20

niSTOUY OP ENGLAND.

CIIAP.

XIII.

11 ) 8 * 1 .

The warbreaksout againin theHigh-lands.

among the smooth pebbles, the dark masses of crag and ver-dure worthy of the pencil of Wilson, the fantastic peaks bathed,at sunrise and sunset, with light rich as that which glows onthe canvass of Claude, suggested to our ancestors thoughts ofmurderous ambuscades and of bodies stripped, gashed, andabandoned to the birds of prey. The only path was narrow andrugged: ahorse could with difficulty be led up: two men couldhardly walk abreast; and, in some places, the way ran so closeby the precipice that the traveller had great need of a steadyeye and foot. Many years later, the first Duke of Athol con-structed a road up which it was just possible to drag his coach.But even that road was so steep and so strait that a handful ofresolute men might have defended it against an army *; nor didany Saxon consider a visit to Ivilliecrankie as a pleasure, tillexperience had taught the English Government that theweapons by which the Highlanders could be most effectuallysubdued were the pickaxe and the spade.

The country which lay just above this pass was now thetheatre of a war such as the Highlands had not often witnessed.Men wearing the same tartan, and attached to the same lord,were arrayed against each other. The name of the absent chiefwas used, with some show of reason, on both sides. Ballenach,at the head of a body of vassals who considered him as therepresentative of the Marquess, occupied Blair Castle. Murray,with twelve hundred followers, appeared before the walls anddemanded to be admitted into the mansion of his family, themansion which would one day be his own. The garrison refusedto open the gates. Messages were sent off by the besiegers toEdinburgh, and by the besieged to Locliaber. ** In both placesthe tidings produced great agitation. Mackay and Dundeeagreed in thinking that the crisis required prompt and strenuous

* Memoirs of Sir Ewan Cameron.

** Muckay's Memoirs.