This Donald corroborated at the trial.

The case against Clerk and Macdonald looked very black, especially as some witnesses fled and declined to appear.

Scott, who knew Macintosh, the counsel for the prisoners, says that their advocates and agent "were convinced of their guilt".
Yet a jury of Edinburgh tradesmen, moved by Macintosh's banter of the apparition, acquitted the accused solely, as Scott believes, because of the ghost and its newly-learned Gaelic.

It is indeed extraordinary that Prestongrange, the patron of David Balfour, allowed his witnesses to say what the ghost said, which certainly "is not evidence".

Sir Walter supposes that Macpherson and Mrs.MacHardie invented the apparition as an excuse for giving evidence.