This was what Scott foresaw when he objected to "writing up to a title." In fact, he did not write up to, it, and, as the "Scots Magazine" said, "shaped his story in such a manner as to throw busybodies out in their chase, with a slight degree of malicious finesse." "All the expeditions to the wonderful cave have been thrown away, for the said cave is not once, we think, mentioned from beginning to end." "Rob Roy" equals "Waverley" in its pictures of Highland and Lowland society and character.

Scott had clearly set himself to state his opinions about the Highlands as they were under the patriarchal system of government.

The Highlanders were then a people, not lawless, indeed, but all their law was the will of their chief.

Bailie Nicol Jarvie makes a statement of their economic and military condition as accurate as it is humorous.

The modern "Highland Question" may be studied as well in the Bailie's words as in volumes of history and wildernesses of blue-books.
A people patriarchal and military as the Arabs of the desert were suddenly dragged into modern commercial and industrial society.