The book of Scottish story

by Various

This suggested to Muir a diabolical plot. Having thus received tidings of Sir Thomas Kennedy’s motions, he conceived the infernal purpose of having the confiding friend who sent the information waylaid and murdered at the place appointed to meet with him, not only in friendship, but for the purpose of rendering him service. He dismissed the messenger Dalrymple, cautioning the lad to carry back the letter to Maybole, and to say that he had not found him, Auchindrane, in his house. Having taken this precaution, he proceeded to instigate the brother of the slain Gilbert of Barganie, Thomas Kennedy of Drumurghie by name, and Walter Muir of Cloncaird, a kinsman of his own, to take this opportunity of revenging Barganie’s death. The fiery young men were easily induced to undertake the crime. They waylaid the unsuspecting Sir Thomas of Culleyne at the place appointed to meet the traitor Auchindrane, and the murderers having in company five or six servants well mounted and armed, assaulted and cruelly murdered him with many wounds.

The revenge due for his uncle’s murder was keenly pursued by the Earl of Cassilis. As the murderers fled from trial, they were declared outlaws; which doom being pronounced by three blasts of a horn, was called “being put to the horn, and declared the king’s rebel.” Muir of Auchindrane was strongly suspected of having been the instigator of the crime. But he conceived there could be no evidence to prove his guilt if he could keep the boy Dalrymple out of the way, who delivered the letter which made him acquainted with Culleyne’s journey, and the place at which he meant to halt. Muir brought Dalrymple to his house, but the youth tiring of this confinement, Muir sent him to reside with a friend, Montgomery of Skelmorley, who maintained him under a borrowed name amid the desert regions of the then almost savage island of Arran. Being confident in the absence of this material witness, Auchindrane, instead of flying like his agents Drumurghie and Cloncaird, presented himself boldly at the bar, demanded a fair trial, and offered his person in combat to the death against any of Lord Cassilis’ friends who might impugn his innocence. This audacity was successful, and he was dismissed without trial.

Still, however, Muir did not consider himself safe so long as Dalrymple was within the realm of Scotland; and the danger grew more pressing, when he learned that the lad had become impatient of the restraint which he sustained in the island of Arran, and returned to some of his friends in Ayrshire. Muir no sooner heard of this than he again obtained possession of the boy’s person, and a second time concealed him in Auchindrane, until he found an opportunity to transport him to the Low Countries, where he contrived to have him enlisted in Buccleuch’s regiment; trusting, doubtless, that some one of the numerous chances of war might destroy the poor young man whose life was so dangerous to him.

But after five or six years’ uncertain safety, bought at the expense of so much violence and cunning, Auchindrane’s fears were exasperated with frenzy, when he found this dangerous witness, having escaped from all the perils of climate and battle, had left, or been discharged from, the Legion of Borderers, and had again accomplished his return to Ayrshire. There is ground to suspect that Dalrymple knew the nature of the hold which he possessed over Auchindrane, and was desirous of extorting from his fears some better provision than he had found either in Arran or the Netherlands. But, if so, it was a fatal experiment to tamper with the fears of such a man as Auchindrane, who determined to rid himself effectually of this unhappy young man.

Muir now lodged him in a house of his own, called Chapeldonan, tenanted by a vassal and connection of his, named James Bannatyne. This man he commissioned to meet him at ten o’clock at night, on the sea-sands, near Girvan, and bring with him the unfortunate Dalrymple, the object of his fear and dread. The victim seems to have come with Bannatyne without the least suspicion. When Bannatyne and Dalrymple came to the appointed spot, Auchindrane met them, accompanied by his eldest son James. Old Auchindrane, having taken Bannatyne aside, imparted his bloody purpose of ridding himself of Dalrymple for ever, by murdering him on the spot. His own life and honour were, he said, endangered by the manner in which this inconvenient witness repeatedly thrust himself back into Ayrshire, and nothing could secure his safety but taking the lad’s life, in which action he requested James Bannatyne’s assistance. Bannatyne felt some compunction, and remonstrated against the cruel expedient, saying it would be better to transport Dalrymple to Ireland, and take precautions against his return. While old Auchindrane seemed disposed to listen to this proposal, his son concluded that the time was come for accomplishing the purpose of their meeting, and without waiting the termination of his father’s conference with Bannatyne, he rushed suddenly on Dalrymple, beat him to the ground, and kneeling down upon him, with his father’s assistance accomplished the crime, by strangling the unhappy object of their fear and jealousy. Bannatyne, the witness, and partly the accomplice, of the murder, assisted them in their attempt to make a hole in the sand with a spade which they had brought on purpose, in order to conceal the dead body. But as the tide was coming in, the hole which they made filled with water before they could get the body buried; and the ground seemed, to their terrified consciences, to refuse to be accessory to concealing their crime. Despairing of hiding the corpse in the manner they proposed, the murderers carried it out into the sea as deep as they dared wade, and there abandoned it to the billows, trusting that the wind, which was blowing off the shore, would drive these remains of their crime out to sea, where they would never more be heard of. But the sea, as well as the land, seemed unwilling to conceal their cruelty. After floating for some hours, or days, the body was, by the wind and tide, again driven on shore, near the very spot where the murder had been committed.

