From Perth, Dundee retired to Scone, where an unwilling host, the Viscount of Stormont, was obliged to accord him the hospitality of a dinner. Knowing what pains and penalties were incurred by holding intercourse with one who had been outlawed as a traitor and a rebel, Stormont lost no time in informing the President of the Convention of the untoward incident. But although he urged the excuses that the dinner had been forced from him, and that his ‘intercommuning’ had been wholly involuntary, the Committee was not satisfied. Stormont, together with his uncle and his father-in-law, who happened to be staying with him at the time, was subsequently put to considerable trouble for the delinquency of having been compelled to entertain the unbidden and unwelcome guest.
Dundee had not forgotten the errand on which he had originally started from the north, but which Mackay’s advance had obliged him to abandon for a time. By way of Cargill, Cupar-Augus, and Meigle, he worked his way round to Glamis, within less than twenty miles of Dundee. He utilised the circuitous march by detaching some of his troopers to collect revenues, in the name of the King, from the neighbouring villages; and not less acceptable than the money thus brought in, was the accession of half a score of volunteers amongst whom were Hallyburton, Fullerton, and a third whose is variously given as Venton, Fenton, and Renton. But even with these added to it, the little force with which he re-entered Glen Ogilvy did not amount to more than eighty.
In the afternoon of the 13th of May, the inhabitants of Dundee were startled by the alarming intelligence that an armed force was advancing over the Seidlaws to attack them. Hardly had they completed a rough and hasty preparation for defence by barring the gates and barricading the streets, when the redoubted leader appeared on the summit of the Law, of which his troopers held the base and the declivities. What the scared citizens took for a serious attack was merely a demonstration, devised for the purpose of affording the friendly dragoons an opportunity of effecting a junction with Dundee. William Livingstone appears to have understood the hint; for, according to the poetical chronicle of James Philip of Almerieclose, he endeavoured to head a feigned sortie at the head of the dragoons and of three hundred citizens whom he had enlisted for the Jacobite cause. But, by some means, of which there is no record, Captain Balfour, who was a staunch partisan of the new Government, succeeded in frustrating the attempt.
At nightfall Dundee retired to Glen Ogilvy, without the reinforcement which he had hoped to secure. All that he was able to take back with him as the result of his raid consisted in three hundred pounds of cess and excise, which he succeeded in seizing, and the baggage of a camp which lay outside the town, and which had been hastily abandoned at his approach. By the other side, this demonstration was looked upon as a daring attack. In the excitement which the news of it caused on reaching Edinburgh, the Convention gave orders that six firkins of powder should be sent from Bo’ness to Dundee, and that Hastings’s infantry, and Berkley’s horse should reinforce the garrison. Urgent despatches were also forwarded to Mackay, in Inverness, and brought less welcome than trustworthy information as to the movements of the man in pursuit of whom he was supposed to be.
IX
THE HIGHLAND CAMPAIGN
The date fixed for the meeting of the clans was drawing near; and, after a brief rest, Dundee was again in the saddle. By way of Cupar, Dunkeld, Comrie, and Garth, he shaped his course to Loch Rannoch, and thence over the Grampians, through wild and rugged paths, to Loch Treig and Lochaber. There he was received with all honour and respect by Sir Ewen Cameron of Lochiel, who assigned to his use a house at a little distance from his own, and supplied him with such conveniences as the country afforded. The chief of the Camerons was the most remarkable Highland figure of the time. He had always shown himself a staunch adherent of the Stuart cause, and his veneration for the memory of its great champion, Montrose, was proverbial amongst his kinsmen and friends. His own loyalty was above temptation; and when, at the suggestion of Mackenzie of Tarbat, Mackay made an attempt to bribe him into submission to the new Government, the letters containing the proffered terms, were contemptuously left unanswered. It was mainly through the influence of Lochiel that the coalition of the clans had been effected. He himself brought to the royal cause a contingent of a thousand men, whom he had never led but to victory.
In accordance with the old Highland custom, Dundee sent round the fiery cross, immediately on his arrival in Lochaber. During the week which would have to elapse before the chieftains could all bring their followers to the trysting-place, he utilised his enforced leisure by drilling his small body of cavalry, and accustoming the horses to stand fire. The time at his disposal was insufficient to allow of his putting the infantry through a course of military training, and, on the advice of Lochiel he refrained from interfering with the rude but effective tactics of the Highlanders.
At length, about the 25th of May, the gathering of the clans was complete, and Dundee held a review of his army in the plain of Macomer. There was the brave Glengarry with three hundred warriors in the flower of vigorous manhood; and following him closely was his brother with a hundred more. Next came Glencoe, huge-limbed, but strong and active, accompanied by another hundred claymores. Macdonald of Sleat headed a body of five hundred clansmen from the Isles of which he was the Lord. The men of Uist, of Knoydart, and of Moydart, marched under the leadership of their youthful chief, Allan Macdonald, Captain of Clan Ranald; and two hundred men, as wild as himself were gathered about Keppoch, the notorious raider, the ‘Colonel of the Cows,’ as he was dubbed by Dundee, because of his particular skill in finding out cattle, when they were driven to the hills, to be out of his way.
All these, some fifteen hundred in the aggregate, belonged to the great clan Donald. They were all armed alike, and carried into battle, as their emblem, a bunch of wild heather, hung from the point of a spear. Under Dundee, the Macdonalds formed one battalion of twenty companies. The thousand men that composed the Cameron contingent doubtless included the various septs of the great clan, as well as some of the proscribed and scattered Macgregors, between whom and the Camerons there existed a close friendship.