(_For the Mirror_.)
The fate of one of the sheriffs of this county, in former times,
merits notice, especially as connected with a ruin in the parish of
Eccliscraig, formerly a place of great strength, being erected on a
perpendicular and peninsulated rock, sixty feet above the sea, at the
mouth of a small rivulet. It was built in consequence of a murder
committed in the reign of James the First, and the circumstance
deserves to be recorded, as it affords a specimen of the barbarity of
the times. Melville, sheriff of Kincardineshire, had, by a vigorous
exercise of his authority, rendered himself so very obnoxious to the
barons of the county, that they had made repeated complaints to the
king. On the last of these occasions the king, in a fit of impatience,
happened to say to Barclay, of Mathers, "I wish that sheriff were
sodden and supped in brue." Barclay instantly withdrew, and reported
to his neighbours the king's words, which they resolved literally
to fulfil. Accordingly, the conspirators invited the unsuspecting
Melville to a hunting party in the forest of Garvock; where, having a
fire kindled, and a cauldron of water boiling on it, they rushed to
the spot, stripped the sheriff naked, and threw him headlong into
the boiling vessel: after which, on pretence of fulfilling the royal
mandate, each swallowed a spoonful of the broth. After this cannibal
feast, Barclay, to screen himself from the vengeance of the king,
built this fortress, which before the invention of gunpowder must have
been impregnable. Some of the conspirators were afterwards pardoned.
One of the pardons is said to be still in existence; and the reason
assigned for granting it is, that the conspirator was within the tenth
degree of kin to Macduff, thane of Fife.