This attracted general attention; and when the corpse was known to be that of the same William Dalrymple whom Auchindrane had so often spirited out of the country, or concealed when he was in it, a strong and general suspicion arose that this young person had met with foul play from the bold bad man, who had shown himself so much interested in his absence. Auchindrane, indeed, found himself so much the object of suspicion from this new crime that he resolved to fly from justice, and suffer himself to be declared a rebel and an outlaw rather than face a trial. He accordingly sought to provide himself with some ostensible cause for avoiding the law, with which the feelings of his kindred and friends might sympathise; and none occurred to him as so natural as an assault upon some friend and adherent of the Earl of Cassilis. Should he kill such a one, it would be indeed an unlawful action, but so far from being infamous, would be accounted the natural consequence of the avowed quarrel between the families. With this purpose, Muir, with the assistance of a relative, of whom he seems always to have had some ready to execute his worst purposes, beset Hugh Kennedy of Garriehorne, a follower of the earl, against whom they had especial ill-will, fired their pistols at him, and used other means to put him to death. But Garriehorne, a stout-hearted man and well-armed, defended himself in a very different manner from the unfortunate knight of Culleyne, and beat off the assailants, wounding young Auchindrane in the right hand, so that he wellnigh lost the use of it.

But though Auchindrane’s purpose did not entirely succeed, he availed himself of it to circulate a report that if he could obtain a pardon for firing upon his feudal enemy with pistols, weapons declared unlawful by Act of Parliament, he would willingly stand his trial for the death of Dalrymple, respecting which he protested his total innocence. The king, however, was decidedly of opinion that the Muirs, both father and son, were alike guilty of both crimes, and used intercession with the Earl of Abercorn, as a person of power in these western counties, as well as in Ireland, to arrest and transmit them prisoners to Edinburgh. In consequence of the Earl’s exertions, old Auchindrane was made prisoner, and lodged in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh.

Young Auchindrane no sooner heard that his father was in custody, than he became as apprehensive of Bannatyne, the accomplice in Dalrymple’s murder, telling tales, as ever his father had been of Dalrymple. He therefore hastened to him, and prevailed on him to pass over for a while to the neighbouring coast of Ireland, finding him money and means to accomplish the voyage, and engaging in the meantime to take care of his affairs in Scotland. Secure, as they thought, in this precaution, old Auchindrane persisted in his innocence, and his son found security to stand his trial. Both appeared with the same confidence at the day appointed. The trial was, however, postponed, and Muir the elder dismissed, under high security to return when called for.

But King James, being convinced of the guilt of the accused, ordered young Auchindrane, instead of being sent to trial, to be examined under the force of torture, in order to compel him to tell whatever he knew of the things charged against him. He was accordingly severely tortured; but the result only served to show that such examinations are as useless as they are cruel.

Young Auchindrane, a strong and determined ruffian, endured the torture with the utmost firmness, and by the constant audacity with which, in spite of the intolerable pain, he continued to assert his innocence, he spread so favourable an opinion of his case, that the detaining him in prison, instead of bringing him to open trial, was censured as severe and oppressive. James, however, remained firmly persuaded of his guilt, and by an exertion of authority quite inconsistent with our present laws, commanded young Auchindrane to be still detained in close custody till further light could be thrown on these dark proceedings.