His aged wife was stripped by the savage soldiers, who
pulled off the gold rings from her fingers with their teeth, and she
died next day from grief and the brutal treatment she had received.
The two sons had had their suspicions aroused, but these had been
allayed by Glenlyon. However, an old servant woke them and told them
to flee for their lives as their father had been murdered, and as
they escaped they heard the shouts of the murderers, the firing of
muskets, the screams of the wounded, and the groans of the dying
rising from the village, and it was only their intimate knowledge of
the almost inaccessible cliffs that enabled them to escape. At the
house where Glenlyon lodged, he had nine men bound and shot like
felons. A fine youth of twenty years of age was spared for a time,
but one, Captain Drummond, ordered him to be put to death; and a boy
of five or six, who had clung to Glenlyon's knees entreating for
mercy and offering to become his servant for life if he would spare
him, and who had moved Glenlyon to pity, was stabbed by Drummond with
a dirk while he was in the agony of supplication. Barber, a
sergeant, with some soldiers, fired on a group of nine MacDonalds
who were round their morning fire, and killed four of them, and one
of them, who escaped into a house, expressed a wish to die in the
open air rather than inside the house, "For your bread, which I have
eaten," said Barber, "I will grant the request.
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