Notwithstanding the desire for secrecy expressed by all the parties, someone let out the finding of the body, with the result that local interest was directed to the Hill of Christie. James Growar, a relative of John, presently found there the sergeant’s gun, and a girl named Isobel Ego picked up a silver-laced hat with a silver button on it, afterwards identified as his. Isobel, who had been sent by her master to the hills to look for some horses, remarked on her return, ‘That she had come home richer than she went out’, and produced her find. Her mistress ‘had no peace of mind, believing it to be Sergeant Davies’s hat, and desired it might be put out of her sight’; so the farmer hid the hat under a stone by the burnside, near his house, and knew no more of it. Some time after, however, ‘the bairns of Inverey’, playing about the burnside, lighted upon the hat and took it to the village. It then passed successively through the hands of Donald Downie, the miller of Inverey, and of James Small, factor on the forfeited estate of Strowan, into the custody of John Cook, barrack-master at Braemar Castle, who four years later produced it at the trial. We shall hear of the Strowan factor again.
The barrack-master afterwards said that within ten days of the sergeant’s disappearance, ‘it was reported that he had been murdered by two young men about Inverey’. By the following summer, not only was the story of the ghostly visitant and the resulting discovery of the bones well known throughout the neighbourhood, but ‘it was clattered’ that the spectre had denounced by name as the murderers two persons then living in the district. These were Duncan Terig, alias Clerk, and Alexander Bain Macdonald. Both were men of questionable character, and reputed thieves. Clerk lived with his father in Inverey without visible means of livelihood, and Macdonald, who was forester to Lord Braco (the first Earl Fife), resided in Allanquoich. Apart from their supernatural impeachment, many material facts confirmatory of their guilt accumulated against them in the public mind, but four years elapsed before they were brought to trial. It does not appear from the official record how the tardy sword of justice came to be drawn so long after the event, for not until September 1753 were Clerk and Macdonald apprehended on the charge and committed to the Castle of Braemar. The Lord Advocate stated in Court that the prisoners ‘were at last accused by the general voice of the country’, and that the cause of delay in bringing them to trial was that ‘at first the proof against them did not appear so pregnant’. But certain events after the trial throw some light, as we shall see, on how the charge was made.
On 23 January 1754, the prisoners, being judicially examined before Lords Strichen and Drummore, two of the Lords Commissioners of Justiciary, each gave different and contradictory accounts of their movements upon the day of the murder. Clerk declared that he, in company with Macdonald, was upon the Hill of Gleney the day Sergeant Davies disappeared; that both were armed with guns; that Macdonald fired one shot at some deer; and that at ten o’clock that morning he parted from Macdonald on the hill and returned to his father’s house, to which Macdonald came the same evening, and where he stayed all night. Macdonald declared that he spent the night at his own house in Allanquoich, and did not see Clerk after they parted on the hill about nine or ten o’clock. For the rest, his declaration concurred with Clerk’s.
The trial began before the High Court of Justiciary at Edinburgh on 10 June 1754, the judges being Lord Justice-Clerk Alva, who presided, and Lords Strichen, Drummore, Elchies, and Kilkerran. The two last named had assisted Argyll, the Justice-General, at the judicial murder of James of the Glens two years before, as immortalised by Stevenson. The Lord Advocate, William Grant of Prestongrange, so vividly portrayed in Catriona, Patrick Haldane and Alexander Home, ‘His Majesties Solicitors’, and Robert Dundas, conducted the prosecution. The prisoners were represented by Alexander Lockhart (who ten years later in that Court heroically defended Katharine Nairn) and Robert M’Intosh, the friend of Scott.
In the debate upon the relevancy, which, as was then usual, occupied the first day of the proceedings, it was argued for the panels that they were persons of good fame, and had no malice against the sergeant; that they had a true and warrantable cause for being on the hill under arms; and that they did so openly and avowedly. It was further objected that though arrested for the murder as already described, and having almost ‘run their letters’ without being served with an indictment, they were again committed for theft, and the time nearly expiring in that case also, they were detained on a third warrant for wearing the Highland Dress, and last of all, ‘upon the malicious information of some private informer’, were served with this indictment. They offered to prove that after they had left the hill, the sergeant was seen alive with his party, but in support of this allegation no shadow of evidence was afterwards adduced. The Lord Advocate confidently answered that such facts and circumstances would come out upon proof as would satisfy the jury of the panels’ guilt. The delay complained of was owing to no intention of his to oppress the panels – ‘he had early information of the murder charged upon and was very willing and desirous it might come to light’ – but was due to the difficulty of obtaining conclusive evidence against them, which he hoped he had now done. The Court found the libel relevant, and adjourned till the following day.
