He had therefore forfeited all the right of clanship.
Yet Glengarry, as much perhaps from policy as from any overpowering
sense of kinship, demanded vengeance; and it needed all the combined
tact of Dundee and Lochiel to prevent him from drawing out his men to
attack the Camerons. When, therefore, Dundee learned that Mackay had
left Inverness to join some reinforcements from Edinburgh, he determined
on action.
The troops Mackay expected to find in Badenoch were six hundred men of
his own Scots Brigade under Colonel Ramsay. Ruthven Castle on the Spey
was the place of meeting, and May 26th the time. But Ramsay had been
detained in Edinburgh by an alarm of an invasion from France, and it was
not till the 27th that he entered the Athole country. Here he learned
that Dundee was on the march to meet him. The population did not seem
friendly: he could get no news of Mackay; and on the whole he judged it
prudent to retire to Perth. That he might do this with more speed he
blew up his ammunition train, to prevent it falling into Dundee's hands.
Mackay, who, as soon as he learned that Ramsay was fairly on the road,
had marched with all speed from Inverness, was too late to save Ruthven
Castle. It had been surrendered by the governor, Captain Forbes, on the
29th, and reduced to a heap of ruins.
This was the beginning of a series of marches and counter-marches on the
part of the two generals, which lasted far into June, without any
advantage on either side.
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