"During their merry-making a young man entered whose appearance
particularly struck and somewhat shocked Macpherson; the stranger
beckoned to the Major, and he followed him instantly out of the bothy.
"When they parted, after apparently having had some earnest conversation,
the stranger was out of sight long before the Major was half-way back,
though only twenty yards away.
"The Major showed on his return such evident marks of trepidation that
the mirth was marred and no one cared to ask him questions.
"This was early in the week, and on Friday the Major persuaded his
friends to make a second expedition to the mountains, from which they
never returned.
"On a search being made their dead bodies were found in the bothy, some
considerably mangled, but some were not marked by any wound.
"It was visible that this had not been effected by human agency: the
bothy was torn from its foundations and scarcely a vestige left of it,
and one huge stone, which twelve men could not have raised, was tossed to
a considerable distance.
"On this event Scott's beautiful ballad of 'Glenfinlas' is said to have
been founded."
As will be seen presently, Hogg was wrong about 'Glenfinlas'; the boatman
was acquainted with a traditional version of that wild legend. I found
another at Rannoch.
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