James Mhor, who at least fought like a man at Prestonpans, died thus far from his kin. Rob Roy is understood to be buried at the Kirkton of Balquhidder, his grave marked by a timeworn stone, sculptured in some more hoary age. There are tombs in better case ascribed to his wife and to one of his sons. Another ancient slab is said to commemorate the first Christian missionary of these glens that were so slowly lit by the spirit of the new faith, where the most binding oath was on the dirk, yet a man feared to break vows made on the tomb of this shadowy St Angus. A more pretentious monument recalls the Maclarens, those older lords of Roderick Dhu’s country, where yet a Gaelic rhyme boasted that “the hills, the waters and the sons of Alpin were the three oldest things in Alban.”
The stage of such stirring lives has become a favourite tourist scene of Scotland, visited not only by bailies from the Saltmarket, but by stockbrokers from Capel Court, and by bosses from the United States, who have nothing to be afraid of but the chance of not finding room in the trains, coaches, and places of entertainment that now open up this land of lovely lakes and streams. If any of Rob Roy’s descendants be alive to-day, they are like to present hotel bills instead of sword points to the Osbaldistones and Captain Thorntons of our generation. Some of them may be thanking Sassenach sportsmen for tips; and some, with more fidelity than the Dougal cratur, may be tramping the streets of Glasgow as policemen. Times are indeed changed. We no longer carry off our neighbour’s cattle, nor his wife, nor his widow, nor anything that can be protected by the police. We harry him only under forms of law; we get the best of him in the market; we cheat him by tricks of trade; we peacefully poison him with quack drugs and adulterated drink; then we can complacently give thanks that we are not as those bare-shanked publicans who made blood flow into Highland waters almost as freely as lying advertisements stain the columns of our newspapers.
As yet “glad innocence” has never reigned among sons of Eve nursed upon the “Braes of Balquhidder,” any more than about the banks of Cheapside. But a time may come when our customary misdoings as well as Rob Roy’s will seem--