civility during
their short conference, and so soon as he had left the house. "Now," he
said, "all is over--let the piper play, _Ha til mi tulidh_" (we return no
more); and he is said to have expired before the dirge was finished.

This singular man died in bed in his own house, in the parish of
Balquhidder. He was buried in the churchyard of the same parish, where
his tombstone is only distinguished by a rude attempt at the figure of a
broadsword.

The character of Rob Roy is, of course, a mixed one. His sagacity,
boldness, and prudence, qualities so highly necessary to success in war,
became in some degree vices, from the manner in which they were employed.
The circumstances of his education, however, must be admitted as some
extenuation of his habitual transgressions against the law; and for his
political tergiversations, he might in that distracted period plead the
example of men far more powerful, and less excusable in becoming the
sport of circumstances, than the poor and desperate outlaw. On the other
hand, he was in the constant exercise of virtues, the more meritorious as
they seem inconsistent with his general character. Pursuing the
occupation of a predatory chieftain,--in modern phrase a captain of
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 sh