ond.

The education of this extraordinary man was limited; and he is said not
to have exhibited in his youth any striking traits of the intrepidity
which distinguished him in after life. But he was endowed with a
vigorous intellect, and with an enthusiasm which had been deepened by
the peculiar circumstances of his clan and kinsfolk. It is impossible to
comprehend the character of Rob Roy, unless we look into the history of
his race, as we have briefly done, and consider how strong must have
been the impressions which hereditary feuds, and wrongs visited upon
father and child, had made upon a mind of no common order.

His youth was occupied in acquiring the rude accomplishments of the age.
In the management of the broadsword the ardent and daring boy soon
acquired proficiency; his frame was robust and muscular, and his arm of
unusual length. At an early age he is said by tradition to have tried
his powers in a predatory excursion, of which he was the leader. This
was in the year 1691, and it was called the herdship, or devastation of
Kippen, in the Lennox. No lives were sacrificed, but the marauding
system was carried to its extent.

The young Macgregor was educated in the Presbyterian faith. "He was
not," says his biographer,[104] "free from those superstitious notions
so prevalent in his country; and, although few men possessed more
strength of mind in resisting the operation of false and gloomy tenets,
he was sometimes led away from the principles he had adopted, to a
belief in supernatural appearances." Nor was it likely that it should be
otherwise; for the wildest dreams of fancy were cherished in the
seclusion of the region, then inconceivably retired and remote, in which
Rob Roy is said to have passed days in silent admiration of Nature in
her grandest aspects; for the man who afterwards appeared so stern and
rugged to his enemies, was accessible to the tenderest feelings, and to
the most generous sympathies.[105]

Although his father had succeeded in military life, Rob Roy was destined
to a far more humble occupation. The discrepancy between the Scottish
pride of ancestry and the lowly tracks which are occasionally chalked
out for persons of the loftiest pretensions to origin, is manifest in
the destination of Rob Roy. He became a dealer in cattle. It was, it is
true, the custom for landed proprietors, as well as their tenantry, to
deal in the trade of grazing and selling cattle. In those days, no
Lowlanders