a slight account of the Glenfruin battle, I have repeated the tale--there expressly qualified as “tradition”--of the scholars of Dumbarton slaughtered by a bloodthirsty Macgregor--as to whom I mentioned another tradition that this crime made him an outlaw from the clan. Its historian would have me understand how no Macgregor was ever capable of such villainy, and more particularly points out that the evidence for it is in this case by no means convincing. I can only reply that if in any account of the Highlands, one were to give no stories but those that go without contradiction, and none that touch on deeds of violence, the result would make a volume that might well be advertised as suitable for the waistcoat pocket. I had not the slightest intention of doing injustice to this once much abused clan, and in proof thereof am half-inclined to propitiate them with the dearest sacrifice a kindly Scot can offer. In those bad old times, forbears of my own were living in the Macgregor country, as to whose intromissions there perhaps the less said the better. It is unlikely that those sons of Eve did not mix their blood with the MacHeths and other clans among which they would be in the way of exchanging vows both soft and stern. I myself feel at times stirred to a right Macgregor scowl, when I see Sassenach knaves advertising their bad whisky, tea, or what not as the “best.” When in future any black deed be associated with their name, let the sons of Alpin blame it on a taint of Moncrieff blood, and hold every true Macgregor incapable of murdering a mouse; then I shall not be at pains to contradict this view. The plain truth is that most Highlanders of those misty legends--not to speak of Lowlanders--appear to have been a fierce and bloody-minded brood--always excepting members of the U.F. Church--and none of us can uphold our kin as any better than their fellows. Having thus, I hope, made peace with the sons of Gregor, I am free to turn dirk and claymore against the Menzies historian who, before heaven and earth, has not scrupled to guess at the Moncrieffs as originally vassals or dependents of his clan, as to which I will only call back how a curse has been laid upon it, that no Sassenach can pronounce its uncouth name aright.