e
great danger Captain Thornton and Mr. Jarvie would certainly be exposed
to, and entreated he would make me the bearer of such modified terms as
might be the means of saving their lives. I assured him I should decline
no danger if I could be of service; but from what I had heard and seen, I
had little doubt they would be instantly murdered should the chief of the
outlaws suffer death.

The Duke was obviously much affected. "It was a hard case," he said, "and
he felt it as such; but he had a paramount duty to perform to the
country--Rob Roy must die!"

I own it was not without emotion that I heard this threat of instant
death to my acquaintance Campbell, who had so often testified his
good-will towards me. Nor was I singular in the feeling, for many of
those around the Duke ventured to express themselves in his favour. "It
would be more advisable," they said, "to send him to Stirling Castle, and
there detain him a close prisoner, as a pledge for the submission and
dispersion of his gang. It were a great pity to expose the country to be
plundered, which, now that the long nights approached, it would be found
very difficult to prevent, since it was impossible to guard every point,
and the Highlanders were sure to select those that were left exposed."
They added, that there was great hardship in leaving the unfortunate
prisoners to the almost certain doom of massacre denounced against them,
which no one doubted would be executed in the first burst of revenge.

Garschattachin ventured yet farther, confiding in the honour of the
nobleman whom he addressed, although he knew he had particular reasons
for disliking their prisoner. "Rob Roy," he said, "though a kittle
neighbour to the Low Country, and particularly obnoxious to his Grace,
and though he maybe carried the catheran trade farther than ony man o'
his day, was an auld-farrand carle, and there might be some means of
making him hear reason; whereas his wife and sons were reckless fiends,
without either fear or mercy about them, and, at the head of a' his
limmer loons, would be a worse plague to the country than ever he had
been."

"Pooh! pooh!" replied his Grace, "it is the very sense and cunning of
this fellow which has so long maintained his reign--a mere Highland
robber would have been put down in as many weeks as he has flourished
years. His gang, without him, is no more to be dreaded as a permanent
annoyance--it will no longer exist--than a wasp without its head