When he came to man's estate Alastair was appointed by Sir Hector Mackenzie to be one of his ground-officers, as well as his family bard. He seems to have displayed considerable tact in performing his duties. Here is an anecdote of him which illustrates not only his own character but the footing he was on with Sir Hector. It appears that Sir Hector had been much annoyed with a tenant at Poolewe, who was in arrear with his rent, and would not pay up any part of it. So he called Alastair Buidhe and instructed him to go and demand the rent once more, and in default of payment to take the roof off the house. On the tenant still refusing to pay up, Alastair got on the roof and removed one divot from the ridge at the very top of the roof, and one other from the top of the wall at the lowest part of the roof. Sir Hector, whose kind heart had by this time repented of the order he had given, met Alastair on his return. Sir Hector inquired if he had done the job. Alastair replied that he had. Sir Hector said he hoped he had not done as bad as he had been told. Alastair then told him he had put the highest divot from the roof as far down as the lowest. On this Sir Hector expressed his vexation, and remarked that Alastair had done very badly. Then Alastair said it was not so bad but that it could yet be made better, for that he had only taken off the two divots altogether. Sir Hector said, "Sandy, you are a wiser man than I am." As bard to Sir Hector, Alastair regularly attended two or three days a week at Flowerdale House, as well as at other times when his services were required. He was much appreciated by every member of the family. Dr Mackenzie, Sir Hector's only surviving son, writing of him under date of 30th August 1878, said:--"I see honest Alastair Buidhe, with his broad bonnet and blue greatcoat (summer and winter), clearly before me now, sitting in the dining-room at Flowerdale, quite 'raised' like, while reciting Ossian's poems, such as 'The Brown Boar of Diarmid' and others (though he had never heard of Macpherson's collection), to very interested visitors, though as unacquainted with Gaelic as Alastair was with English. This must have been as early as 1812 or so, when I used to come into the room after dinner about nine years old." Dr Mackenzie says in his "Odd and End Stories" that it was Alastair who told them the story of Hector Roy and "The Gairloch" (see Part I., chap. ix.). The Doctor adds:--"One of our summer evening amusements was getting him (Alastair) to the dining-room after dinner, where, well dined below stairs and primed by a bumper of port wine, he would stand up and with really grand action and eloquence give us poem after poem of Ossian in Gaelic. Alastair could not read, and only understood Gaelic, and these poems came down to him through generations numberless, as repeated by his ancestors around their winter evening fires."