Live Stock 63 



droving them to England. The first public notice 

 we have of him was his being advertised as a fraudulent 

 bankrupt, who, having been " intrusted by several 

 noblemen and gentlemen with considerable sums for 

 buying cows for them in the Highlands, has treacher- 

 ously gone off with the money to the value of 1000 

 sterling, which he carries along with him." The real 

 explanation was understood to be that Eob had been 

 placed in serious pecuniary difficulties by the defalca- 

 tions of a subordinate agent or partner, and to avoid 

 the penalty of a harsh law, desired to keep out of the 

 way for the time. But the Buke of Montrose, who 

 had advanced money, as a sort of sleeping partner 

 with Macgregor, having got Rob's wife and family 

 turned out of his poor property of Inversnaid, Rob 

 took to the rough country round Ben Lomond as his 

 retreat, assumed the outlaw's life, and took sweet re- 

 venge by pouncing down as occasion served upon the 

 Duke's Lowland farms, and making booty of meal and 

 cattle ; and on one occasion of his factor, along with 

 the rents he was engaged in collecting. 



But Rob Roy was not the originator of the practice 

 of cattle lifting, any more than he was the last that 

 lived by it. A contemporary description of the 

 Highlanders of this time, and which is more forcible 

 than complimentary, speaks of them as " a people who 

 are all gentlemen, only because they will not work ; 

 and who, in everything, are more contemptible than 

 the vilest slaves, except that they always carry arms, 

 because, for the most part, they live upon robbery." 

 And truly the Highlander's habits gave not a little 

 countenance to the accusation. Long before Rob 

 Roy's day, the unceremonious Celts were wont to come 

 down in force upon the Lowlands, and carry off 

 " spreaths" of cattle and other goods. We read of 

 such expeditions as that made in 1689, by a dozen 

 wild Lochaber men, who had come down to the heart 

 of Aberdeenshire more than one hundred miles and 



