state of temporary quiet had been obtained,
that Rob Roy began to think of the concerns of his future state. He had
been bred, and long professed himself, a Protestant; but in his later
years he embraced the Roman Catholic faith,--perhaps on Mrs. Cole's
principle, that it was a comfortable religion for one of his calling. He
is said to have alleged as the cause of his conversion, a desire to
gratify the noble family of Perth, who were then strict Catholics.
Having, as he observed, assumed the name of the Duke of Argyle, his first
protector, he could pay no compliment worth the Earl of Perth's
acceptance save complying with his mode of religion. Rob did not pretend,
when pressed closely on the subject, to justify all the tenets of
Catholicism, and acknowledged that extreme unction always appeared to him
a great waste of _ulzie,_ or oil.*

* Such an admission is ascribed to the robber Donald Bean Lean in
Waverley, chap. lxii,

In the last years of Rob Roy's life, his clan was involved in a dispute
with one more powerful than themselves. Stewart of Appin, a chief of the
tribe so named, was proprietor of a hill-farm in the Braes of
Balquhidder, called Invernenty. The MacGregors of Rob Roy's tribe claimed
a right to it by ancient occupancy, and declared they would oppose to the
uttermost the settlement of any person upon the farm not being of their
own name. The Stewarts came down with two hundred men, well armed, to do
themselves justice by main force. The MacGregors took the field, but were
unable to muster an equal strength. Rob Roy, fending himself the weaker
party, asked a parley, in which he represented that both clans were
friends to the _King,_ and, that he was unwilling they should be weakened
by mutual conflict, and thus made a merit of surrendering to Appin the
disputed territory of Invernenty. Appin, accordingly, settled as tenants
there, at an easy quit-rent, the MacLarens, a family dependent on the
Stewarts, and from whose character for strength and bravery, it was
expected that they would make their right good if annoyed by the
MacGregors. When all this had been amicably adjusted, in presence of the
two clans drawn up in arms near the Kirk of Balquhidder, Rob Roy,
apparently fearing his tribe might be thought to have conceded too much
upon the occasion, stepped forward and said, that where so many gallant
men were met in arms, it would be shameful to part without it trial of
skill, and therefore he took the