in every instance. He remained, therefore, contented with the highest
premium given to persons of his description, and comforted himself
with the hopes that a few journeys to England might enable him to
conduct business on his own account, in a manner becoming his birth.
For Robin Oig's father, Lachlan M'Combich, (or, _son of my friend_,
his actual clan surname being M'Gregor,) had been so called by the
celebrated Rob Roy, because of the particular friendship which had
subsisted between the grandsire of Robin and that renowned cateran.
Some people even say, that Robin Oig derived his Christian name from a
man, as renowned in the wilds of Lochlomond, as ever was his namesake
Robin Hood, in the precincts of merry Sherwood. "Of such ancestry,"
as James Boswell says, "who would not be proud?" Robin Oig was proud
accordingly; but his frequent visits to England and to the Lowlands
had given him tact enough to know that pretensions, which still gave
him a little right to distinction in his own lonely glen, might be
both obnoxious and ridiculous if preferred elsewhere. The pride of
birth, therefore, was like the miser's treasure, the secret subject of
his contemplation, but never exhibited to strangers as a subject of
boasting.

Many were the words of gratulation and goodluck which were bestowed on
Robin Oig. The judges commended his drove, especially the best of them,
which were Robin's own property. Some thrust out their snuff-mulls for
the parting pinch--others tendered the _doch-an-dorrach_, or parting
cup. All cried--"Good-luck travel out with you and come home with
you.--Give you luck in the Saxon market--brave notes in the
_leabhar-dhu_, (black pocket-book,) and plenty of English gold in the
_sporran_ (pouch of goat-skin.)"

The bonny lasses made their adieus more modestly, and more than one,