Chapter XLVI: Eilan Donan

Sailing up Loch Duich, favoured by the fog, they had approached unseen to within a mile of where the Spanish launch lay in the creek, and midway between were three large armed boats, full of seamen and marines, pulling in shoreward with long and easy strokes. Up, up went the fog from the bosom of the brightening lake,--up the steep slopes of the dark mountains; and now the full splendour of the moon shone along the deep and narrow arm of the Atlantic, showing the bayonets, cutlasses, and broad-bladed oars, as they flashed and glittered in her silver rays. These vessels were the _Mermaid_, the _Dover_, and the _Stirling Castle_, three thirty-gun ships or fourth-rates. The latter was one of the old Scottish fleet amalgamated with the English at the union, when Scotland had a complete set of frigates named after her royal palaces and castles.

The sudden appearance and close proximity of their approaching foes somewhat disconcerted even the MacGregors; but Rob, who was full of strategy, formed his plans in a moment.

"Dioul!" said he; "to have this prize--the Spaniard's legacy--torn out of our teeth at this moment will never do! We must draw the attention of these Sassenachs to another point."

"How--how?" asked his followers.

"By firing on them."

"But they are beyond range!"

"Never mind," said Rob; "they will soon be within it."

"Your plan--your plan?" asked some, with anxiety.

He sent twenty of his best marksmen with all speed to a point of rock about a quarter of a mile above where the launch lay, with orders to lure the enemy along the shore.

"Away, lads," said he, "and join us at Eilan Donan."

Running with the speed of hares, the MacGregors scampered over the rocks, loading their long Spanish guns as they went, and on gaining the place indicated, crouched among the whins and heather, from whence they opened a fire on the boats, which were barely yet within range of the firearms then in use. Flash, flash, flash, went the muskets redly out of the dark obscurity along the rocky shore, and a thousand echoes repeated the reports.

The challenge was soon accepted. A cheer rang across the shining lake from the man-of-war boats, and with fresh energy the oarsmen bent them to the task of rowing. Ere long the marines and small-arm men began to reply with their muskets; but they never hit one of the MacGregors, who were protected and concealed by bushes, boulder-stones, and ridges of rock; while the crowded boats presented a large mark for their muskets, which they could level steadily over the objects which protected them.

Leaping from rock to rock and from bush to bush, stooping down to reload, and starting up to fire, the MacGregors lured the boats' crews for nearly two miles up the loch in search of a landing-place, and then left them; for the whole twenty marksmen, with a shout of defiance and derision, plunged down a dark ravine, and took their way leisurely to Eilan Donan, without one of them being injured, while, on the other side, several unfortunate fellows were killed and wounded in the baffled boats of the frigates.

In the meantime Rob Roy was not idle on board the launch.

The hatch of the foredeck was soon burst open, and the black coffer described by the knight of Malta as being the military chest of the Spanish expedition--at least, of that portion which his brother commanded--was found. It was speedily forced, and there, in canvas bags, were found the heavy gold pistoles of Madrid and Malaga, each of which was worth sixteen shillings and ninepence sterling.

While the firing between the marksmen and the boats' crews was proceeding briskly, but receding up the loch, and while the frigates with their starboard tacks on board, crept closer and closer in shore, till Rob could hear the voice of the leadsman in the forechains of each as they sounded constantly in these, to them, almost unknown waters, he and his men were filling their dorlachs, or haversacks, with the treasure, after which they eat and drank all the provisions and liquors found in the launch, chiefly a bag of biscuits and a keg of brandy.

Then, to prevent the boat from becoming a prize to any of the king's ships, he ordered her to be set on fire, which was speedily done by thrusting bundles of dry branches and tarred rope under the foredeck, where her sails were stowed, and then applying a light.

The launch burned rapidly. The glare of the conflagration and explosion of the pateraroes as they became heated, soon attracted the attention of the boats' crews, and brought them down the loch, pulling with all their speed; but ere they reached the creek there remained only a heap of charred and smouldering wood, with the brass swivels or pateraroes, lying among it. By this time Rob Roy and his men had crossed the intervening hills, and were far on their way to Lord Seaforth's castle of Eilan Donan.

They soon reached this fine old fortress, which had been built by Alexander III. to protect Loch Duich from the Danes, and of which he made Colin Fitzgerald (a brave Irishman, who served under his banner at the victory of Largs) the first constable, in the year 1263. It consisted of a square keep, the walls of which measured four feet thick. It was surrounded by an outer rampart, and by water at full tide. Eilan Donan was a place of great strength, and the keep was lofty and spacious. The oldest parishioner (in 1793) remembered to have seen Duncan nan Creagh and other Kintail men under arms on its leaden roof, and dancing there merrily, ere they marched to the battle of Sheriffmuir, from whence few of them ever returned.

Here Rob Hoy and the MacGregors took up their quarters. Roaring fires were lighted in the great kitchen, and a couple of deer were soon roasting and sputtering on the spits, while ale and usquebaugh went joyously round in quaichs, cups, and long blackjacks in the hall, where the spoil--the treasure of the Spanish launch--was fairly portioned out, every man sharing alike, while a large sum was put aside for old and poor folks at home, not forgetting even Paul Crubach.

In the midst of all this the boom of a distant cannon was heard; another and another followed; and then a tremendous crash, as a 24-pound shot passed through the windows of the hall and tore down a mass of masonry opposite.

All rushed to the windows or to the roof, and lo! with their broadsides to the shore, there lay two of the frigates, the _Mermaid_, under Commander Samuel Goodiere, and the _Dover_, under Nicolas Robertson, with their foreyards backed, and opened ports, from which the red flashes of the ordnance broke incessantly, as they commenced a vigorous cannonade on Eilan Donan, which they had special orders to destroy, as a stronghold of the house of Seaforth.

"This is no place for us now, lads," said Rob, "so, ho for the march home. We have many a step between this and Balquhidder, so the sooner we depart the better."

Dislodged thus unexpectedly from Eilan Donan, to reach the mainland Rob and his hardy followers forded that portion of the isthmus which lay under water when the tide was at half ebb, and just as the clear summer twilight was brightening into day, they retired among the mountains that look down on the Sheil.

For some hours they could hear the din of the cannonade against Eilan Donan, which was so completely battered and destroyed, that little or nothing remains of it now, save its foundations, and a well in which, a few years ago, a quantity of plate and firearms was discovered. Several of the cannon-balls fired on this occasion have been found from time to time by the country people, who used them as weights for the sale of butter and cheese.

Not content with the demolition of the castle, the commanders of the frigates landed their crews, and with great wantonness burned the old church of Killduich to the ground, and pillaged the poor peasantry.

This severity was not unrequited by fate; for we learn from Shomberg's "Naval Chronology," that Captain Nicolas Robertson was soon after tried by a court-martial for keeping false musters and defrauding the Government, in whose cause he was so zealous when in the Highland lochs; and on the 4th April, 1740, Samuel Goodiere, then a captain, was hanged for the murder of his own brother on board H.M.S. _Ruby_ in the Bristol Channel.