- mies in a tent. Maclean took with him only one servant,
whom he ordered to stay at the outside; and where he should see the tent press outwards, to strike with his dirk; it being the intention of Maclean, as any man provoked him, to lay hands upon him, and push him hack. He entered the tent alone, with his Lochabar axe in his hand, and struck such terrour into the whole assembly, that they dismissed his uncle.
When he landed at Col, he saw the sentinel, who kept watch towards the sea, running on to Grissipol, to give Macneil, who was there with a hundred and twenty men, an account of the invasion. He told Macgill, one of his followers, that if he intercepted that dangerous intelligence, by catching the courier, he would give him certain lands in Mull. Upon this promise, Macgill pursued the messenger, and either killed or stopped him; and his posterity, till very lately, held the lands in Mull.
The alarm being thus prevented, he came unexpectedly upon Macneil. Chiefs were in those days never wholly unprovided for an enemy. A fight ensued, in which one of their followers is said to have given an extraordinary proof of activity, by bounding backwards over the brook of Grissipol. Macneil being killed, and many of his clan destroyed, Maclean took possession of the island, which the Macneils attempted to conquer by another invasion, but were defeated and repulsed.
Maclean, in his turn, invaded the estate of the Macneils, took the castle of Brecacig, and conquered the isle of Barra, which he held for seven years, and then restored it to the heirs.
From Grissipol Mr. Maclean conducted us to his father's seat; a neat new house erected near the old castle, I think, by the last proprietor. Here we were allowed to take our station, and lived very commodiously while we waited for moderate weather and a fair wind, which we did not so soon obtain, but we had time to get some information of the present state of Col, partly by inquiry, and partly by occasional excursions.
