There was an implacable feud between the Grants of Ballindalloch and the Grants of Carron, for as much as 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, tbe lieutenant, and be set the Clanchattan upon James Grant. They laid siege to a house where be was with a party of bis men; he made bis 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 be broke ward. Large sums were offered for him, alive or dead, but in 1633 he began to appear again in the north. A gang of the McGregors, who had been brought into the country by Ballindalloch to act against James Grant, beset him in a small house in Carron where be was visiting his wife, having only his son and one other man with him; but he defended himself with the spirit of another Cloudesly, shot the captain, and got off to the bog with his men. In 1036 "some of the Marquis of Huntly's followers and servants did invade tbe rebel James Grant and some of his associates, hard by Stratbbogy. They burnt tbe bouse wherein he was, but, the night being dark and windy, be and his brother, Robert Grant, escaped." (Sir Robert Gordon, History of the Earldom of Sutherland, pp. 481, 460.) 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 tbe house.
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