Chapter XIII: Rob Roy

An old flintlock gun of extreme length, with silver plate containing the initials R.M.C.; a fine Highland broadsword, with the highly prized Andrea Ferrara mark on the blade; a dirk two feet long, with carved handle and silver-mounted sheath; a _skene dhu_, or black knife, a short thick weapon of the kind used in the Highlands for dispatching game or other servile purposes for which it would be a profanation to use the dirk; a well-worn brown leather purse; and a _sporran_, with semicircular clasp and secret lock, which for a century has defied the ingenuity of all who have attempted to open it, are among the treasures of Abbotsford. They were all once the property of Robert MacGregor Campbell, or Rob Roy, the famous 'Robin Hood of the Highlands.'

When I was permitted to take the long old-fashioned gun into my own hands and to test its weight by carrying the butt to my shoulder and casting my eye over the long octagonal barrel, I could not help feeling that Rob Roy was a far less mythical person than his prototype of the Forest of Sherwood.

Rob Roy was, indeed, a very real person, as the Duke of Montrose knew to his sorrow, but the stories of his exploits are so strange, and at the same time so fascinating, that it is difficult to determine where biography ends and pure fiction begins. The MacGregor clan to which he belonged had been for three hundred years the victims {183} of gross injustice. David II, the son of Robert Bruce, began the oppression by wrongfully bestowing their lands upon the rival clan of the Campbells. The MacGregors were forced to a struggle for self-preservation, and manfully fought to maintain their rights, exhibiting extraordinary courage and endurance. But their acts of heroism and self-defence were construed at court as evidences of lawlessness and rebellion. Strenuous efforts were made to suppress them, but all such attempts were met with fiery vindictiveness. Each act of violence led to one of vengeance. The clan came to be regarded as a fierce and untameable race of outlaws. Rendered savage and cruel by a treatment which left no lawful means of obtaining a livelihood, pursued with fire and sword by the leaders of powerful neighbouring clans, whose subjects were forbidden to give them food or shelter, the MacGregors were driven to desperation. Violent deeds of retaliation occurred which no amount of provocation would justify. Murders, outrages, and bloody skirmishes were of frequent occurrence. These conflicts reached a terrible crisis in the battle of Glenfruin, fought on the shores of Loch Lomond with the powerful clan of Colquhoun, of whom two hundred or three hundred were slaughtered, many of them being killed without reason after the battle was over.

One of the leaders of the MacGregors, who was accused, perhaps unjustly, of murdering a party of clerical students who had merely stopped to witness the fight, was Dugald Ciar Mohr, the 'great mouse-coloured man,' so called from the colour of his face and hair. He was a man of ferocious character and enormous strength, and was one of the ancestors of Rob Roy.

{184}

This event led to various Acts of Council, proscribing the MacGregors as outlaws, prohibiting them from carrying weapons, and forbidding them even to meet together in groups of more than four. The very name of the clan was abolished, and any one who should call himself either Gregor or MacGregor was made liable to suffer the penalty of death.

Rob Roy was the product of these long years of relentless persecution and retaliation. His family occupied the mountain ranges between Loch Lomond and Loch Katrine, where they possessed considerable property. The date of his birth is uncertain, but it was probably 1660 or 1661. In the latter year, through the orders of King Charles II, the acts against the MacGregors were annulled and their name restored. The king, however, could not annul the effects of three centuries of civil warfare and vengeful retribution, nor prevent Rob Roy from inheriting some of the traits of his 'mouse-coloured' ancestor. Rob is described as a man of medium height, but of extraordinary strength. His powers of endurance were greater than those of any other member of his clan. His arms were said to be seven inches longer than those of the average man. This gave him a great advantage with the broadsword, which he could wield with uncommon skill and effectiveness. His head was covered with a shock of thick, curly red hair, from which fact he derived his name, Rob Roy, or Rob the Red. He had keen, flashing, grey eyes and a firm mouth, which betokened a man with whom it would be dangerous to trifle, but these features could be frank, cheerful, and full of kindness when among his friends. He had none of the ferocity or cruelty of that ancestor whose {185} great powers he seemed to have inherited. On the contrary, though bold in the execution of his purposes, he avoided unnecessary bloodshed. Though driven by fate to the life of an outlaw, he was a man of humane instincts and under happier circumstances might have been a public benefactor.