At seven o’clock next morning (11 June), the trial was resumed, and a jury, composed of Edinburgh tradesmen, was empanelled. Macdonald was allowed to amend his declaration to the effect that he had spent the night of the murder at the house of Clerk’s father in Inverey. The Lord Advocate’s first witness was Jean Ghent, the widow of the murdered man, from whose evidence many of the foregoing facts have been related. She described the dress and belongings of her husband on that morning when she last saw him alive, and identified as his the hat and gun found on the hill, as already mentioned. She had seen him cut his initials on the hat, and had remarked to him at the time, ‘You have made a pretty sort of work of it by having misplaced the letters.’ The stock of the gun had been altered, but she knew it by ‘a cross rent’ in the middle of the barrel, occasioned, as her husband had told her, by his firing a shot when the gun was over-loaded. While the search-party was being organised, she had asked the prisoner Clerk, ‘whom she took to be a particular friend, to try if he could find the body’! The poor woman then little knew how well qualified he was to do so.
Donald Farquharson, whose evidence we have recounted, told how M’Pherson communicated to him the spirit’s message, and described the subsequent burial of the remains. He also identified the gun produced, having been present when Davies fired the charge which cracked the barrel. He had seen gold rings, ‘one of which had a knob upon it’, on the fingers of Elizabeth Downie, a girl whom Clerk had married since the murder. It struck him as being like the sergeant’s ring, and he questioned her about it, but she said it had belonged to her mother. Macdonald, as Lord Braco’s forester, was the only man who had a warrant ‘for carrying guns for killing of deer’, and Clerk was usually associated with him in his expeditions. Clerk was reputed a sheep-stealer. The witness knew nothing against Macdonald ‘but that he once broke the chest of one Corbie, and took some money out of it’. He considered M’Pherson, the ghost-seer, ‘an honest lad’, but it was the general opinion ‘that all is not to be believed that he says’.
Alexander M’Pherson was then called. In the earlier part of his examination he made no reference to the ghost, but merely stated that in the summer of 1750 he found, lying in a moss bank on the Hill of Christie, the bones of a human body, which at the time he believed to be that of Sergeant Davies. His description of the appearance of the remains agreed with that given by Farquharson. When first discovered, the body was partially concealed, and ‘by the help of his staff he brought it out and laid it upon the plain ground, in doing whereof some of the bones were separated one from another’. He narrated his conversations on the subject with Growar, Daldownie, and Farquharson, described the burial of the bones, and gave the following account of his parleyings with the disembodied sergeant:
One night in June 17
50, being then abed in his master’s sheiling at Glenclunie, ‘a vision appeared to him as of a man clad in blue’, which he at first took to be ‘a real living man’, namely a brother of Donald Farquharson. The spirit, presumably unwilling to disturb the other sleepers, withdrew to the door of the hut, and M’Pherson arose and followed it outside, when it made the startling announcement, ‘I am Sergeant Davies!’ It added that, in the days of its flesh, it had been murdered on the Hill of Christie nearly a year before, minutely described the place where the body was hidden, and requested M’Pherson to arrange with Donald Farquharson for its interment. Notwithstanding the singular character of the interview, M’Pherson retained sufficient wit to inquire who had done the deed. The spectre made answer that if M’Pherson had not asked, it might have told him, but as he had, it could not. Perhaps to do so was contrary to ghostly etiquette. Thereupon the apparition vanished ‘in the twinkling of an eye’. So exact were its directions as to the position of the body that M’Pherson ‘went within a yard of the place where it lay upon his first going out’. Although this should have been an absolute guarantee of the ghost’s good faith, M’Pherson did nothing further in the matter. A week later, at the same time and place, ‘the vision again appeared, naked, and minded him to bury the body’. M’Pherson repeated his inquiry as to the identity of the murderer, and the spectre, having apparently laid aside its reticence with its raiment, at once replied, ‘Duncan Clerk and Alexander Macdonald’, and vanished as before. Both conversations were held in Gaelic, with which language the sergeant, when in life, was unfamiliar. Excepting Growar, Daldownie, and Farquharson, M’Pherson had told no one about the vision, nor did he tell the other folks in the sheiling at that time.
