he country that he had
been murdered in that hill the year before. That when he first found
this body, there was a bit of blue cloth upon it pretty entire, which
he took to be what is called English cloth; he also found the hair of
the deceased, which was of a dark mouse colour, and tied about with a
black ribbon: That he also observed some pieces of a stripped stuff,
and found also lying there a pair of brogues, which had been made with
latches for buckles, which had been cut away by a knife: That he, by
help of his staff, brought out the body, and laid it upon plain ground,
in doing whereof some of the bones were separated one from another:
Depones, That for some days he was in a doubt what to do, but meeting
with John Growar in the moss, he told John what he had found, and John
bid him tell nothing of it, otherways he would complain of the deponent
to John Shaw of Daldownie, upon which the deponent resolved to prevent
Growar's complaint, and go and tell Daldownie of it himself; and which
having accordingly done, Daldownie desired him to conceal the matter,
and go and bury the body privately, as it would not be carried to a
kirk unkent, and that the same might hurt the country, being under the
suspicion of being a rebel country: Depones, That some few days
thereafter, he acquainted Donald Farquharson, the preceding witness, of
his having seen the body of a dead man in the hill, which he took to be
the body of Serjeant Davies: That Farquharson at first doubted the
truth of his information, till the deponent having told him that a few
nights before when he was in bed, a vision appeared to him as of a man
clad in blue, who told the deponent, "I am Serjeant Davies;" but that
before he told him so, the deponent had taken the said vision at first
appearance to be a real living man, a brother of Donald Farquharson's:
That the deponent rose from his bed, and followed him to the door, and
then it was, as has been told, that he said he was Serjeant Davies who
had been murdered in the Hill of Christie, about near a year before,
and desired the deponent to go to the place he pointed at, where he
would find his bones, and that he might go to Donald Farquharson, and
take his assistance to the burying of him: That upon giving Donald
Farquharson this information, Donald went along with him, and finding
the bones as he informed Donald, and having then buried it with the
help of a spade which he the deponent had alongst with him: And for