The three Frenchmen concerned in this affair were Protestant refugees, serving in the king’s Scottish guards. The Master of Tarbat in due time succeeded his father as Earl of Cromarty, and survived the slaughter of Poiret forty years. He was the father of the third and last Earl of Cromarty, so nearly brought to Tower-hill in 1746, for his concern in the rebellion of the preceding year, and who on that account lost the family titles and estates. [Sidenote: APR.] Down to this time, it was still customary for gentlemen to go armed with walking-swords. On the borders of the Highlands, dirks and pistols seem to have not unfrequently been added. Accordingly, when a quarrel happened, bloodshed was very likely to take place. At this time we have the particulars of such a quarrel, serving to mark strongly the improvements effected by modern civilisation. Some time in August 1690, a young man named William Edmondstone, described as apprentice to Charles Row, writer to the Signet, having occasion to travel to Alloa, called on his master’s brother, William Row of Inverallan in passing, and had an interview [Sidenote: 1691.] with him at a public-house in the hamlet of Bridge of Allan. According to a statement from him, not proved, but which it is almost necessary to believe in order to account for subsequent events, Inverallan treated him kindly to his face, but broke out upon him afterwards to a friend, using the words rascal and knave, and other offensive expressions. The same unproved statement goes on to relate how Edmondstone and two friends of his, named Stewart and Mitchell, went afterwards to inquire into Inverallan’s reasons for such conduct, and were violently attacked by him with a sword, and two of them wounded. The proved counter-statement of Inverallan is to the effect that Edmondstone, Stewart, and Mitchell tried, on the 21st of April 1691, to waylay him, with murderous intent, as he was passing between Dumblane and his lands near Stirling. Having by chance evaded them, he was in a public-house at the Bridge of Allan, when his three enemies unexpectedly came in, armed as they were with swords, dirks, and pistols, and began to use despiteful expressions towards him. ‘He being all alone, and having no arms but his ordinary walking-sword, did rise up in a peaceable manner, of design to have retired and gone home to his own house.’ As he was going out at the door, William Edmondstone insolently called to him to come and fight him, a challenge which he disregarded. They then followed him out, and commenced an assault upon him with their swords, Mitchell, moreover, snapping a pistol at him, and afterwards beating him over the head with the but-end. He was barely able to protect his life with his sword, till some women came, and drew away the assailants.