Page:Life and exploits of Rob Roy MacGregor.pdf/18

 cover a sum of money due to him. Returning by Moffat, he fell in with a party of soldiers hanging four peasants, whom they called fanatics. A young woman, who was also bound to the same tree, bewailed the fate of her father and brother, two of those who suffered. The deadly work being completed, four of the soldiers seized the young woman, tied her hands and feet, and were carrying her towards the river to drown her, regardless of her tears and entreaties to save her. Our hero's heart being wrung with sympathy, and shocked at such cruelty, ordered the perpetrators to stop, and demanded, why they treated a helpless female with such barbarity? The officer desired him to 'be gone, otherwise he would experience the same treatment, for daring to interrupt the king's instructions.' The miscreants were just about to toss the girl in the stream over a precipiece. Rob became frantic with rage, sprung upon the soldiers, and in an instant eight of them were struggling in the pool.

The officer and the remaining ten men were confounded and stood motionless. In this pause Rob cut the cords that bound the girl; and killed the officer at one stroke. The soldiers attacked him,