All this was in 1750, but Clerk and Macdonald were not arrested till September, 1753.  They were then detained in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh on various charges, as of wearing the kilt, till June, 1754, when they were tried, Grant of Prestongrange prosecuting, aided by Haldane, Home and Dundas, while Lockhart and Mackintosh defended.  It was proved that Clerk’s wife wore Davies’s ring, that Clerk, after the murder, had suddenly become relatively rich and taken a farm, and that the two men, armed, were on the hill near the scene of the murder on 28th September, 1749.  Moreover, Angus Cameron swore that he saw the murder committed.  His account of his position was curious.  He and another Cameron, since dead, were skulking near sunset in a little hollow on the hill of Galcharn.  There he had skulked all day, “waiting for Donald Cameron, who was afterwards hanged, together with some of the said Donald’s companions from Lochaber”.  No doubt they were all honest men who had been “out,” and they may well have been on Cluny’s business of conveying gold from the Loch Arkaig hoard to Major Kennedy for the prince.

On seeing Clerk and Macdonald strike and shoot the man in the silver-laced hat, Cameron and his companion ran away, nor did Cameron mention the matter till nine months later, and then only to Donald (not he who was hanged).  Donald advised him to hold his tongue.  This Donald corroborated at the trial.  The case against Clerk and Macdonald looked very black, especially as some witnesses fled and declined to appear.  Scott, who knew Macintosh, the counsel for the prisoners, says that their advocates and agent “were convinced of their guilt”.  Yet a jury of Edinburgh tradesmen, moved by Macintosh’s banter of the apparition, acquitted the accused solely, as Scott believes, because of the ghost and its newly-learned Gaelic.  It is indeed extraordinary that Prestongrange, the patron of David Balfour, allowed his witnesses to say what the ghost said, which certainly “is not evidence”.  Sir Walter supposes that Macpherson and Mrs. MacHardie invented the apparition as an excuse for giving evidence.  “The ghost’s commands, according to Highland belief, were not to be disobeyed.”  Macpherson must have known the facts “by ordinary means”.  We have seen that Clerk and Macdonald were at once suspected; there was “a clatter” against them.  But Angus Cameron had not yet told his tale of what he saw.  Then who did tell?  Here comes in a curious piece of evidence of the year 1896.  A friend writes (29th December, 1896):—­

“DEAR LANG,

“I enclose a tradition connected with the murder of Sergeant Davies, which my brother picked up lately before he had read the story in your Cock Lane.  He had heard of the event before, both in Athole and Braemar, and it was this that made him ask the old lady (see next letter) about it.

“He thinks that Glenconie of your version (p. 256) must be Glenclunie, into which Allt Chriostaidh falls.  He also suggests that the person who was chased by the murderers may have got up the ghost, in order to shift the odium of tale-bearing to other shoulders.  The fact of being mixed up in the affair lends some support to the story here related.”