This is the explanation of his extraordinary success in eluding pursuit. His kindliness of disposition and friendly helpfulness had raised up friends in every part of the country. In this respect he was like Robin Hood. He struck at the rich and powerful when they molested him, but to the poor he was generous and helpful. He was a kind and gentle robber, who carried a sense of humour into his boldest outrages, and contrived to take the property of his rich enemy without molesting the latter's poor tenants, usually managing to make the victim ridiculous in the eyes of his associates.

Again and again the Duke of Montrose sent expeditions after him, but invariably some friend of Rob's carried the news to him well in advance or sent the Duke's people off in a wrong direction, so that they were always either disgracefully defeated or hopelessly bewildered. Meanwhile, Rob would be pretty sure to appear unexpectedly at some point on the Duke's estate and sweep away everything in sight. Each new failure brought added wrath to the Duke, which the satirical remarks of his companions did not tend to soften.

When Montrose deprived MacGregor of his lands of Craigroyston, along the eastern shore of Loch Lomond, Rob had no redress in the courts, but he managed to square accounts pretty well by driving off annually large numbers of the Duke's cattle, and collecting rents, {186} for which he invariably gave receipts. He made Craigroyston unbearable for any one who attempted to live there, until finally a Mr. Graham of Killearn, the Duke's factor, took possession. This was exactly what Rob Roy wanted, for Graham was the man who, in MacGregor's absence, had burned the house of the latter at Balquhidder and brutally thrust his wife out of doors in a cold winter night. Rob ever after regarded him with fierce vindictiveness. Graham's cattle mysteriously disappeared time after time until Craigroyston became unbearable for him also.

Rob had a queer way of appearing suddenly in places where he was least expected. One day when Graham was drinking at a tavern and angrily relating his troubles to a chance acquaintance, he exclaimed, 'Gin God or the de'il wad gie me a meeting wi' that thievin' loon, Rob Roy MacGregor, I'd pay aff my score wi' him. But the villain aye keeps oot o' my road.' 'Here we are, then,' was the reply, 'whether it's God or the de'il has brocht us thegether. Nae time like the noo, sir, for if ye're Graham o' Killearn, I'm Rob Roy MacGregor.' Graham did not stand on the order of his going, but made his exit by leaps and bounds until three long miles were put between him and 'that devil of a MacGregor.'

On one occasion Graham had called the tenants of a certain district to meet at a small house, according to custom, to pay their rent. Rob Rob, with a single attendant, whom he called 'the Bailie,' reached the house after dark, and looking through the window, saw Killearn with a bag of money in his hand and heard him say he would cheerfully give it all for Rob Roy's head. Rob instantly gave orders in a loud voice to place two {187} men at each window, two at each corner and four at each of the doors, as if he had twenty men. He and his attendant then walked boldly in, each with broadsword in his right hand and a pistol in his left, and a goodly display of dirks and pistols in their belts. He then coolly ordered Killearn to put the money on the table and count it, and to draw a proper receipt showing that he, Rob Roy, had received the money from the Duke of Montrose on account. Then, finding that some of the tenants had not been given receipts for their rent, he caused these to be drawn so that no poor man should suffer, after which he ordered supper for all present, for which he paid. When they had eaten their meal and drunk together for several hours, he called upon 'the Bailie' to produce his dirk and take the solemn oath of the factor that he would not move nor direct any one else to move out of the house for at least one hour. Pointing to the dirk to signify what the agent might expect if he broke his oath, Rob calmly walked away with the bag of money, which he considered rightfully his own, and was soon beyond pursuit. On another occasion MacGregor not only took possession of the rents which this same gentleman had collected, but also carried him away to a small island in the west end of Loch Katrine, where, after entertaining him five or six days, he dismissed his guest (or prisoner), returning all the books and papers, but taking good care to keep the cash.

