The crime
does not seem to me to have been the result of a conspiracy in Appin,
but the act of one hot-headed man or of two hot-headed men. I hope I
have kept the Celtic secret, and I defy anyone to discover _the other
man_ by aid of this narrative.
That James would have been quite safe with an Edinburgh jury was
proved by the almost contemporary case of the murder of the English
sergeant Davies. He was shot on the hillside, and the evidence against
the assassins was quite strong enough to convict them. But some of the
Highland witnesses averred that the phantasm of the sergeant had
appeared to them, and given information against the criminals, and
though there was testimony independent of the ghost's, his
interference threw ridicule over the affair. Moreover the Edinburgh
jury was in sympathy with Mr. Lockhart, the Jacobite advocate who
defended the accused. Though undeniably guilty, they were acquitted:
much more would James of the Glens have obtained a favourable verdict.
He was practically murdered under forms of law, and what was thought
of the Duke of Argyll's conduct on the bench is familiar to readers of
_Kidnapped_.
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