in the same condition_, that he discovered three Turkish ships.' 'The
rest who were in the same condition'! We are to understand that a
whole cargo of Harrisons was kidnapped and consigned captive to a
vessel launched on ocean, on the off chance that the captain might
meet three Turkish rovers who would snap them up. At this rate of
carrying on, there must have been disappearances as strange as
Harrison's, from dozens of English parishes, in August 1660. Had a
crew of kidnappers been taking captives for purposes of private fiscal
policy, they would have shipped them to the Virginian plantations,
where Turkish galleys did not venture, and they would not have
kidnapped men of seventy. Moreover, kidnappers would not damage their
captives by stabbing them in the side and thigh, when no resistance
was made, as was done to Harrison.
'The rest who were in the same condition' were 'dumped down' near
Smyrna, where the valuable Harrison was sold to 'a grave physician.'
'This Turk he' was eighty-seven years of age, and 'preferred Crowland
in Lincolnshire before all other places in England.' No inquiries are
known to have been made about a Turkish medical man who once practised
at Crowland in Lincolnshire, though, if he ever did, he was likely to
be remembered in the district. This Turk he employed Harrison in the
still room, and as a hand in the cotton fields, where he once knocked
his slave down with his fist--pretty well for a Turk of eighty-seven!
He also gave Harrison (whom he usually employed in the chemical
department of his business) 'a silver bowl, double gilt, to drink in,
and named him Boll'--his way of pronouncing bowl--no doubt he had
acquired a Lincolnshire accent.
This Turk fell ill on a Thursday, and died on Saturday, when Harrison
tramped to the nearest port, bowl and all. Two men in a Hamburg ship
refused to give him a passage, but a third, for the price of his
silver-gilt bowl, let him come aboard. Harrison was landed, without
even his bowl, at Lisbon, where he instantly met a man from Wisbech,
in Lincolnshire. This good Samaritan gave Harrison wine, strong
waters, eight stivers, and his passage to Dover, whence he came back
to Campden, much to the amazement of mankind. We do not hear the names
of the ship and skipper that brought Harrison from Lisbon to Dover.
Wrenshaw (the man to whom seven pounds 'were mentioned') is the only
person named in this delirious tissue of nonsense.
The editor of our pamphlet says, 'Many question the truth of this
account Mr. Harrison gives of himself, and his transportation,
believing he was never out of England.' I do not wonder at their
scepticism. Harrison had 'all his days been a man of sober life and
conversation,' we are told, and the odd thing is that he 'left behind
him a considerable sum of his Lady's money in his house.' He did not
see any of the Perrys on the night of his disappearance. The editor
admits that Harrison, as an article of merchandise, was not worth his
freight to Deal, still less to Smyrna. His son, in his absence, became
Lady Campden's steward, and behaved but ill in that situation. Some
suspected that this son arranged the kidnapping of Harrison, but, if
so, why did he secure the hanging of John Perry, in chains, on
Broadway hill, 'where he might daily see him'?
That might be a blind. But young Harrison could not expect John Perry
to assist him by accusing himself and his brother and mother, which
was the most unlooked-for event in the world. Nor could he know that
his father would come home from Charringworth on August 16, 1660, in
the dark, and so arrange for three horsemen, in possession of a heavy
weight of specie, to stab and carry off the aged sire. Young Harrison
had not a great fardel of money to give them, and if they were already
so rich, what had they to gain by taking Harrison to Deal, and putting
him, with 'others in the same condition,' on board a casual ship? They
could have left him in the 'stone-pit:' he knew not who they were, and
the longer they rode by daylight, with a hatless, handcuffed, and
sorely wounded prisoner, his pockets overburdened with gold, the more
risk of detection they ran. A company of three men ride, in broad
daylight, through England from Gloucestershire to Deal. Behind one of
them sits a wounded, _and hatless_, and handcuffed captive, his
pockets bulging with money. Nobody suspects anything, no one calls the
attention of a magistrate to this extraordinary _démarche_! It is too
absurd!
The story told by Harrison is conspicuously and childishly false. At
every baiting place, at every inn, these weird riders must have been
challenged. If Harrison told truth, he must have named the ship and
skipper that brought him to Dover.
