Rob Roy MacGregor was a historical figure—an outlaw who "owed his fame in a great measure to his residing on the very verge of the Highlands, and playing such pranks in the beginning of the eighteenth century as are usually ascribed to Robin Hood in the Middle Ages,—and that within forty miles of Glasgow." He was implicated in the Jacobite rebellion of 1715 —which is the period of this story—but from motives of self-interest. Francis Osbaldistone, the ostensible narrator of this tale, is a young Londoner whose father is a successful merchant and naturally wishes his son to succeed him in the business. But Francis has other ideas, and a quarrel results, in which his father sets him adrift in the world to make his own way, and threatens to disinherit him in favor of Rashleigh Osbaldistone, a Scottish cousin. Francis rides northward on a visit to Rashleigh's father, Sir Hildebrand of Osbaldistone Hall. On his way thither he falls in with a nervous traveller named Morris, who afterwards accuses him wrongly of the theft of his bag; but is cleared on the intervention of a supposed cattle-dealer, Campbell ...