I do not know the hour, but the darkness was long come, when the door of
the cabinet opened, and I was aware, by the light behind him, of a tall
figure of a man upon the threshold. I rose at once.

"Is anybody there?" he asked. "Who is that?"

"I am bearer of a letter from the laird of Pilrig to the Lord Advocate,"
said I.

"Have you been here long?" he asked.

"I would not like to hazard an estimate of how many hours," said I.

"It is the first I hear of it," he replied, with a chuckle. "The lads
must have forgotten you. But you are in the bit at last, for I am
Prestongrange."

So saying, he passed before me into the next room, whither (upon his
sign) I followed him, and where he lit a candle and took his place
before a business-table. It was a long room, of a good proportion,
wholly lined with books. That small spark of light in a corner struck
out the man's handsome person and strong face. He was flushed, his eye
watered and sparkled, and before he sat down I observed him to sway back
and forth. No doubt he had been supping liberally; but his mind and
tongue were under full control.

"Well, sir, sit ye down," said he, "and let us see Pilrig's letter."

He glanced it through in the beginning carelessly, looking up and bowing
when he came to my name; but at the last words I thought I observed his
attention to redouble, and I made sure he read them twice. All this
while you are to suppose my heart was beating, for I had now crossed my
Rubicon and was come fairly on the field of battle.

"I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Balfour," he said, when he
had done. "Let me offer you a glass of claret."

"Under your favour, my lord, I think it would scarce be fair on me,"
said I. "I have come here, as the letter will have mentioned, on a
business of some gravity to myself; and as I am little used with wine, I
might be the sooner affected."

"You shall be the judge," said he. "But if you will permit, I believe I
will even have the bottle in myself."

He touched a bell, and the footman came, as at a signal, bringing wine
and glasses.

"You are sure you will not join me?" asked the Advocate. "Well, here is
to our better acquaintance! In what way can I serve you?"

"I should perhaps begin by telling you, my lord, that I am here at your
own pressing invitation," said I.

"You have the advantage of me somewhere," said he, "for I profess I
think I never heard of you before this evening."

"Right, my lord; the name is indeed new to you," said I. "And yet you
have been for some time extremely wishful to make my acquaintance, and
have declared the same in public."

"I wish you would afford me a clue," says he. "I am no Daniel."

"It will perhaps serve for such," said I, "that if I was in a jesting
humour--which is far from the case--I believe I might lay a claim on
your lordship for two hundred pounds."

"In what sense?" he inquired.

"In the sense of rewards offered for my person," said I.

He thrust away his glass once and for all, and sat straight up in the
chair where he had been previously lolling. "What am I to understand?"
said he.

"_A tall strong lad of about eighteen_," I quoted, "_speaks like a
Lowlander, and has no beard_."

"I recognise those words," said he, "which, if you have come here with
any ill-judged intention of amusing yourself, are like to prove
extremely prejudicial to your safety."

"My purpose in this," I replied, "is just entirely as serious as life
and death, and you have understood me perfectly. I am the boy who was
speaking with Glenure when he was shot."

"I can only suppose (seeing you here) that you claim to be innocent,"
said he.

"The inference is clear," I said. "I am a very loyal subject to King
George, but if I had anything to reproach myself with, I would have had
more discretion than to walk into your den."

"I am glad of that," said he. "This horrid crime, Mr. Balfour, is of a
dye which cannot permit any clemency. Blood has been barbarously shed.
It has been shed in direct opposition to his Majesty and our whole frame
of laws, by those who are their known and public oppugnants. I take a
very high sense of this. I will not deny that I consider the crime as
directly personal to his Majesty."

"And unfortunately, my lord," I added a little drily, "directly personal
to another great personage who may be nameless."

"If you mean anything by those words, I must tell you I consider them
unfit for a good subject; and were they spoke publicly I should make it
my business to take note of them," said he. "You do not appear to me to
recognise the gravity of your situation, or you would be more careful
not to pejorate the same by words which glance upon the purity of
justice. Justice, in this country, and in my poor hands, is no respecter
of persons."

