Biographical fiction; Historical fiction; Outlaws -- Fiction; Rob Roy, 1671-1734 -- Fiction; Scotland -- History -- 1689-1745 -- Fiction
Rob Roy and his followers being now left to themselves by the sudden
dispersion of the MacKenzies and MacRaes, while the Rosses, Munroes,
and others were still in arms against them, and while General
Wightman's troops, though retreating, covered the main roads that led
to the Perthshire highlands, were thus compelled to linger near the
shore of Loch Duich and in the castle of Eilan Donan for a few days
ere they could set out on their return home.
In the historical account of Rob Roy and his clan, we are told
briefly, that after Glensheil, "he and his party plundered a Spanish
ship, after it had been in possession of the English, which so
enriched him that he went to the braes of Balquhidder, and began
farming."
The details of this affair are as follows:--
On the night after the battle, Rob, on learning that Duncan nan
Creagh and other MacRaes were wandering over the field, dirking and
plundering the wounded, went there to drive them off, and to save as
many as possible of the poor fellows.
The early June morning dawned brightly in the dewy glen, which was
dotted thickly with red and yellow coats, among whom lay nearly
thirty Spaniards; and Rob saw with regret the body of Captain Dawnes;
it presented a deplorable spectacle, for both his eyes were shot out,
and his face was a mass of blood.
Near him was a Spanish officer, seated half upright against a large
stone; his dark-olive face was pale, ghastly, and sorrowful. As Rob
approached, he raised his head, and opened his black and now
lack-lustre eyes with a vacant stare, as if the poor fellow sought to
assure himself that blindness and death had not yet come upon him.
His uniform was blue, richly laced with silver, and on his left
breast was the gold and eight-pointed cross of Malta. He had
received two bullet wounds in the body, and appeared to be sinking
fast.
As Rob Roy, like most of the loyal Highlanders, was perhaps more a
Catholic than a Protestant, the cross upon the breast of the dying
Spaniard excited his interest, and stooping down, he asked in English
if he could assist him.
"_Aqua--aqua!_" (water--water!) muttered the sufferer, hoarsely, and
then added in good English, "Water, for the love of Heaven!"
"Run to the linn, Greumoch, and fill your quaich," said Rob, raising
the sufferer against his knee; "our forefathers lie under the shadow
of the old cross on Inchcailloch, and they died believing in it as
the sign of redemption unto men, so it would ill become us to neglect
the stranger, who, with the cross on his breast, dies here for King
James VIII. Quick, Greumoch, dash in some whisky too--it comes not
amiss to the Saxons, and won't to the Spaniards!"
As soon as it was brought, he applied the quaich of cool spring water
and usquebaugh to the parched lips of the wounded officer, whose
tongue seemed to have become baked and hard by loss of blood and a
night of agony.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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