Chapter LV: 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. Yet neither he nor they were permitted entirely to let their swords rest, or forget the warlike lessons of their forefathers, for the battle of Culloden had not yet been fought, and in disposition and character the secluded Highland clans were little different from what their ancestors were when they routed the Romans on the Grampians, and hemmed them within the wall of Agricola--as their songs have it, "forcing the King of the World to retire beyond his _gathered heaps_."

In 1727, George II. was crowned, and six months after it was known in the Highlands that another "stranger filled the Stuarts' throne," and perhaps as many years elapsed before it was known in some of the Scottish isles, so dilatory was the transmission of news in the last century.

Even Montrose had now ceased to molest Rob Roy, who in his prosperity no longer "drew his grace's rents," but, extending his possessions beyond Balquhidder, leased some mountain-farms from the Duke of Argyle. On learning this, Montrose, in whose breast the old emotion of animosity still rankled, before the Lords of the Privy Council in London, accused his grace, who was the famous Field-Marshal John Duke of Argyle and Greenwich, of "fostering and protecting an outlaw."

"I do neither," replied he, angrily; "I only supply Rob Roy with the wood of the forest, the fish of the stream, the grass of the glen, and the deer of the hill--the common heritage of all Highlanders. But you have afforded him cattle, corn, and meal; moreover, we are informed that he is your grace's factor, and that on more than one occasion he has collected your rents, especially at Chapelerroch."

Montrose, who felt the taunt implied his own inability to defend himself, bit his lip in angry silence.

About this time Rob would seem to have visited England.

It is also said that he went so far south as London, as a _protégé_ of the Duke of Argyle, who was then in the zenith of his military and political influence. The story adds, that the duke requested Rob, in his full Highland dress and arms, to promenade for some time before St. James's Palace, where the attention of George II. was drawn to him--his garb being somewhat unusual in such a locality, and more especially in those days.

Some time after, when Argyle attended a royal levee, the king observed that he had "lately seen a handsome Scots Highlander near the palace."

"He was Robert MacGregor," replied the duke; "the identical outlaw who has long kept the Highlands of Perthshire in a turmoil by his resistance and resentments."

At this reply the king was very much incensed; but be the story as it may, there appeared in London, about this time, a pretended memoir of Rob, under the flattering title of _The Highland Rogue_. "It is," says the groat novelist, "a catch-penny publication, bearing in front the effigy of a species of ogre, with a beard a foot long, and therein his actions are as much exaggerated as his personal appearance."

It was during his absence in the south that Helen MacGregor enacted the only bold and masculine part she is known to have played on the stage of real life.

The proprietor of Achenriach, near the clachan of Campsie, having refused to pay his arrears of black-mail, Helen, as her two eldest sons were absent, being lieutenants in the Highland Watch under Glune Dhu, mounted on horseback, with a pair of loaded pistols at her saddlebow, and attended by Greumoch and twelve tall gillies fully armed, with targets on their backs and long muskets sloped on their shoulders, crossed the Campsie Fells, and presenting herself at the gate of Achenriach, demanded of the laird the tax which was due to her absent husband.

He speedily came forth with the money, saying, "Madam, I can refuse a lady nothing--neither would I have the hardihood to oppose you."

In this district Rob's nephew levied black-mail till within little more than a hundred years ago.