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CHAPTER III.

Confusion now hath done his master piece;
Most sacrilegious murther hath broke ope
The Lord's anointed temple, and stole thence
The life of the building.

SHAKSPEARE.

THE reports to which the sudden disappearance of the Laird St. Clyde gave rise, were as various as were the groups that assembled from the Garroch Head to Ettrick Bay; some conjecturing the laird had gone to the Cumbras, others that he had gone to Fairly, others that he had gone with Stuart's cutter to Skipness or Dinoon, and others could not believe but that he had been murdered and buried in the woods, or sunk in the middle of one of the lochs.

All that could with certainty be

learnt, was, that he had taken his stick in his hand in the forenoon, and gone to the town. An old man, Donald Orr, who went through the country, and bought up hens and eggs to sell again, had seen the laird about two o'clock that day, on the road between the lochs. There was not any one of the numerous bands that went in search of the laird that could accuse himself, or even start a suspicion, touching who should be the murderer.

There had been no strangers seen in that part of the island, except Peter Lerwick, the travelling chapman. Donald Orr had seen this man that day in the direction St. Clyde had taken; and Alexander Mactaggart was sure that Adam Skirrie, the drover, left his house that morning, to cross the country to Ettrick bay.

Mactaggart recollected very well to have heard Skirrie speak disre

spectfully of the laird. Poor Mactaggart forgot now all his own disrerespect to the Laird St. Clyde; he had never done any thing ill to him, " save and except that he could not spare Sandy to run over with the laird's letters;" and there were many who knew that Lerwick owed the laird a grudge, for having obliged him to take out a licence to deal, besides having put him into the town jail, when caught with Jamie Calnacardock brewing whisky in Woodmore. These two were the objects of general suspicion, the pedler and the drover; but which to arrest was the difficulty.

A council was held at the minister's house. Levingstone, Lord Bute's factor, the minister, the doctor, the schoolmaster, the comptroller, and Ilan Dou, the baillie, sat in council: hundreds crowded around the house; there were many thousand persons on

the island, though not all in the same degree interested in the laird's fate. Every person that could in any way throw light, even on suspicion, was patiently heard; and, accordingly, warrants were issued to apprehend Lerwick and Skirrie; but Mr. Ilan Dou would not part with the warrants till all the island was searched.

Roderick Macpherson was willing to make oath, that three days after the laird was missing, he saw him glide by his side like a weaver's shuttle; but Macpherson was "sae elrich wi' goustie thought" at the sight, that he could not speak, for he "ken'd the laird could na' gae past him without moving baith lith and limb, but the mer-man fleed by his een like the levin.”

Parties of men went to all the little hamlets on the isle; to Kames; to Ettrick Bay; through every place, in short, where there might be any hope

of hearing any tidings of the lost laird. At Ettrick Bay was a smuggler lying; and it was thought by the people there, that Lerwick had gone with the smugglers to Lamlash.

Lieut. Stuart's cutter was now re turned from the Cumbra Isles, and he went instantly to Lamlash; with the Baillie's orders that, if he met with Lerwick any where, to secure him.

There were three smugglers at Lamlash, but not one of them was taken; and it was learned there that it was not Lerwick, but a Manks man, who assumed the guise of a pedler to sell tobacco, salt, and spirits, and give the smugglers notice where to land them that had come to Lamlash.

There was a part of the upper loch we have already mentioned, which was flanked by blocks of rocks cast in giant mould, and on one narrow space of the cliff was a descent, fair hewn by no

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