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Updated: May 18, 2025
"It would not become me to prejudge," said I, "but if the Advocate was your authority he is fully possessed of my opinions." "I may tell you I am engaged in the Appin case," he went on; "I am to appear under Prestongrange; and from my study of the precognitions I can assure you your opinions are erroneous.
Accordingly we shook hands upon the bargain, and came in the afternoon to a small house, standing alone by the shore of the Linnhe Loch. The sun was already gone from the desert mountains of Ardgour upon the hither side, but shone on those of Appin on the farther; the loch lay as still as a lake, only the gulls were crying round the sides of it; and the whole place seemed solemn and uncouth.
No great clan held rule there; it was filled and disputed by small septs, and broken remnants, and what they call "chiefless folk," driven into the wild country about the springs of Forth and Teith by the advance of the Campbells. Here were Stewarts and Maclarens, which came to the same thing, for the Maclarens followed Alan's chief in war, and made but one clan with Appin.
Among the most distinguished was John of Moidart, called the Captain of Clan Ranald, with the Stewarts of Appin, the Clan Gregor, the Clan M'Nab, and other tribes of inferior distinction.
A great Highland clan uses the name of Robertson; a sept in Appin that of Livingstone; Maclean in Glencoe answers to Johnstone at Lockerby. And we find such hybrids as Macalexander for Macallister. There is but one rule to be deduced: that however uncompromisingly Saxon a name may appear, you can never be sure it does not designate a Celt.
Not long, ye would think, with men like Ardshiel in exile and men like the Red Fox sitting birling the wine and oppressing the poor at home. But it's a kittle thing to decide what folk'll bear, and what they will not. Or why would Red Colin be riding his horse all over my poor country of Appin, and never a pretty lad to put a bullet in him?" * Careful.
The next morning the force marched to Locheil's house at Auchnacarrie, where the prince was joined by the Macdonalds of Glencoe, a hundred and fifty strong, two hundred Stuarts of Appin under their chief, and by the younger Glengarry with two hundred more, so that the force had now swelled to sixteen hundred men. "We begin to look like an army," Ronald said to Malcolm.
This moderation put it in my mind to question him of the Red Fox and the Appin tenants; questions which, I thought, would seem natural enough in the mouth of one travelling to that country. He said it was a bad business. "It's wonderful," said he, "where the tenants find the money, for their life is mere starvation. Balfour? No. And then there's one they call Alan Breck "
He has been putting bite about in his wallet and his stomach since ever we sat down. Appin ways, no doubt." "Biadh an diugh, cogadh a maireach food to-day, war to-morrow," said the son of kings. "Royal's my race! A man should aye be laying in as he goes: if I had not had my wallet on Loch Leven-side, I ken some gentry who would have been as hungry as common herds, and with nothing to help it."
But if you tried me on the point of Alan's guilt or innocence, I think I could defend the reading of the text. To this day you will find the tradition of Appin clear in Alan's favour. If you inquire, you may even hear that the descendants of "the other man" who fired the shot are in the country to this day.
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