“Describe the place where the corpses were lying.”
“It is a deep cleuch, wi’ a sma’ sheep rodding through the linn not a foot wide; and if ye war to stite aff that, ye wad gang to the boddom o’ the linn wi’ a flaip.”
“Were the bodies then lying in the bottom of that linn?”
“Odd help ye, whar could they be lying else?—D’ye think they could lie on the Cleuch–brae? Ye might as weel think to lie on the side o’ that wa’ gin ye war dead.”
“How did it appear to you that they had been slain—were they cut with swords, or pierced with bullets?”
“I canna say, but they war sair hashed.”
“How do you mean when you say they were hashed?”
“Champit like—a’ broozled and jurmummled, as it war.”
“Do you mean that they were cut, or cloven, or minced?”
“Na, na—no that ava—But they had gotten some sair doofs—They had been terribly paikit and daddit wi’ something.”