 Its "grovelling and abject" tone was unusual by that time.Then an anonymous preface recounts how an unnamed "Gentleman", on a grouse-shooting visit to the earl's estate in the Lochearnhead region, met Angus McDiarmid, a ground-officer (or ghillie, a gamekeeper and hunting-guide) of the earl's.Struck by McDiarmid's eloquent descriptions of the scenery and associated legends, the gentleman learned that McDiarmid had written a manuscript, which McDiarmid entrusted to him to be published.