Chapter XXXVI: A Weird Story

In tracing the history of Rob Roy, we now come to one of those dark and supernatural events which, according to Highland tradition, were then a portion of the everyday life of the Scottish mountaineers, and were the result of local influences, and by their minds being deeply imbued in early youth by poetry and music, by legends anterior even to the songs of Ossian, and by the solemn scenery of the vast solitudes which formed their home.

The strange event referred to, occurred in the Tower of Glengyle. Another version of it has been given by a celebrated essayist on the superstitions of the Highlanders, but without stating the locality, or who were the actors therein.

Some days after baffling Colonel Grahame's party at Crianlarich--and while Montrose was planning a raid, to be led by himself in person into the mountains, for the purpose of capturing Rob Roy--the latter, with MacAleister, was hunting in the old Royal forest of Glenfinglas, and among the hills that look down on Glenlochy, a long and narrow vale in Breadalbane, where, in his father's time, Duncan of the Heads resided, and where the ruins of his house are still to be traced among the heather.

Rob and his foster-brother had urged the sport in the good old Highland fashion, for then the clansman would pursue the antlered stag for days, sleeping by night in his tartan plaid on the bleak mountain side; or propped on the beetling rock, with his long gaff, heedless alike of death or danger, would catch the scaly salmon in the leap between the sky and the foaming cascade; but, as a recent author says, "nothing short of starvation would make him take part in the brutal German battues which now prevail in the Highlands."

When on hunting expeditions, Rob always gave the salmon taken, the venison stalked, or the capercailzie and ptarmigan shot by his long Spanish gun, to the poor, or to the aged who were no longer able to hunt for themselves; and often he shared their huts, however humble; for north of the Highland border Rob Roy was everywhere welcome among the people.

The short autumn day was closing; the mountains were growing dark; the eagle and hawk had gone to their eyry in the rocks of Benvenue, though the wild grey geese were still floating on the bosom of Loch Voil, when Rob and MacAleister took their way across the hills to return home; but a storm came on as they descended Glengyle, so instead of progressing towards Loch Katrine, MacGregor repaired to the residence of his nephew, who, in conformity to the oppressive laws passed against the clan, was compelled to name himself Gregor MacGregor _Grahame_, yet is better known as Glune-dhu, and captain of the castle of Doune under Prince Charles Edward.

On reaching the tower, Rob found that his nephew, the laird, with all his followers, was absent on a hunting-match with the Earl of Breadalbane; but the old housekeeper and butler made him welcome. The two hunters had brought more than enough with them to sup the whole household, for Rob had two bunches of blackcock and curlew at his sword-belt, and MacAleister carried a small red deer slung over his shoulder.

A blazing fire of bog-pine and fir-cones was made in the arched fireplace of the old hall, and there the hunters prepared to pass the night comfortably, after the toil of their late hunting expedition.

Supper over, a jorum of hot whisky-toddy was brewed in an antique punchbowl; the iron gates of the tower were secured for the night; the old servants retired to their beds, and Rob and MacAleister sat by the ruddy hearth, talking of their late wanderings, of tidings they expected to hear from Seaforth about a rising in the Western Isles; and without any intention of passing the remainder of the night elsewhere than by that jovial fire, and wrapped in their ample plaids.

Their late arduous wanderings in the keen cold mountain air, with the warmth of the glowing fire and the steaming punch, combined to make Rob drowsy, and ere long he dozed off into a sound sleep; but MacAleister, as he afterwards related, felt in no way able to follow his leader's example, though particularly anxious to do so. He became acutely wakeful, for a strange and unwonted anxiety weighed upon his mind, and at times a shudder passed over his frame--a _grue_, as the Lowlanders term it--a supposed sign that an unseen spirit hovers near you, or that some one is treading on the ground which is to form your grave, however far away that ground may be.

His eyes wandered over the old and faded family portraits which adorned the hall; he sought to shun them; but they seemed to exercise a strange fascination over him, which compelled him to look at them again and again, till they grew, to his alarm, almost instinct with life.

There was Alaster of Glenstrae, who led the clan to battle at Glenfruin, and who died on the gibbet at Edinburgh, looking grimly out of his iron helmet. There, too, was Colonel Donald MacGregor, in his wig and breastplate, looking as fierce as when he slew Duncan nan Cean, or carried terror among the Westland Whigs when the Highland host came down in the days of the Covenanters.

There were others in laced coats and tartan plaids, but all armed to the teeth--worthies who had departed this life with a foot of cold steel in their bodies, leaving more quarrels and broadswords than silver or gold behind them; and as he turned from one pale face to another, while the candles burned down and the fire waxed low on the hearth, MacAleister began to feel how,

By dim lights seen, the portraits of the dead
Have something ghastly, desolate, and dread!