The escape of Rob Roy from the Duke of Montrose was based upon an actual occurrence. He was surprised by Montrose and taken prisoner in the Braes of Balquhidder. He was then mounted behind a soldier named {188} James Stewart and secured by a horse-girth. In crossing a stream, probably the Forth at the Fords of Frew, MacGregor induced Stewart to give him a chance 'for auld acquaintance' sake.' Stewart, moved by compassion or possibly fear, slipped the girth-buckle and Rob, dropping off the horse, dived, swam below the surface, and finally escaped.

The novelist's acquaintance with the country of Rob Roy began in his sixteenth year, when with a military escort of a sergeant and six men, he first entered the Highlands. He was then a lawyer's clerk, and his object was to obtain possession of a certain small farm in the Braes of Balquhidder, known as Invernenty, to secure some debts due from the owner, Stewart of Appin. The farm had been a part of the property claimed by Rob Roy, and in the late years of the cateran's life there had been a great dispute over it with the Stewarts. The quarrel was finally adjusted and a family of MacLarens took possession as tenants of Stewart. After the death of Rob Roy, his son, Robin Oig, probably instigated by his mother, declared that if he could get possession of a certain gun of his father's, he would shoot MacLaren. He kept his word, using the weapon to which I have referred at the beginning of this chapter. The descendants of MacLaren remained on the farm and refused to leave. So long as they were there, the property could not be sold. It chanced that one of Scott's earliest legal undertakings was to secure the eviction of these undesirable tenants. When he arrived the house was empty, the MacLarens not caring to make any serious opposition.

The Kirk of Balquhidder, where Rob Roy made his {189} settlement with the Stewarts, stands at the foot of Loch Voil, a few miles off the main road from Callander to Lochearnhead. It is a small ivy-covered chapel, standing beneath the shadow of two large trees. In front is an iron railing, of recent construction, enclosing the graves of Rob Roy, his wife, Helen MacGregor, whose real name was Mary, and two of his sons. He died a natural death in 1734, at an age which has been variously stated as between seventy and eighty years.

The first appearance of Rob Roy in the novel is when under the name of Campbell (his mother's name, which he assumed, probably for prudential reasons), he makes the acquaintance of Mr. Frank Osbaldistone at the Black Bear of Darlington. Frank, it will be remembered, is on the way to his uncle's estate in Northumberland. There is little by which Osbaldistone Hall can be identified, but if geographical considerations count for anything, it is not improbable that Scott may have had in mind Chillingham Castle, the seat of the Earl of Tankerville. This is one of the places to which he refers in a letter written in the summer of 1791, as 'within the compass of a forenoon's ride,' from the farm in the Cheviot Hills, south-west of Wooler, where he was then staying. During that vacation excursion he became very familiar with all the surrounding country, an experience which doubtless had something to do with choosing Northumberland as the scene of an important part of the novel. Chillingham Castle is a fine type of the old baronial residence. It was designed by Inigo Jones, the famous architect of the seventeenth century, though portions of the building are still preserved which were built as early as the thirteenth century. It stands in a magnificent park of {190} fifteen hundred acres, about two thirds of which is set apart for the accommodation of deer and wild cattle. The latter, almost the only descendants of the herds of savage wild cattle which once roamed the Caledonian forests, are famous throughout England and Scotland. Sir Walter refers to them in the 'Bride of Lammermoor' and again in a note to 'Castle Dangerous.' The present castle is a large square structure enclosing the walls of the older building. Entering the inner court, which is paved with stone, we came to what was once the front of the ancient structure, looking something like 'the inside of a convent or of one of the older and less splendid colleges of Oxford,' to quote from the description of Osbaldistone Hall. We were shown a large banqueting-room, now used as a library, which extends across the entire width of the building. Its walls were decorated, after the fashion of Osbaldistone, with many trophies of the chase, such as the heads of deer, elk, buffalo, and other animals, all shot by the present earl. But in this splendid apartment with its luxurious furnishings, there was little else to suggest the dingy old hall, with its stone floor and massive range of oaken tables, where the bluff old Sir Hildebrand and 'the happy compound of sot, gamekeeper, bully, horse-jockey, and fool,' which, with the addition of a highly educated villain, constituted his family, daily consumed huge quantities of meat and 'cups, flagons, bottles, yea, barrels of liquor.'

