Phail Crubach, or lame Paul MacGregor, was the keeper of a Holy Well near the church of Balquhidder. He had been educated in youth at the Scottish College of Douay; but on becoming partly insane, he returned to his native place, and became the custodian of a spring which St. Fillan had blessed in the times of old. Near this well he lived in a hut, which was an object of terror to the peasantry, as it was almost entirely lined and patched with fragments of old coffins from the adjacent churchyard. At the door of this strange dwelling (on which was a rusty coffin-plate as an ornament) he usually sat and watched the well and the narrow highway, ready to afford any wayfarer a draught from the spring, for which he received a small remuneration, either in coin or food--such as meal, cheese, butter, and a bit of venison, which any man might then have for the shooting thereof. He was clad in a coat and breeches of deerskin; he was wasted in form, wan in visage, and had red hazel eyes, that glared brightly through the long masses of white hair that overhung his wrinkled forehead. Supporting himself on a knotty stick, which had a cross on its upper end, he hobbled forward through the shrinking crowd. "How know you, Paul, that Duncan Mhor MacRae, from Kintail-of-the-cows, did this?" asked Rob Hoy. "Even by the words you have spoken, had I not better evidence," replied the strange old man. "Explain yourself, Paul; we have no time for trifling now," said Rob, softly. "Duncan nan Creagh lost each alternate tooth in his lower jaw when fighting with Colin's father, at the fair of Callender, in the year that the field of Rin Ruari was stricken. They came to dirk and claymore about the price of a Clydesdale cow, and Ian Bane smote Duncan on the mouth with the hilt of his sword, and forced him to swallow a mouthful of his own teeth; and a bitter mouthful he found them." "Dioul! well?" "Since then he has been well-nigh a toothless man; but if you would overtake the creagh, lose no time, for I saw the spoil and the spoilers not two hours since." "You saw them?" exclaimed all, bending forward. "Yes, I," said Paul, brandishing his pilgrim-staff; "and not quite two hours ago." "Where?" asked Red MacGregor. "Crossing the Dochart, and taking the road towards Glenfalloch." "Which--the military road?" "No; Duncan nan Creagh knows better than to do that," said Paul, shaking his white locks; "they took the old Fingalian drove-road, right across the mountains towards the north-west." "'Tis well, kinsman," said Rob Roy, sternly and gravely; "now, men of Clan Alpine, swear with me on the bare dirk, by the soul of Ciar Mhor, to revenge the murder of this boy, our kinsman's son, and then away to the hills--even the hills of Kintail, if need be!"