The party were now on their road home, and the danger, though not the fatigue, of the expedition was at an end.
They drove on the cattle with little repose until it was nearly dark, when Rob proposed to halt for the night upon a wide moor, across which a cold north-east wind, with frost on its wing, was whistling to the tune of the Pipers of Strath-Dearn.* * The winds which sweep a wild glen in Badenoch are so called.
The Highlanders, sheltered by their plaids, lay down on the heath comfortably enough, but the Lowlanders had no protection whatever.

Rob Roy observing this, directed one of his followers to afford the old man a portion of his plaid; "for the callant (boy), he may," said the freebooter, "keep himself warm by walking about and watching the cattle." My informant heard this sentence with no small distress; and as the frost wind grew more and more cutting, it seemed to freeze the very blood in his young veins.

He had been exposed to weather all his life, he said, but never could forget the cold of that night; insomuch that, in the bitterness of his heart, he cursed the bright moon for giving no heat with so much light.

At length the sense of cold and weariness became so intolerable that he resolved to desert his watch to seek some repose and shelter.

With that purpose he couched himself down behind one of the most bulky of the Highlanders, who acted as lieutenant to the party.