With such injunctions in his pocket, Glenlyon proceeded to act the Judas part with consummate skill. He supped and played at cards, on the evening of the 12th, with John and Alexander Macdonald—two of his intended victims; and he and his lieutenant (Lindsay) accepted an invitation to dine with old MacIan for the next day. At five o'clock on the morning of the 13th Hamilton hoped to have secured all the eastern passes to prevent the escape of any fugitives, but, at all events, then must Glenlyon begin his work of death.
All now is silent over the devoted hamlet. All are sleeping with the exception of the two sons of MacIan, who had been led to entertain some suspicions that all was not right. They had observed that the sentinels had been doubled and the guard increased. Some of the soldiers too had been heard muttering their dislike to the treacherous task to which they had been commissioned. The Macdonalds, in alarm, came to Glenlyon's quarters a little after midnight, and found him preparing, along with his men, for immediate service. They asked him what was the meaning of all this, and he, with dauntless effrontery, replied that he and his men were intending an expedition against Glengarry, and added, "If anything had been intended do you think I would not have told Alastair here and my niece." The young men are only half satisfied, but return, although grumblingly, to their own dwellings.
Over the valley, meanwhile, a snowstorm has begun to fall, but does not come to its full height till farther on in the morning. The voice of the Cona is choked in ice. The great heights behind the Sinai of Scotland are silent, they have no thunders to forewarn, no lightnings to avenge. MacIan himself is sleeping the deep sleep of innocence and security. The fatigues and miseries of his journey to Fort-William and Inverary all forgotten. Is there no wail of ghost, no cry of spirit coronach, none of those earnest whispers which have been heard among the hills at dead of night, and piercing the darkness with prophecies of fate? We know not, and had there been such warning sounds they had given their oracle in vain.
Suddenly, at five precisely, a knock is heard at MacIan's door. It is opened immediately, and the old man bustles up to dress himself, and to order refreshments for his visitors. Look at him as he stands at the threshold of his door, clad in nothing but his shirt, and his long grey hair, with looks of friendship and a cup of welcome trembling in his old hand; and see his wife has half risen behind him to salute the incomers. Without a moment's warning, without a preliminary word, he is shot dead and falls back into her arms. She is next assailed, stript naked, the gold rings, from her fingers torn off by the teeth of the soldiers, and then she is struck and trampled on till she is left for dead on the ground, and next day actually dies. All the clansmen and servants in the same house are massacred, all save one, an old domestic and a sennachie. He has been unable to sleep all night with melancholy thoughts, and falling into a deep sleep ere morning is roused by a horrible dream, leaves the hamlet, dashes through the door, dirks in vain striking at his shadow, and hands trying in vain to seize his plaid, he runs to the hut where the two brothers are lying and cries out, like screams of Banshie through the night, "Is it time for you to be sleeping while your father is murdered on his own hearth?"
They arise in haste, make for the mountains, and by their knowledge of the dark and devious paths through that horrible wilderness, are enabled to escape. From every house and hut there now rise shrieks, shouts, groans, and blasphemies, the roar of muskets, the cries of men, women, and children blended into one harmony of hell! The snow is now falling thick, and is darkening more the dark February morning. Led through the gloom, as if following the lurid eyes of some demoniac being, the soldiers find their way from house to house, from one cluster of cottages to another, rush in, seize their victims, drag them out, and shoot them dead. In Glenlyon's own quarters nine men, including his own landlord, are bound and shot, one of them with General Hill's passport in his pocket. A boy of twelve clings to Glenlyon's knees asking for mercy and offering to be his servant for life, when one Drummond stabbed him with his dirk as he was uttering a prayer by which even Glenlyon was affected. At Auchnain, a hamlet up the glen, Sergeant Barbour and his troops came upon a party of nine men sitting round a fire, and slew eight of them. The owner of the house in which Barbour had been quartered was not hurt, and requested to die in the open air. "For your bread which we have ate," said the Sergeant, "I will grant your request." He was taken out accordingly, but while the soldiers were presenting their muskets he threw his plaid over their faces, broke away and escaped up the valley.
Thirty-eight persons in all, including one or two women and a little boy, were put to death, but, besides, many who are supposed to have perished in the drifts. The murderers, after massacring the inmates, set the dwellings on fire; and how ghastly and lurid, especially to those who had escaped up the glen, perhaps as far as those mountains called the Three Sisters, bound to-day together by a band of virgin snow, must have seemed the effect of the flames flashing against the white of the hills, and which they knew were fed and fattened by the blood of their kindred! Many fled half naked into the storm, and through profound wreaths of snow, and over savage precipices, reached places of safety. The snow now avails more to save than to destroy since on account of it, Hamilton with his 400 men was too late to stop the eastern passes through which many made their escape. Had he come up in time every soul had perished. When he arrived at eleven there was not a Macdonald alive in the glen except one old man of eighty, whose worm-like writhings prove him still alive—
One stab, one groan, and the tremendous deed
Of massacre is done, at which the heath
Which waves o'er all the Highland hills shall blush,
And torrents wail for ages, ghosts shall shriek,
Hell tremble through its dayless depths, and Heaven
Weep, and while weeping grasp its thunderbolts.
Beware Glenlyon's blood at you they're armed!
Beware the curse of God and of Glencoe!
The allusion in this last line is to a story told by Stewart of Garth in his "History of the Highland Regiments," and on which a ballad by a deceased poet, B. Symmons, an Irishman of great genius, was founded, and appeared originally in Blackwood's Magazine. There was a brave officer, Colonel Campbell of Glenlyon, the grandson of the ruffian who disgraced the Campbell name and human nature at Glencoe. A curse was supposed to rest upon the family, and the lands of Glenlyon departed rood by rood from his descendants. The grandson, however, was brought up by a pious mother, entered the army, and became a prosperous officer. He was pursuing his profession in Canada when a romantic circumstance occurred. A young man named Ronald Blair, a private of excellent character and true courage, was stationed as a sentinel on an outpost. He loved an Indian maid who came eve after eve to meet him at his post, steering up the St Lawrence her lonely canoe. One night as she left him a storm raged on the waters and exposed her and her bark to imminent jeopardy. She shrieked out her lover's name, and called for help.
The waves have swamped her little boat,
She sinks before his eye,
And he must keep his dangerous post,
And leave her there to die.
One moment's dreadful strife—love wins,
He plunges in the water,
The moon is out, his strokes are stout,
The swimmer's arm has caught her,
And back he bears with gasping heart
The forest's matchless daughter.