The final witness statement in Andrew Ballantyne’s trial was John Fullerton, Inn keeper, residing at Ruskich in the parish of Urquhart in the county of Inverness.

The statement is headed, Rushie, 17th June 1844. He was a married man, aged about 46 years.

My house is situated on the side of the road leading from Inverness to Fort Augustus and it is about 11 miles from the latter place. On Saturday 8th, current, about the middle of the day, a young man whom I had seen before and whose name I know to be Andrew Ballantyne, came riding up to the house, as if from Inverness and he had a dram. It was a brown or red mare on which he was riding, and he told me his father had had a small farm in Ross-shire, about Strathpeffer, I think, but having gone to the south country left the said mare at home that he might sell it, and he was going to Fort Augustus to attend the market there the following Monday for that purpose. 

He asked me to purchase the mare and offered it to me for £4. 10- but I refused to purchase it. Ballantyne was very anxious that I should purchase it, having asked me very often. He remained with me for about half an hour bargaining about the mare, and then went away with it, but shortly returned along with John Stoddart the post runner, and they had a dram together, during which Ballantyne asked Stoddart and I to purchase the horse, but we both refused and he went away riding on it towards Fort Augustus.

The mare had a black mane and tail and I will know Ballantyne again. 

About a week previous to the above occasion, I saw Ballantyne at my house on his way to Dingwall from Fort Augustus and he told me that he was coming up with sheep which were on the road in a few days but he had to go to Dingwall first, and he added that he would soon make up to them as he was to have a horse. All which is truth.“

I have managed to find John Fullerton, Inn Keeper, in the 1841 and 1851 Census returns.