"You give me too great a share in my own speech, my lord," said I. "I
did but repeat the common talk of the country, which I have heard
everywhere, and from men of all opinions as I came along."

"When you are come to more discretion you will understand such talk is
not to be listened to, how much less repeated," says the Advocate. "But
I acquit you of an ill intention. That nobleman, whom we all honour and
who has indeed been wounded in a near place by the late barbarity, sits
too high to be reached by these aspersions. The Duke of Argyle--you see
that I deal plainly with you--takes it to heart as I do, and as we are
both bound to do by our judicial functions and the service of his
Majesty; and I could wish that all hands, in this ill age, were equally
clean of family rancour. But from the accident that this is a Campbell
who has fallen martyr to his duty--as who else but the Campbells have
ever put themselves foremost on that path? I may say it, who am no
Campbell--and that the chief of that great house happens (for all our
advantages) to be the present head of the College of Justice, small
minds and disaffected tongues are set agog in every changehouse in the
country; and I find a young gentleman like Mr. Balfour so ill-advised as
to make himself their echo." So much he spoke with a very oratorical
delivery, as if in court, and then declined again upon the manner of a
gentleman. "All this apart," said he. "It now remains that I should
learn what I am to do with you."

"I had thought it was rather I that should learn the same from your
lordship," said I.

"Ay, true," says the Advocate. "But, you see, you come to me well
recommended. There is a good honest Whig name to this letter," says he,
picking it up a moment from the table. "And--extra-judicially, Mr.
Balfour--there is always the possibility of some arrangement. I tell
you, and I tell you beforehand that you may be the more upon your guard,
your fate lies with me singly. In such a matter (be it said with
reverence) I am more powerful than the king's Majesty; and should you
please me--and of course satisfy my conscience--in what remains to be
held of our interview, I tell you it may remain between ourselves."

"Meaning how?" I asked.

"Why, I mean it thus, Mr. Balfour," said he, "that if you give
satisfaction, no soul need know so much as that you visited my house;
and you may observe that I do not even call my clerk."

I saw what way he was driving. "I suppose it is needless anyone should
be informed upon my visit," said I, "though the precise nature of my
gains by that I cannot see. I am not at all ashamed of coming here."

"And have no cause to be," says he, encouragingly. "Nor yet (if you are
careful) to fear the consequences."

"My lord," said I, "speaking under your correction, I am not very easy
to be frightened."

"And I am sure I do not seek to frighten you," says he. "But to the
interrogation; and let me warn you to volunteer nothing beyond the
questions I shall ask you. It may consist very immediately with your
safety. I have a great discretion, it is true, but there are bounds to
it."

"I shall try to follow your lordship's advice," said I.

He spread a sheet of paper on the table and wrote a heading. "It appears
you were present, by the way, in the wood of Lettermore at the moment of
the fatal shot," he began. "Was this by accident?"

"By accident," said I.

"How came you in speech with Colin Campbell?" he asked.

"I was inquiring my way of him to Aucharn," I replied.

I observed he did not write this answer down.

"H'm, true," said he, "I had forgotten that. And do you know, Mr.
Balfour, I would dwell, if I were you, as little as might be on your
relations with these Stewarts? It might be found to complicate our
business. I am not yet inclined to regard these matters as essential."

"I had thought, my lord, that all points of fact were equally material
in such a case," said I.

"You forget we are now trying these Stewarts," he replied, with great
significance. "If we should ever come to be trying you, it will be very
different; and I shall press these very questions that I am now willing
to glide upon. But to resume: I have it here in Mr. Mungo Campbell's
precognition that you ran immediately up the brae. How came that?"

"Not immediately, my lord, and the cause was my seeing of the murderer."

"You saw him, then?"

"As plain as I see your lordship, though not so near hand."

"You know him?"

"I should know him again."

"In your pursuit you were not so fortunate, then, as to overtake him?"

"I was not."

"Was he alone?"

"He was alone."

"There was no one else in that neighbourhood?"

"Alan Breck Stewart was not far off, in a piece of a wood."

