The Mystery of the Ragged Ball

 (Published in Fife Family History Society journal Vol 13 No 2)

 

The following is an example of the wealth of information which can be found in the Criminal Court records, as described by Andrew in the October journal. The story has been pieced together from the statements of a number of witnesses. All the details are taken directly from the court records, or other records, and have not been exaggerated in any way. The victim of the incident described, James Wastie (1797-1856), was the brother of my g.g.g. grandfather David Wastie (1799-1882).

 

 

 

George Henderson, a day labourer, was considered to be a soft tempered man who usually behaved himself quietly after having a drink. He was about thirty-eight years of age, unmarried, and residing with his mother Margaret Lillie at Foggybutts in Kettle parish.

On Saturday 20th November 1830 George Henderson was in the house of George Smith, Change House1 keeper at Nottingham Cottage. He took a bet with James Brown, Miller at Hole Mill, to fire at a mark for five shillings to the winner. By appointment they met again in Smith’s house on the morning of Monday 22nd November 1830 to arrange the matter. Henderson took his gun with him, as well as some powder and balls, but Brown had no gun with him at that time.

Brown was rather unwilling to go on with the bet but Henderson agreed to make it half a mutchkin2 in place of five shillings. Two half mutchkins of raw whisky were then called for and drunk between them. They were both somewhat intoxicated with the raw spirits. Brown, thinking Henderson the worst, said, “I will fire for it now.”

Between one and two o’clock they proceeded to Hole Mill to carry out the bet. Brown placed up a board at a distance of seventy paces, and collected his gun. Henderson had already loaded his and he fired the first shot, coming pretty near the mark. Brown fired the next two shots, one of which hit the board, but not as near the mark as Henderson’s shot. He said it was in vain to try to get the better of Henderson’s shot. Mr McCash, tenant of Pitillock, happened to come up at the time and laughed at Browns shot. Brown gave up the contest, said that he would not do any more, and admitted that Henderson had gained the bet. By the terms of the bet, they were each entitled to three shots. If Brown had not given in, Henderson could have used his remaining two shots if Brown’s third shot had been nearer the mark. In order that they could drink the half mutchkin, they decided to meet again at Nottingham Cottage in a short while.

Nottingham Cottage is situated on the left hand side of the road from Cupar to New Inn, about half a mile from the New Inn. It fronts this road and is situated very near to it. The entry to it was by a gateway at the foot of the road up to Nottingham Farm. The front part of the house, which was built in the cottage style, projected beyond the other part of the house. The outer door was located in the projection by the Nottingham road, and this door looked towards the Nottingham road. The cottage consisted of a kitchen, a small closet off it, and a front room built in the form of a bow. There were three windows in the front room looking to the high road, and one window in the kitchen facing the Nottingham road. There was a passage leading from the outer door to the front room, which was on the right hand side of the passage. The door to the kitchen was also on the right hand side of the passage, and close to the outer door. This outer door was about an inch thick and made of a number of planks, each about three and a half inches broad.

*

Nottingham Cottage as it is today

Smith had not been at home when Henderson and Brown were at the cottage that morning, being at his usual work. He came home at about five o’clock, and was taking some broth for his dinner, when George Henderson came in with a gun in his hand. Smith’s wife asked him to have some of the broth, and he was doing so when James Brown came in.

When Henderson finished his broth he and Brown went into the front room and called for some spirits. Brown appeared to wish to get as much of the five shillings spent in drink as possible. Henderson had no objections to this, as he did not wish to be hard on him. Two half mutchkins of whisky were drunk between them, and between six and seven o’clock Brown said that they had better to see what was to pay. Upon calling for their reckoning it came to four shillings including the spirits they had in the morning. They settled the bill, each of them paying two shillings. Another gill3 was called for, of which George Smith partook.

James Wastie, a labourer, was passing Nottingham Cottage at about seven o’clock. He was a quiet, peaceable man who lived with his mother, Isabel Marshall, at Muirhead on the Lands of Forthar in Kettle parish. He was upon business when he was passing and went in to ask for George Smith the Landlord. His wife Elspeth said that he was in the front room with somebody. Wastie said that if Smith had been by himself he would have given him a dram, upon which she told him that there was nobody there besides George Henderson and James Brown. After telling her that he was perfectly well acquainted with them, she said that he might “Just go ben4”. He went through to the front room, and took a glass with them.

After this Wastie said he would give his gill. He called for one, paid for it, and they drank it. When Wastie laid down the money for this gill Henderson did not see him, and later remarked to Wastie that he had not been at any expense since he came into the room, but the dispute went no farther after Mrs Smith told him that Wastie had paid for his gill.

