He
also found time for a flying visit to Dudhope, where his wife had been
safely delivered of a son. He can have stayed with her but a day at
most; and when he left her, he was to see her face no more.
From Dudhope Dundee crossed the Grampians again for Inverness. Here it
had been arranged for him to meet Keppoch and the promised escort of
Highlanders. And here, accordingly, he found them; but he also found a
state of things which gave him a lively foretaste of the character and
conduct of his new allies.
Between the clan of Macdonald and the clan of Mackintosh there had
existed for many centuries a deadly feud, the exact origin of which had
long been lost in the mists of fable. On the other hand, a good
understanding had long existed between the Mackintoshes and the town of
Inverness. Though the town in those days consisted only of some five
hundred mean buildings surrounded by a crazy wall, the busy little
colony of artisans which inhabited it, and the occasional visit of a
trading vessel to its port, had invested it among the Highlanders with
the reputation of vast wealth. Here was an opportunity for gratifying
his love of revenge and his love of plunder which Keppoch was not the
man to lose. He advanced through the territory of the Mackintoshes,
harrying and burning as he marched, up to the walls of Inverness.
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