The Advocate laid his pen down. "I think we are playing at cross
purposes," said he, "which you will find to prove a very ill amusement
for yourself."

"I content myself with following your lordship's advice, and answering
what I am asked," said I.

"Be so wise as to bethink yourself in time," said he. "I use you with
the most anxious tenderness, which you scarce seem to appreciate, and
which (unless you be more careful) may prove to be in vain."

"I do appreciate your tenderness, but conceive it to be mistaken," I
replied, with something of a falter, for I saw we were come to grips at
last. "I am here to lay before you certain information, by which I shall
convince you Alan had no hand whatever in the killing of Glenure."

The Advocate appeared for a moment at a stick, sitting with pursed lips,
and blinking his eyes upon me like an angry cat. "Mr. Balfour," he said
at last, "I tell you pointedly you go an ill way for your own
interests."

"My lord," I said, "I am as free of the charge of considering my own
interests in this matter as your lordship. As God judges me, I have but
the one design, and that is to see justice executed and the innocent go
clear. If in pursuit of that I come to fall under your lordship's
displeasure, I must bear it as I may."

At this he rose from his chair, lit a second candle, and for a while
gazed upon me steadily. I was surprised to see a great change of gravity
fallen upon his face, and I could have almost thought he was a little
pale.

"You are either very simple, or extremely the reverse, and I see that I
must deal with you more confidentially," says he. "This is a political
case--ah, yes, Mr. Balfour! whether we like it or no, the case is
political--and I tremble when I think what issues may depend from it. To
a political case, I need scarce tell a young man of your education, we
approach with very different thoughts from one which is criminal only.
_Salus populi suprema lex_ is a maxim susceptible of great abuse, but it
has that force which we find elsewhere only in the laws of nature: I
mean it has the force of necessity. I will open this out to you, if you
will allow me, at more length. You would have me believe--"

"Under your pardon, my lord, I would have you to believe nothing but
that which I can prove," said I.

"Tut! tut! young gentleman," says he, "be not so pragmatical, and suffer
a man who might be your father (if it was nothing more) to employ his
own imperfect language, and express his own poor thoughts, even when
they have the misfortune not to coincide with Mr. Balfour's. You would
have me to believe Breck innocent. I would think this of little account,
the more so as we cannot catch our man. But the matter of Breck's
innocence shoots beyond itself. Once admitted, it would destroy the
whole presumptions of our case against another and a very different
criminal; a man grown old in treason, already twice in arms against his
king and already twice forgiven; a fomenter of discontent, and (whoever
may have fired the shot) the unmistakable original of the deed in
question. I need not tell you that I mean James Stewart."

"And I can just say plainly that the innocence of Alan and of James is
what I am here to declare in private to your lordship, and what I am
prepared to establish at the trial by my testimony," said I.

"To which I can only answer by an equal plainness, Mr. Balfour," said
he, "that (in that case) your testimony will not be called by me, and I
desire you to withhold it altogether."

"You are at the head of Justice in this country," I cried, "and you
propose to me a crime!"

"I am a man nursing with both hands the interests of this country," he
replied, "and I press on you a political necessity. Patriotism is not
always moral in the formal sense. You might be glad of it, I think: it
is your own protection; the facts are heavy against you; and if I am
still trying to except you from a very dangerous place, it is in part of
course because I am not insensible to your honesty in coming here; in
part because of Pilrig's letter; but in part, and in chief part, because
I regard in this matter my political duty first and my judicial duty
only second. For the same reason--I repeat it to you in the same frank
words--I do not want your testimony."

"I desire not to be thought to make a repartee, when I express only the
plain sense of our position," said I. "But if your lordship has no need
of my testimony, I believe the other side would be extremely blythe to
get it."