Some whisper of the spirit’s purpose must have reached the ear of Duncan Clerk, for that autumn he repeatedly invited M’Pherson to enter his service. Clerk’s circumstances had unaccountably improved of late. He had taken upon lease the farms of Craggan and Gleney, and was married to Elizabeth Downie, the damsel with the remarkable ring. At Martinmas, 1750, M’Pherson, yielding to his solicitations, became a member of his houshold. He noticed that his new master carried a long green silk purse, while his mistress wore a gold ring, ‘with a plate on the outside of it in the form of a seal’, both of which, he heard it reported, had belonged to the murdered man. One day when they were together on the hill, Duncan, ‘spying a young cow’, desired M’Pherson to shoot it. The latter refused to do so, and administered the moral reproof ‘that it was such thoughts as these were in his heart when he murdered Sergeant Davies!’ Duncan at first used ‘angry expressions’, but M’Pherson sticking to his point, he ‘fell calm’, desired him to keep the secret and he would be a brother to him, offered to help him to stock a farm when he took one, and gave him a promissory note for twenty pounds Scots ‘to hold his tongue of what he knew of Sergeant Davies’. M’Pherson afterwards asked Duncan for payment of the note and, failing to obtain it, left his service. That M’Pherson did tackle his master about the murder is corroborated by John Growar, who reports a conversation between them on the subject, when Duncan, to deprecate exposure, pathetically remarked, ‘What can you say of an unfortunate man?’ After Clerk’s arrest, his brother Donald ‘solicited’ M’Pherson to leave the country, ‘that he might not give evidence’, and offered him ‘half of every penny Donald was worth’ if he would bear false witness at the trial.
Whatever may be thought of M’Pherson’s ghost story, it is supported by the testimony of Isobel M’Hardie, in whose sheiling the vision appeared. This lady, who missed the spirit on its first call, deponed that on the night in question she, along with her servants, was sleeping in the hut when she awoke and ‘saw something naked come in at the door in a bowing posture’. From motives of either modesty or fear, ‘she drew the clothes over her head’, and unfortunately saw nothing further. Next morning she mentioned the matter to M’Pherson, who, having decided to comply with the ghost’s request, assured her ‘she might be easy, for that it would not trouble them any more’.
James Macdonald, of Allanquoich, stated that, having heard the rumour of the panels’ guilt, he applied to Clerk’s father-in-law, Alexander Downie, to know if it were true. Downie admitted that it was so, adding, ‘What could his son-in-law do, since it was in his own defence?’ Macdonald had seen upon Elizabeth Downie’s finger after her marriage a gold ring, ‘having a little knap upon it like unto a seal’, which he suspected had belonged to Davies. Peter M’Nab, a neighbour, also saw the gold ring, ‘pretty massy, having a lump upon it pretty large’, and asked Elizabeth how she came by it, to which she answered ‘that she had bought it from one James Lauder, a merchant’. Elspeth Macara, Clerk’s servant, had often seen her mistress wearing a gold ring ‘with a knob upon it of the same metal’.
Lauchlan M’Intosh, who had been a servant of the sergeant’s landlord, deponed that, some two years after the disappearance, he saw in the hand of the prisoner Macdonald a penknife resembling one Davies used to carry, which had certain peculiarities known to the witness. He remarked at the time that it was ‘very like Sergeant Davies’s penknife’, but Macdonald merely observed ‘that there were many sic-likes’.
John Grant, of Altalaat, deponed that the panels lodged in his house on the night of 27 September 1749, that preceding the murder. Next morning, ‘after the sun-rising’, they went out, each with a gun, saying ‘that they intended to go a deer-hunting’. As he left home that morning to attend a fair at Kirkmichael, and did not return for four days, Grant knew no more of their doings. He was corroborated by his son, who saw the panels start on their shooting expedition, going up the water to the Hill of Gleney, a mile and a half from the Hill of Christie. Clerk was wearing a grey plaid. Jean Davidson, of Inverey, stated that, ‘about sun-setting’ on the day Sergeant Davies disappeared, she saw Clerk, ‘having a plaid upon him with a good deal of red in it’, return from the hill to his father’s house in the clachan.
