d
elsewhere on the Buchanan estate. To these storehouses Rob Roy used to
repair with a sufficient force, and of course when he was least expected,
and insist upon the delivery of quantities of grain--sometimes for his
own use, and sometimes for the assistance of the country people; always
giving regular receipts in his own name, and pretending to reckon with
the Duke for what sums he received.

In the meanwhile a garrison was established by Government, the ruins of
which may be still seen about half-way betwixt Loch Lomond and Loch
Katrine, upon Rob Roy's original property of Inversnaid. Even this
military establishment could not bridle the restless MacGregor. He
contrived to surprise the little fort, disarm the soldiers, and destroy
the fortification. It was afterwards re-established, and again taken by
the MacGregors under Rob Roy's nephew Ghlune Dhu, previous to the
insurrection of 1745-6. Finally, the fort of Inversnaid was a third time
repaired after the extinction of civil discord; and when we find the
celebrated General Wolfe commanding in it, the imagination is strongly
affected by the variety of time and events which the circumstance brings
simultaneously to recollection. It is now totally dismantled.*

* About 1792, when the author chanced to pass that way while on a tour
through the Highlands, a garrison, consisting of a single veteran, was
still maintained at Inversnaid. The venerable warder was reaping his
barley croft in all peace and tranquillity and when we asked admittance
to repose ourselves, he told us we would find the key of the Fort under
the door.

It was not, strictly speaking, as a professed depredator that Rob Roy now
conducted his operations, but as a sort of contractor for the police; in
Scottish phrase, a lifter of black-mail. The nature of this contract has
been described in the Novel of Waverley, and in the notes on that work.
Mr. Grahame of Gartmore's description of the character may be here
transcribed:--

"The confusion and disorders of the country were so great, and the
Government go absolutely neglected it, that the sober people were obliged
to purchase some security to their effects by shameful and ignominious
contracts of _black-mail._ A person who had the greatest correspondence
with the thieves was agreed with to preserve the lands contracted for
from thefts, for certain sums to be paid yearly. Upon this fund he
employed one half of the thieves to recover stolen cattle, and th