The shot echoed through the wood of Lettermore just as Colin Campbell of Glenure was pursuing a track too narrow for two horses to advance abreast. Mungo Campbell rode ahead; John Mackenzie, his servant, followed behind. Hearing the discharge, Mungo hastened back and assisted the factor to alight from his saddle. “Oh! I am dead,” Glenure repeated. Two musket balls had pierced his waistcoat above the belly. Mungo scrambled up the brae and caught sight of a man in a dark coat, firelock in hand; he stood too distant for his features to be discerned. After a half-hour’s agony, the stricken man expired without having named his assassin.
By the morrow, none had yet determined who pulled the trigger. Yet the name of James Stewart of Aucharn was already passing from mouth to mouth, in an affair wherein soil, ancient allegiances, and past defeats had become entangled long before the shot was fired. Stewart was the natural brother of Charles Stewart, styled of Ardshiel, whose estate had been forfeited following the insurrection of 1745. Colin Campbell, appointed factor by the Barons of the Exchequer, administered these lands and was bound to remove several families from their tacks. One of these tenancies had been Stewart’s own; further evictions had been announced for the day following the murder.
Glenure was not travelling alone. He had crossed the Ballachulish ferry accompanied by Mungo Campbell, a notary, his servant, and sheriff-officers charged with executing the warnings of removal. John Beg MacColl, a manservant to Stewart, had preceded them by less than an hour, in great haste to gain the opposite shore. The man accounted for this by declaring he was on an errand to Fort William. Mungo heard the discharge while riding in the van; Mackenzie, bringing up the rear, recognized the crack of a firearm but could not perceive whence it came. At the spot where Glenure fell, the copse offered manifold shelter to anyone minded to lie in ambush.
The hue and cry soon turned toward Allan Breck Stewart, a kinsman of James, formerly a soldier and a deserter who flitted between France and Scotland. Witnesses had seen him traversing the country in the days preceding the event. It was whispered that he had uttered threats against Glenure by reason of the evictions, speaking of “putting him out of the way.” Another deposition attributed to him a darker phrase: that a “red fox” was to be hunted down. Glenure was known by the patronymic of Colin Roy, or Red Colin. Such words amounted neither to a confession nor to proof that Allan had discharged the piece; nevertheless, they were woven into the web of the indictment.
Apparel, in its turn, assumed a singular importance. On the 11th of May, Allan Breck had arrived at Aucharn clad in a blue coat and red waistcoat. Other witnesses beheld him subsequently in a black short-coat with white metal buttons and an oversized coat. Catherine MacColl, a maidservant, testified to having seen James’s wife wrap the first-mentioned garments in a sack, bidding her conceal them. The clothes were not discovered within the house. This change of attire agreed with the descriptions furnished by witnesses, though such accounts often proceeded from persons who had glimpsed Allan but fleetingly.
James, for his part, was at home when Glenure’s servant arrived bearing tidings of the murder. He inquired whether his master had been shot dead, expressing dread at the tumult such an event might unloose upon the country. He did not repair to the body. He explained that he was on ill terms with Glenure and feared that armed men might encompass the spot. This reluctance was promptly incorporated into the prosecution’s case.
The grievance of the tenants was genuine enough. James had quitted Glenduror after Glenure let his farm to another tacksman. Yet those witnesses who spoke of this breach did not speak with one voice. Some recounted threats uttered in change-houses over ale; others maintained that James had submitted to his removal, provided the surplus rents might still succour the children of Ardshiel. He had indeed instructed a writer to procure a suspension against the eviction of the remaining subtenants. His course had lain through the courts of law before it passed—if the Crown was to be believed—into a murderous conspiracy.
During the week of the murder, every motion within the household of Aucharn was interpreted as a link in a premeditated design. James dispatched John Beg MacColl to Fort William with a missive for the notary and a matter concerning four cows, enjoining him to make all speed. Allan Breck had tarried at the house some days before. On the night of the slaughter, James’s wife commanded the servants to secrete the arms, dreading a descent of the redcoats. On the morrow, the weapons were removed further off and laid beneath a rock. One was loaded with small shot; the other was foul, bearing no charge and appearing ill-cared for. The captain who recovered them was unable to determine how long it had been since the latter had been discharged.
Other circumstances concerned money and apparel. Allan Breck had taken to the woods and sent word through sundry kinsmen that he stood in need of money to quit the kingdom. On the 15th of May, according to Alexander Stewart, a packman, James bade him procure five pounds from William Stewart, a merchant, for Allan’s use, together with another sum for John Breck MacColl; he likewise charged him to collect four pounds for the sale of two cows. The next day, the merchant delivered but three guineas. Upon James’s apprehension, he added two guineas taken from a green purse: the five guineas thus assembled were to be conveyed to Allan to facilitate his flight. James’s wife also charged the pedlar with Allan’s French clothes. Should he fail to find the fugitive, he was to deliver the coin to John Breck MacColl, but preserve the garments far from the house, that none might see them. The pedlar wavered; the lady insisted. He ended by depositing the parcel at the foot of a fir tree and handing the coin to John Breck.
Such succour might render James an accessory; yet it might equally have been rendered after the deed, when the fugitive was liable to capture on other scores, not least his desertion from the army. Allan denied having slain Glenure. James denied all prior knowledge of the crime. Testimonies regarding clan threats were frequently produced long after the event, while many deponents were kinsfolk, servants, or dependants of the Stewarts. The trial did not unravel these contradictions before the entire family found itself subjected to the scrutiny of the law.
At Inveraray, the advocates for the pannel first challenged the procedure. They maintained that an alleged accessory could not be put upon his trial before the principal actor in the murder had been convicted. The circuit court repelled the objection. Borrow strictures the tedious length of the defence’s arguments, whilst acknowledging the justice of the plea. He observes that the Crown lawyers seized upon these exchanges to unfold before the jury a narrative already shaped to compel a verdict of guilt. Political passion sat openly upon the bench: the prosecutor dwelt upon the King’s authority and the embers of rebellion, though the indictment concerned a specific murder.
Witnesses retraced the matter of the ferry, the changes of clothing, the words spoken by Allan Breck, the concealed firelocks, the letter, the money solicited for Allan, and the five guineas ultimately gathered. The jury unanimously found James guilty, art and part, of the murder. Allan Breck, having fled the country, did not appear. The court sentenced James to be hanged, and his body to be hung in chains near the ferry of Ballachulish. Upon the pronunciation of the doom, he forgave the jury and those witnesses whom he accused of perjury. He declared that he had no foresight or knowledge of Glenure’s death, affirming himself to be as innocent as the child unborn.
On the 8th of November, under military guard, he was conducted to the gibbet. James had prepared three transcripts of his dying speech: one for the civil magistrate, one for the officer of the guard, and a third for the crowd. He read his protestation with a firm voice. A tempest broke during his final moments. Borrow notes that the doomed man’s composure persuaded the onlookers of his innocence; yet this remains the sentiment of a chronicler, not the finding of a court of review. His corpse hung long in irons beside the narrows of the ferry. And long after the assize was done, men still disputed who, in that tangled wood, had truly held the gun.