There was an implacable feud between the Grants of Ballindalloch and the Grants of Carron, "for divers ages," Sir Robert Gordon says, certainly for ninety years after 1550. This fragment has to do with the later stage of their enmity. In 1628, John Grant of Ballindalloch killed John Grant of Carron. James Grant of Carron, uncle of the slain man, burnt all the corn, barns, and byres of Ballindalloch young and old, and took to the hills (1630). The Ballindallochs complained to Murray, the lieutenant, and he, " to gar ane devil ding another," set the Clanchattan upon James Grant. They laid siege to a house where he was with a party of his men; he made his way out, was pursued,, and was taken after receiving eleven arrow-wounds. When he was well enough to travel, he was sent to Edinburgh, and, as everybody supposed, to his death; but after a confinement of more than a year he broke ward (October, 1632). Large sums were offered for him, alive or dead; but James Grant was hard to keep and hard to catch, and in November, 1633, he began to kythe again in the north. A gang of the forbidden name of McGregor, who had been brought into the country by Ballindalloch to act against James Grant, beset him in a small house in Carron where he was visiting his wife, having only his son and one other man with him; but he defended him self with the spirit of another Cloudesly, shot the captain, and got off to the bog with his men.[foot-note]
"The year of God one thousand six hundred thirty-six, some of the Marquis of Huntly's followers and servants did invade the rebel James Grant and some of his associates, hard by Strathbogy. They burnt the house wherein he was, but, the night being dark and windy, he and bis brother, Robert Grant, escaped."[foot-note]
This last escapade of James Grant may perhaps be the one to which this fragment has reference, though Ballindalloch was not personally engaged in the assault on the house, and I know of no Douglas having sheltered Grant of Carron. One almost wonders that this mettlesome and shifty outlaw was not celebrated in a string of ballads.
Early in 1639, James Grant got his peace from the king; later in the year, he joined the "barons" at Aberdeen with five hundred men, and in 1640, we are told, "he purchased his remission orderly and went home to his own country peaceably (against all men's expectation, being such a blood-shedder and cruel oppressor) after he had escaped so many dangers."[foot-note]
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