In the household of Inversnaid the spinning-wheels were never idle; hence there was plenty of industry and comfort, but few luxuries. All the furniture was of black oak, or Scottish pine; the only piece of mahogany being an oval teaboard, a portion of Helen's "plenishing," when she left her father's house at Comar. On ordinary days her dress was linsey-woolsey and a tartan plaid; and though dignified with the title of _lady_ in Gaelic, as being the wife of a chieftain, and on certain occasions, such as birthdays or anniversaries (the Gowrie conspiracy, the Restoration, or the imaginary succession of James VIII.), wearing silk and fine lace, they were all made up at home, for in those sequestered regions the name and business of a milliner were unknown. Of their five sons, only four had as yet been born,--Coll, Ronald, Hamish, and Duncan. We are now rapidly approaching those events which scattered Helen's happy household, and drove her brave and trusty, generous and humane husband "to the hillside, to become a broken man," branded as an outlaw and traitor, with a price upon his head. King James VII. was dead, and his son, though in exile, had assumed the title of James III. of England and VIII. of Scotland. In 1707 the English endeavoured to _force_ the Scots into a union; and, as a preliminary, very unwisely seized all their merchant ships that were in southern ports. On this Scotland prepared for war by strengthening her garrisons, and proposing to raise sixty thousand infantry; so England resorted to other means, and by bribery achieved the measure so long desired. Thus that which was hitherto a weak and federal union, became a powerful and combined one; each country, however, retaining its own church and laws. Before this great treaty was complete, the Scottish Government restricted the importation of cattle into England; but free intercourse being one of the happy results of the Union, various persons speculated in this traffic. Among others, Rob Roy engaged in a joint adventure with James, Marquis of Montrose, who had received a sum of money for his Union vote, and in the month _preceding_ that measure had been created a duke, with the office of Lord Privy Seal for Scotland. "The capital to be advanced," says Dr. Browne, in his "History of the Highlands," "was fixed at ten thousand _merks_ each, and Rob Roy was to purchase cattle therewith, and drive them to England for sale." The Duke's money he received from his factor or chamberlain, John Grahame of Killearn, partly in cash and partly in bills of exchange, drawn through the Bank of Scotland on Grahame of Gorthy. He soon collected a vast herd, and leaving his trusty henchman and foster-brother, MacAleister, in charge of his household, departed for Carlisle.