The peat-fire flame : folk-tales and traditions of the Highlands & Islands

FOLK-TALES OF HIGHLAND HOSPITALITY
sportingi chance of reaching Castle Toward without being
overtaken. And, when taking leave of one another,
MacGregor turned to his guest and said : " Lamont, when
thou art safe in thine own country, I can promise to defend
thee no longer. So keep out of the reach of my clansmen.
"
. . . Flee for thy life ; and may God forgive thee !
For many a long day Lamont kept himself clear of Clan
seldom did he venture far from Castle Toward.
Gregor :
But some years afterwards circumstances in old Scotland
were changed; and misfortunes of a different nature dogged
the footsteps of the MacGregors of Glen Strae—in
efficiency, in unscrupulousness, in cunning, the tactics of the
wily Campbells had increased a hundredfold. And it was
a sad, sad day for Clan Alpin when, by rapacity and
treachery, the Wry-Mouthed were successful at last in
establishing themselves at the doors of Glen Lyon, Glen
Orchy, and Glen Strae. Then followed the wholesale
forfeiture of lands, and the persecution and proscription of
the whole of Clan Alpin. No one dared bear the name of
MacGregor under pain of death ; and those who were known
to be of our race were pursued with beagles, and with the
ruthless cruelties that so characterised the vehemence of our
oppressors.
Such were the circumstances that drove MacGregor of
such
Glen Strae, now an old man, into the wilds of Cowal :
were the events that brought him, pale and woebegone, to
the threshold of Castle Toward : such were the ill-fortunes
that compelled him to beg for hospitality and asylum at
the hands of the once fugitive Lamont.
For many a day the broken-hearted and venerable
MacGregor of Glen Strae sojourned at Castle Toward as
the guest of Lamont. The guest was one who had
forgiven; and the host was eager to repay the guest who
had spared his life, and had conducted him in safety " far
past Clan Alpin's outmost guard."
And it was under the roof of Lamont, when the boughs
of evergreen pine had been bent and distorted by craft more
powerful than the winds of Caledon, that the aged
MacGregor of Glen Strae breathed his last. And there, by
the Chapel of Toward-an-Uilt, but far away from the tomb
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