Dismissing Harrison's myth, we ask, what could account for his
disappearance? He certainly walked, on the evening of August 16, to
within about half a mile of his house. He would not have done that had
he been bent on a senile amour involving his absence from home, and
had that scheme of pleasure been in his mind, he would have provided
himself with money. Again, a fit of 'ambulatory somnambulism,' and the
emergence of a split or secondary personality with forgetfulness of
his real name and address, is not likely to have seized on him at that
very moment and place. If it did, as there were no railways, he could
not rush off in a crowd and pass unnoticed through the country.
Once more, the theory of ambulatory somnambulism does not account for
his hacked hat and bloody band found near the whins on the road beyond
Ebrington. Nor does his own story account for them. He was stabbed in
the side and thigh, he says. This would not cut his hat or ensanguine
his band. On the other hand, he would leave pools and tracks of blood
on the road--'the high way.' 'But nothing more could there be found,'
no pools or traces of blood on the road. It follows that the hacked
hat and bloody band were a designed false trail, _not_ left there by
John Perry, as he falsely swore, but by some other persons.
The inference is that for some reason Harrison's presence at Campden
was inconvenient to somebody. He had lived through most troubled
times, and had come into a changed state of affairs with new masters.
He knew some secret of the troubled times: he was a witness better out
of the way. He may conceivably have held a secret that bore on the
case of one of the Regicides; or that affected private interests, for
he was the trusted servant of a great family. He was therefore
spirited away: a trail certainly false--the cut hat and bloody
band--was laid. By an amazing coincidence his servant, John Perry,
went more or less mad--he was not sane on the evening of Thursday,
August 16, and accused himself, his brother, and mother. Harrison was
probably never very far from Campden during the two or three years of
his disappearance. It was obviously made worth his while to tell his
absurd story on his return, and to accept the situation. No other
hypothesis 'colligates the facts.' What Harrison knew, why his absence
was essential, we cannot hope to discover. But he never was a captive
in 'famed Turkee.' Mr. Paget writes: 'It is impossible to assign a
sufficient motive for kidnapping the old man ... much profit was not
likely to arise from the sale of the old man as a slave.' Obviously
there was no profit, especially as the old man was delivered in a
wounded and imperfect condition. But a motive for keeping Harrison out
of the way is only hard to seek because we do not know the private
history of his neighbours. Roundheads among them may have had
excellent reasons, under the Restoration, for sequestering Harrison
till the revenges of the Restoration were accomplished. On this view
the mystery almost ceases to be mysterious, for such mad
self-accusations as that of John Perry are not uncommon.[7]
[Footnote 7: Not only have I failed to trace the records of the Assize
at which the Perrys were tried, but the newspapers of 1660 seem to
contain no account of the trial (as they do in the case of the Drummer
of Tedworth, 1663), and Miss E.M. Thompson, who kindly undertook the
search, has not even found a ballad or broadside on 'The Campden
Wonder' in the British Museum. The pamphlet of 1676 has frequently
been republished, in whole or in part, as in _State Trials_, vol.
xiv., in appendix to the case of Captain Green; which see, _infra_, p.
193, _et seq._]
IV
_THE CASE OF ALLAN BRECK_
Who killed the Red Fox? What was the secret that the Celts would not
communicate to Mr. R.L. Stevenson, when he was writing _Kidnapped_?
Like William of Deloraine, 'I know but may not tell'; at least, I know
all that the Celt knows. The great-grandfather and grandfather of a
friend of mine were with James Stewart of the Glens, the victim of
Hanoverian injustice, in a potato field, near the road from
Ballachulish Ferry to Appin, when they heard a horse galloping at a
break-neck pace. 'Whoever the rider is,' said poor James, 'he is not
riding his own horse.' The galloper shouted, 'Glenure has been shot!'
'Well,' said James to his companion, 'whoever did it, I am the man
that will hang for it.'
Hanged he was. The pit in which his gibbet stood is on the crest of a
circular 'knowe,' or hummock, on the east side of the Ballachulish
Hotel, overlooking the ferry across the narrows, where the tide runs
like a great swift river.
I have had the secret from two sources; the secret which I may not
tell. One informant received it from his brother, who, when he came
to man's estate, was taken apart by his uncle. 'You are old enough to
know now,' said that kinsman, 'and I tell you that it may not be
forgotten.' The gist of the secret is merely what one might gather
from the report of the trial, that though Allan Breck was concerned in
the murder of Campbell of Glenure, he was not alone in it.
