]
_The Two Drovers_.
It was the day after the Doune Fair when my story commences. It had
been a brisk market, several dealers had attended from the northern
and midland counties in England, and the English money had flown so
merrily about as to gladden the hearts of the Highland farmers. Many
large droves were about to set off for England, under the protection
of their owners, or of the topsmen whom they employed in the tedious,
laborious and responsible office of driving the cattle for many
hundred miles, from the market where they had been purchased, to the
fields or farm-yards where they were to be fattened for the shambles.
Of the number who left Doune in the morning, and with the purpose we
have described, not a _Glunamie_ of them all cocked his bonnet more
briskly, or gartered his tartan hose under knee over a pair of more
promising _spiogs_ (legs), than did Robin Oig M'Combich, called
familiarly Robin Oig, that is Young, or the Lesser, Robin. Though
small of stature, as the epithet Oig implies, and not very strongly
limbed, he was as light and alert as one of the deer of his mountains.
He had an elasticity of step, which, in the course of a long march,
made many a stout fellow envy him; and the manner in which he busked
his plaid and adjusted his bonnet, argued a consciousness that so
smart a John Highlandman as himself would not pass unnoticed among the
Lowland lasses.
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