Frank Osbaldistone had nearly reached the entrance to his uncle's house when he met the beautiful Diana Vernon. Miss Cranstoun, afterwards the Countess of Purgstall, one of Scott's early friends in the social circles of Edinburgh, was thought by many to be the original {191} of Diana,--a belief which she herself shared, chiefly because she was an expert horsewoman. Others have said that Scott's first love was the real Diana. But Miss Vernon is totally unlike either Margaret of Branksome or Matilda of Rokeby, both of whom were, to some extent, portraits of Miss Williamina Stuart. Moreover, in the unexpected meeting of a charming young woman on horseback, her long black hair streaming in the breeze, her animated face glowing with the exercise, and her costume attractively arranged in the most striking fashion, there is a strong suggestion of the circumstances to which I have previously referred,[1] under which the poet first met the future Lady Scott.

The next day after our visit to Chillingham we followed the footsteps of Frank Osbaldistone to Glasgow, where we soon found the cathedral to which Frank was conducted by Andrew Fairservice. It well justifies the old gardener's encomium: 'Ah! it's a brave kirk--none o' yere whigmaleeries and curliewurlies and open steek hems about it!--a' solid, weel-jointed mason-wark, that will stand as lang as the warld, keep hands and gunpowther aff it.' A part of the present building was erected in 1175. It has been the scene of some important events in Scottish history. At Christmas of 1301, Edward I of England, on his campaign against Scotland, made offerings at the high altar. Five years later, Robert Bruce stood before the same altar and was there absolved for the murder of his rival, the Red Comyn, at Dumfries.

The cathedral is supported by sixty-five pillars, some of them eighteen feet in circumference. The effect of {192} these huge masses is to throw the crypt into almost total darkness except in the parts near the narrow stained-glass windows. To make my photograph I set up the camera, opened the shutter, and left a workman to keep watch while I went to luncheon. Returning in an hour I shut off the exposure and realized later that two hours would have been better.

In this dark crypt it was formerly the custom to hold services. While standing in front of one of the huge pillars, listening to the sermon, Frank Osbaldistone heard the mysterious voice of Rob Roy, warning him that his life was in danger. Turning quickly he could see no one. I could never understand this scene until I saw the crypt. The large size of the pillars and the dense shadows which they cast would make it easy for one to disappear in the darkness as Rob Roy was supposed to do.

On High Street, Glasgow, we found an old tower, which was a part of the Tolbooth, where Rob Roy had his curious interview with Bailie Nicol Jarvie. The old Salt Market has changed greatly since the days of the good Bailie and his father, the deacon, and it is no longer necessary at night to be escorted along the city streets by a young maidservant with a lantern.

Rob Roy's parting injunction to Frank was 'forget not the clachan of Aberfoyle.' We therefore made it our business to find that interesting spot, combining it, as did Scott, with our investigation of the scenery of 'The Lady of the Lake.' The portion of the Scottish Highlands generally included in the so-called Rob Roy country comprises all that part of central Perthshire from Loch Ard and the river Forth on the south to Strath Fillan and Glen Dochart on the north, and from Loch {193} Lubnaig on the east to Loch Lomond on the west. This region, so easily accessible to us by means of carriages and automobiles, was in the time of Rob Roy not only difficult to approach, but exceedingly dangerous. The only highways of travel were narrow defiles through the mountains, easy enough, perhaps, for the experienced and hardy clansman, who knew every twist and turn of the paths, but as impassable to the unguided Lowlander or 'Sassenach' as the tablelands of Tibet.

