But see, his face is black and full of blood;
His eye-balls farther out than when he lived,
Staring full ghastly like a strangled man,
His hair uprear'd, his nostrils stretch d with struggling,
His hands abroad display'd, as one that grasp'd
And tugg'd for life, and was by strength subdued
Henry VI, Part II
The Sheriff-depute of the county arrived at Ellangowan next morning by
daybreak. To this provincial magistrate the law of Scotland assigns
judicial powers of considerable extent, and the task of inquiring into
all crimes committed within his jurisdiction, the apprehension and
commitment of suspected persons, and so forth. [Footnote: The Scottish
sheriff discharges, on such occasions as that now mentioned, pretty
much the same duty as a coroner.]
The gentleman who held the office in the shire of---at the time of this
catastrophe was well born and well educated; and, though somewhat
pedantic and professional in his habits, he enjoyed general respect as
an active and intelligent magistrate. His first employment was to
examine all witnesses whose evidence could throw light upon this
mysterious event, and make up the written report, proces verbal, or
precognition, as it is technically called, which the practice of
Scotland has substituted for a coroner's inquest. Under the Sheriff's
minute and skilful inquiry, many circumstances appeared which seemed
incompatible with the original opinion that Kennedy had accidentally
fallen from the cliffs. We shall briefly detail some of these.
The body had been deposited in a neighbouring fisher-hut, but without
altering the condition in which it was found. This was the first object
of the Sheriff's examination. Though fearfully crushed and mangled by
the fall from such a height, the corpse was found to exhibit a deep cut
in the head, which, in the opinion of a skilful surgeon, must have been
inflicted by a broadsword or cutlass. The experience of this gentleman
discovered other suspicious indications. The face was much blackened,
the eyes distorted, and the veins of the neck swelled. A coloured
handkerchief, which the unfortunate man had worn round his neck, did
not present the usual appearance, but was much loosened, and the knot
displaced and dragged extremely tight; the folds were also compressed,
as if it had been used as a means of grappling the deceased, and
dragging him perhaps to the precipice.
On the other hand, poor Kennedy's purse was found untouched; and, what
seemed yet more extraordinary, the pistols which he usually carried
when about to encounter any hazardous adventure were found in his
pockets loaded. This appeared particularly strange, for he was known
and dreaded by the contraband traders as a man equally fearless and
dexterous in the use of his weapons, of which he had given many signal
proofs. The Sheriff inquired whether Kennedy was not in the practice of
carrying any other arms? Most of Mr. Bertram's servants recollected
that he generally had a couteau de chasse, or short hanger, but none
such was found upon the dead body; nor could those who had seen him on
the morning of the fatal day take it upon them to assert whether he
then carried that weapon or not.
The corpse afforded no other indicia respecting the fate of Kennedy;
for, though the clothes were much displaced and the limbs dreadfully
fractured, the one seemed the probable, the other the certain,
consequences of such a fall. The hands of the deceased were clenched
fast, and full of turf and earth; but this also seemed equivocal.
The magistrate then proceeded to the place where the corpse was first
discovered, and made those who had found it give, upon the spot, a
particular and detailed account of the manner in which it was lying. A
large fragment of the rock appeared to have accompanied, or followed,
the fall of the victim from the cliff above. It was of so solid and
compact a substance that it had fallen without any great diminution by
splintering; so that the Sheriff was enabled, first, to estimate the
weight by measurement, and then to calculate, from the appearance of
the fragment, what portion of it had been bedded into the cliff from
which it had descended. This was easily detected by the raw appearance
of the stone where it had not been exposed to the atmosphere. They then
ascended the cliff, and surveyed the place from whence the stony
fragment had fallen. It seemed plain, from the appearance of the bed,
that the mere weight of one man standing upon the projecting part of
the fragment, supposing it in its original situation, could not have
destroyed its balance and precipitated it, with himself, from the
cliff. At the same time, it appeared to have lain so loose that the use
of a lever, or the combined strength of three or four men, might easily
have hurled it from its position. The short turf about the brink of the
precipice was much trampled, as if stamped by the heels of men in a
mortal struggle, or in the act of some violent exertion. Traces of the
same kind, less visibly marked, guided the sagacious investigator to
the verge of the copsewood, which in that place crept high up the bank
towards the top of the precipice.
With patience and perseverance they traced these marks into the
thickest part of the copse, a route which no person would have
voluntarily adopted, unless for the purpose of concealment. Here they
found plain vestiges of violence and struggling, from space to space.
Small boughs were torn down, as if grasped by some resisting wretch who
was dragged forcibly along; the ground, where in the least degree soft
or marshy, showed the print of many feet; there were vestiges also
which might be those of human blood. At any rate it was certain that
several persons must have forced their passage among the oaks, hazels,
and underwood with which they were mingled; and in some places appeared
traces as if a sack full of grain, a dead body, or something of that
heavy and solid description, had been dragged along the ground. In one
part of the thicket there was a small swamp, the clay of which was
whitish, being probably mixed with marl. The back of Kennedy's coat
appeared besmeared with stains of the same colour.
