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"In my last expedition I visited the country of the 'Barconedeets, the tribe attacked by Frances; of these I found a few sojourning with the 'Portbullucs, a people inhabiting the country near Mount Zero, the northernmost point of the Grampians. These persons complained greatly of the treatment they had received, and confirmed the statement made to the sub-protector by the other natives.
For their condition was becoming desperate. The great clan of the Seaforth Mackenzies, north of Argyleshire, from whom they had expected assistance, had failed to give any; other clans refused to be led by a mere Macdonald of Colonsay; the fleet of vessels in which they had landed had been seized and burnt by Argyle; that nobleman was following them; and orders were out for a general arming for the Covenant north of the Grampians.
"It is not easy for a modern Englishman ... to believe that, in the time of his great-grandfathers, Saint James's Street had as little connection with the Grampians as with the Andes. Yet so it was. In the south of our island scarcely anything was known about the Celtic part of Scotland; and what was known excited no feeling but contempt and loathing....
Upon this occasion the siege was raised by the promptitude and energy of Prince Edward the man who as King was to march to Cærnarvon and to the Grampians had already in his boyhood shown the energy and the military aptitude of his grandfather King John.
From certain incomprehensible growls that escape the stalwart white man as he picks himself up, it might be conjectured that he had taken to the Chipewyan tongue; perhaps a Scotsman might have been led by them to recall the regions that lie north of the Grampians.
In the meanwhile Bradby and Cumshaw had doubled back on their tracks and were heading for the Grampians. Though neither of them had explored the mountains before, they were quite satisfied from what they knew of the general formation of the country that there were gullies, even valleys, where an army might lie hidden.
The house which now bears that name is not distinguished by any striking peculiarity from other country seats of the aristocracy. The old building was a lofty tower of rude architecture which commanded a vale watered by the Garry. The walls would have offered very little resistance to a battering train, but were quite strong enough to keep the herdsmen of the Grampians in awe.
As the head of the column emerged into open air it found itself on a small table-land, flanked on the left by the Garry, and on the right by a tier of low hills sparely dotted with dwarf trees and underwood. Above these hills to the north and east rose the lofty chain of the Grampians crowned by the towering peaks of Ben Gloe and Ben Vrackie.
From Scone the party proceeded to Dunkeld, passing through Birnam Pass, the first of the three "Gates," into the Highlands, where the prophecy against Macbeth was fulfilled, and entered what is emphatically "the Country" by the lowest spur of the mighty Grampians.
He would apply to the service of war a device employed by the Highlanders in the chase, and put in practice against them their own tactics of the tinchel. A chain of fortified posts was to be established among the Grampians, and at various commanding points in Invernessshire.
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