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Towards the end of the seventeenth
century, there lived a certain notorious freebooter, in the county of
Moray, a native of Lochaber, of the name of Cameron, but who was better
known by his cognomen of Padrig Mac-an-Ts'agairt, which signifies,
"Peter, the Priest's Son." Numerous were the "creachs," or robberies of
cattle on a great scale, driven by him from Strathspey. But he did not
confine his depredations to that country; for, some time between the years
1690 and 1695, he made a clean sweep of the cattle from the rich pastures
of the Aird, the territory of the Frasers. That he might put his pursuers
on a wrong scent, he did not go directly towards Lochaber, but, crossing
the river Ness at Lochend, he struck over the mountains of Strathnairn and
Strathdearn, and ultimately encamped behind a hill above Duthel, called,
from a copious spring on its summit, Cairn-an-Sh' uaran, or the
Well Hill. But, notwithstanding all his precautions, the celebrated Simon
Lord Lovat, then chief of the Frasers, discovered his track, and
despatched a special messenger to his father-in-law Sir Ludovick Grant of
Grant, begging his aid in apprehending Mac-an-Ts'agairt, and recovering
the cattle.
It so happened that there lived at this
time, on the laird of Grant's ground, a man also called Cameron, surnamed
Mugach More, of great strength and undaunted courage; he had six sons and
a stepson, whom hi- . wife, formerly a woman of light character, had
before her marriage with Mugach, and, as they were all brave, Sir Ludovick
applied to them to undertake the recapture of the cattle. Sir
Ludovic was not mistaken in the man. The Mugach no sooner
received his orders, than he armed himself and his little band, and went
in quest of the freebooter, whom he found in the act of cooking a dinner
from part of the spoil. The Mugach called on Padrig and his men to
surrender, and they, though numerous, dreading the well-known prowess of
their adversary, fled to the opposite hills, their chief threatening
bloody vengeance as he went. The Mugach drove the cattle to a place of
safety, and watched them till their owners came to recover them.
Padrig did not utter his threats without the fullest
intention of carrying them into effect. In the latter end of the following
spring, he visited Strathspey with a strong party, and waylaid the Mugach,
as he and his sons were returning from working at a small patch of land he
had on the brow of a hill, about half-a-mile above his house. Padrig and
his party concealed themselves in a thick covert of underwood, through
which they knew that the Mugach and his sons must pass; but seeing their
intended victims well- armed, the cowardly assassins lay still in their
hiding-place, and allowed them to pass, with the intention of taking a
more favourable opportunity for their purpose. That very night they
surprised and murdered two of the sons, who, being married, lived in
separate houses, at some distance from their father's; and, having thus
executed so much of their diabolical purpose, they surrounded the Mugach's
cottage.
No sooner was his dwelling attacked, than the brave
Mugach, immediately guessing who the assailants were, made the best
arrangements for defence that lime and circumstances permitted. The door
was the first point attempted ; but it was strong, and he and his four
sons placed themselves behind it, determined to do bloody execution the
moment it should be forced. Whilst thus engaged, the Mugach was startled
by a noise above the rafters, and, looking up, he perceived, in the
obscurity, the figure of a man half through a hole in the wattled roof.
Eager to despatch his foe as he entered, he sprang upon a table, plunged
his sword into his body, and down fell—his stepson, whom he had ever loved
and cherished as one of his own children ! The youth had been cutting his
way through the roof, with the intention of attacking Padrig from above,
and so creating a diversion in favour of those who were defending the
door. The brave young man lived no longer than to say, "Dear father, I
'car you have killed me!"
For a moment the Mugach stood petrified with horror and
grief, but rage soon usurped the place of both. "Let me open the door!" he
cried, "and revenge his death, by drenching my sword in the blood of the
villain!" His sons clung around him, to prevent what they conceived to be
madness, and a strong struggle ensued between desperate bravery and filial
duty; whilst the Mugach's wife stood gazing on the corpse of her
first-born son, in an agony of contending passions, being ignorant from
all she had witnessed but that the young man's death had been wilfully
wrought by her husband. "Hast thou forgotten our former days?" cried the
wily Padrig, who saw the whole scene through a crevice in the door. "How
often hast thou undone thy door to me, and wilt thou not open it now, to
give me way to punish him who has, but this moment, so foully slain thy
beloved son?" Ancient recollections, and present affliction, conspired to
twist her to his purpose. The struggle and altercation between the Mugach
and his sons still continued. A frenzy seized on the unhappy woman; she
flew to the door, undid the bolt, and Padrig and his assassins rushed in.
