“The old castle of Cromarty,” says the statistical account of the parish (Sir John Sinclair’s), “was pulled down in the year 1772. Several urns, composed of earthenware, were dug out of the bank immediately around the building, with several coffins of stone. The urns were placed in square recesses formed of flags, and when touched by the labourers instantly mouldered away, nor was it possible to get up one of them entire. They were filled with ashes mixed with fragments of half-burned bones. The coffins contained human skeletons, some of which wanted the head; while among the others which were entire, there was one of a very uncommon size, measuring seven feet in length.” [Sidenote: HEREDITARY SHERIFFSHIP.] The old proprietors of the castle, among the other privileges derived to them as the chiefs of a wide district of country, and the system of government which obtained during the ages in which they flourished, were hereditary Sheriffs of Cromarty, and vested with the power of pit and gallows. The highest knoll of the southern Sutor is still termed the Gallow-hill, from its having been a place of execution; and a low cairn nearly hidden by a thicket of furze, which still occupies its summit, retains the name of the gallows. It is said that the person last sentenced to die at this place was a poor Highlander who had insulted the Sheriff, and that when in the act of mounting the ladder, he was pardoned at the request of the Sheriff’s lady. At a remoter period the usual scene of execution was a little eminence in the western part of the town, directly above the harbour, where there is a small circular hollow still known to the children of the place as the _Witch’s Hole_; and in which, says tradition, a woman accused of witchcraft was burnt for her alleged crime some time in the reign of Charles II. The Court-hill, an artificial mound of earth, on which, at least in the earlier ages, the cases of the sheriffdom were tried and decided, was situated several hundred yards nearer the old town. Some of the sentences passed at this place are said to have been flagrantly unjust. There is one Sheriff in particular, whom tradition describes as a cruel, oppressive man, alike regardless of the rights and lives of his poor vassals; and there are two brief anecdotes of him which still survive. A man named Macculloch, a tenant on the Cromarty estate (probably the same person introduced to the reader in the foregoing chapter), was deprived of a cow through the injustice of one of the laird’s retainers, and going directly to the castle, disposed rather to be energetic than polite, he made his complaint more in the tone of one who had a right to demand, than in the usual style of submission. The laird, after hearing him patiently, called for the key of the dungeon, and going out, beckoned on Macculloch to follow. He did so; they descended a flight of stone steps together, and came to a massy oak door, which the laird opened; when suddenly, and without uttering