, who had acted as their guide to Glensheil.
He was a man well up in years; his hair and flowing beard were snowy white; but his cheek was ruddy, and his eyes had a merry twinkle which showed that as a son of song he had led a jovial life and a roving one, though among turbulent clans, in a wild country and in perilous times. ”

“ One of her little girls crept beside her, stealing a hand in hers. She held it fast, her own shook so; but gradually she grew quite herself again. "I have been ill," she explained, "and can not walk far. Let us sit down here a little. You were speaking about Mr. Roy, David?"
"Yes. What a good fellow he was! We called him Rob Roy, I remember, but only behind his back. He was strict, but he was a jolly old soul for all that. I believe I should know him again any day, as I did you. But perhaps he is dead; people die pretty fast abroad, and ten years is a long time, isn't it?" ”

“ Rob Roy devoted himself to the avocation of a grazier; as Highland cattle about this time began to be in great request in England, Rob made frequent journies for carrying on this traffic. When M'Gregor was fairly settled, and tacitly confirmed, as laird of Craigcrostan, his friendship became valuable, and was solicted by his wealthy neighbours. At this time the political variance between the families of Montrose and Argyle had grown into personal enmity ”

“ Near him was a Spanish officer, seated half upright against a large stone; his dark-olive face was pale, ghastly, and sorrowful. As Rob approached, he raised his head, and opened his black and now lack-lustre eyes with a vacant stare, as if the poor fellow sought to assure himself that blindness and death had not yet come upon him. His uniform was blue, richly laced with silver, and on his left breast was the gold and eight-pointed cross of Malta. He had received two bullet wounds in the body, and appeared to be sinking fast. ”