The infuriated Mugach no sooner beheld his enemy enter,
than he sprang at him like a tiger, grasped him by the throat, and dashed
him to the ground. Already was his vigorous sword-arm drawn back, and his
broad claymore was about to find a passage to the traitor's heart, when
his faithless wife, coming behind him, threw over it a large canvas
winnowing-sheet, and, before he could extricate the blade from the
numerous folds, Padrig's weapon was reeking in the best heart's-blood of
the bravest Highlander that Strathspey could boast of. His four sons, who
had witnessed their mother's treachery, were paralyzed. The unfortunate
woman herself, too, stood stupified and appalled. But she was quickly
recalled to her senses by the active clash of the swords of Padrig and his
men. "Oh, my sons, my sons!" she cried; "spare my boys!" But the tempter
needed her services no longer,—she had done his work. She was spurned to
the ground and trampled under foot by those who soon strewed the bloody
floor around her with the lifeless corpses of her brave sons.
Exulting in the full
success of this expedition of vengeance, Mac-an-Ts'a-gairt beheaded the
bodies, and piled the heads in a heap on an oblong hill that runs parallel
to the road on the east side of Carr Bridge, from which it is called Tom-nan-Ceant
the Hill of the Heads. Scarcely was he beyond the reach of danger, than
his butchery was known at the Castle Grant, and Sir Ludovick immediately
offered a great reward for his apprehension ; but Padrig, who had
anticipated some such thing, fled to Ireland, where he remained for seven
years. But the restlessness of the murderer is well known, and Padrig felt
it in all its horrors. Leaving his Irish retreat, he returned to Lochaber,
By a strange accident, a certain Mungo Grant, of Muckrach, having had his
cattle and horses carried away by some thieves from that quarter, pursued
them hot foot, recovered them, and was on his way returning with them,
when, to his astonishment, he met Padrig Mac-an-Ts'agairt, quite alone in
a narrow pass, on the borders of his native country. Mungo instantly
seized and made a prisoner of him. But his progress with his beasts was
tedious ; and as he was entering Strathspey at Lag-na-caillich, about a
mile to the westward of Avie-more, he espied twelve desperate men, who,
taking advantage of his slow march, had crossed the hills to gain the pass
before him, for the purpose of rescuing Padrig. But Mungo was not to be
daunted. Seeing them occupying the road in his front, he grasped his
prisoner with one hand, and brandishing his dirk with the other, he
advanced in the midst of his people and animals, swearing potently that
the first motion at an attempt at rescue by any one of them should be the
signal for his dirk to drink the life's-blood of Padrig Mac-an-Ts'agairt.
They were so intimidated by his boldness that they allowed him to pass
without assault, and left their friend to his fate. Padrig was forthwith
carried to Castle Grant. But the remembrance of the Mugach's murder had
been by this time much obliterated by many events little less strange, and
the laird, unwilling to be troubled with the matter, ordered Mungo and his
prisoner away.
Disappointed and mortified,
Mungo and his party were returning with their captive, discussing, as they
went, what they had best do with him. "A fine reward we have had for all
our trouble!" said one. "The laird may catch the next thief her nainsel,
for Donald!" said another. "Let's turn him loose!" said a third. "Ay, ay,"
said a fourth: "what for wud we be plaguing oursels more wi' him?" "Yes,
yes! brave, generous men!" said Padrig, roused by a sudden hope of life
from the moody dream of the gallows-tree in which he had been plunged,
whilst he was courting his mournful muse to compose his own lament, that
he might die with an effect striking, as all the events of his life had
been. "Yes, brave men, free me from these bonds ! It is unworthy of
Strathspey men,—it is unworthy of Grants to triumph over a fallen foe!
Those whom I killed were no clansmen of yours, but recreant Camerons, who
betrayed a Cameron! Let me go free, and that reward of which you have been
disappointed shall be quadrupled for sparing my life." Such words as
these, operating on minds so much prepared to receive them favourably, had
well-nigh worked their purpose. But
"No!" said Muckrach sternly, "it shall never be said that a
murderer escaped from my hands. Besides, it was just so that he fairly
spake the Mugach's false wife. But did he spare her sons on that account?
If ye let him go, my men, the fate of the Mugach may be ours; for what
bravery can stand against treachery and assassination?" This opened an
entirely new view of the question to Padrig's rude guards, and the result
of the conference was that they resolved to take him to Inverness, and to
deliver him up to the sheriff.
As they were pursuing their way up the
south side of the river Dulnan, the hill of Tom-nan-Cean appeared
on that opposite to them. At sight of it the whole circumstances of
Padrig's atrocious deed came fresh into their minds. It seemed to cry on
them for justice, and with one impulse they shouted out, "Let him die on
the spot where he did the bloody act!" Without a moment's farther delay,
they determined to execute their new resolution. But on their way across
the plain, they happened to observe a large fir tree, with a thick
horizontal branch growing at right angles from the trunk, and of a
sufficient height from the ground to suit their purpose; and doubting if
they might find so convenient a gallows where they were going, they at
once determined that here Padrig should finish his mortal career. The
neighbouring birch thicket supplied them with materials for making a withe;
and whilst they were twisting it, Padrig burst forth in a flood of Gaelic
verse, which his mind had been accumulating by the way. His song and the
twig rope that was to terminate his existence were spun out and finished
at the same moment, and he was instantly elevated to a height equally
beyond his ambition and his hopes. |
