FOUND the other day an old bundle of papers docketted as Many years ago I must have come on them at Gartmore, and as in those days it was what the people called a 'sort o' back-lying place,' traditions of the doings of loose and broken men still survived, though vaguely and as in a mist. The loose and broken men, whose fame still echoed faintly in my youth, were those who after the Forty-five' either were not included in the general amnesty, or had become accustomed to a life of violence. Once walking down the avenue at Gartmore with my old relation, Captain Speirs, we passed three moss-grown lumps of puddingstone that marked the ancient gallows-tree. Turning to it he said: Many's the broken man your ancestor, old Laird Nicol, hangit up there, after the Forty-five.' He also told me, just as if he had been speaking about savages, 'When I was young, one day up on Loch Ard-side, I met a Hielandman, and when I spoke to him, he answered "Cha neil Sassenach"; I felt inclined to lay my whip about his back.' Even then I wondered why, but prudently refrained from saying anything, for the old Captain had served through the Peninsular Campaign, had been at Waterloo, and, as the country people used to say, he had an eye intil him like a hawk.' This antipathy to Highlandmen which I have seen exhibited in my youth, even by educated men who lived near to the Highland Line, was the result of the exploits of the aforesaid loose and broken men, who had descended (unapostolically) from the old marauding clans. The enemy came from above the pass,' to such as my old uncle, and all the glamour Scott had thrown upon the clans never removed the prejudice from their dour Lowland minds. Perhaps if we had lived in those times we might have shared it too. One of the documents in the bundle to which I have referred is docketted Information for Mr. Thomas Buchanan, Minister of Tullyallan, heritor of Gouston in Cashlie.' Gouston is a farm on the Gartmore estate, on which I, in years gone by, have passed many long and wet hours measuring drains and listening to complaints. Laird, ma barn flure's fair boss.' 'Ye ken a' the grips are wasted.' 'I havena got a gate in the whole farm,' with much of the same kind; complaints no doubt all justified, but difficult to satisfy without Golconda or the Rand to draw upon, are ever present in my mind. The document itself, one of a bundle dealing with the case, written I should judge by a country writer (I have several documents drawn up by one who styles himself Writer in Garrachel,' a farm in Gartmore barony), is on that thick and woolly but wellmade paper used by our ancestors, and unprocurable to-day. The writing is elegant, with something of a look of Arabic about its curving lines. It states that: 'Ewan Cameron, Donald M'Tavish in Glenco, Allen Mackay, in thair (in thair, seems what the French would call "une terre vague," but has a fine noncommital flavour in a legal document), John and Arch. M'Ian, his brethren, Donald M'Ian, alias Donachar, also Paul Clerich, Dugald and Duncan M'Ferson in Craiguchty, Robert Dou M'Gregor and his brethren, John and Walter M'Watt, alias Forrester, in Offerance of Garrochyle belonging to the Laird of Gartmore... came violentlie under cloud of night to the dwelling house of Isabell M'Cluckey, relict of John Carrick, tenant in the town of Gouston with this party above mentioned and more, on December sixteen hundred (the date is blank, but it occurred in 1698), and then on that same night, it being the Lord's Day, broke open her house, stript (another document on the case says "struck," which seems more consonant to the character of the Highlanders) and bound herself and children contrarie to the authoritie of the nation, and took with them her whole insicht and plenishing,' utensils and domicil, with the number of six horses and mares, sixteen great cows and their followers, item thirty six great sheep and lambs and hogs equivalent, and carried them all away violentlie, till they came to the said Craiguchty, where the said Ewan Cameron cohabited.' I fancy that in Craiguchty, which even in my youth was a wild-looking place, the authoritie of the nation' had little sway in those days. From another document in the bundle, it appears 1 The subjoined Inventory, dated 1698, shows how thoroughly the work was done. It also shows what a careful housewife Isabell M'Luckie was, and that she was a past mistress of the science of making a poor mouth.' Ane particular List of what goods and geir utencills and domicills In primis there was Ane gray meir estat to P.P. is 040 00 обо 00 lib P.P 048 00 It there was taken away ten tydie Coues estat to p.p. 24 lib is 240 00 обо 00 024 00 016 00 000 It there was taken away thirtietwo great southland Sheep estat to thre pound Scots p pice is It there was fourtein hogs estat to 2 lib 10 sh: p.p is It of Cloath and wolen yairn estat to 096 00 021 00 035 00 It Eight plyds viz four qrof double and four single estat to 048 00 It ane pair of wollen Clats estat to 001 16 that, not content with driving off the stock and bearing away the 'insicht and the plenishings,' the complainants and their servants 'were almost frichted from their Witts, through the barbarous usadge of the said broken and loose men.' However, the 'mad-herdsmen,' as the phrase went then, drove the 'creagh' towards Aberfoyle. The path by which they carried it was probably one that I once knew well. It runs from Gartmore village, behind the Drum, out over a wild valley set with junipers and whins, till after crossing a little tinkling, brown burn, it enters a thick copse. Emerging from it, it leaves two cottages on the right hand, near which grow several rowans and an old holly, and once again comes out upon a valley, but flatter than the last. In the middle of it runs a larger burn, its waters dark and mossy, with little linns in which occasionally a pike lies basking in the sun. An old-world bridge is supported upon blocks of pudding-stone, the footway formed of slabs of whin, which from remotest ages must have been used by countless generations of brogue-shod feet, it is so polished and worn smooth. Again, there is another little copse, surrounded by a dry-stone dyke, with hoops of withes stuck into the feals, to keep back sheep, and then the track comes out upon the manse of Aberfoyle, with its long row of storm-swept Spanish chestnuts, planted by Dr. Patrick Graham, author of |