The truth is, according to tradition, that as Glenure rode on the
fatal day from Fort William to his home in Appin, the way was lined
with marksmen of the Camerons of Lochaber, lurking with their guns
among the brushwood and behind the rocks. But their hearts failed
them, no trigger was drawn, and when Glenure landed on the Appin side
of the Ballachulish Ferry, he said, 'I am safe now that I am out of my
mother's country,' his mother having been of clan Cameron. But he had
to reckon with the man with the gun, who was lurking in the wood of
Letter More ('the great hanging coppice'), about three-quarters of a
mile on the Appin side of Ballachulish Ferry. The gun was not one of
the two dilapidated pieces shown at the trial of James of the Glens,
nor, I am told, was it the Fasnacloich gun. The real homicidal gun was
found some years ago in a hollow tree. People remember these things
well in Appin and Glencoe, though the affair is a hundred and fifty
years old, and though there are daily steamers bringing the
newspapers. There is even a railway, not remarkable for speed, while
tourists, English, French, and American, are for ever passing to view
Glencoe, and to write their names in the hotel book after luncheon,
then flying to other scenes. There has even been a strike of long
duration at the Ballachulish Quarries, and Labour leaders have
perorated to the Celts; but Gaelic is still spoken, second sight is
nearly as common as short sight, you may really hear the fairy music
if you bend your ear, on a still day, to the grass of the fairy knowe.
Only two generations back a fairy boy lived in a now ruinous house,
noted in the story of the Massacre of Glencoe, beside the brawling
river: and a woman, stolen by the fairies, returned for an hour to her
husband, who became very unpopular, as he neglected the means for her
rescue; I think he failed to throw a dirk over her shoulder. Every now
and then mysterious lights may be seen, even by the Sassenach,
speeding down the road to Callart on the opposite side of the narrow
sea-loch, ascending the hill, and running down into the salt water.
The causes of these lights, and of the lights on the burial isle of
St. Mun, in the middle of the sea strait, remain a mystery. Thus the
country is still a country of prehistoric beliefs and of fairly
accurate traditions. For example, at the trial of James Stewart for
the murder of Glenure, one MacColl gave damaging evidence, the
MacColls being a sept subordinate to the MacIans or Macdonalds of
Glencoe, who, by the way, had no hand in the murder. Till recently
these MacColls were still disliked for the part played by the
witness, and were named 'King George's MacColls.'
[Illustration: map]
But we must come to the case of Allan Breck. To understand it, some
knowledge of topography is necessary. Leaving Oban by steamer, you
keep on the inside of the long narrow island of Lismore, and reach the
narrow sea inlet of Loch Creran on your right. The steamer does not
enter it, but, taking a launch or a boat, you go down Loch Creran. On
your left is the peninsula of Appin; its famous green hills occupy the
space bounded by Loch Creran on the south and Glencoe on the north.
Landing near the head of Loch Creran, a walk of two miles takes you to
the old house of Fasnacloich, where Allan Breck was wont to stay. Till
two or three years ago it belonged to the Stewarts of Fasnacloich,
cadets of the chief, the Laird of Appin; all Appin was a Stewart
country and loyal to the King over the Water, their kinsman. About a
mile from Fasnacloich, further inland, is the rather gloomy house of
Glenure, the property of Campbell of Glenure, the Red Fox who was shot
on the road under Letter More. Walking across the peninsula to Appin
House, you pass Acharn in Duror, the farm of James Stewart of the
Glens, himself an illegitimate kinsman of the Laird of Appin. To the
best of my memory the cottage is still standing, and has a new roof of
corrugated iron. It is an ordinary Highland cottage, and Allan, when
he stayed with James, his kinsman and guardian, slept in the barn.
