The trouble was that little of the land in Glencoe belonged to any of them outright. Most people said it was because of crooked laws. If, long ago, the Macdonalds lost the right to own the land in their own glen it was because the Campbella knew how to twist the Law. They were harder headed and less poetic than the Macdononalds. And thoudh the Macdononalds kept their right to live and farm on the land, a rent had to be paid to the Campbells at Argyll.