That worthy would certainly not have stooped to serve under the Duke of Atholl, as did his descendant, of whom also Dr. John Brown speaks in warmly reminiscent terms which this “Captain of the Atholl Guard” seems to have well deserved. In my youth a rival chieftain gave himself bold advertisement, a fuliginous personage--I think he was a coal merchant by trade--who under the style of Dundonnachie, stalked about Perth in fiery tartans, and carried on raids upon the duke as to freeing the bridge of Dunkeld from toll, by which he got himself into duress vile, but was not otherwise taken very seriously.
Several old clans, beside the Robertsons, have been submerged here beneath the flood of Murraydom. The nucleus of Blair Castle is called Comyn’s Tower, and appears to have been a stronghold of the Red Comyns of Badenoch. The earldom of Atholl was long held by royal offshoots like that truculent Wolf of Badenoch, whose skeleton has lately been turned up in Dunkeld Cathedral; and their following went to dot the region with Stewart graves. Another name to be read on its tombstones is Ferguson, that might claim descent from more or less mythical kings; but sons of Fergus are famed rather in the victories of peace. Their most illustrious scion is perhaps the philosophic historian Adam Ferguson, born at Logierait, though, as being a son of the manse, his root in the soil may be questionable. The Menzies appear as intruders from the South, like the Murrays; but very old inhabitants were the Mackintoshes of Glen Tilt, who exalt themselves against the Macphersons as heads of the Clan Chattan. The Macbeths are said, not by themselves, to have fallen to become helots under later lords of Atholl. Then, all over this district and far around, twinkle traditions of the Macgregors, that famous broken clan, of whom I have much to say farther on. Murray itself is a name not so common as distinguished in Perthshire; and we saw above how a farmer who had taken it along with allegiance to Atholl, was by blood a Macgregor.
In more than one foreign book one comes across a statement, the origin of which I cannot trace, that early in last century a census was made of Highland names, which brought out Macgregor at the head of the list with a numeration of 36,000. One knows not how such a count could be effectually made; and it would be surprising if this name, so long cut down by law, should have sprung up again with such dominant vitality. Signor Piovanelli, an Italian writer who quotes that estimate, tells us how he whiled away one probably wet evening of Highland travel by counting names in an Inverness Directory. The sum of his calculation was that out of a little over 4000 names, 1320 had the prefix _Mac_, 240 being Macdonalds, but they were surpassed by 415 Frasers, a name strong in that belt of the country; and forty Alexander Frasers made the most solid phalanx of nomenclature among the Inverness citizens. Some years later Mr. A. Macbain undertook the same task more seriously, analysing the Inverness Directory in a little book which confirms the Italian tourist’s rough calculation, except as showing the Macdonalds to have gained on the Frasers; he finds the Macgregors coming in with the ruck, only 44 of them, and John beating Alexander as the commonest Christian name.