Add to all this the wavering gleams of the fire, the weird shadows they cast across the ancient hall, and the solemn sough of the midnight wind without, as it swept down Glengyle and moaned through the machicolated battlements of the old tower, shaking its grated windows, and waving too and fro the russet-coloured tapestry that overhung the doorway, driving out the brown moths to flutter about the fading lights.

Meanwhile Rob Roy slept heavily.

By Highland superstition it had long been understood, that when two persons were left thus, they should either both sleep at the same time or keep each other awake; for if one slept, the other was left to the mercy of the spirits of the air.

MacAleister called to MacGregor, but received no answer, and in the vaulted hall the hollow echoes of his own voice affrighted even his bold spirit. Then as a sudden and heavy chill fell over his sturdy frame, and a sickly and deadly fear stole into his heart, he strove to rise and grasp his foster-brother, but found himself frozen, riveted, chained, as it were, to his seat by a power or will superior to his own!

At that moment the arras which closed the lower end of the hall, and which had been violently shaken from time to time by the stormy gusts of wind, was suddenly parted, and there entered two tall and grim-looking gillies, in the Highland dress, and fully armed, bearing lighted candles in antique silver branches.

Other figures, misty, wavering, and indistinct, appeared beyond; but in the gillies MacAleister, with horror in his soul, recognized two MacGregors whom he had seen slain in his boyhood, and whom he had actually assisted to bury near the ruined church on Inchcailloch.

Behind the bearers of the candles came a bearded piper, with his pipe on his shoulder, the drones decorated by long tartan streamers; the bag was distended, and he fingered the notes of the chanter rapidly, while his pale face seemed swollen by the exertion of playing; but neither from the instrument nor the tread of his feet came the slightest sound, as he passed like a shadow slowly round the hall, without looking on either side, though his glazed eyes shone with a blue weird gleam in the light of the fire; and then the henchman discovered, by a peculiar mole and a wound on the right cheek, that this was the phantom of Alpine's grandsire, who played the clan to Glenfruin, and was said to have been spirited away by the _Dosine Shie_, or fairies.

Then followed many ladies and gentlemen of the House of Glengyle, who had been in their graves for years, with grey visages, wan, ghastly, and solemn, and wearing costumes quaint in fashion and long since obsolete, or to be seen only in such portraits as those which hung around the hall.

Spellbound, incapable of motion, and while his leader slept soundly, MacAleister saw all these phantoms take seats at the table beside them; the ladies spreading out and gracefully disposing the ample flounces of their great tub-fardingales, as if in life; the gentlemen adjusting the curls of their cavalier locks, or great perukes; others shook out the folds of their belted plaids, or ran their wan and wasted fingers through their long wavy beards, as they seemed to converse with each other, to assent or dissent, and sometimes frown--conversed, but without a sound, for the pinched blue features of their long and awfully solemn faces moved spasmodically, and their gestures varied, as if they talked, but not a voice or a word reached the ear of the terrified MacAleister.

At last one who closely resembled the portrait of Alaster of Glenstrae, for his helmet was crested by the entire wing of a golden eagle, and whose neck was moreover distorted as if by strangulation (for Glenstrae had been ignominiously hanged), produced a pack of cards, and then all proceeded to play.

The cards were scarcely dealt, when MacAleister saw the figure of Oina--of his daughter--she who had perished at Inversnaid, with her dark hair dishevelled and floating about her shoulders, wearing the very plaid in which her husband buried her, hovering at the back of those unearthly visitors; and with, deadly fear he perceived that she was regarding him with a sad yet tender smile in her black lack-lustre eyes.

It was remarkable that Oina's form was more palpable than the rest, for some who had died ages ago were transparent, so that he saw other objects through them.

After a time the players relinquished the cards, and some betook them to what the Highlanders called _palmermore_ (the tables), which requires three on each side, who throw the dice alternately; but though shaken violently, neither boxes nor dice emitted the slightest sound.

Now a muffled figure glided to the side of Oina.

On her regards being again turned to her father, this muffled figure threw off a wet and dripping plaid, and lo! MacLaren, the spy, whom he had drowned in the millrace at Comar, stood before him, with a malignant and demoniac grin on his cold and damp visage.

He drew near and breathed on the face of MacAleister, and so cold was that breath, so icy and chill, that it seemed to freeze the marrow in his bones.

At that moment a cock crew, and with a shriek the spellbound man started to his feet, to find the fire extinguished, the candles burned out in their sockets, MacGregor still muffled in his plaid and fast asleep in a chair beside him, while grey dawn stole through the grated windows of the gloomy castle hall.