THE TRIAL. 131 



those lands or any part thereof, and from allowing their sheep, horses, 

 or cattle, to stray thereon, or on part thereon ; and, finally, they were 

 interdicted from obstructing, molesting, or interfering with the com- 

 plainers in the occupation of the lands or farm, or with their tenants, 

 dependants, or servants. I regret to say that I have come to the 

 conclusion, and come to the conclusion without the smallest difficulty, 

 that the respondents have each and all of them been guilty of a 

 violation of the order of the Court. It is necessary that reference be 

 made to some of the observations that have fallen from my friend, the 

 Dean of Faculty, to inquire what was the duty and obligation which the 

 order of this Court laid upon the respondents. Tt has been said that 

 the landlord's fences upon Waterstein ground were not in a sufficient or 

 proper condition. That element does not appear to me to have a 

 material bearing on this question. The order of the Court required, on 

 the part of the respondents, something active to be done. They were 

 required to refrain from trespassing, to take steps to prevent their sheep 

 from going upon these lands, and, again, to refrain from molesting 

 the servants the shepherds of the complainers in the performance of 

 the duty which they owed to their employers ; and it is no answer to the 

 complaint to say that obligation and duty has been neglected because 

 there was a want of fencing on the part of the landlords. It is true, if 

 the respondents had been in a position to say, "We did our best to 

 fulfil the order of the Court, but in consequence of the fences on the 

 landlord's march all our efforts were unavailing, our sheep have strayed 

 to Waterstein," of course there could be no reasonable complaint made 

 against them. But the case that is presented is not one of that kind. 

 The case presented by the complainers is that although that order of 

 the Court was intimated to the respondents, and known to them, they 

 deliberately and wilfully set it at defiance. In regard to the other two 

 branches of this interdict, of the respondents allowing their sheep to go 

 from Milovaig to Waterstein, I think the case is clearly proved as 

 against two of the respondents now at the bar I mean John Macpher- 

 son and John Morrison. There is a second matter to which I have 

 referred, and it is also of a very serious kind. The charge there is, that 

 those respondents, in conjunction with others, were guilty of interfering 

 with and obstructing the complainers' shepherds in the performance of 

 their duty. While, no doubt, that raises a separate and additional point, 

 I must observe that it enters very fully into the first point with which I 

 have already dealt, because, even if it be the fact that there was a want 

 of fencing or a deficiency of fencing, all the more was it necessary, when 

 an interdict of this kind was granted, that the persons complained against 



