we
are by hearing that a band of Amakosah cattle stealers has been cut
off, or that a bark full of Malay pirates has been sunk. He took it for
granted that nothing had been done in Glencoe beyond what was doing in
many other glens. There had been a night brawl, one of a hundred night
brawls, between the Macdonalds and the Campbells; and the Campbells had
knocked the Macdonalds on the head.

By slow degrees the whole truth came out. From a letter written at
Edinburgh about two months after the crime had been committed, it
appears that the horrible story was already current among the Jacobites
of that city. In the summer Argyle's regiment was quartered in the south
of England, and some of the men made strange confessions, over their
ale, about what they had been forced to do in the preceding winter. The
nonjurors soon got hold of the clue, and followed it resolutely; their
secret presses went to work; and at length, near a year after the crime
had been committed, it was published to the world. [236] But the world
was long incredulous. The habitual mendacity of the Jacobite libellers
had brought on them an appropriate punishment. Now, when, for the first
time, they told the truth, they were supposed to be romancing. They
complained bitterly that the story, though perfectly authentic, was
regarded by the public as a factious lie. [237] So late as the year
1695, Hickes, in a tract in which he endeavoured to defend his darling
tale of the Theban legion against the unanswerable argument drawn
from the silence of historians, remarked that it might well be doubted
whether any historian would make mention of the massacre of Glencoe.
There were in England, he said, many thousands of well educated men who
had never heard of that massacre, or who regarded it as a mere fable.
[238]

Nevertheless the punishment of some of the guilty began very early.
Hill, who indeed can hardly be called guilty, was much disturbed.
Breadalbane, hardened as he was, felt the stings of conscience or the
dread of retribution. A few days after the Macdonalds had returned to
their old dwellingplace, his steward visited the ruins of the house of
Glencoe, and endeavoured to persuade the sons of the murdered chief to
sign a paper declaring that they held the Earl guiltless of the blood
which had been shed. They were assured that, if they would do this, all
His Lordship's great influence should be employed to obtain for them
from the Crown a free pardon and