Ossian Collection > Peat-fire flame

THE PEAT-FIRE FLAME
But the story does not end here, for among the most
deadly of Seumas Beag's archers was one named Menzies,
on whom the Campbells swore that they would wreak
vengeance. Some weeks later, five of the Campbells, who
previously had escaped the onslaught of Seumas Beag and
his staff, set out from Argyll to capture Menzies. In the
vicinity of the Falls of Leny they met a man tending cattle.
They did not suspect him to be the very Menzies for whom
they were searching, since he was totally unarmed, and
feigned to exhibit in their bows and arrows an interest
which misled the Campbells into believing that he had never
handled a bow in his life. When he asked to what use they
put these instruments, the Campbells were amused ; and one
of their number gave him his bow, and commenced to
instruct him as to how it should be used. This instruction
proved to be the Campbells' undoing, for, while Menzies
borrowed all their arrows, and clumsily shot them into the
same spot only a short distance off, he was creating for
himself a position of strategy. When he had fired the last
arrow into the ground but a few yards ahead of him, he
dashed forward with the bow to the spot at which lay most
of the arrows, turned about, and proceeded to shoot down
the Campbells. Ere they were able to retrieve even one of
their arrows, Menzies had accounted for three of them.
The remaining two, unable to withstand the marksmanship
of their assailant, fled for shelter, and found their way home
as best they could, leaving Menzies to resume the tending
of his cattle without let or hindrance.
Lieutenant of the Coast.
Situated at the southern entrance to Loch Bretil, in the
west of Skye, is a headland known as Rudh' an Dunain,
Headland of the Little Dun. Here it was that, night and
day in olden times, MacLeod of MacLeod maintained a
Lieutenant of the Coast as a means of protecting his
territory against the punitive and predatory raids of the
Northmen, and of the MacDonalds of Clan Ranald, who
came sailing out from the shelter of the Small Isles, which
they used as a convenient jumping-off place for their attacks
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