Chapter XXXIV: Greumoch Taken

On the evening of the rustic banquet, in compliance with the request of the Duke of Montrose, three bodies of troops were on their march, by three different routes, to surprise the whole of the MacGregors.

One party of the 15th Foot (then as we have said called Harrison's Regiment) advanced from Glasgow; another of the South British Fusiliers, under Major Huske, came from Stirling, accompanied by the ungrateful Grahame of Killearn as Sheriff Depute of Dumbartonshire; and a third party consisting of the Scots Royals (or 1st Regiment of the Line) advanced from Finlarig.

But their marching was slow and devious, for the country was strange, especially to the English troops, none of whom could be quartered in Scotland prior to the Union in 1707. The Highlands were then without roads, and the Government possessed "no correct map of those unexplored regions which," as a recent writer says, "were almost as little known south of the Tweed--or we may rather say, _south of the Tay_--as the African deserts, or the interior of North America."

Hence, a night march among those pathless mountains was an arduous task in these times; and on this occasion the rain descended in blinding torrents; the water-courses became white cascades; mere runnels were swollen to streams, and streams became dark impassable floods. The guides led the troops astray, either wilfully or by mischance; so that all arrived too late at the passes, and ere the storm was fairly over, Rob Roy (whom they had hoped to pounce upon when in bed) had intelligence of his unwelcome visitors, and got all his men under arms.

Some firing took place about daybreak, and the king's troops retreated, after the loss of only one man, a grenadier, who was shot by Coll MacGregor from the summit of a rock; but in retiring the Scots Royals captured and carried off Rob's right-hand man and long tried follower, poor Greumoch MacGregor, who was immediately transmitted to the Tolbooth of Creiff.*

* "Feb. --, 1717, Gremoch Gregorach, airt and part with Rob Roy _alias_ MacGregor, in seizing of ---- Grahame of Killearn; robbing him, carrying him away, and detaining him a prisoner several days. A party ordered to be sent by Brigadier Preston to guard him from Crieff Gaol to Edinburgh."--_Records of the Tolbooth of Edinburgh_.

Greumoch had been taken when lurking in the clachan of Aberfoyle, a circle consisting of ten large stones, a druidical temple, situated on rising ground near the Parish manse.

On tidings reaching Edinburgh that this important outlaw had been captured, Brigadier George Preston, of Valleyfield, governor of the castle, despatched a sergeant and six troopers of Campbell's Dragoons (the Scots Greys) to Creiff, where they received Greumoch, with strict orders to watch him by day and night until delivered to the civil authorities, and safely lodged in the heart of Midlothian. Being the first of Rob's men who had fallen into their hands, and moreover being that bold outlaw's chief follower and kinsman, it was resolved by rope, by axe, and knife to make a terrible example of him by a public execution--to have him hanged, drawn, and quartered.

But in all these barbarities they were nearly anticipated by the burghers of Crieff, who hated the Celts for repeatedly burning their town, and a mob followed the captive, shouting,--

"The wuddy--the wuddy! a tow--a tow! let him fynd the wecht o' himsel by the craig!" (which meant in English--"The gallows--the gallows! a rope--a rope! let him feel the weight of himself by the neck!")

So cried the Lowlanders, as Greumoch was conducted by the troopers, not, as the mob expected, to the fatal circle at the Gallow-hill, where the Stewards of Strathearn held their courts of old, but away on the road that led to the south.

Bound upon a horse, the sergeant marched his prisoner through the long and lovely valley of the Earn; with carbines loaded, a trooper rode on each side of him, with orders to shoot him down if he attempted to escape.

A village near Dunblane formed their first halting place. There one of the troopers, who seemed less rough than his comrades, gave Greumoch a dram, on which the sergeant said,--

"Come, Highlander, I'll teach you a toast.-"

"Will you?" asked Greumoch, sullenly.

"Yes--you dour-looking Redshank."

"Well--my glass is full."

"Here's to the health of King George--and to the confusion of his enemies, including Rob Roy, the Pope, the Devil, and the Pretender!"

On hearing this offensive speech, Greumoch dashed the glass and its fiery contents full into the eyes of the sergeant and half-blinded him.

Inspired with rage, the non-commissioned officer ordered his men to secure the prisoner beyond all chance of escape during the night. The dragoons selected a heavy old-fashioned chair, in which they placed Greumoch, and tied thereto his hands, arms, and legs, lacing about him some twenty yards of rope, the knots of which were tied behind; and now, deeming him secure beyond all hope of flight, they stabled their horses, threw off their accoutrements, applied themselves to the whisky-bottle, and after making very merry, retired to rest in the outer room.

When all was dark and still, and poor Greumoch's hands and limbs were fast becoming swollen, benumbed, and stiff--all but powerless, in consequence of the cruel manner in which the soldiers had bound him--he remembered having seen a knife on the table, where the sergeant had left it by chance.

Could he but reach that knife! But, tied as he was, of what use could it be? Yet there occurred to him an idea, which he resolved at once to put in practice.

By vigorous, yet almost noiseless, efforts with his feet, he dragged the chair across the room towards the table. At last he reached it, and, after being so frequently baffled that he was about to relinquish the attempt in despair, he contrived to take up the knife in his mouth, and to grasp the handle firmly with his teeth.

Then, by turning his head on each side alternately, he applied the edge so successfully to the cords which crossed his shoulders, that he soon severed them. By this process he gradually got one hand loose; but for many minutes it hung powerless by his side. However, anon he grasped the knife with it, and in a short time was free; but on rising from the chair, so much were his limbs benumbed, that he staggered like a tipsy man, and overturned both chair and table. Heavily they fell with a crash on the floor!

Greumoch rushed to the window, opened it, and leaped into the dark and silent street of the village; but at the same moment, from another window of the house, two carbines flashed, and the balls whizzed past as the troopers fired at him in their shirts.

"You are only dragoons," snouted Greumoch, in Gaelic; "and dragoons never hit anything; so fire away!"

Then with a derisive laugh he disappeared in the darkness.