CURIOUS TRIAL FOR MURDER. 273 



" Easy is my bed, it is easy ; 



But it is not to sleep that I incline : 

 The wind whistles northwards, northwards, 

 And my thoughts move with it." 



To this account of poachers and freebooters, already I 

 fear too long, I venture only to add a notice of a very 

 singular trial which took place at Edinburgh, on the 10th 

 of June, 1754. 



Duncan Terig, alias Clerk, and Alexander Bain Mac- 

 donald, both notorious poachers, and reputed freebooters, 

 were indicted at the instance of his Majesty's advocate, for 

 the murder of Arthur Davies, sergeant in General Guise's 

 regiment of foot, in the year 174 ( J. The trial, though not 

 of an unprecedented nature, involves a very curious point 

 of evidence, and was printed in 1831, at the expense of 

 Sir Walter Scott, and presented by him to the members 

 of the Bannatyne Club. Its circulation being thus limited, 

 I am glad of an opportunity of inserting Sir Walter's remarks 

 upon it, which are probably novel to the majority of the 

 public. 



" The cause of this trial," says Sir Walter, " bloody and 

 sad enough in its own nature, was one of the acts of 

 violence which were the natural consequences of the civil 

 war in 1745. 



" It was about three years after the battle of Culloden, 

 that this poor man, Sergeant Davies, was quartered, with 

 a small military party, in an uncommonly wild part of the 

 Highlands, near the country of the Farquharsons, as it is 

 called, and adjacent to that which is now the property of 

 the Earl of Fife. A more waste tract of mountain and 

 bog, rocks and ravines, extending from Dubrach to Glenshee, 



T 



