banditti,--Rob Roy was moderate in his revenge, and humane in his
successes. No charge of cruelty or bloodshed, unless in battle, is
brought against his memory. In like manner, the formidable outlaw was the
friend of the poor, and, to the utmost of his ability, the support of the
widow and the orphan--kept his word when pledged--and died lamented in
his own wild country, where there were hearts grateful for his
beneficence, though their minds were not sufficiently instructed to
appreciate his errors.

The author perhaps ought to stop here; but the fate of a part of Rob
Roy's family was so extraordinary, as to call for a continuation of this
somewhat prolix account, as affording an interesting chapter, not on
Highland manners alone, but on every stage of society in which the people
of a primitive and half-civilised tribe are brought into close contact
with a nation, in which civilisation and polity have attained a complete
superiority.

Rob had five sons,--Coll, Ronald, James, Duncan, and Robert. Nothing
occurs worth notice concerning three of them; but James, who was a very
handsome man, seems to have had a good deal of his father's spirit, and
the mantle of Dougal Ciar Mhor had apparently descended on the shoulders
of Robin Oig, that is, young Robin. Shortly after Rob Roy's death, the
ill-will which the MacGregors entertained against the MacLarens again
broke out, at the instigation, it was said, of Rob's widow, who seems
thus far to have deserved the character given to her by her husband, as
an Ate' stirring up to blood and strife. Robin Oig, under her
instigation, swore that as soon as he could get back a certain gun which
had belonged to his father, and had been lately at Doune to be repaired,
he would shoot MacLaren, for having presumed to settle on his mother's
land.*