Appin House is a large plain country house, close to the sea. Further
north-east, the house of Ardshiel, standing high above the sea, is
visible from the steamer going to Fort William. At Ardshiel, Rob Roy
fought a sword and target duel with the laird, and Ardshiel led the
Stewarts in the rising of 1745; Appin, the chief, held aloof. The next
place of importance is Ballachulish House, also an old house of
Stewart of Ballachulish. It is on the right hand of the road from
Ballachulish Pier to Glencoe, beneath a steep wooded hill, down which
runs the burn where Allan Breck was fishing on the morning of the day
of Glenure's murder, done at a point on the road three-quarters of a
mile to the south-west of Ballachulish House, where Allan had slept on
the previous night. From the house the road passes on the south side
of the salt Loch Leven (not Queen Mary's Loch Leven). Here is
Ballachulish Ferry, crossing to Lochaber. Following the road you come
opposite the House of Carnoch, then possessed by Macdonalds (the house
has been pulled down; there is a good recent ghost story about that
business), and the road now enters Glencoe. On high hills, well to the
left of the road and above Loch Leven, are Corrynakeigh and
Coalisnacoan (the Ferry of the Dogs), overtopping the narrows of Loch
Leven. Just opposite the House of Carnoch, on the Cameron side of Loch
Leven, is the House of Callart (Mrs. Cameron Lucy's). Here and at
Carnoch, as at Fasnacloich, Acharn, and Ballachulish, Allan Breck was
much at home among his cousins.
From Loch Leven north to Fort William, with its English garrison, all
is a Cameron country. Campbell of Glenure was an outpost of Whiggery
and Campbells, in a land of loyal Stewarts, Camerons, and Macdonalds
or MacIans of Glencoe. Of the Camerons, the gentle Lochiel had died in
France; his son, a boy, was abroad; the interests of the clan were
represented by Cameron of Fassifern, Lochiel's uncle, living a few
miles west by north of Fort William. Fassifern, a well-educated man
and a burgess of Glasgow, had not been out with Prince Charles, but
(for reasons into which I would rather not enter) was not well trusted
by Government. Ardshiel, also, was in exile, and his tenants, under
James Stewart of the Glens, loyally paid rent to him, as well as to
the commissioners of his forfeited estates. The country was seething
with feuds among the Camerons themselves, due to the plundering by
----, of ----, of the treasure left by Prince Charles in the hands of
Cluny. The state of affairs was such that the English commander in
Fort William declared that, if known, it 'would shock even Lochaber
consciences.' 'A great ox hath trodden on my tongue' as to _this_
business. Despite the robbery of Prince Charles's gold, deep poverty
prevailed.
In February, 1749, Campbell of Glenure had been appointed Factor for
Government over the forfeited estates of Ardshiel (previously managed
by James Stewart of the Glens), of Lochiel, and of Callart. In the
summer of 1751, Glenure evicted James from a farm, and in April, 1752,
took measures for evicting other farmers on Ardshiel estates. Such
measures were almost unheard of in the country, and had, years
before, caused some agrarian outrages among Gordons and Camerons;
these were appeased by the King over the Water, James VIII. and III.
James Stewart, in April, 1752, went to Edinburgh, and obtained a legal
sist, or suspension of the evictions, against Glenure, which was
withdrawn on Glenure's application, who came home from Edinburgh, and
intended to turn the tenants out on May 15, 1752. They were assailed
merely as of Jacobite name and tendencies. Meanwhile Allan Breck--who
had deserted the Hanoverian army after Prestonpans, had joined Prince
Charles, fought at Culloden, escaped to France, and entered the French
army--was lodging about Appin among his cousins, perhaps doing a
little recruiting for King Louis. He was a tall thin man, marked with
smallpox.
Cruising about the country also was another Jacobite soldier, 'the
Sergent More,' a Cameron, later betrayed by ----, of ----, who robbed
the Prince's hoard of gold. But the Sergeant More had nothing to do,
as has been fancied, with the murder of Glenure. The state of the
country was ticklish; Prince Charles expected to invade with Swedish
forces, under the famous Marshal Keith, by the connivance of Frederick
the Great, and he had sent Lochgarry, with Dr. Archibald Cameron and
others, to feel the pulse of the western clans. As Government knew all
about these intrigues from Pickle the Spy, they were evicting Jacobite
tenants from Ardshiel's lands, and meant to do the same, by agency of
Campbell of Glenure, in Lochaber, Lochiel's country.