Frank Osbaldistone and Bailie Nicol Jarvie, guided by the officious and rascally, but always laughable, Andrew Fairservice, are supposed to enter the hamlet of Aberfoyle by crossing an old stone bridge over the Forth. It is the bridge which Scott doubtless crossed when he visited the place, and is still standing, but it had not been built in the time of Rob Roy. That, however, was one of those details which never interested Sir Walter to any great extent.

We approached from the opposite direction, driving over the hills from the Trossachs and pausing just above the village to view the splendid valley to the westward, the termination of which was the mountain peak of Ben Lomond. Arriving at Aberfoyle, we were fortunately spared the necessity of stopping at an inn such as the novelist describes, where the worthy Bailie valiantly defended himself against a too aggressive Highlander, by wielding a red-hot poker so vigorously as to burn a hole in his opponent's plaid. But the enterprising landlord of the modern hotel near the bridge capitalizes the incident by exhibiting the _identical poker_, which he has attached to the limb of a tree, thereby recalling Scott's story of the keeper of a museum who showed the very {194} sword with which Balaam was about to kill his ass. A visitor interrupted him with the remark that Balaam did not possess a sword; he only wished for one. 'True, sir,' was the ready reply, 'but this is the very sword he wished for.'

There are two groups of old cottages in Aberfoyle, corresponding closely with those described in the novel.

The miserable little bourocks (or heap of rocks) as the Bailie termed them, of which about a dozen formed the village called the clachan of Aberfoyle, were composed of loose stones, cemented by clay instead of mortar, and thatched by tufts, laid rudely upon rafters formed of native and unhewn birches and oaks from the woods around. The roofs approached the ground so nearly, that Andrew Fairservice observed, we might have ridden over the village the night before, and never found out we were near it, unless our horses' feet had 'gane through the riggin'.'

About half a mile from the bridge, which is the exact distance referred to in the novel, we found the largest of these clachans, which bore a very striking resemblance to the one described by Scott, even to the squalor of its surroundings, for it is still inhabited at one end, though the other is in ruins. But by way of compensation, the miserable hovel, with the high bleak hills in the background, made a strikingly picturesque view, not differing greatly from that which met the eyes of Rob Roy himself, whenever his 'business' brought him to that locality.

Following the road to the westward, we came to some cliffs on the north shore of Loch Ard, near the foot of the lake, which are pointed out as the place where Bailie Nicol Jarvie found himself suspended by the coat-tails {195} from the projecting branches of a thorn-tree, dangling in mid-air 'not unlike the sign of the Golden Fleece over the door of a mercer in the Trongate of his native city.'

The beauty of the lake as it appears from this road, and particularly from the point where Ben Lomond looms high in the distance, fully justifies the novelist's enthusiasm. The 'huge grey rocks and shaggy banks' are neither so high nor so wild as they are described, nor did we find an elevation from which Helen MacGregor might have pitched the miserable Morris headlong into the lake. Indeed, had we been able to look backward through the mists of two centuries and see the famous Helen herself, we should doubtless have discovered that she, too, was much less 'wild' than she has been painted. Scott represents her as a virago, fiercely inspiring her husband and sons to deeds of bloody vengeance. The real name of Rob Roy's wife was Mary. Mr. A. H. Miller, in his 'History of Rob Roy,' thinks she has been sadly misrepresented. 'Mary MacGregor,' says he, 'was of a gentle and amiable disposition, one who never meddled in the political schemes of her husband, and whose virtues were of the domestic order.'

Scott's fondness for the little waterfall of Lediard, north of Loch Ard, to which I have already referred in connection with 'Waverley,' led him to introduce it again in 'Rob Roy.' It was the place chosen by Rob's wife and followers as 'a scene well calculated to impress strangers with some feelings of awe,' and here Helen MacGregor presented to Frank Osbaldistone the ring of Diana Vernon as the love-token of one from whom he believed himself separated forever.

