The Waverley novels, by Sir Walter Scott, complete in 12 vol., printed from the latest English ed., embracing the author's last corrections, prefaces & notes.

18 ~ WAVERLEY NOVELS.
that there is not business in that country, according to its present order
and economy, for the one-half of them. Every place is full of idle people,
accustomed to arms, and lazy in everything but rapines and depredations.
As buddel or aquavitce houses are to be found everywhere through the
country, so in these they saunter away their time, and frequently consume
there the returns of their illegal purchases. Here the laws have never
been executed, nor the authority of the magistrate ever established. Here
the officer of the law neither dare nor can execute his duty, and several
places are about thirty miles from lawful persons. In short, here is no
order, no authority, no government."
The period of the Rebellion, 1715, approached soon after Rob Roy had
attained celebrity. His jacobite partialities were now placed in opposition
to his sense of the obligations which he owed to the indirect protection of
the Duke of Argyle. But the desire of "drowning his sounding steps
amid the din of general war," induced him to join the forces of the Earl of
Mar, although his patron, the Duke of Argyle, was at the head of the
army opposed to the Highland insurgents.
The MacGregors, a large sept of them at least, that of Ciar Mhor, on
this occasion, were not commanded by Rob Roy, but by his nephew already
mentioned, Gregor MacGregor, otherwise called James Grahame of Glengyle,
and still better remembered by the Gaelic epithet of Ghlune Dhu, i. e.,
Black Knee, from a black spot on one of his knees, which his Highland
garb rendered visible. There can be no question, however, that being then
very young, Glengyle must have acted on most occasions by the advice and
direction of so experienced a leader as his uncle.
The MacGregors assembled in numbers at that period, and began even to
threaten the Lowlands towards the lower extremity of Loch Lomond.
They suddenly seized all the boats which were uponthe lake, and, probably
with a view to some enterprise of their own, drew them overland to Inversnaid, in order to intercept the progress of a large body of westcountry whigs who were in arms for the government, and moving in that
direction.
The whigs made an excursion for the recovery of the boats. Their
forces consisted of volunteers from Paisley, Kilpatrick, and elsewhere, who,
witlh the assistance of a body of seamen, were towed up the river Leven in
long-boats belonging to the ships of war then lying in the Clyde. At Luss
they were joined by the forces of Sir Humphry Colquhoun, and James
Grant, his son-in-law, with their followers, attired in the Highland dress of
the period, which is picturesquely described.* The whole party crossed to
Craig-Royston, but the MacGregors did not offer combat. If we are to
believe the account of the expedition given by the historian Rae, they leaped
on shore at Craig-Royston with the utmost intrepidity, no enemy appearing
to oppose them,. and, by the noise of their drums, which they beat incessantly, and the discharge of their artillery and small arms, terrified the
MacGregors, whom they appear never to have seen, out of their fastnesses,
and caused them to fly in a panic to the general camp of the Highlanders
at Strath Fillan.t The low-country men succeeded in getting possession
* "At night they arrived at Luss, where they were joined by Sir Humphry Colquhoun, of Luss, and James
Grant of Plascander, his son-in-law, followed by forty or fifty stately fellows in their short hose and belted
plaids, armed each of them with a well-fixed gun on his shoulder, a strong handsome target, with a sharppointed steel of above half an ell in length screwed into the navel of it, on his left arm, a sturdy claymore
by his side, and a pistol or two,'with a dirk and knife, in his belt."-Rae's History of the Rebellion, 4to,
p. 287.
t The Loch Lomond expedition was judged worthy to form a separate pamphlet, which i have not seen,
but, as quoted by the historian Rae, it must be delectable.
"On the morrow, being Thursday the 13th, they went on their expedition, and about noon came to
Inversnaid, the place of danger, where the Paisley men and those of Dumbarton, and several of the other
companies, to the number of an hundred men, with the greatest intrepidity leapt on shore, got up to the top
of the mountains, and stood a considerable time, beating their drums all the while; but no enemy appearing,
they went in quest of their boats, which the rebels had seized, and having casually lighted on some ropes
and oars hid among the shrubs, at length they found the boats drawn up a good way on the land, which
they hurled down to the loch. Such of them as were not damaged they carried off with them, and such as
were, they sank and hewed to pieces. That same night they returned to Luss, and thence next day to