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Updated: July 17, 2025
And when I remembered James More, and the red head of Neil the son of Duncan, I thought there was perhaps a fourth in the confederacy, and what remained of Rob Roy's old desperate sept of caterans would be banded against me with the others. One thing was requisite some strong friend or wise adviser.
The caterans swarmed down once more from the mountains and isles, and every petty tyrant of a robber laird threw off whatever bond of law had been forced upon him in King James's golden days. This sudden access of anarchy was made more terrible by a famine in the country, where not very long before it had been reported that there was fish and flesh for every man.
The fiercest rebel of all, the head of the Highland caterans, with his wild host in all their savage array, was by his side, ready to charge under his orders. The country, drained of its most lawless elements, was beginning to breathe again, to sow its fields and rebuild its homesteads.
Her brother, an honourable and spirited young man, obtained from James the Sixth a grant of forestry, and other privileges, over a royal chase adjacent to this castle; and, in exercising and defending these rights, he was so unfortunate as to involve himself in a quarrel with some of our Highland freebooters or caterans, of whom I think, Captain Dalgetty, you must have heard."
And then Queen Anne, that's dead, gae the chiefs bits o' pensions, sae they had wherewith to support their gillies and caterans that work nae wark, as I said afore; and they lay by quiet eneugh, saying some spreagherie on the Lowlands, whilk is their use and wont, and some cutting o' thrapples amang themsells, that nae civilised body kens or cares onything anent.
When this Charles Stewart returned to these kingdoms, did the malignants bring him back? They had tried it with strong hand, but they failed, I trow. Could James Grahame of Montrose, and his Highland caterans, have put him again in the place of his father? I think their heads on the Westport told another tale for many a long day.
He hobnobbed with the most suspicious-looking caterans, with whom he drank the smoky brew of the North, and lived as he might on fish and onions and bacon and wild fowl, with an appetite such as he had never known at the luxurious court of Versailles or St.-Germain.
Venerable 'Afnan made many a difficulty, and an uncommon favour, of risking the plundering of the dromedaries and the lives of his caterans by a razzia. The fellows set off after nightfall towards the upper ravine, distant some two hours' slow march: they must there have had a pleasant, refreshing sleep; and they did not return, doubtless by order, till late next morning.
And now, sir, I, his grandson, am thus used at such unworthy hands! Here there was an awful pause; after which all the company, as is usual in cases of difficulty, began to give separate and inconsistent counsel. Alexander ab Alexandro proposed they should send some one to compound with the Caterans, who would readily, he said, give up their prey for a dollar a head.
He would instead try and escape across the Red Sea and rejoin his family. The Arab clansmen are like the Hielan' caterans; they may fight and quarrel with one another, but unless there is a blood feud it is unlikely they will help either the English or the Egyptians to bag old Osman Digna. If the Turk gets him for a subject, well, the Sublime Porte is likely to be deeply sorry for it later on.
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