Chapter XLI: Rob's March to Glensheil

On this occasion Rob Roy had four hundred men with him, having left the rest at home under Coll and Red Alaster MacGregor, with orders to keep the pass of Loch Ard against any soldiers whom General Carpenter might send by that route to plunder or destroy.

It was on a lovely day in April when the MacGregors, after a march of more than eighty miles north-west across the mountains from Loch Katrine, guided by a wandering harper named Gillian Ross, from the Isle of the Pigmies, after skirting the vast waste of the braes of Rannoch and the hills of Glenorchy--by ascending the Devil's Staircase, and from thence, passing by the base of the snow-clad Ben Nevis, whose summit was hidden in masses of grey vapour, by Corpach (or the vale of the corpses), by Glen Arkaig and the head of Loch Hourn, halted on the hills of Glensheil, in sight of the dim and distant peaks of the Isle of Skye, and the waves of the Atlantic.

Along the base of the dark mountains which there start abruptly, like masses of blue rock, from the deep salt lochs of the west, wreaths of grey smoke were curling on the wind. These were from the fires of the busy burners of kelp--a manufacture the abolition of which, by the Parliament of 1823, brought ruin and famine upon the poor peasantry of Argyle and Ross.

The weather was mild and warm, though tempered by the breeze from the ocean. The MacGregors encamped on the sheltered side of a mountain slope; a stray cow or so, and the deer of the glens, supplied them with food, which they cooked in the old Scottish fashion, by boiling the flesh in its own skin, or broiling it in fires formed of roots from a morass, or dry branches from the nearest forest.

Every man carried his own oatmeal and hunting-bottle of usquebaugh; and other incumbrance or baggage they had none, save their arms and ammunition.

Little Harry Huske had become hardy now, and slept as snugly in the neuk of Rob's or Greumoch's plaid, as when at home in Portnellan, though he sometimes wept for his mother, as he had learned to call Helen MacGregor.

The third day had been passed on the mountains thus, when a gentleman in tartan trews, with a laced coat and periwig, was seen approaching the camp, mounted on a strong Highland garron.

He and his followers (he had four armed men with him, clad in Highland dresses of the MacKenzie tartan) wore in their bonnets the white cockade, the forbidden badge of the House of Stuart; consequently they were received with acclamations by the MacGregors, though one of the visitors was no other than the redoubtable Duncan nan Creagh, now somewhat bent and older than when we first introduced him to the reader, but active, fierce, and resolute as ever.

On this occasion he acted as guide to Sir James Livingstone, the mounted man in trews.

"Welcome, Sir James," said Rob Roy; "I trust you bring us good tidings of the king and his adherents."

"Would to heaven I could do so," replied the baronet, with unconcealed dejection.

"How?" asked the other, with alarm.

"The fleet, with all the Spanish troops and munitions of war, set sail from San Sebastian for Scotland; but Heaven itself seems against this most unlucky House of Stuart."

"Sir James Livingstone!"

"It is so; for Fortune and the elements are alike their enemies!" exclaimed the other, bitterly.

"Speak quickly, Sir James," said MacGregor, stamping his foot on the heather; "I am in no mode either for parables or riddles, after marching all this distance, and leaving my family and my country all but open to the enemy; and I know the tricks that Montrose and Killearn are capable of playing me. The fleet, you say, has sailed?"

"But encountered a dreadful gale off Cape Finisterre----"

"I know not where that may be."

"'Tis a headland off the coast of Brittany--where, it matters not; but the storm lasted two entire days, and drove the armament back, dismasted and battered, to the Spanish coast, thus disconcerting all the plans of the Duke of Ormond and the friendly schemes of Philip V."

"Then we have marched here in vain!"

Sir James nodded his head sadly in assent.

"Has not a single vessel reached the Western Isles?"

"Yes; two frigates--only two--under the Spanish flag are now anchored at Stornoway, in the Lewis, where they have landed the Marquis of Tullybardine----"

"Tullybardine!" repeated Rob, with knitted brow. "I remember him, a fair-haired youth, at the castle of Blair, when his father, Duke John of Athole, laid a black snare for me."

"Think not of that now, MacGregor," said Livingstone, earnestly; "he is young and brave, and steadfast to our king."

"Who more?"

"The Lords Seaforth and Marischal, with some arms."

"How many?"

"Two thousand stands of muskets, and five thousand pistols. And there are three hundred Spanish soldiers."

"Any money?" asked Rob, quickly.

"Yes, some treasure in care of Don José de Santarem, a Knight of Malta."

"Dioul!" said Rob, waving his bonnet; "matters are not so bad after all. We are in for it now, and must play out the game. We cannot disperse without fighting somebody, were it but to save from distress the strangers who have come so far to serve our exiled king."

"Yes," added Sir James, bitterly; "and we have to save our own necks from the gallows."

"Are we to seize birlinns, and cross to the Lewis?"

"No. In a few days Seaforth will unfurl the Caberfeidh,* and come hither with all his men; and to you his wishes are, that you shall keep the pass of Strachells against all who approach it from the east or south until he arrives in Glensheil. The Rosses and Munroes are already in arms for the elector."

* A famous banner of the MacKenzies.

"Let us cut the traitors to pieces," said Rob, "and then the loyal and the timid alike will join us from all quarters."

In obedience to his instructions, Rob marched to the narrow pass which is in the highest part of the district of Glensheil, or _sheilig_ (the Vale of Hunting), that lies between the great forests of Seaforth and Glengarry; but so long were the delays that the snow had disappeared from the loftiest mountains, and the swallow and cuckoo had come to the woods of evergreen pine and feathery birch, ere the Spanish soldiers with the MacKenzies and the wild MacRaes reached the camp of the MacGregors.

Leaving Stornoway, in the Isle of Lewis, they crossed to the mainland, and fortifying the mouth of Loch Duich, took possession of Eilan Donan, a castle of the MacKenzies, and placed cannon on it.

Meanwhile, General Joseph Wightman, an active and resolute officer, was pushing on through the mountains from Inverness with a mixed force, consisting of several companies of the 11th, 14th, and 15th Regiments (then known respectively as Montague's Devonshire, Clayton's Bedfordshire, and Harrison's Yorkshire), and two thousand Dutch auxiliaries, with whom also came the Rosses, the Munroes, and other clans who adhered to the House of Guelph.

Huske was the brigade-major.