This party were seen on their march to Callendar by some MacGregors, who were driving a herd of cattle along the banks of the Forth, so Rob was immediately apprised of the unwelcome visitors. In an hour, the whole fighting men of the braes of Balquhidder were in arms, and had scouts posted at every pass and avenue; but as Rob had no wish to subject his people to severity on his own account--for it was _he_ alone whom Grahame had orders to capture--he retired further off into the mountains, a precaution he would not have adopted in his younger and more fiery years. The soldiers met with every opposition, and frequently with bloody resistance from the MacGregors; and they had a four days' fruitless search, toiling, with knapsacks and accoutrements, cocked hats, pipe-clayed breeches, and long gaiters, up steep mountains, down ravines, where they floundered, and sunk knee-deep among wet heather, fern, and rushes; stumbling over precipices, and always misled by the guides, who took the bribes of the officers, and then vanished into the mist or a thicket, leaving them to shift for themselves, till the evening of the fourth day found Colonel Grahame and his detachment, starving, weary, and worn, occupying a deserted house on the verge of the Lowlands, near the hills of Buchanan. The rain was falling in torrents, and no sentinels were posted without; so there Rob came upon them in the night, and, by throwing in combustibles, set the house on fire about their ears. This immediately dislodged the enemy. As they rushed forth in disorder and dismay, many were severely injured by bruises and by the explosion of the ammunition in their pouches. Many lost their weapons, and "one man was killed by the accidental discharge of a musket. The military, thus thrown into confusion, broken down by fatigue, and almost famished by want of provisions, withdrew from the country of the MacGregors, happy that they had escaped so well." This was--as we have stated--the _last_ encounter of Rob Roy with the forces of the government. CHAPTER LIV. THE FINAL ATTEMPT OF ATHOLE. It was the Lammas now of 1724, when the gool or wild marigold began to make its appearance among the little corn patches on the sunny side of the Highland hills; and in this month the mother of Rob Roy (a daughter of the house of Glenfalloch), then in extreme old age, being nearly a century old, expired at Muirlaggan, the house which he had built for her.