152 COUNTRY ESSAYS. 



nuisance to the angler on Loch Assynt, from the manner in 

 which she swoops down upon him and abuses him in the 

 choicest of bird-Billingsgate. It is very pleasant to see birds 

 thus tame and fearless of man, and speaks volumes for the 

 treatment they obtain at the hands of the few natives. The 

 Isle of Handa on the west coast of the country forms, it is well 

 known, the breeding-place of thousands of gulls and such like 

 birds. 



On the edge of Loch Assynt, the ruins of Ardvreck Castle are 

 very conspicuous. Sir R. Gordon, himself, a younger son of 

 the family of Sutherland, born in 1580, gives a good account of 

 the solitary incident which has rendered this ruin famous, the 

 capture of the great Montrose. In general, his history is weary 

 reading, but the episode of Montrose is a purple patch in the 

 dull chronicle. How would the reader enjoy page after page of 

 the following character ? " Tormat Macloyd, Laird of Assint, 

 was one of the sons of Rory Moir Macloyd of the Leenes. 

 Tormat Macloyd of Assint had three sons : Angus (who was 

 called Old Angus, who travelled into France and Italie ;) John 

 Reawigh, who possessed the Cogigh ; and Tormat Bane, who 

 went to Rome with his brother Old Angus," &c. &c. David 

 Leslie had sent his officers, Hacket and Strachan, to capture 

 Montrose ; and having defeated his little band on April 27, 

 1650, they pursued him and the Earl of Kinnoul, who had to- 

 gether made their escape into Assynt. The whole of that night 

 and the next two days the fugitives held on, though sorely in 

 want of food, when (and here the chronicler shall tell his own 

 story, his book being exceedingly rare) "the Earl of Kinnoul, 

 being faint for lack of meat and not able to travel any further, 

 was left there among the mountains, where it was supposed he 

 perished. James Graham had almost famished, but that he 

 fortuned in this miserie to light upon a smal cottage in that 

 wildernesse, where he was supplied with some milk and bread. 

 Immediately after the fight, Captain Andro Munro did write to 



