The Keppoch bard first came into prominence as a man to be reckoned with, in connection with the murder of his chief, which, it is said he foresaw, but was unable to avert. Sent abroad as a minor to be educated, the heir of Keppoch was supplanted in his absence by his own faithless and intriguing cousins, who murdered both him and his brother on their return home. The dastardly crime rankled in the bosom of the fiery bard. Among the faithless clansmen he alone remained fearlessly true to the stricken family, and he determined to have revenge. “The Vow of Iain Lom,” published in Mrs. D. Ogilvy’s _Highland Minstrelsy_, graphically depicts his state of mind at the time. He went from house to house, and castle to castle, calling for vengeance on the assassins, and having at last obtained a commission from Government to take them dead or alive, he first addressed himself to Glengarry, who declined the dangerous task, and then to Sir Alexander Macdonald, who put a company of chosen men at his disposal, the “Ciaran Mabach,” poet and soldier, at their head. Under the Keppoch bard’s directions the murderers were summarily attacked and beheaded in their own barricaded house. A gruesome monument of seven heads, representing those of the father and six sons, now marks the well on Loch Oich side, known as _Tobar-nan-ceann_, where these bleeding trophies are said to have been washed on their way to Glengarry Castle, whence they were carried to Skye as a tribute to the Knight of Sleat. The bard has a poem on “Mort na Ceapach,” the murder of Keppoch; and another entitled “A Bhean Leasaich,” in which he begins by praising Sir Alexander Macdonald of Sleat and his son Sir James, evidently with the intention of provoking Glengarry for his remissness in the matter of retribution upon the usurpers. His own persecution by the traitors furnished the poet with another theme. From this time he became a man of mark in the Highlands, feared and respected. Though not a soldier himself, when the Civil War broke out he identified himself with the cause of the Stuarts, and was the means of bringing the armies of Argyll and Montrose into deadly conflict at Inverlochy on February 2nd, 1645. The wily John, a willing spectator, evaded taking a personal hand in the encounter by the following ruse. When asked to make ready to march to the fight, by the Macdonald commanding the Irish contingent, he slyly replied, “If I go along with thee to-day, and fall in battle, who will sing thy praises to-morrow? Go thou, Alasdair, and exert thyself as usual, and I shall sing thy feats, and celebrate thy prowess in martial strains.”