CURIOUS TRIAL FOR MURDER. 213 



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

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

 regiment ot foot, in the year 1749. 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 insertingSir Walter'sremarks 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, 

 I'ocks and ravines, extending from Dubrach to Glenshee, 

 without habitations of any kind, until you reach Glen- 

 Clunie, is scarcely to be met with in Scotland. A more fit 

 locality therefore, for a deed of murder could hardly be 

 pointed out, nor one which could tend more to agitate 

 superstitious feelings. The hill of Christie, on which the 

 murder was actually committed, is a local name, which is 

 probnbly known in the country, though the Editor has been 

 unable to discover it more specially, but it certainly forms 

 part of the ridge to which the general description applies. 

 Davies was attached to the country where he had his 

 residence, by the great plenty of sport which it afforded ; 

 and when dispatched upon duty across these mountains, he 

 usually went at some distance from his men, and followed 

 his game, without regarding the hints thrown out about 

 danger from the country people. To this he was exposed, 

 not only from his being entrusted with the odious office of 

 depriving the people of their arms and national dress, but 

 still more, from his usually carrying about with him a stock 

 of money and valuables, considerable for the timeaud period, 

 and enough of itself to be a temptation to his murder. 



