Beneath the gallows tree.
There was, however, an earlier celebration of the robber’s hardihood on a broadside, a copy of which will be found in Herd’s Collection of Scottish Songs (1776). See also a curious volume, entitled Scottish Ballads and Songs (Edinburgh, T. G. Stevenson, 1859).
A long two-handed sword is shewn in Duff House, the seat of the Earl of Fife, as that of Macpherson. It is a formidable weapon, 4 feet 3 inches long, and having a wavy-edged blade. It is obviously a mediæval weapon, yet, of course, may have been used in a later age.
March 4, 1701.—There was a petition to the Privy Council from Peter and Donald Brown, prisoners in the Tolbooth of Banff, representing that they had been condemned solely as ‘repute vagabond Egyptians,’ to be hanged on the 2d April. They claimed a longer day, ‘either for their relief or due preparation;’ and the Lords granted reprieve till the second Wednesday of June.
[286]. Edinburgh Encyclopædia, article ‘Steam-engine.’
[287]. Acts of S. Parl., x. 267.
[288]. Privy Council Record.
[289]. See a more remarkable case of the disappearance of a gentleman under March 1709.
[290]. See account for ‘Mrs Margaret’s wadding-cloaths,’ given in full in the Edinburgh Magazine for October 1817.
[291]. Memoir by Elizabeth Mure of Caldwell Caldwell Papers, i. 264.