"Reverend sir," said he, "I was present, as you no doubt perceived, at sermon this morning, and heard your discourse, every word of which I understood, but should like to know what you _meant_ by it. I am an old man now, and have lived a bold and perilous life, but I shall thank you to point out a single instance of fraud or roguery that has dishonoured it. If you cannot, as you have made me a spectacle to your parishioners, by the souls of those who died in Glenfruin! I will compel you to retract your words in your own pulpit." Unmoved by the stern bearing of Rob, whose right hand clutched his dirk, the minister replied,-- "I own, MacGregor, that I alluded to you." "Dioul, to me!" exclaimed Rob, furiously. "To you. Did you not buy a cow from a poor widow at the fair of Doune--a cow at little more than half its value?" "Sir, I was ignorant that she was poor, that she was a widow, and considered her cow worth double what she asked for it; but is my whole life to be slandered thus, and about a miserable cow?" "Her family are starving--that cow was the last of her herd, for the others all died of disease." "If this be the case," said Rob, "I shall restore to her the cow with double the sum I paid for it; here," he added, laying the bank-notes on the table, "I leave the money with your reverence. I shall do more; she shall have eight cows, the best in my herd, and money to stock her farm anew, for never shall it be said that a widow appealed in vain to the sympathy of Rob Roy!" After this time he passed nearly seven years in perfect peace; but in 1734 he became embroiled with a very powerful enemy, Stewart of Appin. The clan of MacLaren laid claim to the land of Invernentie in Balquhidder; to this the MacGregors also had a right, which they enforced by the blades of their swords, expelling therefrom Hamish MacLaren. A portion of Balquhidder was certainly the ancient patrimony of the Clan Laren, and their feud with the MacGregors was embittered by the memory that the latter, in 1604, had slain _forty-six_ of their householders, with all their wives and children, as the criminal record has it. In 1734, they appealed to Appin, chief of the Stewarts, a powerful tribe, which could always muster from seven to eight hundred swordsmen. General Stewart of Garth, so lately as 1821, reckoned the fighting force of this name at four thousand men. The MacLarens assembled in great numbers; Appin reinforced them with four hundred chosen men, and together they marched into Balquhidder, where Rob Roy with all his kindred was in arms to oppose them. The summer sun shone brightly on the grey walls of the old kirk of Balquhidder, shaded by its dark yew-trees, and its quaint old burial-ground studded with mossy head-stones, when close by it the hostile clans approached each other in two lines, each man with his round shield braced upon his left arm, and his sword brandished in his right hand.