At length, about a quarter of a mile from the brink of the fatal
precipice, the traces conducted them to a small open space of ground,
very much trampled, and plainly stained with blood, although withered
leaves had been strewed upon the spot, and other means hastily taken to
efface the marks, which seemed obviously to have been derived from a
desperate affray. On one side of this patch of open ground was found
the sufferer's naked hanger, which seemed to have been thrown into the
thicket; on the other, the belt and sheath, which appeared to have been
hidden with more leisurely care and precaution.
The magistrate caused the footprints which marked this spot to be
carefully measured and examined. Some corresponded to the foot of the
unhappy victim; some were larger, some less; indicating that at least
four or five men had been busy around him. Above all, here, and here
only, were observed the vestiges of a child's foot; and as it could be
seen nowhere else, and the hard horse-track which traversed the wood of
Warroch was contiguous to the spot, it was natural to think that the
boy might have escaped in that direction during the confusion. But, as
he was never heard of, the Sheriff, who made a careful entry of all
these memoranda, did not suppress his opinion, that the deceased had
met with foul play, and that the murderers, whoever they were, had
possessed themselves of the person of the child Harry Bertram.
Every exertion was now made to discover the criminals. Suspicion
hesitated between the smugglers and the gipsies. The fate of Dirk
Hatteraick's vessel was certain. Two men from the opposite side of
Warroch Bay (so the inlet on the southern side of the Point of Warroch
is called) had seen, though at a great distance, the lugger drive
eastward, after doubling the headland, and, as they judged from her
manoeuvres, in a disabled state. Shortly after, they perceived that she
grounded, smoked, and finally took fire. She was, as one of them
expressed himself, 'in a light low' (bright flame) when they observed a
king's ship, with her colours up, heave in sight from behind the cape.
The guns of the burning vessel discharged themselves as the fire
reached them; and they saw her at length blow up with a great
explosion. The sloop of war kept aloof for her own safety; and, after
hovering till the other exploded, stood away southward under a press of
sail. The Sheriff anxiously interrogated these men whether any boats
had left the vessel. They could not say, they had seen none; but they
might have put off in such a direction as placed the burning vessel,
and the thick smoke which floated landward from it, between their
course and the witnesses' observation.
That the ship destroyed was Dirk Hatteraick's no one doubted. His
lugger was well known on the coast, and had been expected just at this
time. A letter from the commander of the king's sloop, to whom the
Sheriff made application, put the matter beyond doubt; he sent also an
extract from his log-book of the transactions of the day, which
intimated their being on the outlook for a smuggling lugger, Dirk
Hatteraick master, upon the information and requisition of Francis
Kennedy, of his Majesty's excise service; and that Kennedy was to be
upon the outlook on the shore, in case Hatteraick, who was known to be
a desperate fellow, and had been repeatedly outlawed, should attempt to
run his sloop aground. About nine o'clock A.M. they discovered a sail
which answered the description of Hatteraick's vessel, chased her, and,
after repeated signals to her to show colours and bring-to, fired upon
her. The chase then showed Hamburgh colours and returned the fire; and
a running fight was maintained for three hours, when, just as the
lugger was doubling the Point of Warroch, they observed that the
main-yard was shot in the slings, and that the vessel was disabled. It
was not in the power of the man-of-war's men for some time to profit by
this circumstance, owing to their having kept too much in shore for
doubling the headland. After two tacks, they accomplished this, and
observed the chase on fire and apparently deserted. The fire having
reached some casks of spirits, which were placed on the deck, with
other combustibles, probably on purpose, burnt with such fury that no
boats durst approach the vessel, especially as her shotted guns were
discharging one after another by the heat. The captain had no doubt
whatever that the crew had set the vessel on fire and escaped in their
boats. After watching the conflagration till the ship blew up, his
Majesty's sloop, the Shark, stood towards the Isle of Man, with the
purpose of intercepting the retreat of the smugglers, who, though they
might conceal themselves in the woods for a day or two, would probably
take the first opportunity of endeavouring to make for this asylum. But
they never saw more of them than is above narrated.
Such was the account given by William Pritchard, master and commander
of his Majesty's sloop of war, Shark, who concluded by regretting
deeply that he had not had the happiness to fall in with the scoundrels
who had had the impudence to fire on his Majesty's flag, and with an
assurance that, should he meet Mr. Dirk Hatteraick in any future
cruise, he would not fail to bring him into port under his stern, to
answer whatever might be alleged against him.
As, therefore, it seemed tolerably certain that the men on board the
lugger had escaped, the death of Kennedy, if he fell in with them in
the woods, when irritated by the loss of their vessel and by the share
he had in it, was easily to be accounted for. And it was not improbable
that to such brutal tempers, rendered desperate by their own
circumstances, even the murder of the child, against whose father, as
having become suddenly active in the prosecution of smugglers,
Hatteraick was known to have uttered deep threats, would not appear a
very heinous crime.
