After Maclean had obtained delivery of the two hostages, he made a
voyage to Islay to get the engagement completed. He left behind, in
the castle of Duart, Reginald Mac-James, one of the hostages, whom he
put in fetters, and took the other to accompany him on his voyage.
Having arrived in the isle of Islay, he encamped at Eilean-Gorm, a
ruinous castle upon the Rhinns of Islay which castle had been lately
in the possession of the clan Lean. Angus Macdonald was residing at
the time at the house of Mulindry or Mullindhrea, a comfortable and
well-furnished residence belonging to him on the island, and to
which he invited Sir Lauchlan, under the pretence of affording him
better accommodation, and providing him with better provisions than
he could obtain in his camp; but Sir Lauchlan, having his suspicions,
declined to accept the invitation. “There wes,” says Sir Robert
Gordon, “so little trust on either syd, that they did not now meit
in friendship or amitie, bot vpon ther owne guard, or rather by
messingers, one from another. And true it is (sayeth John Colwin, in
his manuscript) that the islanders are, of nature, verie suspicious;
full of invention against ther nighbours, by whatsoever way they may
get them destroyed. Besyds this, they are bent and eager in taking
revenge, that neither have they regaird to persone, tyme, aige, nor
cause; and ar generallie so addicted that way (as lykwise are the
most pairt of all Highlanders), that therein they surpasse all other
people whatsoever.”
[Illustration: Castle Duart.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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