trated into the fastnesses of the Macgregor country, they might see cattle, and might know them to have been "lifted," as surely as the detective policeman knows the gold-capped and jewelled watch found in the tramp-house to have been stolen; but no man could identify his own cattle. Those swept from the Lowlands of Lanark or Stirling were far off among the mountains beyond the Muir of Rannoch; those lifted in Aberdeen or Moray were transferred to the Macgregor country. The "sorners and limmers" had often great gatherings for the exchange of stolen cattle. They met armed, and, amid libations of whisky, sometimes transacted a little political business for the exiled house of Stewart, or rather against the existing government, for their interest lay more in pulling down than setting up.

In the year 1744, Evan Macpherson of Cluny, a chief of great influence, undertook what was called "a watch," "for the security of several counties in the north of Scotland from thefts and depredations." The function was pressed upon him at a meeting of the landowners most sorely pillaged; and, though they agreed to pay him a certain tribute, it was not the accomplice's bribe, like the old black mail, but a contribution towards the heavy expense of supporting a Highland police.

So completely had a large portion of the Highlanders been accustomed to live on the fruit of other people's industry, that the strict operation of Cluny's watch is said to have involved them in dreadful misery.*

Still all these remedies were partial and ineffective, and the practice did not come to an end until the constitutional reformation following the rebellion of 1745 swept before it the predatory propensities, as well as the warlike habits of the Highlanders.

But, returning to the Clan Gregor and their achievements, as recorded in the proceedings of the penal tribunals. If all that can be said of Rob Roy himself may be called an unexpected blank, we shall find the ancient spirit reviving in his sons, who aimed at nobler predatory game than cattle. One of these sons is named in the record "James Macgregor, alias Drummond, alias More," and to make his identification more complete, he is described as an outlaw, for taking to flight when charged with the murder of John Maclaren of Wester Inernenty. The indictment, which is the only statement we possess of the nature of this crime, attributes the motive to a belief among the

* Watch undertaken by Macpherson of Cluny, Miscellany of Spalding Club.

Macgregors that Maclaren was about to take a lease of a farm called Kirktoun, occupied by the mother of the young Macgregor, Rob Roy's widow-the heroine of the novel. The assassination, as described in the same document, was performed in the simplest of manners. "When the said John Maclaren was holding his own plough, with which he was labouring the ground, you, with a loaded gun in your hand, came behind his back, and cruelly and barbarously discharged the gun upon him, whereby he was wounded in the thigh, or some other part of his body, of which wound or wounds so given he died in a few hours thereafter that same day."

In the proceedings on which we shall enter more at length, this James Drummond was associated with a brother, called Robert Macgregor, alias Campbell, alias Drummond.

In the old mansion-house of Edinbellie, within a few miles of the pass of Aberfoyle, there lived in the winter of 1750 a young heiress named Jane Key. Though not nineteen years old she had been nearly two months a widow, and had returned on her husband's death to the shelter of her mother's roof. On the night of the 8th of December, when the family circle were assembled, they were alarmed by such sounds as used of old to announce the forays

which the law had recently been strong enough to put down. The doors were burst open, and several armed Highlanders, with Rob Roy's sons at their head, broke in upon the household. The young widow was naturally the first to flee for safety, and had time to hide herself in one of the many recesses of the old mansion ere the ruffians reached the sitting-room. Finding her gone, they seized her mother, and, by threatening" to murder every person in the family, or to burn the house and every person in it alive, unless the said Jane Key should be produced," discovered the poor girl's hidingplace. She was told that an ardent affection for her person had prompted this outrage, and that Robert Macgregor had adopted these unusual means for overcoming the difficulties he might meet in aspiring to her hand; and she was told this in a manner to show that she was the spoil of the conqueror's sword, and must comply. "And upon her desiring," says the indictment, in its technical language, "to be allowed till next morning, or for some few hours, to deliberate on the answer she was to give to so unexpected and sudden a proposal as a marriage betwixt her, then not two months a widow, and a man with whom she had no manner of acquaintance. After some further discourse, or expostulation, you, the said James Macgregor, or one or other of your accomplices, laid violent hands

upon the said Jane Key, within her own dwellinghouse as aforesaid, and in a most barbarous, cruel, and most unbecoming and indecent manner, dragged her to the door, while she was making all the resistance in her power, and crying out for help and assistance, and uttering many bitter lamentations; and after she was thus dragged to the door, you and one or other of your accomplices did, with force and violence, most barbarously and inhumanly lay the said Jane Key upon a horse, placing her body across the horse, upon the torr or forepart of the saddle, after having tied her arms with ropes. And during all the time these barbarous and horrid outrages were acting, you and your accomplices, or one or other of you, did threaten, with execrable oaths, immediately to murder every person who should offer to give the said Jane Key the least assistance."*

She was thus conveyed to Rowerdennan on Loch Lomond. The tourist who sojourns for a short time at this lovely spot, before crossing the lake, or attempting the ascent of Ben Lomond, will scarcely, in the midst of so much tranquillity and beauty, be able to realise the horrible position of poor Jane Key in the hands of the hereditary enemies of her house and of her race; the ruthless, lawless tribe, whose savage ferocity had been the theme of all household

* Justiciary Papers, Advocates' Library.