After the gill was finished it was proposed to hide a halfpenny under their hand upon the table, the best of three, for another gill. Wastie was the only winner and he beat all of the other men. Henderson observed that Wastie did not put his hand far enough on the table, and said that Wastie was not acting fair and was cheating them. Wastie became angry at this accusation, adding, however, that he saw Henderson wanted a gill of whisky from him, and that he would pay for one. Henderson remarked to him “Well, Jamie, you and I will have no words about a gill,” and later said that it had all been fair play.

Mrs Smith served seven gills in total after Wastie went into the room. When the spirits were nearly finished, George Henderson said to Wastie, “Go but5 the house until I speak to Brown.” Wastie left the room and went to the kitchen, Smith having previously gone. Henderson began to speak to Brown about the half mutchkin he had won by being the nearest shot at the mark. Brown agreed to give him it if he would take it, but Henderson declined it.

Henderson’s gun had not been loaded when he brought it back to the cottage after firing it at the mark, but he now began to put a charge of powder into his gun, ramming it home with the ram-rod, although Brown did not see him putting any shot or ball into the gun, or prime the gun. Brown asked him what he meant by loading his gun, but Henderson gave no answer.

About ten or fifteen minutes after Wastie came into the kitchen, both Henderson and Brown also came into the kitchen and sat down. Wastie, Smith the Landlord, his wife and his daughter Cecil (Cecilia), who was just two days away from her 25th birthday, were there. Henderson sat down at the fireside with the gun behind his legs, and Brown mentioned that it was loaded. Smith exclaimed, “Damn you, Geordie! You must not sit with a loaded gun here in company!” and told him to go to the door and discharge it. Henderson rose, went to the door and fired off the gun. The company in the kitchen distinctly heard the explosion. After remaining outside for ten or fifteen minutes, he returned to the kitchen with the gun in his hand.

After Henderson once more sat down with his gun between his knees, Smith charged him with having loaded his gun again, which he did not deny, and Smith repeated to him that he must go out and fire off his gun. It was not given as an order to leave the house, but merely to go and empty the gun. Henderson rose from his seat, went to the door and shut it behind him. He did not return to Smith’s house that night.

About a quarter of an hour after Henderson went out, Cecil Smith was in the passage and heard something like a footstep at the outer door. Drawing aside the curtain of the kitchen window and looking through one of the panes, she saw Henderson at the corner of the projection by the door of the house. The moon was shining and the night was clear, so she saw him clearly. She told the others that she heard him threatening to shoot Wastie. She distinctly heard Henderson say, “It’s not the Miller I want, it’s Wastie,” and, “If I had him out, I would shoot him,” but he did not say for what. Brown also heard Henderson say, at the outside of the door, that he would meet Wastie before he went home, and that he would do for him, or something to that effect. Seeing Cecil looking at him, Henderson retired out of view and immediately they all heard the gun discharged.

Before leaving the house Henderson had appeared to them to be rather the worse of liquor, but was not so much intoxicated as not to know what he was about. He had spoken quite sensibly to them, and did not seem to be staggering at all.

They were afraid of Henderson because of his threat, and so none of them went out after him. Wastie said he was not afraid, that he wanted to go home, and that Henderson surely would not shoot him. He asked Brown to accompany him. Brown declined, as he did not like to go after Henderson’s threat. Smith and his family advised Wastie to remain, to give Henderson time to go away. Cecil Smith locked the door and put the key in her pocket, to prevent Wastie and Brown leaving.

About half an hour after Smith’s daughter locked the door, Wastie at last got up and again expressed his determination to go home. Brown still refused to go with him, but Wastie said loudly that he was not afraid of anything. Thinking that Henderson was away, he rose and went to the door. Although Wastie did not know it, he could not actually have got out, since the door was still locked and the key in Cecil’s pocket. When he was in the act of raising his hand to open the sneck6 of the outer door, the report of a gun was heard by all present.

Wastie cried out immediately that he was shot. Hearing him cry out, Smith immediately rose from his seat in the kitchen and took him in his arms. Wastie felt blood running down his face. He began to feel a little sick, and was led to a chair in the front room by Smith. While Smith’s family were washing the cuts on his left cheek with water, Wastie said his face was not the worst of him, adding that he was wounded on the shoulder.

Upon examination, a wound was discovered in the flesh above his right shoulder bone, which was bleeding a little. The wound was an inch in length by half an inch in breadth, of an oval shape, with discolouration for a considerable way around it. His vest was cut in the neck, and a hole cut on the right shoulder head of his shirt. The shirt was marked with blood about the hole.

Brown observed Wastie’s bleeding face, and thought it might have been caused by small shot, at the same time wondering how small shot could have come through the door. Examining the door, he found a hole in the third bar of the door from the right hand ribbet7 and some inches from the sneck of the door, and which appeared to have been made by a ball fired from a musket. It had, in fact, been splinters from the inside of the door that had injured Wastie’s face.

