first signal offence of Simon Fraser,
stamped his destiny. Its effects followed him through life: it entailed
others: it was the commencement of a catalogue of iniquities almost
unprecedented in the career of one man's existence.

Crushed, broken-spirited, afraid of returning to her kindred, whose high
fame she seems to have thought would be sullied by her misfortunes, Lady
Lovat was conducted by Fraser to the Island of Aigas. They stole thither
on horseback, attended by a single servant, and arriving at the
sea-shore, they there took a boat, and were carried to the obscure
island which Fraser had chosen for his retreat. Thomas Fraser of
Beaufort, the father of Simon, thus writes to the Duke of Argyle
respecting this singular and revolting union.

"We have gained a considerable advantage by my eldest son's being
married to the Dowager of Lovat; and if it please God they live together
some years, our circumstances will be very good. Our enemies are so
galled at it, that there is nothing malice or cruelty can invent but
they design and practice against us; so that we are forced to take to
the hills, and keep spies at all parts; by which, among many other
difficulties, the greatest is this,--that my daughter-in-law, being a
tender creature, fatigue and fear of bloodshed may put an end to her,
which would make our condition worse than ever."[147]

And now there took place, in the mind of Lady Lovat, one of those
singular revulsions which experience teaches us to explain rather than
induces us to believe as neither impossible nor uncommon. Lady Lovat, it
is said upon the grave authority of a reverend biographer, became
attached to the bonds which held her. "Here," says Mr. Arbuthnot, in his
Life of Lord Lovat,[148] "he continued a month or six weeks, and by this
time the captain had found means to work himself so effectually into the
good graces of the lady, that, as he reported, 'she doated on him, and
was always unhappy at his absence.'" However true or however false this
representation may be, the marriage service was again, as it was said,
solemnized, at the suggestion of the Master of Lovat, and with the free
consent of Lady Lovat.[149] On the twenty-sixth of October, 1697, we
find Simon Fraser writing in the following terms to the Laird of
Culloden. The answer is not given in the Culloden Papers, but it not
improbably contained a recommendation to repeat the marriage
ceremonials:--