All the young gentlemen of the party were examined, save Drummond, who,
when sent for, could not be found, which circumstance sorely confirmed
the suspicions against him in the minds of judges and jurors, friends
and enemies; and there is little doubt that the care of his relations
in concealing him injured his character and his cause. The young
gentlemen of whom the party was composed varied considerably with
respect to the quarrel between him and the deceased. Some of them had
neither heard nor noted it; others had, but not one of them could tell
how it began. Some of them had heard the threat uttered by Drummond on
leaving the house, and one only had noted him lay his hand on his
sword. Not one of them could swear that it was Drummond who came to the
door and desired to speak with the deceased, but the general impression
on the minds of them all was to that effect; and one of the women swore
that she heard the voice distinctly at the door, and every word that
voice pronounced, and at the same time heard the deceased say that it
was Drummond's.
On the other hand, there were some evidences on Drummond's part, which
Lord Craigie, his uncle, had taken care to collect. He produced the
sword which his nephew had worn that night, on which there was neither
blood nor blemish; and, above all, he insisted on the evidence of a
number of surgeons, who declared that both the wounds which the
deceased had received had been given behind. One of these was below the
left arm, and a slight one; the other was quite through the body, and
both evidently inflicted with the same weapon, a two-edged sword, of
the same dimensions as that worn by Drummond.
Upon the whole, there was a division in the court, but a majority
decided it. Drummond was pronounced guilty of the murder; outlawed for
not appearing, and a high reward offered for his apprehension. It was
with the greatest difficulty that he escaped on board of a small
trading vessel, which landed him in Holland, and from thence, flying
into Germany, he entered into the service of the Emperor Charles VI.
Many regretted that he was not taken, and made to suffer the penalty
due for such a crime, and the melancholy incident became a pulpit theme
over a great part of Scotland, being held up as a proper warning to
youth to beware of such haunts of vice and depravity, the nurses of all
that is precipitate, immoral, and base, among mankind.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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