Wild justice began to be enforced in the country of the Byssets, which was overrun by their enemies: in the pathetic language of our poet-- "His landis quite, Was for that burning all herryet, Bathe of nowt, and sheap, and kye, And all other goods halely." At length, the Byssets agreed "to come into the king's will," or abide by his arbitration. They came under an obligation to depart to the Holy Land, and there for the remainder of their days pray for the soul of the murdered man. Their broad estates were forfeited, and a portion of them coming into the hands of a family named Frezelier or Frazer, they planted the roof-tree of the great chiefship of that name in the northern Highlands. There is little doubt that the murder of Athole was a piece of clannish vengeance over which the chief had no control. His wild Highland followers saw him unhorsed: it was enough. Into such puerile refinements as the law of chivalry, which bound him to take the unhorsing with the meekness of those who turn the left cheek when the right is smitten, they could not enter. The more they believed in the high spirit of their chief, the more they would be confident, that he would exult in a signal vengeance for the insult. Of course, when the vengeance was accomplished, it would rouse an unquenchable desire of retaliation in the men of Athole; and indeed it may be conjectured from the circumstances of the whole proceeding, that the king believed the Byssets personally innocent, but dared not, for the peace of the country, allow them to remain in Scotland. And yet, what is on the whole the most remarkable feature of the Highland feuds of the day,--neither the Athole nor the Bysset family were old hereditary patriarchs of the people. They were foreign adventurers, but recently rooted in the country. The Celtic races seem to have at once rallied round such intruders, in the strongest and fiercest spirit of devotion. When a chief had descendants, his race held, of course, generally a position which a stranger could not shake. But if the people had quarrelled with their chief, or if from other circumstances the headship were vacant, they clung with instantaneous tenacity to the first Norman adventurer to whom the monarch assigned their territory; and the descendants of these refined sons of chivalry by degrees assimilated themselves to the people among whom they were cast; becoming ostensibly of the same race as that over which they held rule.