t the
erection of the Vicar Church of Crieff should be registered by Master
John Lambert, Prebendary of the sacred Chapel and scribe of the
foresaid Chapter, and to be inscribed and placed upon the books of the
Registrars of the oft-mentioned Chapel."

I am greatly indebted to A. G. Reid, Esq., Auchterarder, for kindly
furnishing me with the above valuable extracts, and I bring the paper
to a close with a word or two about the Crieff of a later time. The
annals of Crieff as a kirk-town are a dreary waste in the judgment of
one who assures us that he has waded through the records of services
from 1549 to 1700. One incident, however, took place between these
dates which may be mentioned as being the last expiring flicker of the
old jurisdiction exercised by the Stewards of Strathearn. The Earl of
Perth discharged the duties of the office--what remained of them--down
to the abolition of heritable jurisdictions in 1748. In the year 1682,
the minister of Trinity-Gask, by name Richard Duncan, was condemned to
death for the murder of a child which was found concealed under his own
hearth-stone. Lord Fountainhall reports that he was convicted on very
insufficient evidence, and the country people took the same view of the
case. He was hanged on the "kind gallows of Crieff," on the knoll near
the Cemetery, still marked by a solitary tree. The story goes that a
messenger was seen and heard approaching, bearing a reprieve, but he
came too late. Local sympathy asserted that the hour of execution was
anticipated to gratify the spite of some one in authority. However
this may be, the hanging of the Episcopal minister of Trinity-Gask was
the last exercise of criminal jurisdiction on the part of the Steward
of Strathearn. This was the last time the "kind gallows of Crieff"
bore its ghastly fruit. The Highlanders' salutation to it is familiar
to everybody.

A pleasanter sight by far than a string of dangling caterans was the
great annual tryst, or Michaelmas Market. It was largely frequented,
as being the only market of any consequence between Stirling and
Inverness. We have it on the authority of Macky, a Government secret
agent, who visited Scotland in 1723, that no fewer than thirty thousand
cattle were sold to English dealers for thirty thousand guineas. He
came from Stirling expressly to see the market, and here is his graphic
description of what he saw:--

"The Highland gentlemen were mighty civil, dressed in their