We now examine a ghost with a purpose; he wanted to have his bonesburied. The Highlands, in spite of Culloden, were not entirelypacified in the year 1749. Broken men, robbers, fellows with wrongsunspeakable to revenge, were out in the heather. The hills thatseemed so lonely were not bare of human life. A man was seldom sosolitary but that eyes might be on him from cave, corry, wood, or den.The Disarming Act had been obeyed in the usual style: old uselessweapons were given up to the military. But the spirit of the clanswas not wholly broken. Even the old wife of Donald Ban, when he was"sair hadden down by a Bodach" (ghost) asked the spirit to answer onequestion, "Will the Prince come again?" The song expressed thefeelings of the people:--The wind has left me bare indeed,And blawn my bonnet off my heid,But something's hid in Hieland brae,The wind's no blawn my sword away!Traffickers came and went from Prince Charles to Cluny, from Charlesin the Convent of St. Joseph to Cluny lurking on Ben Alder. Kilt andtartan were worn at the risk of life or liberty, in short, the embersof the rising were not yet extinct.At this time, in the summer of 1749, Sergeant Arthur Davies, ofGuise's regiment, marched with eight privates from Aberdeen to Dubrachin Braemar, while a corporal's guard occupied the Spital of Glenshee,some eight miles away. "A more waste tract of mountain and bog, rocksand ravines, without habitations of any kind till you reachGlenclunie, is scarce to be met with in Scotland," says Sir Walter.The sergeant's business was the general surveillance of the countryside. He was a kindly prosperous man, liked in the country, fond ofchildren, newly married, and his wife bore witness "that he and shelived together in as great amity and love as any couple could do, andthat he never was in use to stay away a night from her".The sergeant had saved fifteen guineas and a half; he carried the goldin a green silk purse, and was not averse to displaying it. He wore asilver watch, and two gold rings, one with a peculiar knob on thebezel. He had silver buckles to his brogues, silver knee-buckles, twodozen silver buttons on a striped lute-string waistcoat, and hecarried a gun, a present from an officer in his regiment. His dress,on the fatal 28th of September, was "a blue surtout coat, with astriped silk vest, and teiken breeches and brown stockings". Hishair, of "a dark mouse colour," was worn in a silk ribbon, his hat wassilver laced, and bore his initials cut in the felt. Thus attired, "apretty man," Sergeant Davies said good-bye to his wife, who never sawhim again, and left his lodgings at Michael Farquharson's early on28th September. He took four men with him, and went to meet thepatrol from Glenshee. On the way he met John Growar in Glenclunie,who spoke with him "about a tartan coat, which the sergeant hadobserved him to drop, and after strictly enjoining him not to use itagain, dismissed him, instead of making him prisoner".This encounter was after Davies left his men, before meeting thepatrol, it being his intention to cross the hill and try for a shot ata stag.The sergeant never rejoined his men or met the patrol! He vanished asif the fairies had taken him. His captain searched the hill with aband of men four days after the disappearance, but to no avail.Various rumours ran about the country, among others a clatter thatDavies had been killed by Duncan Clerk and Alexander Bain Macdonald.But the body was undiscovered.In June, one Alexander Macpherson came to Donald Farquharson, son ofthe man with whom Davies had been used to lodge. Macpherson (who wasliving in a sheiling or summer hut of shepherds on the hills) saidthat he "was greatly troubled by the ghost of Sergeant Davies, whoinsisted that he should bury his bones, and that, he having declinedto bury them, the ghost insisted that he should apply to DonaldFarquharson". Farquharson "could not believe this," till Macphersoninvited him to come and see the bones. Then Farquharson went with theother, "as he thought it might possibly be true, and if it was, he didnot know but the apparition might trouble himself".The bones were found in a peat moss, about half a mile from the roadtaken by the patrols. There, too, lay the poor sergeant's mouse-coloured hair, with rags of his