Historical memoirs of Rob Roy and the Clan Macgregor

200 MEMOIR OF ROB ROY.
a state of considerable indecision he proceeded
to the Lowlands, and hovered about both armies
prior to the battle of Sheriffmuir, without mak-
ing any declaration or offer to join either ; and
during that event remained entirely inactive.
This unexpected conduct arose from two mo-
tives equally powerful, — a wish not to offend his
patron, the Duke of Argyll, should he join the
Earl of Mar, and that he might not act con-
trary to his conscience by joining Argyll against
his expatriated king.
His enemies, at all times anxious to place the
motives of Rob Roy's conduct in the worst
point of view, had propagated a report that the
Duke of Argyll, knowing that his principles led
him to espouse the cause of the opposite party,
had bribed him with the small sum of eighty
guineas not to join the Earl of Mar ; but it is pro-
bable that to an independent mind like his, act-
ing on the basis of conscious rectitude, the offer
of a bribe would have been regarded as a marked
insult ; and the duke was too well acquainted
with his temper to try such an experiment.
The motives, therefore, assigned for his inaction
at Sheriffmuir appear to be those which he him-
self afterwards declared, and which seem to
be the most consistent with the situation in