Against this hypothesis it was urged that a crew of fifteen or twenty
men could not have lain hidden upon the coast, when so close a search
took place immediately after the destruction of their vessel; or, at
least, that if they had hid themselves in the woods, their boats must
have been seen on the beach; that in such precarious circumstances, and
when all retreat must have seemed difficult if not impossible, it was
not to be thought that they would have all united to commit a useless
murder for the mere sake of revenge. Those who held this opinion
supposed either that the boats of the lugger had stood out to sea
without being observed by those who were intent upon gazing at the
burning vessel, and so gained safe distance before the sloop got round
the headland; or else that, the boats being staved or destroyed by the
fire of the Shark during the chase, the crew had obstinately determined
to perish with the vessel. What gave some countenance to this supposed
act of desperation was, that neither Dirk Hatteraick nor any of his
sailors, all well-known men in the fair trade, were again seen upon
that coast, or heard of in the Isle of Man, where strict inquiry was
made. On the other hand, only one dead body, apparently that of a
seaman killed by a cannon-shot, drifted ashore. So all that could be
done was to register the names, description, and appearance of the
individuals belonging to the ship's company, and offer a reward for the
apprehension of them, or any one of them, extending also to any person,
not the actual murderer, who should give evidence tending to convict
those who had murdered Francis Kennedy.
Another opinion, which was also plausibly supported, went to charge
this horrid crime upon the late tenants of Derncleugh. They were known
to have resented highly the conduct of the Laird of Ellangowan towards
them, and to have used threatening expressions, which every one
supposed them capable of carrying into effect. The kidnapping the child
was a crime much more consistent with their habits than with those of
smugglers, and his temporary guardian might have fallen in an attempt
to protect him. Besides, it was remembered that Kennedy had been an
active agent, two or three days before, in the forcible expulsion of
these people from Derncleugh, and that harsh and menacing language had
been exchanged between him and some of the Egyptian patriarchs on that
memorable occasion.
The Sheriff received also the depositions of the unfortunate father and
his servant, concerning what had passed at their meeting the caravan of
gipsies as they left the estate of Ellangowan. The speech of Meg
Merrilies seemed particularly suspicious. There was, as the magistrate
observed in his law language, damnum minatum--a damage, or evil turn,
threatened--and malum secutum--an evil of the very kind predicted
shortly afterwards following. A young woman, who had been gathering
nuts in Warroch wood upon the fatal day, was also strongly of opinion,
though she declined to make positive oath, that she had seen Meg
Merrilies--at least a woman of her remarkable size and
appearance--start suddenly out of a thicket; she said she had called to
her by name, but, as the figure turned from her and made no answer, she
was uncertain if it were the gipsy or her wraith, and was afraid to go
nearer to one who was always reckoned, in the vulgar phrase, 'no
canny.' This vague story received some corroboration from the
circumstance of a fire being that evening found in the gipsy's deserted
cottage. To this fact Ellangowan and his gardener bore evidence. Yet it
seemed extravagant to suppose that, had this woman been accessory to
such a dreadful crime, she would have returned, that very evening on
which it was committed, to the place of all others where she was most
likely to be sought after.
Meg Merrilies was, however, apprehended and examined. She denied
strongly having been either at Derncleugh or in the wood of Warroch
upon the day of Kennedy's death; and several of her tribe made oath in
her behalf, that she had never quitted their encampment, which was in a
glen about ten miles distant from Ellangowan. Their oaths were indeed
little to be trusted to; but what other evidence could be had in the
circumstances? There was one remarkable fact, and only one, which arose
from her examination. Her arm appeared to be slightly wounded by the
cut of a sharp weapon, and was tied up with a handkerchief of Harry
Bertram's. But the chief of the horde acknowledged he had 'corrected
her' that day with his whinger; she herself, and others, gave the same
account of her hurt; and for the handkerchief, the quantity of linen
stolen from Ellangowan during the last months of their residence on the
estate easily accounted for it, without charging Meg with a more
heinous crime.
It was observed upon her examination that she treated the questions
respecting the death of Kennedy, or 'the gauger,' as she called him,
with indifference; but expressed great and emphatic scorn and
indignation at being supposed capable of injuring little Harry Bertram.
She was long confined in jail, under the hope that something might yet
be discovered to throw light upon this dark and bloody transaction.
Nothing, however, occurred; and Meg was at length liberated, but under
sentence of banishment from the county as a vagrant, common thief, and
disorderly person. No traces of the boy could ever be discovered; and
at length the story, after making much noise, was gradually given up as
altogether inexplicable, and only perpetuated by the name of 'The
Gauger's Loup,' which was generally bestowed on the cliff from which
the unfortunate man had fallen or been precipitated.