the little burn half way between Achtercairn and the present Gairloch Hotel. There were houses there at that time. She went to an old man there, who had been a faithful retainer of her husband; she told him her terrible story. He bade her wait until he went to the Tigh Dige to see if her brothers-in-law had really killed the two boys. When it became dark he went to the Tigh Dige, and through an opening he saw by the firelight the boys' little shirts hanging up. He managed unperceived to get possession of the shirts, and brought them to the mother; they were covered with blood. The mother took the shirts, and went off straight with them to Brahan to her father, Alexander the Upright, who did not credit his daughter's terrible tale until she shewed him the blood-stained shirts. Alexander, who was then an infirm old man, sent his son Hector Roy Mackenzie to Edinburgh to the king, and he produced the shirts to satisfy the king that the triple murder had really been committed. The king gave Hector Roy a commission of fire and sword for the destruction of the M'Leods, and in 1494 he received a grant of Gairloch by charter from the crown. The proceedings which ensued, and the circumstances attending the expulsion of the M'Leods long afterwards from Gairloch, will be narrated later on. Meanwhile the reader will be glad to learn that the two murderers were afterwards routed in a skirmish on the south side of Gairloch by one of the MacRae heroes, who pursued them to a spot between South Erradale and Point, where he slew them both, and they were buried in a hollow there, which is pointed out to this day. Although the crown charter of 1494 granted the whole of Gairloch to Hector Roy Mackenzie, the M'Leods, as we shall see, retained for another century one-third part of Gairloch. The terrible murder committed about 1569 by Ruaridh Mac Allan M'Leod of Gairloch (Part I., chap. xii.) is curiously analogous to that recorded above. The murder of 1569 was the immediate cause of the warfare which resulted in the final expulsion of the M'Leods from Gairloch, just as that of 1480 had led to their being ousted from a great part of their territory there. Family feuds and jealousies were the causes of the ultimate dismemberment of the Siol Torquil, and of the alienation of the whole of their vast possessions. Anyone who cares to trace their history, as given in Donald Gregory's and other works, will learn how all this happened; it does not concern us further here. Chapter VIII. THE MACDONALDS IN GAIRLOCH.