it from childhood, regarded Rob Roy as the best novel of the greatest of all novelists. The novel is a brutally realistic depiction of the social conditions in Highland and Lowland Scotland in the early 18th century. The Highlanders were compared with American Indians, as regards to their primitive, isolated lifestyle. Some of the dialogue is in broad Scottish, and the novel includes a glossary of Scottish words. Characters principal characters in bold William Osbaldistone, of the firm of Osbaldistone and Tresham Frank, his son Mr Owen, his head clerk Morris, a government agent Andrew Fairservice, Frank's servant Sir Frederick Vernon, a Jacobite Diana (Die) Vernon, his daughter Sir Hildebrand Osbaldistone, her maternal uncle Archie, Perceval, Thorncliff, John, Dick, and Wilfred, six of his sons Rashleigh, his youngest son Anthony Syddall, his butler Squire Inglewood, a Justice of the Peace Joseph Jobson, his clerk Dougal Gregor, jailor at the Glasgow Tolbooth Bailie Nicol Jarvie, a Glasgow merchant Jean MacAlpine, landlady of the inn at Aberfoil Major Duncan Galbraith of Garschattin Allan Stuart of Iverach, and Inverashalloch, two Highlanders Captain Thornton, an English officer Rob Roy MacGregor (Campbell) Helen, his wife Robert and Hamish, their sons Chapter summary Volume One Ch. 1: Frank Osbaldistone (the first-person narrator) is summoned home from France by his father to discuss his letter declining to take up his destined place in the family financial business Osbaldistone and Tresham. Ch. 2: In spite of the best efforts on his son's behalf of his head clerk Owen, Frank's father makes plans for one of his Northumberland nephews, the sons of Sir Hildebrand Osbaldistone, to fill the place in the firm and sends Frank north to assist in the procedure. Ch. 3: On the road Frank encounters a traveller with a particularly heavy portmanteau [later identified as Morris] and teases him by encouraging his fears that he might be intending to rob him. Ch. 4: The travellers are joined in the inn at Darlington by a Scottish gentleman called Campbell [later identified as Rob Roy] with a shrewd manner of speaking who declines to accompany Morris as a protector. Ch. 5: Approaching Osbaldistone Hall, Frank encounters his spirited cousin Die out hunting and they ride together to the hall. Ch. 6: At dinner Die comments caustically on five of her surviving cousins and tells him that the sixth, Rashleigh, is to leave home for a career with Osbaldistone