There was a strong, unsubdued Celtic element in the [Sidenote: 1697.] Kirkcudbright population, and Sir Godfrey M‘Culloch reminds us entirely of a West Highland Cameron or Macdonald of the reign of James VI. What further embroilments took place between him and his old family enemies, the Gordons of Cardiness, we do not learn; but certain it is, that on the 2d of October 1690, he came to Bush o’ Bield, the house of William Gordon, whom twenty years before he had treated so barbarously, with the intent of murdering him. Sending a servant in to ask Gordon out to speak with some one, he no sooner saw the unfortunate man upon his threshold, than ‘with a bended gun he did shoot him through the thigh, and brak the bane thereof to pieces; of which wound William Gordon died within five or six hours thereafter.’[202] The homicide made his way to a foreign country, and thus for some years escaped justice. He afterwards returned to England, and was little taken notice of. William Stewart of Castle-Stewart, husband of the murdered Gordon’s daughter, offered to intercede for a remission in his behalf, if he would give up the papers of the Cardiness estate; but he did not accept of this offer. Perhaps he became at length rather too heedless of the vengeance that might be in store for him. It is stated that, being in Edinburgh, he was so hardy as to go to church, when a gentleman of Galloway, who had some pecuniary interest against him, rose, and called out with an air of authority: ‘Shut the doors—there’s a murderer in the house!’[203] He was apprehended, and immediately after subjected to a trial before the High Court of Justiciary, and condemned to be beheaded at the Cross of Edinburgh. The execution was appointed to take place on the 5th of March 1697;[204] but on the 4th he presented a petition to the Privy Council, in which, while expressing submission to his sentence, he begged liberty to represent to their Lordships, ‘that as the petitioner hath been among the most unhappy of mankind in the whole course of his life, so he hath been singularly unfortunate in what hath happened to him near the period of it.’ He thought that ‘nobody had any design upon him after the course of so many years, and he flattered himself with hopes of life on many considerations, and specially believing that the only two proving witnesses would not have been admitted. Being now found guilty, he is exceedingly surprised and unprepared to die.’ On his [Sidenote: 1697.] petition for delay, the execution was put forward to the 25th March.