They were then permitted to depart amid the laughter of his followers; and it must be borne in mind that this was very gentle treatment when compared with that to which the MacGregors were subjected when captured by the same people. As the old Highland proprietors or heads of septs held their lands in virtue of an occupancy coeval with the first settlement of the tribes in Scotland, and consequently disdained to hold possession by virtue of a skeepskin rather than by their sword-blades, in later years, a system of suppressing the smaller lairds by force of arms had long been pursued with success by the house of Argyle in the west. A powerful landowner of that name, who had recently been created a baronet, seized at the point of the sword a small estate in Glendochart, and expelled the proprietor with all his family and kindred. MacGregor, who could not permit an act of such injustice to pass unpunished, sent Greumoch with forty men to the Braes of Glenorchy, with orders to "bring this oppressor of the poor a prisoner before him." It was in the sweet season of spring, when the lapwing came to the bowers of silver birch and the green plover winged its way over the purple heather, when the MacGregors departed on this expedition; and being aware of the place and time when their prey would probably pass, they concealed themselves among the bleak granite rocks of Ben Cruachin, a vast mountain, the red furrowed sides of which--furrowed by a thousand water-courses--rise above Loch Awe, and terminate in a sharp cone. Here stood the wall of a ruined chapel, founded of old by a MacGregor chief, and through it a well, deemed holy, flowed into a stone basin, under an old yew-tree. To the stem was chained an iron ladle, by which the thirsty pilgrim or wayfarer might drink, and at the bottom of the basin lay little copper Scottish coins which had been dropped therein as offerings, while knots of ribbons, rags, and trifles decorated the boughs of the aged yew. "A place of good omen!" said Greumoch, looking around him; "for here it was that Clan Alpine won the lands of Glenorchy, when there were no paper courts in Dunedin, or redcoats in Dumbarton." It chanced that on a day in summer, King David I., of Scotland, was hunting with Malcolm MacGregor, the eighth chief of Clan Alpine, on the side of Cruachin, when a wild boar, of marvellous strength, size, and ferocity, appeared in a rugged defile. It at once assailed the monarch, whose hunting-spear broke and left him at its mercy; but instead of rushing forward, the boar retired to whet its tusks against the rocks, so Malcolm craved the king's permission to attack it. "E'en do," said the king; "but spaire nocht!" "_Eadhon dean agus na caomhain!_" shouted MacGregor, translating the king's lowland Scottish into Gaelic, as he tore up a young tree by the roots, and kept the boar at bay until he could close with it and bury his long dagger in its throat. At the third stab he slew it.