traces of the relentless assaults upon them. Of
these the last and the most successful were made
in the seventeenth century by the Grants and
Rob Roy; and it was into the hands of the Grants
that the Shaw fortress finally fell, about 1700, after
almost a hundred years of ceaseless warfare.

It gives me no pleasure to read the grisly details
of their struggles, but I confess to a certain satisfac-
tion in the knowledge that my ancestors made a
good showing in the defense of what was theirs.
Beyond doubt they were brave fighters and strong
men. There were other sides to their natures,
however, which the high lights of history throw up
less appealingly. As an instance, we have in the
family chronicles the blood-stained page of Allen
Shaw, the oldest son of the last Lady Shaw who
lived in the fortress. It appears that when the
father of this young man died, about 1560, his
mother married again, to the intense disapproval
of her son. For some time after the marriage he
made no open revolt against the new-comer in the
domestic circle; but finally, on the pretext that
his dog had been attacked by his stepfather, he
forced a quarrel with the older man and the two
fought a duel with swords, after which the vic-
torious Allen showed a sad lack of chivalry. He
not only killed his stepfather, but he cut off that
gentleman's head and bore it to his mother in her bed-
chamber--an action which was considered, even in