A history of the Highlands and of the Highland clans : with an ...

136 HISTORY OF THE HIGHI.AKUS.
Such, however, was not the case-; for they observed the strictest honesty
m this respect. No precautions were taken—because unnecessary—to
protect property, and the usual securities of locks, bolts, and bars, were
never used, nor even thought of. Instances of theft from dwelling-
liouses were very rare ;
and, with the exception of one case which hap-
pened so late as the year seventeen hundred and sevent}', higlnvay rob-
bery was totally unknown. Yet, notwithstanding the laudable regard
thus shown by the freebooters to the property of their own society, they
attached no ideas of moral turpitude to the acts of spoliation we have
alluded to. Donald Cameron, or Donald Bane Leane, an active leader
of a party of banditti who had associated together after the troubles of
seventeen hundred and forty-five, tried at Perth for cattle-stealing,
and executed at Kinloch Raimoch, in seventeen hundred and fifty-
two, expressed surprise and indignation at his hard fate, as he con-
sidered it, as he had never committed murder nor robber3', or taken
any thing but cattle off the grass of those with whom he had quarrelled.
The practice of " lifting of cattle " seems to have been viewed as a very
venial offence, even by persons holding very different views of morality
from the actors, in proof of wliich, General Stewart refers to a letter of
Field-Marshall Wade to Mr Forbes of CuUoden, then Lord Advocate,
dated October, seventeen hundred and twenty-nine, describing an entertainment
given him on a visit to a party of cearnachs. " The Knight
and I," says the Marshall, " travelled in my carriage with great ease
and pleasure to the feast of oxen which the highwaymen had prepared for
us, opposite Lochgarry, where we found four oxen roasting at the same
time, in great order and solemnity. We dined in a tent pitched for
that purpose. The beef was excellent ; and we had plenty of bumpers,
not forgetting your Lordship's and Culloden's health ; and, after three
hours' stay, took leave of our benefactors, the highwaymen,* and arrived
at the hut at Dalnachardoch, before it was dark." f
Amid the violence and turbulence which existed in the Highlands,
no appeal for redress of wrongs committed, or injuries sustained, could
be effectually made to the legal tribunals of the country; but to prevent
the utter anarchy which would have ensued from such a state of society,
voluntary and associated tribunals, composed of the principal men of
the tribes, were appointed. A composition in cattle being the mode ol
compensating injuries, these tribunals generally determined the amount
of the compensation according to the nature of the injury, and the
ivealth and rank of the parties. These compensations were called Eriff.
Besides these tribunals, every chief held a court, in which he decided
* General Stewart observes, that the Marshall had not at this period been long enough
ill the Highlands to distinguish a cearnach, or ''lifter of cattle," from a highwayman.
" No sucli character as the latter then existed in the country; and it may be presumed
be did nut consider these men in the light which the word would indicate,—for certainly
llie Commander-in-chief would neitlier have associated with jnen whom he supposed to
be rially higliwaymen, nor partaken of their hospitality."
t CiJluden Papers