The habitual mendacity of the Jacobite libellers had brought on them an appropriate punishment.

Now, when, for the first time, they told the truth, they were supposed to be romancing.

They complained bitterly that the story, though perfectly authentic, was regarded by the public as a factious lie.

[237] So late as the year 1695, Hickes, in a tract in which he endeavoured to defend his darling tale of the Theban legion against the unanswerable argument drawn from the silence of historians, remarked that it might well be doubted whether any historian would make mention of the massacre of Glencoe.
There were in England, he said, many thousands of well educated men who had never heard of that massacre, or who regarded it as a mere fable.
[238] Nevertheless the punishment of some of the guilty began very early.
Hill, who indeed can hardly be called guilty, was much disturbed.
Breadalbane, hardened as he was, felt the stings of conscience or the dread of retribution.

A few days after the Macdonalds had returned to their old dwellingplace, his steward visited the ruins of the house of Glencoe, and endeavoured to persuade the sons of the murdered chief to sign a paper declaring that they held the Earl guiltless of the blood which had been shed.