Besides doing much to stock his domain with the best cattle honestly come by, this duke fell in with the fashion set by his royal mistress in keeping up its Highland character and sentiment. A German visitor, Herr Brand, took a note how tartans had faded out of Scotland, except in the case of soldiers; but he modified that statement when he got the length of Blair and came in for the Atholl Gathering, to see a whole regiment of the duke’s dependents, gamekeepers, gardeners, herds and the like, paraded for this holiday occasion as kilted Highlanders. The Atholl men can even claim to have added a new feature to the Highland dress, by the Glengarry cap worn in the army, which has almost entirely replaced the old broad bonnet and the “Balmorals” of my youth. But if Fergus McIvor could have risen from his grave to behold an Atholl Gathering, what would have most amazed him would be the fact of the duke’s honorary bodyguard being captained by a Robertson of Struan. The Robertsons, for all their Lowland-sounding name, were the oldest and once the proudest clan known to history as seated in those glens, their chiefs holding princedom over Atholl before Murrays had pushed themselves across the Highland line. They own to being sprung out of the MacDonalds, but from the chieftain of a vigorous offshoot they called themselves Clan Donnachie, sons of Duncan. This hero was a comrade and favourite of Robert Bruce, who no doubt stood godfather to his son, then the name came to be anglicised as Robertson. To King James’s wit is ascribed a saying that while all the other _sons_--Wilsons, Watsons, Thomsons and so on--were carles’ sons, the Struan Robertsons were gentlemen. They were ignorant Parisians who, at a later date, mistook the _chef_ of Clan Donnachie for a cook. Along with other clans, this one came into fresh favour with the Crown by lending a hand to apprehend the murderers of James I. Then by obscure defeats, mistakes, and turns of fortune, Clan Donnachie in turn lost its pre-eminence in Perthshire. In 1745 it still counted some hundreds of claymores; and perhaps Scott had it in his eye as a prototype of the MacIvors, divided by a frequent contention as to headship. Now, while their name is as widely scattered over the world as that of any other Highland stock, most of them have half forgotten their Highland descent, and a melancholy burial-place at Dunalaister, near Loch Rannoch, is the monument of their old glory, in a country where Struan has become best known as a link of tourist travel, and another seat of their chief, at the farther end of the lake, is or was styled The Barracks, as having been built for the soldiers of King George.