Upon hearing of the
encounter at Glenfruin, eighty of these high-spirited boys set off to
join their relatives; but the Colquhouns, anxious for the safety of
their young kinsfolk, would not permit them to join in the fight, but
locked them up in a barn for safety. Here they remained, until the event
of the day left the Macgregors masters of what might well be called "the
Glen of Sorrow." The boys, growing impatient for their release, became
noisy; when the Macgregors, discovering their hiding-place, and
thirsting for vengeance, set fire to the barn, and the young inmates
were consumed. According to another account, they were all put to the
sword by one of the guard, a Macgregor, whose distinctive appellation
was Ciar Mohr, "the mouse-coloured man." When the chief of the
Macgregor's clan repaired to the barn, and, knowing that the boys were
the sons of gentlemen, was desirous of ensuring their safety, he asked
their guards where they were. When told of what had occurred, Macgregor
broke out into the exclamation, that "his clan was ruined." The sad
event was commemorated, until the year 1757, by an annual procession of
the Dumbarton youths, to a field at some distance from their school,
where they enacted the melancholy ceremonial of a mock funeral, over
which they set up a loud lamentation. The site of the farm where this
scene was enacted is still pointed out; and near it runs a rivulet, the
Gaelic name of which signifies "the burn of the young ghosts:" so deep
was the memory of this horrible deed.[101]

A fearful retribution followed the clan for years. They had no friend at
Court to plead their cause; and the most cruel hardships became the lot
of the innocent, as well as the guilty, of their clan. The country was
filled with troops ready to destroy them, so that all who were able,
were forced to fly to rocks, caverns, and to hide themselves among the
woods. Few of the Macgregors, at this period of the Scottish history,
were permitted to die a natural death.

As an inducement to the murder of these wretched people, a reward was
offered for every head of a Macgregor that was conveyed to the Privy
Council at Edinburgh. Those who died a natural death were buried in
silence and secrecy by their kinsfolk, for the graves of the persecuted
clan were not respected; the bodies of the dead being exhumed, and the
heads cut off, to be sent to the Council. Never has there been, in the
history of mankind, a more signal instance of