SEPTEMBER 153 



effect, Lochiel felt himself bound in honour to call out 

 his clan, and to stake everything on what he believed 

 to be the rightful cause. He brought 800 clansmen to 

 the muster at Glenfinnan ; all work on his land was, of 

 course, suspended, including that of tree-planting, 

 which had been started on a considerable scale. During 

 the Chiefs absence a quantity of young beech arrived 

 to his order from the south, and long rows of them 

 were ' heeled in ' on the bank beside the river Arkaig, 

 awaiting his instructions. But Lochiel ' came back to 

 Lochaber no more.' He was carried off the field of 

 Culloden severely wounded ; but recovered under the 

 care of his cousin Cluny Macpherson, who nursed him 

 back to health in a shieling on the steep side of Ben 

 Alder. His estates were forfeited and his person 

 attainted ; but he made good his escape with his brother 

 Archibald and the Prince in a French ship, afterwards 

 receiving the command of the Regiment of Albany in 

 the service of Louis xv. He died in exile in 1748. 



The beeches were never lifted from the trench 

 wherein they had been heeled to await the Chiefs 

 return. They have grown as they were set such of 

 them at least as were not suppressed by crowding. 

 There they stand at this day in serried ranks of silvery 

 stems, so close that a man may hardly pass between 

 them. No more pathetic memorial of a lost cause no 

 more fitting cenotaph for the Gentle Lochiel could be 

 designed than that weird grove with its perpetual 

 gloaming. Winter winds wail a coronach among the 

 bare branches ; in summer the leafy boughs cast a dark 

 shade over the swift-running Arkaig. Empires and 



