intention to return to my father's house and stay all night, now we
took leave, and immediately parted. And indeed, within an hour
thereafter, Mac Kay, and his whole forces, appeared at Culnakyle
in Abernethie, two miles below the place where we parted, and hearing
that Cleaverhouse had marched up the water-side a little before, but
that Mac Leans and several other straglers, had stayed behind,
commanded Major AEneas Mac Kay, with two troops of horse after them;
who finding the said Mac Leans at Kinchardie, in the parish of Luthel,
chased them up the Morskaith: in which chase Glencoe happened to be,
and was hard put to it, as was foretold. What came of Archibald
himself, I am not sure; I have not seen him since, nor can I get a
true account of him, only I know he is yet alive, and at that time one
of my father's men whom the red-coats meeting, compelled to guide
them, within sight of the Mac Leans, found the said Archibald's horse
within a mile of the place where I left him. I am also informed, this
Archibald said to Glencoe, that he would be murdered in the night time
in his own house three months before it happened.
Touching your third query, the objects of this knowledge, are not only
sad and dismal; but also joyful and prosperous: thus they foretell of
happy marriages, good children, what kind of life men shall live, and
in what condition they shall die: and riches, honour, preferment,
peace, plenty, and good weather.
Query 7.
What way they pretend to have it ? I am informed, that in the Isle of
Sky, especially before the gospel came thither, several families had
it by succession, descending from parents to children, and as yet
there be many there that have it in that way; and the only way to be
freed from it is, when a woman hath it herself, and is married to a
man that hath it also; if in the very act of delivery, upon the first
sight of the child's head, it be baptized, the same is free from it;
if not, he hath it all his life; by which, it seems, it is a thing
troublesome and uneasy to them that have it, and such as they would
fain be rid of. And may satisfy your ninth query. And for your farther
contentment in this query, I heard of my father, that there was one
John du beg Mac Grigor, a Reanach man born, very expert in this
knowledge, and my father coming one day from Inverness, said by the
way, that he would go into an ale-house on the road, which then would
be about five miles off. This John Mac Grigor being in his company,
and taken up a slate stone at his foot, and looking to it, replied;
nay, said he, you will not go in there, for there is but a matter of a
gallon of ale in it even now, and ere we come to it, it will be all
near drunken, and those who are drinking there, are strangers to us,
and ere we be hardly past the house, they will discord among
themselves: which fell out so; ere we were two pair of butts past the
house, those that were drinking there went by the ears, wounded and
mischieved one another.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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