eir usual marauding practices, "carrying off deer,
slaughtering cows, and other depredations." Soon afterwards they all
hurried away to the Earl of Mar's encampment at Perth; here they did not
long remain, but returned to Loch Lomond on the tenth of October.[114]

They now mustered their forces. Such was the terror of their name, that
both parties appear to have been afraid of the Macgregors, and to think
"it would be their wisdom to part peaceably with them, because, if they
should make any resistance, and shed the blood of so much as one
Macgregiour, they would set no bounds to their fury, but burn and slay
without mercy." This was the opinion held by some; by others resistance
was thought the more discreet as well as the more honourable part. A
body of volunteers was brought from Paisley, and it was resolved, if
possible, to retake the boats captured by the Macgregors, who could now
make a descent wherever they pleased. A singular spectacle was beheld on
the bosom of Loch Lomond: four pinnaces and seven boats, which had been
drawn by the strength of horses up the river Levin, which, next to the
Spey, is the most rapid stream in Scotland, were beheld, their sails
spread, cleaving the dark waters which reflected in their mirror a sight
of armed men, who were marching along the side of the loch, in order to
scour the coast. Never had anything been seen of the kind on Loch Lomond
before. "The men on the shore," writes an eyewitness, "marched with the
greatest ardour and alacrity. The pinnaces on the water discharging
their patararoes, and the men their small arms, made so very dreadful a
noise thro' the multiply'd rebounding echoes of the vast mountains on
both sides the loch, that perhaps there never was a more lively
resemblance of thunder." This little fleet was joined in the evening by
the enemy of the Macgregors, Sir Humphrey Colquhoun of Luss, followed by
"fourty or fifty stately fellows, in their short hose and belted plaids,
armed each of 'em with a well-fixed gun on his shoulder." At Luss a
report prevailed that the Macgregors were reinforced by Macdonald of
Glengarry, and had amounted to fifteen hundred strong: but this proved
to be an idle rumour; their numbers were only four hundred.

This falsehood did not dishearten the men of Paisley. "They knew," says
the chronicler of their feats, "that the Macgregiours and the devil are
to be dealt with after the same way; and that if they be resisted, they
will flee."