Lairds of Glenlyon

THE LAIRDS OF GLENLYON. 83
affectionate submission to the authority of parents, are un-
doubtedly stronger principles in a primitive community
than among the more civilized ; for in the absence of the
strong coercion of artificial laws, the obligations and ties
founded on the general law of nature must necessarily
exert an active power over the intercourse of men, else
they can no longer exist, individually or corporately.
Parental authority, by the peculiar institution of clanship,
is placed above all other obligations, and hence King
William would have been more acceptable to the High-
landers had he been a Khan of the Tartars instead of Prince
of Orange, or a daring usurper like Cromwell instead of
nephew and son-in-law of the late King. Harvests remark-
ably unfruitful, a blasting east wind that shrivelled up the
produce of the ground, rendered many years of his reign a
time of continual dearth. The Highlanders' rude ideas of re-
tributive justice associated the visitation of providence with
the crimes and government of the King; they believed the sins
of the ruler were visited upon his subjects, and that through
the dearth the revenge of heaven fell upon them for tamely
submitting to the oppressor of their native prince. But the
massacre of Glencoe no less deterred from rebellion that
it provoked indignation ; and the Highlands after that event
remained quietly but anxiously awaiting for William's death
as the only escape from misery. In connection with that
event, an anecdote which I have heard may be given in
proof of what has been said. On the 8th March, 1702, a
widow woman in Camusvrachdan, in Glenlyon, astonished
her neighbours by the news of the King's death. She had
no visible means of information, was far from being sus-
pected of witchcraft, and still she asserted the truth of what