The Door

There was a search made for the musket ball that night, but it could not be found anywhere.

After Wastie had recovered a little he was put to bed in the foreroom of the cottage. He slept all night in Smiths house, but did not take off any clothes except his coat and shoes. Brown also remained in the cottage for the night. At about six o’clock the next morning, Brown saw Wastie home to his mother’s house in Muirhead. This was about quarter of a mile away, and Wastie walked all the way on his own feet without any assistance.

At about twelve o’clock, Wastie was sitting in Nottingham farmhouse and speaking to the tenant Mr Mitchell about what had happened to him the night before. Wastie felt something itching about his left knee. Putting down his hand to scratch it, he found some hard substance and said, “I have got it now.” Upon removing it, it turned out to be the ball with which he had been wounded.

After entering his shirt the ball must have gone down his back, between his shirt and his skin. Either in bed, or afterwards, it made its way into the inside of his flannel drawers, and dropped down to the place where he found it, which was just at the tie of his drawers, below his knee. It was the tie that prevented the ball from falling any further. He gave the ball to Jeffery Goddard, Sheriff Officer in Cupar, who called to ask how he was.

Wastie felt as if the ball had struck his bone, and experienced considerable pain at the place. His shoulder was so stiff he could not put off and on is coat without assistance. He was never confined in consequence of his injury, although he was unable to work for a while. George Forbes, the surgeon at Kennoway, said that it would only take Wastie two or three weeks to recover properly. He gave him proper dressings for the wound, as he did not altogether approve of the way Wastie was treating it.

After Henderson had left Smith’s house on the Monday evening, he had gone up the road leading to Nottingham Farm instead of going along the Cupar road towards his mother’s house. He fell into the slope of the Nottingham road after he was about three or four hundred yards from the cottage, and his gun fell under him. When he rose he came down the Nottingham road again and passed the cottage to reach the public road on his way home to his mother’s. He did not recollect of calling at the cottage on his return. He was not aware of having discharged his gun after he left the cottage, but if he did so, said it was at the place where he fell, and either before or after he did fall. He was very much intoxicated at this time, and did not know where he was. He did not reach home till it was about daylight, and he must have been somewhere between the cottage and his mother’s, but only recollects of being for some time in the Smiths Shade at Walltree, to the eastward of the cottage.

The first time he ascertained that his gun had been discharged was on the Tuesday morning at about nine o’clock when he went out to fire her off. The gun was off the cock, and the pan down when he took her out to fire her off, and having primed her and again cocked her, he flushed her, and as she did not go off he examined her with the ramrod and found that she had been discharged. He did not discharge the gun at any time after he arrived home, and she must therefore have been discharged by him at some time between leaving the cottage and reaching his mother’s, and no person could have done it but himself.

Henderson was apprehended on the morning of the 26th at the house of his mother, Margaret Lillie, in Foggybutts and brought into Cupar along with two guns belonging to him. When the officers were going to seize the smallest gun, Henderson told them it was not the smallest gun he had with him at the cottage, and pointed out the longest gun to them. The officers also seized some musket balls.

The mould he had for casting balls was rather too large for his gun, and in order to make them fit he had to pare them down with a knife and polish them with sandpaper. He prepared three balls in this way in order to shoot the mark with Brown. One of them was fired at the mark, the second was in the gun when he was at the cottage, and he claimed the third one had been seized by the officers. Upon being shown a musket ball ragged on one side, Henderson said that it was very like the ball that was in his gun when he was at the cottage, and it had the appearance of being whittled down and polished in the same way as he did his. The Sheriff ordered the jailer in his presence to put a hole in the ragged ball in order to attach a label to it, and in this operation a dimple was made upon the plain side of it.

Henderson had heard on the Tuesday morning that James Wastie had been injured and that he was suspected. His brother James gave him the news and advised him to settle the matter with Wastie. However, Henderson did not go as he thought it was just a joke. If James Wastie was injured by a ball fired from his gun that night, Henderson said he had no knowledge of it and had no intention of firing his gun at him. He added that if he had any intention of firing at Wastie or any of the company, it would have been very easy for him to have done so through any of the three bow windows in the front room where they were sitting.

George Henderson was tried in Perth in April 1831, and pleaded not guilty. Had he been found guilty he would have received a death sentence:

“if any person shall, within Scotland, wilfully, maliciously and unlawfully shoot at any of His Majesty’s subjects........ and being lawfully found guilty............. shall be held guilty of a capital crime, and shall receive sentence of death accordingly.”

The jury, however, found the charge Not Proven.

 

[1] Change house: Tavern

[2] Mutchkin: Three-quarters of an imperial pint, or a quarter of an old Scottish pint

[3] Gill: A quarter of a pint

[4] Ben: Front room

[5] But: Kitchen

[6] Sneck: Latch

[7] Ribbet: Stone at the side of the door