But in spite of this the Kintail chief prospered, and bought lands in Glen Affaric from the Chisholm. Like the passing of Arthur, his death was rather dramatic. He had gone to Strathglass, attended by a single follower, to settle about this new property, and was returning with the papers in his possession. On coming to Dorisduan he found the Connag River in high flood, but ventured to cross, only to be carried away in the attempt. Unfortunately for him, his companion possessed the fatal gift of _or na h’Aoine_, by which, according to local belief, he could cause the death, if he wished, of any one seen by him crossing the stream on a Friday. And at this juncture the unhappy man, seeing his master battling with the flood, and unable to keep from looking at him, much less to render assistance, in his distress exercised his sinister gift, thereby drowning the poetic Duncan, his own chief. The Fernaig MS., apart from other considerations, is of great value as representing the literary output of the seventeenth-century period in the Highlands, and so helping to fill the gap between the Dean of Lismore’s time and the pregnant Forty-five. One other very interesting relic of Highland MS. literature remains to be noticed. It is the Book of Clanranald, found in two MSS. known as the Red and the Black. The latter, a thick little paper codex strongly bound in black leather boards, is of the size of a New Testament and of the nature of a commonplace book, containing accounts of the families of the Macdonalds, and the exploits of the great Montrose, together with some of the poems of Ossian. The history of the book is obscure. Many years ago Dr. Skene picked it up among some old Irish MSS. at a bookstall in Dublin, and, buying it, sent the fugitive back to the family of Clanranald, in whose possession it now is. But of the two MSS. the Red is far and away the more famous, as it figured largely in the Ossianic controversy, and gives the Macdonald and Montrose histories fuller. On Macpherson’s visit to the West he received this MS., by consent of Clanranald, from Nial Macvurich, and it was only after Macpherson’s death that the present Red Book was restored. Authorities are not certain that this is the real original, but Clanranald believes that it is, and the editors of _Reliquiæ Celticæ_ are of the same opinion. Since its return it has been much consulted by Ossianic inquirers, as well as by the historians of the country. A transcript and translation, not very accurate, were made of the historical parts early in last century. Sir Walter Scott made use of these in his notes, _Lord of the Isles_, and Mark Napier in his _Montrose_, to throw light upon the obscurer points of Highland conduct in that great chief’s campaign. In later times a better rendering has been given by the great Irish scholar, O’Curry, who translated the history for Dr. Skene’s _Celtic Scotland_.