{196}

The two sections of the Rob Roy country which the cateran most frequented, were the eastern shores of Loch Lomond and the valley where Loch Voil nestles calmly among the hills, known as the Braes of Balquhidder. After Rob was driven away from Craigroyston, on the margin of Loch Lomond, he made his headquarters for many years at Fort Inversnaid, on the high land, about two miles east of the lake.

The story of how Rob Roy took possession of this place stamps him as a modern Ulysses as well as a Robin Hood. The Government authorized the building of the fort on Rob's own land, as a means of guarding the district from his depredations. The crafty cateran, learning from some of his numerous spies all about the plans well in advance, took good care to see that none of his clansmen interfered in the least, so that all the material for the fort, including ample supplies, guns, and ammunition, were brought up without molestation. The contractor, happy in the thought that the peaceful state of the country had enabled him to complete his task promptly, dismissed most of his men and prepared to turn the property over to the Duke of Montrose. One evening, in the midst of a heavy snowstorm, a knocking was heard at the gate. In response to inquiry, a voice said that a poor pedlar had lost his way in the snow. The gate was opened, and Rob Roy at the head of a strong force, rushed in and took possession. The fort made an excellent vantage-ground from which he harried his enemies for many years.

Just below the fort, the little river which forms the outlet of Loch Arklet joins the Snaid, and finally tumbles over the cliff in a beautiful little cascade, known as {197} Inversnaid Falls. About two miles to the north, well hidden among the rocks, is a cave which Rob Roy was sometimes compelled to use as a hiding-place. It was visited by Walter Scott and introduced in the story of 'Waverley' as the cave of Donald Bean Lean, but he refrained from mentioning it in 'Rob Roy.'

Scott never felt quite satisfied with this novel, although he did remark in a letter to John Richardson, 'I really think I may so far do some good by giving striking and, to the best of my information and abilities, correct likenesses of characters long since passed away.' As a presentation of the real character of one of the most picturesque and interesting of all Highlanders, as well as a superb word-painting of the conditions under which men lived in the country and the time of Rob Roy, the novel possesses a genuine value. Scott's discontent with it arose from the hard conditions under which it was written. In a letter to Daniel Terry, dated March 29, 1817, he says, referring to it, 'I have made some progress in ye ken what, but not to my satisfaction; it smells of the cramp, and I must get it into better order before sending it to you.' After the book was published, he used the same expression in a letter to Morritt. Lady Louisa Stuart, one of Scott's most valued friends, who wrote to him with perfect freedom, thought the end of the story indicated that the author was 'tired, and wanted to get rid of his personages as fast as he could, knocking them on the head without mercy.' There is certainly some justification in this when we consider that the old Baronet and five of his worthless sons are disposed of within three or four pages, while the last and worst of the lot, the traitorous Rashleigh, is put {198} out of the way two chapters later. On the other hand, the Squire and his family were always treated collectively, and as they were in the way it was just as well to get rid of them by wholesale. Of course, no good could come from letting the villain live. If this is a defect, or if there are any other faults in the novel, they are all redeemed by the happy picture of Bailie Nicol Jarvie, one of the most original as well as delightful of all the company of actors in the Waverley Novels,--'a carefu' man, as is weel kend, and industrious as the hale town can testify; and I can win my crowns, and keep my crowns, and count my crowns wi' ony body in the Saut-Market, or it may be in the Gallowgate. And I'm a prudent man, as my father the deacon was before me.' The poor bailie never could (and neither can the reader) forget how he must have looked when he hung head down from the thorn tree in the Pass of Aberfoyle: 'And abune a', though I am a decent, sponsible man, when I am on my right end, I canna but think I maun hae made a queer figure without my hat and my periwig, hinging by the middle like bawdrons, or a cloak flung over a cloak-pin. Bailie Graham wad hae an unco hair in my neck and he got that tale by the end.'

Charles Mackay, the famous actor, made the hit of his career in his rendition of Bailie Nicol Jarvie, and the dramatization of the novel enjoyed a remarkable popularity for many years.

[1] Chapter 1, page 17.

{199}