John Brown, ground-officer of Inverey, said that when, by order of the chamberlain, he called out the inhabitants to search for the missing sergeant, Clerk ‘challenged him for troubling the country-people with such an errand, and upon this the witness and the said Duncan had some scolding words’.
Such was the circumstantial evidence adduced in support of the charge; but the Crown was in a position to prove by the direct testimony of an eye-witness that Davies undoubtedly met his death at the prisoners’ hands. Angus Cameron, a Rannoch man, swore that upon the day of the murder he and a companion named Duncan Cameron, who had since died, were hiding, for political reasons, in the heather. They had spent the previous night on Glenbruar Braes, and were then lying concealed in a little hollow upon the side of the Hill of Galcharn on the lookout for one Donald Cameron, ‘who was afterwards hanged’, and some other friends from Lochaber, with whom they expected to foregather that day. They had lain there since ‘two hours after sun-rising’. The time hung heavily enough upon their hands, and they would welcome any passing incident as a relief to the tedium of their vigil. About mid-day they observed Duncan Clerk, whom Angus knew by sight, and another man ‘of a lower stature,’ unknown to him, both with guns, pass the hollow where they lay. Clerk had on a grey plaid ‘with some red in it’. An hour or so before sunset, Angus saw a man in a blue coat with a gun in his hand, whose hat was edged with white or silver lace, about a gun-shot off upon a hill opposite to the place where he lay. Coming up the hill towards the stranger were the two men he had seen in the morning. The three met upon the top of the hill, and after standing some time together Clerk struck the man in blue upon the breast, whereupon the man cried out, clapped his hand to his breast, ‘turned about, and went off’. The other two ‘stood still for a little’, and then each of them raised his gun and fired at him practically at the same moment, though Angus could distinguish the separate reports. ‘Immediately upon them, the man in blue fell.’ The murderers then approached their victim, and the watcher saw them stoop down ‘and handle his body’. While they were so em
ployed, Angus and his companion deemed it prudent to beat a retreat, which they did unobserved, and, without waiting for their companions, left the district.
Not till the following summer did Angus chance to hear of the vanishing of Sergeant Davies, and realise that he had been present at his slaying. Hitherto he had told no one of what he had seen, but he now consulted two Cameron friends as to how, in the circumstances, he ought to act. They advised him to do nothing in the matter, ‘as it might get ill-will to himself and bring trouble on the country’. The two Camerons above mentioned corroborated. When informed by Angus that he had seen Clerk and another shoot a man dressed ‘like a gentleman or an officer’ upon a hill in Braemar, one prudently said he did not want to hear any more on that subject, and the other that it would never do to have such a report raised of the country, and advised Angus ‘to keep the thing secret’. We have already seen how the fear of possible reprisals had sealed the lips of those who long before could have enabled the authorities to bring the murderers to justice.
This concluded the evidence for the prosecution, which we have been particular in setting forth in view of the startling verdict thereon arrived at by the jury. The proof in exculpation consisted of the testimony of but three witnesses. Colonel Forbes of the town of New deponed that as justice of the peace he had been instructed to examine Elizabeth Downie (who, being Clerk’s wife, was incompetent as a witness upon his trial), touching the nature and extent of her jewellery. She informed him that she was married to Clerk in harvest, 1751; that before her marriage she had a copper ring ‘with a round knot of the same metal on it’, which she gave to a glen-herd named Reoch; that since her marriage she had only possessed two rings, a small brass one, which she produced, and a gold one, which she got from her mother. It will be remembered that to other witnesses Elizabeth had given different and contradictory accounts of her rings. Two witnesses who had been at the shearing in Gleney on the day of the murder said they had seen Clerk there alone about noon. Gleney is a mile farther up the water towards the hill than Inverey, and is about the same distance from Glenclunie. Both witnesses were very vague as to the hour, which they fixed with reference to their dinner, admittedly a movable feast.
The Supernatural Murders Page 12
