THE PASS OF ABERFOIL.

"Woe to the vanquished!' was stern Brenno's word,
When sunk proud Rome beneath the Gallic sword.
"Woe to the vanquished" when his massive blade
Bore down the scale against her ransom weighed :
And on the field of foughten battle still
Woe knows no limit save the victor's will.”

"The attack which he (Captain Thornton) meditated, was pected apparition of a female upon the summit of the rock.

THE GAULLIAD.

Rob Roy, Vol. II. p. 211.

prevented by the unexStand!' she said, with

a commanding tone, and tell me what ye seek in Mac Gregor's country?'

“I have seldom seen a finer or more commanding form than this woman. She might be between the term of forty and fifty years, and had a countenance which must once have been of a masculine cast of beauty: though now imprinted with deep lines by exposure to rough weather, and perhaps by the wasting influence of grief and passion, its features were only strong, harsh, and expressive. She wore her plaid not drawn around her head and shoulders, as is the fashion of the women in Scotland, but disposed around her body as the Highland soldiers wear theirs. She had a man's bonnet, with a feather in it, an unsheathed sword in her hand, and a pair of pistols at her girdle.

"It's Helen Campbell, Rob's wife,' said the Bailie, in a whisper of considerable alarm; and there will be broken heads amang us or its long.'

"What seek ye here?' she asked again of Captain Thornton, who had himself advanced to the reconnoitre.

"We seek the outlaw, Rob Roy Mac Gregor Campbell,' answered the officer, ‘and make no war on women; therefore offer no vain opposition to the king's troops, and assure yourself of civil treatment.'

“Ay,' retorted the Amazon, 'I am no stranger to your tender mercies. Ye have left me neither name nor fame. My mother's bones will shrink aside in the grave when mine are laid beside them. Ye have left me and mine neither house nor hold, blanket nor bedding, cattle to feed us, or flocks to clothe us. Ye have taken from us all-all! The very name of our ancestors have ye taken away, and now ye come for our lives.'

"I seek no man's life,' replied the Captain; I only execute my orders. If you are alone, good woman, you have nought to fear: if there are any with you so rash as to offer useless resistance, their own blood be on their own heads,-move forward, serjeant.'

“Forward,' said the non-commissioned officer, Huzza, my boys, for Rob Roy's head and a purse of gold! He quickened his pace into a run, followed by six soldiers:

but as they attained the first traverse of the ascent, the flash of a dozen firelocks from various parts of the pass, parted in quick succession and deliberate aim. The serjeant' shot through the body, still struggled to gain the ascent, raised himself by his hands to clamber up the face of the rock, but relaxed his grasp, after one desperate effort, and falling, rolled from the face of the cliff into the deep lake, where he perished. Of the soldiers, three fell, slain or disabled: the others retreated on their main body, all more or less wounded."

"Grenadiers, to the front!' said Captain Thornton; the four grenadiers moved to the front accordingly. The officer commanded the rest of the party to support them, and adding, Look to your safety, gentlemen,' gave in rapid succession the word to the grenadiers, Open your pouches-handle your grenades -blow your matchesfall on.""

"The whole party advanced with a shout, the grenadiers preparing to throw their grenades among the bushes where the ambuscade lay, and the musketeers to support them by an instant and close assault: a continued spattering fire, in which every shot was multiplied by a thousand echoes, the hissing of the kindled fusees of the grenades, and the successive explosion of those missiles, mingled with the huzzas of the soldiers, and the yells and cries of their Highland antagonists, added wings to the desire of Dougal and the Bailie to reach a place of safety. The Bailie having ascended about twenty feet from the path, when his foot slipping, as he straddled from one huge fragment of a rock to another, he would have slumbered with his father the deacon, but for a projecting branch of a ragged thorn, which, catching hold of the skirts of his riding coat, supported him in mid-air, where he dangled not unlike to the sign of the Golden Fleece over the door of a mercer in the Trongate, or to the coffin of Mahomet, which remains suspended between heaven and earth.

"In a few minutes the cause of terror ceased, for the fire, at first so well sustained, now sunk at once, a sure sign that the conflict was ended. It terminated in the defeat of Captain Thornton. His party, about twelve in number, after most of them were wounded, being exposed to a murderous and well-aimed fire, at length laid down their arms, by order of their officer, who perceived that the road in the rear was occupied, and that protracted resistance would be only wasting the lives of his brave followers."

The celebrated and romantic Pass of Aberfoil forms the principal line of communication between the Highlands and Lowlands, in Perthshire. It is situated in the parish of the same name, which extends a length of eleven miles, and varies in breadth from a narrow avenue or entrance to five miles across. Its boundaries are, on the north, Callander; on the east, Monteith; on the south, Keppin and Buchanan; and on the west, Stirlingshire. The most interesting attraction of this district is the chain of lakes which beautify the vale, and stretch their silvery length along the narrow and shadowy bottom. The village or clachan was the scene of some of Rob Roy's adventures mentioned elsewhere; and in the Pass, which is only a little distance from it, a serious and real tragedy was enacted by Rob's kinsmen, headed by Helen Mac Gregor. The precise

L

spot on which this brief but sanguinary struggle occurred is a narrow defile, the highest part of which rises abruptly over Loch Ard head, above which Ben Lomond raises his graceful form. A similar ambush, and equally successful, was laid in this part of the pass for the soldiers of Cromwell, who were here set upon and repulsed with considerable loss by a party of Highlanders, commanded by the Earl of Glencairn.

The clachan of Aberfoil is twenty miles from Stirling, five miles from the port of Monteith, five miles from the Trosachs, and enriched by scenery rendered classical by the genius of the first of modern novelists. The Duke of Montrose, the principal landed proprietor here, has erected a handsome inn in the village.

LOCH LOMOND.

"Now might you see the tartans brave,

And plaids and plumage dance and wave:

Now see the bonnets sink and rise,

As his tough oar the rower plies;

See flashing at each sturdy stroke,
The wave ascending into smoke."

SCOTT.

[Rob Roy, Vol. II. p. 319.

"With these assurances of mutual aid and continued good will, we (Bailie Jarvie and Frank Osbaldistone) bore away from the shore, and took our course for the southwestern angle of the lake, where it gives birth to the river Leven. Rob Roy remained for some time standing on the rock from beneath which we had departed, conspicuous by his long gun, waving tartans, and the single plume in his cap, which in those days denoted the Highland gentleman and soldier, although the present military taste has decorated the Highland bonnet with a quantity of black plumage resembling that which is borne before funerals. At length, as the distance increased between us, we saw him turn, and go slowly up the side of the hill, followed by his immediate attendants or body guard."

The magnificent scenery of Loch Lomond, the Lausanne of Caledonia, is thus described by Frank Osbaldistone, upon the occasion of his visit to Rob Roy's retreat. "The lofty peak of Ben Lomond, here the predominant monarch of the mountains, lay on our right hand, and served as a striking land-mark. I was not awakened from my apathy until, after a long and toilsome walk, we emerged through a pass in the hills, and Loch Lomond opened before us. I will spare you the attempt to describe what you would hardly comprehend without going to see it. But certainly this noble lake,