Historical memoirs of Rob Roy and the Clan Macgregor

142 MEMOIR OF ROB ROY.
It chanced that Macgregor and his lad had one day
gone to kill a deer in the neighbouring forest. The day
rained so much that they were quite wet on their return.
Macgregor sat down by the fire to dry himself ; and as hia
hair was very long and wet, the landlady offered to comb and
dry it. While in the act of doing so, she twisted her hand
in it, and pulled him suddenly down upon his back to the
ground. The concealed assassins and the false shepherd
immediately rushed upon him. He called to his companion ;
their strength was herculean ; and in a few minutes their
assailants were all either dead or maimed. The treacher-
ous woman, with the resolution of a fiend, having opposed
their departure from her house with a drawn dagger, was
seized and hanged on a joist. Gregor and his servant
were both severely wounded, and having quitted this,
scene of blood, they returned to Glengyle ; but from the
fatigue he had undergone, and the wounds he received,
Macgregor's servant only lived two days after his arrival.
When the eventful periods of Scottish history in which
those heroes flourished had passed away, the policy of the
mountains took a new and important turn. Various arts
and improvements were introduced, which speedily effected
the most beneficial changes, and convinced the natives that
it was possible to live and be regarded for other qualities
than those of war ; while the removal of the long and ill-
judged proscription of the clan Gregor, though unfeelingly
opposed by a narrow-minded nobleman of their own coun-
try, turned their energies to better purposes, and rendered
them no less resoectable than other members of the state.
Glasgow.:— Edward Khull, Printer to the University.