The Master of Lovat was shortly aware that it would no longer be prudent to remain with his victim in the castle of Downie. His wife, as it was then his pleasure to call her, remained in a condition of the deepest despair. She would neither eat nor drink whilst she was in his power; and her health appears to have suffered greatly from distress and fear. In the dead of night she was summoned to leave Castle Downie, to be removed to a more remote and a wilder region, where the unhappy creature might naturally expect, from the desperate character of her pretended husband, no mitigation of her sorrows. Since rumours were daily increasing of the approach of Lord Athole's troops, the clan of Fraser was again, when Lady Lovat was conveyed from the scene of her anguish, called forth to assist their leader, and the wail of the coronach was again heard in that dismal and portentous night: for portentous it was. This crime, the first signal offence of Simon Fraser, stamped his destiny. Its effects followed him through life: it entailed others: it was the commencement of a catalogue of iniquities almost unprecedented in the career of one man's existence. Crushed, broken-spirited, afraid of returning to her kindred, whose high fame she seems to have thought would be sullied by her misfortunes, Lady Lovat was conducted by Fraser to the Island of Aigas. They stole thither on horseback, attended by a single servant, and arriving at the sea-shore, they there took a boat, and were carried to the obscure island which Fraser had chosen for his retreat. Thomas Fraser of Beaufort, the father of Simon, thus writes to the Duke of Argyle respecting this singular and revolting union. "We have gained a considerable advantage by my eldest son's being married to the Dowager of Lovat; and if it please God they live together some years, our circumstances will be very good. Our enemies are so galled at it, that there is nothing malice or cruelty can invent but they design and practice against us; so that we are forced to take to the hills, and keep spies at all parts; by which, among many other difficulties, the greatest is this,--that my daughter-in-law, being a tender creature, fatigue and fear of bloodshed may put an end to her, which would make our condition worse than ever."[147]