Suddenly, at five precisely, a knock is heard at MacIan's door. It is opened immediately, and the old man bustles up to dress himself, and to order refreshments for his visitors. Look at him as he stands at the threshold of his door, clad in nothing but his shirt, and his long grey hair, with looks of friendship and a cup of welcome trembling in his old hand; and see his wife has half risen behind him to salute the incomers. Without a moment's warning, without a preliminary word, he is shot dead and falls back into her arms. She is next assailed, stript naked, the gold rings, from her fingers torn off by the teeth of the soldiers, and then she is struck and trampled on till she is left for dead on the ground, and next day actually dies. All the clansmen and servants in the same house are massacred, all save one, an old domestic and a _sennachie_. He has been unable to sleep all night with melancholy thoughts, and falling into a deep sleep ere morning is roused by a horrible dream, leaves the hamlet, dashes through the door, dirks in vain striking at his shadow, and hands trying in vain to seize his plaid, he runs to the hut where the two brothers are lying and cries out, like screams of Banshie through the night, "Is it time for you to be sleeping while your father is murdered on his own hearth?" They arise in haste, make for the mountains, and by their knowledge of the dark and devious paths through that horrible wilderness, are enabled to escape. From every house and hut there now rise shrieks, shouts, groans, and blasphemies, the roar of muskets, the cries of men, women, and children blended into one harmony of hell! The snow is now falling thick, and is darkening more the dark February morning. Led through the gloom, as if following the lurid eyes of some demoniac being, the soldiers find their way from house to house, from one cluster of cottages to another, rush in, seize their victims, drag them out, and shoot them dead. In Glenlyon's own quarters nine men, including his own landlord, are bound and shot, one of them with General Hill's passport in his pocket. A boy of twelve clings to Glenlyon's knees asking for mercy and offering to be his servant for life, when one Drummond stabbed him with his dirk as he was uttering a prayer by which even Glenlyon was affected. At Auchnain, a hamlet up the glen, Sergeant Barbour and his troops came upon a party of nine men sitting round a fire, and slew eight of them. The owner of the house in which Barbour had been quartered was not hurt, and requested to die in the open air. "For your bread which we have ate," said the Sergeant, "I will grant your request." He was taken out accordingly, but while the soldiers were presenting their muskets he threw his plaid over their faces, broke away and escaped up the valley.