blue cloth and his brogues, withoutthe silver buckles, and there did Farquharson and Macpherson bury themall.Alexander Macpherson, in his evidence at the trial, declared that,late in May, 1750, "when he was in bed, a vision appeared to him as ofa man clothed in blue, who said, '_I am Sergeant Davies_!'". At firstMacpherson thought the figure was "a real living man," a brother ofDonald Farquharson's. He therefore rose and followed his visitor tothe door, where the ghost indicated the position of his bones, andsaid that Donald Farquharson would help to inter them. Macphersonnext day found the bones, and spoke to Growar, the man of the tartancoat (as Growar admitted at the trial). Growar said if Macpherson didnot hold his tongue, he himself would inform Shaw of Daldownie.Macpherson therefore went straight to Daldownie, who advised him tobury the bones privily, not to give the country a bad name for a rebeldistrict. While Macpherson was in doubt, and had not yet spoken toFarquharson, the ghost revisited him at night and repeated hiscommand. He also denounced his murderers, Clerk and Macdonald, whichhe had declined to do on his first appearance. He spoke in Gaelic,which, it seems, was a language not known by the sergeant.Isobel MacHardie, in whose service Macpherson was, deponed that onenight in summer, June, 1750, while she lay at one end of the sheiling(a hill hut for shepherds or neatherds) and Macpherson lay at theother, "she saw something naked come in at the door, which frightedher so much that she drew the clothes over her head. That when itappeared it came in in a bowing posture, and that next morning sheasked Macpherson what it was that had troubled them in the nightbefore. To which he answered that she might be easy, for it would nottrouble them any more."All this was in 1750, but Clerk and Macdonald were not arrested tillSeptember, 1753. They were then detained in the Tolbooth of Edinburghon various charges, as of wearing the kilt, till June, 1754, when theywere tried, Grant of Prestongrange prosecuting, aided by Haldane, Homeand Dundas, while Lockhart and Mackintosh defended. It was provedthat Clerk's wife wore Davies's ring, that Clerk, after the murder,had suddenly become relatively rich and taken a farm, and that the twomen, armed, were on the hill near the scene of the murder on 28thSeptember, 1749. Moreover, Angus Cameron swore that he saw the murdercommitted. His account of his position was curious. He and anotherCameron, since dead, were skulking near sunset in a little hollow onthe hill of Galcharn. There he had skulked all day, "waiting forDonald Cameron, _who was afterwards hanged_, together with some of thesaid Donald's companions from Lochaber". No doubt they were allhonest men who had been "out," and they may well have been on Cluny'sbusiness of conveying gold from the Loch Arkaig hoard to Major Kennedyfor the prince.On seeing Clerk and Macdonald strike and shoot the man in the silver-laced hat, Cameron and his companion ran away, nor did Cameron mentionthe matter till nine months later, and then only to Donald (not he whowas hanged). Donald advised him to hold his tongue. This Donaldcorroborated at the trial. The case against Clerk and Macdonaldlooked very black, especially as some witnesses fled and declined toappear. Scott, who knew Macintosh, the counsel for the prisoners,says that their advocates and agent "were convinced of their guilt".Yet a jury of Edinburgh tradesmen, moved by Macintosh's banter of theapparition, acquitted the accused solely, as Scott believes, becauseof the ghost and its newly-learned Gaelic. It is indeed extraordinarythat Prestongrange, the patron of David Balfour, allowed his witnessesto say what the ghost said, which certainly "is not evidence". SirWalter supposes that Macpherson and Mrs. MacHardie invented theapparition as an excuse for giving evidence. "The ghost's commands,according to Highland belief, were not to be disobeyed." Macphersonmust have known the facts "by ordinary means". We have seen thatClerk and Macdonald were at once suspected; there was "a clatter"against them. But Angus Cameron had not yet told his tale of what hesaw. Then who _did_ tell? Here comes in a curious piece of evidenceof the year 1896. A friend writes (29th December, 1896):--
