Alexander Chalmer, messenger, went on the 27th of September to deliver letters to the Laird of Gight and others, commanding them to appear and answer for these frightful outrages. He was returning quietly from the house, ‘lippening for nae harm or pursuit,’ when he found himself followed by a number of armed servants, and was presently seized and dragged before the laird. The ferocious baron clapped a pistol to the man’s breast, and seemed of intent to shoot him, when some one mercifully put aside the weapon. ‘He then harlit him within his hall, took the copy of the said letters, whilk he supposed to have been the principal letters, and cast them in a dish of broe [broth], and forcit the officer to sup and swallow them,’ holding a dagger at the heart all the time. Afterwards, the laird, being informed that the principal letters were yet extant, ‘came to the officer in a new rage and fury, rave the principal letters out of his sleeve, rave them in pieces, and cast them in the fire.’
1601.
When King James was at Brechin in the latter part of October, the Laird of Gight failing to appear to answer for these outrages, a horning was launched against him. At the same time, the young laird was accused of having reset John Hamilton, a notorious trafficking Jesuit, and was commanded to enter himself in ward in Montrose on that account. Surety was given that he would do so. A few days later, the Privy Council took into consideration the Turriff outrages, and commissioned the Earl of Errol to raise a body of men in arms to proceed against the Gordons and their abettors, but not till the 15th of November. How the matter ended, does not appear; but for further matters concerning the Gight Gordons, see under date 20th January 1607.
Sep. or Oct.
Among the many men of name pursuing lawless and violent courses, one of the most noted was George Meldrum, younger, of Dumbreck. In 1599, he set upon his brother Andrew at the Milltown of Dumbreck, and wounded him grievously, after which he carried him away, and detained him as a prisoner for several weeks. In the ensuing year, he had committed a similar attack upon Andrew Meldrum of Auchquharties, conveying him as a malefactor from Aberdeenshire to the house of one Fyfe, on the Burgh-moor of Edinburgh, where he was kept several days, and till he contrived to make his escape. Law and private vengeance were alike devoid of terror to this young bravo, who seems never to have had any difficulty in procuring associates to assist him in his outrageous proceedings.
1601.
About the time here noted, he entered upon an enterprise partaking of the romantic, and which has actually been the subject of ballad celebration, though under a mistake as to his name and condition in life. Mr Alexander Gibson, one of the clerks of Session, and who subsequently was eminent as a judge under the designation of Lord Durie, was, for some reason which does not appear, honoured with the malice of young Dumbreck. Possibly, there was some legal case pending or concluded in which Gibson stood opposed to the interests of the brigand. However it was, Gibson was living quietly at St Andrews—he being a landed gentleman of Fife—when Meldrum, tracking him by a spy, learned one day that he was riding with a friend and a servant on the water-side opposite Dundee. Accompanied by a suitable party, consisting of two Jardines, a Johnston—border thieves, probably—one called John Kerr, son to the Tutor of Graden, and Alexander Bartilmo, with two foot-boys, all armed with sword, hagbuts, and pistols, he set upon Mr Gibson and his friend in a furious manner, compelling them to surrender to him as prisoners; after which he robbed them of their purses, containing about three hundred merks in gold and silver, and hurried them southward to the ferry of Kinghorn. There, having liberated the friend and servant, he conducted Mr Gibson across the Firth of Forth, probably using some means, such as muffling of the face, to prevent his prisoner from being recognised. At least, we can scarcely suppose that, even in that turbulent age, it would have been possible otherwise to conduct so important and well-known a man as an involuntary prisoner to the house of William Kay in Leith, and thence past the palace of Holyroodhouse through the whole county of Edinburgh, and thence again to Melrose, for such was the course they took. Before entering Melrose, Meldrum divided the money they had taken between himself and his accomplices, each getting about twenty merks. He then conducted Mr Gibson across the Border, landing him in the castle of Harbottle, which appears to have then been the residence of one George Ratcliff; and here the stolen lawyer was kept in strict durance for eight days.[272] We may here adopt something of the traditionary story, as preserved by Sir Walter Scott: ‘He was imprisoned and solitary; receiving his food through an aperture in the wall, and never hearing the sound of a human voice save when a shepherd called his dog by the name of Batty, and when a female domestic called upon Madge, the cat. These, he concluded, were invocations of spirits, for he held himself to be in the dungeon of a sorcerer.’[273]
1601.
How Mr Gibson was liberated, we do not learn. During his absence, his wife and children mourned him as dead.[274] George Meldrum contrived, in November 1603, to gain forcible possession of his brother Andrew’s house of Dumbreck; and there he hoped to set law at defiance. The case, however, was too clamant to allow of his escaping in this manner. A party of his majesty’s guard being sent to Aberdeen for his capture, the citizens added a force of sixteen men, with a commander, and then a regular siege was established round the den of the outlaw. Being compelled to submit, he was carried to Edinburgh; and subjected to a trial, which ended in his having the head struck from his body at the Cross, January 12, 1604.