10

HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

CHAP.

XVIII.

The feeling of Argyle andBreadalbane is perfectly intelligible.They were the heads of a great clan; and they had an oppor-tunity of destroying a neighbouring clan with which they wereat deadly feud. Breadalhane had received peculiar provocation.His estate had been repeatedly devastated; andhe had just beenthwarted in a negotiation of high moment. Unhappily there wasscarcely any excess of ferocity for which a precedent could notbe found in Celtic tradition. Among all warlike barbariansrevenge is esteemed the most sacred of duties and the mostexquisite of pleasures; and so it had long been esteemed amongthe Highlanders. The history of the clans abounds withfrightful tales, some perhaps fabulous or exaggerated, somecertainly true, of vindictive massacres and assassinations. TheMacdonalds of Glengarry, for example, having been affrontedby the people of Culloden, surrounded Culloden church on aSunday, shut the doors, and burned the whole congregationalive. While the flames were raging, the hereditary musicianof the murderers mocked the shrieks of the perishing crowdwith the notes of his bagpipe.* A band of Macgregors, havingcut off the head of an enemy, laid it, the mouth filled withbread and cheese, on his sister’s table, and had the satisfactionof seeing her go mad with horror at the sight. They thencarried the ghastly trophy in triumph to their chief. The wholeclan met under the roof of an ancient church. Every one inturn laid his»hand on the dead man’s scalp, and vowed to defendthe slayers.** The inhabitants of Eigg seized some Macleods,bound them hand and foot, and turned them adrift in a boat tobe swallowed up by the waves or to perish of hunger. TheMacleods retaliated by driving the population of Eigg into a

* Johnson’s Tour to the Hebrides.

** Proclamation of the Privy Council of Scotland, Feb. 4. 1589. I givethis reference on the authority of Sir Walter Scott. See the preface to theLegend of Montrose.