152 THE DEER FORESTS OF SCOTLAND. 



Macpherson was found lying face downwards on 

 his bed, but so great was the force of the rush of 

 snow and stones that it not only laid the house low, 

 but carried the bodies of the four servants to a 

 considerable distance from the ruins. About half 

 way up the steep ravine, called the Gairb Gaick, 

 which divides the south from the east beat, a track 

 called Comyn's road runs into it at right angles, 

 and at this spot, somewhere about 1390, Walter 

 Comyn of Badenoch, a descendant of " The Wolf," 

 met with his death. Tradition has it that this 

 Walter, who inherited all the fierce tyrannous nature 

 of his ancestor, Buchan the Wolf of Badenoch, had 

 commanded a number of his farm girls to appear, 

 clad in nothing warmer than the garb of mother 

 Eve, at one of his farms at Ruthven, where they 

 were to reap a field of corn. On the day fixed 

 for the carrying out of this infamous project, Walter 

 Comyn started on horseback to travel through Gaick 

 to reach Ruthven, where he was to witness this 

 outrage on maiden modesty, but his advent was 



