Could he but reach that knife! But, tied as he was, of what use could it be? Yet there occurred to him an idea, which he resolved at once to put in practice. By vigorous, yet almost noiseless, efforts with his feet, he dragged the chair across the room towards the table. At last he reached it, and, after being so frequently baffled that he was about to relinquish the attempt in despair, he contrived to take up the knife in his mouth, and to grasp the handle firmly with his teeth. Then, by turning his head on each side alternately, he applied the edge so successfully to the cords which crossed his shoulders, that he soon severed them. By this process he gradually got one hand loose; but for many minutes it hung powerless by his side. However, anon he grasped the knife with it, and in a short time was free; but on rising from the chair, so much were his limbs benumbed, that he staggered like a tipsy man, and overturned both chair and table. Heavily they fell with a crash on the floor! Greumoch rushed to the window, opened it, and leaped into the dark and silent street of the village; but at the same moment, from another window of the house, two carbines flashed, and the balls whizzed past as the troopers fired at him in their shirts. "You are only dragoons," snouted Greumoch, in Gaelic; "and dragoons never hit anything; so fire away!" Then with a derisive laugh he disappeared in the darkness. CHAPTER XXXV. ROB'S NARROW ESCAPE. The Duke of Montrose began to despair of ever capturing Rob Roy or of conquering his men; but he distributed among his tenantry a great number of muskets, bayonets, and swords, with plenty of ammunition, that they might be able to defend themselves if attacked; but all these military stores fell into the hands of the enemy, for Rob, MacAleister, Greumoch, Coll, and other MacGregors, by a systematic series of attacks or visits in the night, disarmed all the tenants in succession; so the duke gained nothing by the arrangement. Another insurrection for the House of Stuart was expected in the Highlands; and as the MacGregors, by their conflicts, raids, and depredations, had collected a great quantity of weapons, more than were requisite for their personal equipment. Rob Roy had all these carefully oiled, packed in well-greased cowhides, and buried in secret places, where perhaps many of them remain undiscovered to this day. The MacGregors daily became more daring, and sometimes drove away the cattle from the parks, beneath the very windows of Buchanan House, where the duke resided. The practice of "lifting," as it was termed, the cattle of a hostile clan was then, and for many years after, common in the Highlands; and as the feud between Rob and his grace was of the most bitter nature, he carried the system to the utmost extent.