On Monday, May 11, Campbell, who intended to do the evictions on May
15, left Glenure for Fort William, on business; the distance is
computed at sixteen miles, by the old hill road. Allan Breck, on the
11th, was staying at Fasnacloich, near Glenure, where the fishing is
very good. When Glenure moved north to Fort William, Allan went to
James Stewart's cottage of Acharn. Glenure's move was talked of, and
that evening Allan changed his own blue coat, scarlet vest, and black
velvet breeches for a dark short coat with silver buttons, a blue
bonnet, and trousers (the Highlanders had been diskilted), all
belonging to James Stewart. He usually did make these changes when
residing with friends. In these clothes next day (Tuesday, May 12)
Allan, with young Fasnacloich, walked to Carnoch, the house of
Macdonald of Glencoe, situated just where the Water of Coe or Cona
enters Loch Leven. The dowager of the house was natural sister of
James of the Glens, and full sister of the exiled Stewart of Ardshiel.
From Carnoch, Allan, on the same day, crossed the sea-strait to
Callart opposite, where Mrs. Cameron was another half-sister to James
of the Glens. On Wednesday Allan recrossed, called at Carnoch, and
went to stay at Ballachulish House. On Thursday, when Glenure would
certainly return home by Ballachulish Ferry, Allan, about mid-day, was
seen to go fishing up Ballachulish burn, where he caught no trout,
and I do not wonder at it.
The theory of the prosecution was that, from the high ground to the
left of the burn he watched the ferry, having one or two guns, though
how he got them unobserved to the place is the difficulty; he could
not have walked the roads from Acharn unobserved with a gun, for the
Highlanders had been disarmed. At this point he must have had the
assistance and the gun of _the other man_. Allan came down from the
hill, asked the ferryman if Glenure had crossed, and returned to his
point of observation. About five o'clock in the afternoon, Glenure,
with a nephew of his, Mungo Campbell, a 'writer' or solicitor, crossed
the ferry, and was greeted and accompanied for three-quarters of a
mile on his homeward way by old Stewart of Ballachulish, who turned
back and went to his house. A sheriff's officer walked ahead of
Glenure, who, like Mungo, was mounted. Behind both, mounted, was
Campbell's servant, John Mackenzie. The old road was (and is) a rough
track, through thick coppice. There came a shot, and Glenure, pierced
by two balls, fell and died.
John Mackenzie, Glenure's servant, now rode onwards at a great gallop
to find Campbell of Ballieveolan, and on his way came to Acharn and
met James Stewart, with the two ancestors of my friend, as already
described. He gave the news to James, who 'wrung his hands and
expressed great concern at what had happened, as what might bring
innocent people to trouble.' In fact, he had once, or oftener, when
drinking, expressed a desire to have a shot at Glenure, and so had
Allan. But James was a worthy, sensible man when sober, and must have
known that, while he could not frighten the commissioners of forfeited
estates by shooting their agent, he was certain to be suspected if
their agent was shot. As a matter of fact, as we shall see, he had
taken active steps to secure the presence of a Fort William solicitor
at the evictions on Friday, May 15, to put in a legal protest. But he
thought it unadvisable to walk three or four miles and look after
Glenure's corpse; the Highlanders, to this day, have a strong dread or
dislike of corpses. That night James bade his people hide his arms,
four swords, a long Spanish gun, and a shorter gun, neither of which
weapons, in fact, did the trick, nor could be depended on not to miss
fire.
Where, meanwhile, was Allan? In the dusk, above Ballachulish House, he
was seen by Kate MacInnes, a maid of the house; they talked of the
murder, and she told Donald Stewart, a very young man, son-in-law of
Ballachulish, where Allan was out on the hillside. Donald Stewart
averred that, on hearing from Kate that Allan wanted to see him (Kate
denied that she said this), he went to the hill, accused Allan of the
crime, and was told, in reply, that Allan was innocent, though, as a
deserter from the Hanoverian army, and likely to be suspected, he must
flee the country. Other talk passed, to which we shall return. At
three in the morning of Friday, May 15, Allan knocked at the window
of Carnoch House (Glencoe's), passed the news, was asked no questions,
refused a drink and made for the sheiling, or summer hut, high on the
hill side of Coalisnacoan, whence you look down on the narrows of Loch
Leven.
There we leave Allan for the moment, merely remarking that he had no
money, no means of making his escape. As he is supposed by the
prosecution to have planned the slaying of Glenure with James Stewart
on May 11, it seems plain that James would then have given him money
to use in his escape, or, if he had no money by him, would have sent
at once to Fort William or elsewhere to raise it. He did not do this,
and neither at Carnoch, Callart, nor Ballachulish House did Allan
receive any money.