He buckled on his sword, thrust his loaded pistols in his belt, threw his target on his arm, kissed Helen and the babe Robin at her breast, and was rushing from the house to seek shelter on the hills, when the Duke of Athole, with two hundred and fifty of his tenantry, all mounted and armed with sword, pistol, and musketoon, drew up before the door. Keeping his hand on his sword, Rob saluted the duke, saying, with that suave irony which a Highlander can so well assume,-- "I am obliged to your grace for coming unasked with such a goodly company to attend my mother's funeral. Glenfalloch and Breadalbane will alike deem it an honour which neither they nor I expected." "I have not come here for any such purpose," replied Athole, haughtily, as he shook the long curls of his peruke, and kept his horse well in hand, while keenly eyeing every motion of MacGregor. "I have come but to crave the pleasure of your company so far as the Tolbooth of Perth, where we shall settle some old scores at leisure." "Indeed!" said Rob, sternly. "Had I received sufficient notice of your grace's visit, we had met at the pass of Loch Ard, not at my own door, and I should have resorted to other means than temporising. Within that chamber, duke, lies my mother in her coffin--a woman old in years--yea, so old that she remembered the earliest days of Charles I., to whom your grandsire, Earl John of Athole, was a steadfast man mid true; so, should I die for it here upon the threshold, I shall neither yield nor go to Forth your prisoner; for now in death, as in life, my place shall be by my mother's side!" "Enough of this," said Athole, coarsely; "the funeral may go on very well without you." Taken at vantage, however, Rob gradually perceived that he could gain nothing by resistance; and, as the duke dismounted, and stood by the bridle of his horse, he affected to comply with his wish. Then shrill screams and cries of lamentation rose from the women of the tribe, great numbers of whom had already assembled at Muirlaggan; and within the doorway of the house were seen the dark and scowling faces of men, with the gleam of arms, as swords and skenes were drawn and muskets loaded; for there Greumoch, Alaster Roy, and Rob's sons, Coll, Duncan, Hamish, and Ronald, prepared, like brave youths, to defend or die beside him. A babel of hoarse and guttural Gaelic tongues rang on all sides, and many of the duke's yeomanry had unsheathed their swords and unslung their musketoons preparatory to carrying off the prisoner. The voices of his sons, the lamentations of the women, thoughts of Helen with the babe at her breast, and his mother lying dead in her coffin, filled MacGregor's soul with desperation. Thrusting aside by main strength of arm half a dozen of the troopers who had begirt him, he drew forth his claymore, and called upon them all to stand back--back, upon their lives!