The Highland monthly - National Library of Scotland

41
8
Ihe Highland Monthly,
petrated even on the market stance, especially at the
trysts which were held at a season when darkness supervened
at an early hour. Various other circumstances com-
bined to make these robberies comparatively easy of
execution. Those in charge of the cattle were usually
fatigued after days of travel and nights of watching ; and,
meeting many old friends, they became too happy to be
watchful against danger to their masters. Indeed, the
drovers and tacksmen of those days exposed themselves in
a remarkable degree to the pickpocket and footpad. How
they escaped so well is a marvel. On the evening of a
tryst every one was, more or less, in a crapulous
condition. One great safeguard, to be sure, lay in the
fact that they went together, and drank together, in
sets and parties of well-tried friends. Another safeguard
lay in the severity of the punishment which was inflicted
upon such of the nimble-fingered gentlemen as the
authorities could lay hands on. I have heard of many
hair-breadth escapes from robbers at the great trysts in the
south. Sometimes, one stout dealer overcame several
thieves by whom he was beset, and after giving them a
beating put them to flight.
Mark Teviot, after retiring for the night, resolved
the whole matter carefully in his mind, and came to
the conclusion that, after all, he had nothing to fear
so long as he maintained a watchful look-out against
danger. He was, as I have already observed, uncommonly
vigorous for a man of his years, and so quick-eyed that
he could pick out a strange sheep by lug-mark
among a drove of his own passing on the road. He had
great power of endurance, too, and, in his earlier years,
when herding in distant glens, he often slept in the bothy
all night with soaking clothes, having no other food than
some oatmeal porridge. Tlie Macilvaines knew all this, so
that, along with Macevven, he felt that he was comparatively
safe against attack. Few in the country could throw the
heavy hammer further than Gillespie, or toss the caber