"Murchadh no Droit" from "the circumstances that his mother being
with child of him, had been saved after a fearful fall from the
Bridge of Scattal into the Water of Conon." The writer of the
"Ancient" MS. history of the Mackenzies, the oldest in existence,
suggests that Mackenzie himself may have instigated the ruffians
to do away with his wife. "They lived," he says, "a considerable
time together childless, but men in those days (of whom be reason)
preferred succession and manhood to wedlock. He caused to throw
her under silence of night over the Bridge of Scatwell, but by
Providence and by the course of the river she was cast ashore and
escaped, went back immediately to his house, then at Achilty, and
went to his bedside in a fond condition. But commiserating her
case and repenting over the deed he gave her a hearty reception,
learned from her that she expected soon to become a mother, and
"so afterwards they lived together contentedly all their days."

During his earlier years Murdoch appears to have lived a peaceful
life, following the example of loyalty to the Crown set him by his
father, keeping the laws himself, and compelling those over whom
his jurisdiction extended to do the same. Nor, if we believe the
MS. historians of the family, was this dutiful and loyal conduct
allowed to go unrewarded. All the successors of the Earl of
Cromarty follow his lordship in saying that a charter was given
by King Robert to Murdo, "filius Murdochi de Kintail," of Kintail
and Laggan Achadrom, dated at Edinburgh, anno 1380, attested
by "Willielmus de Douglas, et Archibaldo de Galloway, et Joanne,
Cancellario Scotiae." As already stated, however, no such charter
as this, or the one previously mentioned on the same authority
as having been granted to Murdoch IV. of Kintail, in 1362, is on
record.