Prestongrange arose and began to pace to and fro in the room. "You are
not so young," he said, "but what you must remember very clearly the
year '45 and the shock that went about the country. I read in Pilrig's
letter that you are sound in Kirk and State. Who saved them in that
fatal year? I do not refer to his Royal Highness and his ramrods, which
were extremely useful in their day; but the country had been saved and
the field won before ever Cumberland came upon Drummossie. Who saved it?
I repeat; who saved the Protestant religion and the whole frame of our
civil institutions? The late Lord President Culloden, for one; he played
a man's part, and small thanks he got for it--even as I, whom you see
before you, straining every nerve in the same service, look for no
reward beyond the conscience of my duties done. After the President, who
else? You know the answer as well as I do; 'tis partly a scandal, and
you glanced at it yourself, and I reproved you for it, when you first
came in. It was the Duke and the great clan of Campbell. Now here is a
Campbell foully murdered, and that in the King's service. The Duke and I
are Highlanders. But we are Highlanders civilised, and it is not so with
the great mass of our clans and families. They have still savage virtues
and defects. They are still barbarians, like these Stewarts; only the
Campbells were barbarians on the right side, and the Stewarts were
barbarians on the wrong. Now be you the judge. The Campbells expect
vengeance. If they do not get it--if this man James escape--there will
be trouble with the Campbells. That means disturbance in the Highlands,
which are uneasy and very far from being disarmed: the disarming is a
farce...."

"I can bear you out in that," said I.

"Disturbance in the Highlands makes the hour of our old watchful enemy,"
pursued his lordship, holding out a finger as he paced; "and I give you
my word we may have a '45 again with the Campbells on the other side. To
protect the life of this man Stewart--which is forfeit already on
half-a-dozen different counts if not on this--do you propose to plunge
your country in war, to jeopardise the faith of your fathers, and to
expose the lives and fortunes of how many thousand innocent persons? . . .
These are considerations that weigh with me, and that I hope will weigh
no less with yourself, Mr. Balfour, as a lover of your country, good
government, and religious truth."

"You deal with me very frankly, and I thank you for it," said I. "I will
try on my side to be no less honest. I believe your policy to be sound.
I believe these deep duties may lie upon your lordship; I believe you
may have laid them on your conscience when you took the oaths of the
high office which you hold. But for me, who am just a plain man--or
scarce a man yet--the plain duties must suffice. I can think but of two
things, of a poor soul in the immediate and unjust danger of a shameful
death, and of the cries and tears of his wife that still tingle in my
head. I cannot see beyond, my lord. It's the way that I am made. If the
country has to fall, it has to fall. And I pray God, if this be wilful
blindness, that he may enlighten me before too late."

He had heard me motionless, and stood so a while longer.

"This is an unexpected obstacle," says he, aloud, but to himself.

"And how is your lordship to dispose of me?" I asked.

"If I wished," said he, "you know that you might sleep in gaol?"

"My lord," says I, "I have slept in worse places."

"Well, my boy," said he, "there is one thing appears very plainly from
our interview, that I may rely on your pledged word. Give me your honour
that you will be wholly secret, not only on what has passed to-night,
but in the matter of the Appin case, and I let you go free."

"I will give it till to-morrow or any other near day that you may please
to set," said I. "I would not be thought too wily; but if I gave the
promise without qualification, your lordship would have attained his
end."

"I had no thought to entrap you," said he.

"I am sure of that," said I.

"Let me see," he continued. "To-morrow is the Sabbath. Come to me on
Monday by eight in the morning, and give me your promise until then."

"Freely given, my lord," said I. "And with regard to what has fallen
from yourself, I will give it for as long as it shall please God to
spare your days."

"You will observe," he said next, "that I have made no employment of
menaces."

"It was like your lordship's nobility," said I. "Yet I am not altogether
so dull but what I can perceive the nature of those you have not
uttered."

"Well," said he, "good-night to you. May you sleep well, for I think it
is more than I am like to do."

With that he sighed, took up a candle, and gave me his conveyance as far
as the street door.

       *       *       *       *       *




CHAPTER V

IN THE ADVOCATE'S HOUSE


The next day, Sabbath, August 27th, I had the occasion I had long looked
forward to, to hear some of the famous Edinburgh preachers, all well
known to me already by the report of Mr. Campbell. Alas! and I might
just as well have been at Essendean, and sitting under Mr. Campbell's
worthy self! the turmoil of my thoughts, which dwelt continually on the
interview with Prestongrange, inhibiting me from all attention. I was
indeed much less impressed by the reasoning of the divines than by the
spectacle of the thronged congregation in the churches, like what I
imagined of a theatre or (in my then disposition) of an assize of trial;
above all at the West Kirk, with its three tiers of galleries, where I
went in the vain hope that I might see Miss Drummond.

