Page:Stories of the two drovers and Countess of Exeter.pdf/3



It was the day after the Doune Fair when my story commences. It had been a brisk market, several dealers had attended from the northern and midland counties in England, and the English money had flown so merrily about as to gladden the hearts of the Highland farmers. Many large droves were about to set off for England, under the protection of their owners, or of the topsmen whom they employed in the tedious, laborious, and responsible office of driving the cattle for many hundred miles, from the market where they had been purchased, to the fields or farm-yards where they were to be fattened for the shambles.

Of the number who left Doune in the morning, and with the purpose we have described, not a Glunamie of them all cocked his bonnet more briskly, or gartered his tartan hose under knee over a pair of more promising spiogs (legs), than did Robin Oig M‘Combich, called familiarly Robin Oig, that is Young, or the lesser, Robin. Though small of stature, as the epiphiet Oig implies, and not very strongly limbed, he was as light and alert as one of the deer of his mountains, He had an elasticity of step, which, in the course of a long march, made many a stout fellow envy him; and the manner in which he busked his plaid, and adjusted his bonnet argued a consciousness that so smart a John Highlandman as himself would not pass unnoticed among the lowland lasses. The ruddy cheek, red lips, and white teeth, set off a countenance which had gained by exposure to the weather, a healthful and hardy rather than a rugged hue. If Robin Oig did not laugh, ven smile frequently, as indeed is not the practice his countrymen, his bright eyes usually gleamed