On the Monday I betook me for the first time to a barber's, and was very
well pleased with the result. Thence to the Advocate's, where the red
coats of the soldiers showed again about his door, making a bright place
in the close. I looked about for the young lady and her gillies; there
was never a sign of them. But I was no sooner shown into the cabinet or
antechamber, where I had spent so wearyful a time upon the Saturday,
than I was aware of the tall figure of James More in a corner. He seemed
a prey to a painful uneasiness, reaching forth his feet and hands, and
his eyes speeding here and there without rest about the walls of the
small chamber, which recalled to me with a sense of pity the man's
wretched situation. I suppose it was partly this, and partly my strong
continuing interest in his daughter, that moved me to accost him.

"Give you a good-morning, sir," said I.

"And a good-morning to you, sir," said he.

"You bide tryst with Prestongrange?" I asked.

"I do, sir, and I pray your business with that gentleman be more
agreeable than mine," was his reply.

"I hope at least that yours will be brief, for I suppose you pass before
me," said I.

"All pass before me," he said, with a shrug and a gesture upward of the
open hands. "It was not always so, sir, but times change. It was not so
when the sword was in the scale, young gentleman, and the virtues of the
soldier might sustain themselves."

There came a kind of Highland snuffle out of the man that raised my
dander strangely.

"Well, Mr. Macgregor," said I, "I understand the main thing for a
soldier is to be silent, and the first of his virtues never to
complain."

"You have my name, I perceive"--he bowed to me with his arms
crossed--"though it's one I must not use myself. Well, there is a
publicity--I have shown my face and told my name too often in the beards
of my enemies. I must not wonder if both should be known to many that I
know not."

"That you know not in the least, sir," said I, "nor yet anybody else;
but the name I am called, if you care to hear it, is Balfour."

"It is a good name," he replied, civilly; "there are many decent folk
that use it. And now that I call to mind, there was a young gentleman,
your namesake, that marched surgeon in the year '45 with my battalion."

"I believe that would be a brother to Balfour of Baith," said I, for I
was ready for the surgeon now.

"The same, sir," said James More. "And since I have been fellow-soldier
with your kinsman, you must suffer me to grasp your hand."

He shook hands with me long and tenderly, beaming on me the while as
though he had found a brother.

"Ah!" says he, "these are changed days since your cousin and I heard the
balls whistle in our lugs."

"I think he was a very far-away cousin," said I, drily, "and I ought to
tell you that I never clapped eyes upon the man."

"Well, well," said he, "it makes no change. And you--I do not think you
were out yourself, sir--I have no clear mind of your face, which is one
not probable to be forgotten."

"In the year you refer to, Mr. Macgregor, I was getting skelped in the
parish school," said I.

"So young!" cries he. "Ah, then you will never be able to think what
this meeting is to me. In the hour of my adversity, and in the house of
my enemy, to meet in with the blood of an old brother-in-arms--it
heartens me, Mr. Balfour, like the skirling of the Highland pipes! Sir,
this is a sad look-back that many of us have to make: some with falling
tears. I have lived in my own country like a king; my sword, my
mountains, and the faith of my friends and kinsmen sufficed for me. Now
I lie in a stinking dungeon; and do you know, Mr. Balfour," he went on,
taking my arm and beginning to lead me about, "do you know, sir, that I
lack mere necessaries? The malice of my foes has quite sequestered my
resources. I lie, as you know, sir, on a trumped-up charge, of which I
am as innocent as yourself. They dare not bring me to my trial, and in
the meanwhile I am held naked in my prison. I could have wished it was
your cousin I had met, or his brother Baith himself. Either would, I
know, have been rejoiced to help me; while a comparative stranger like
yourself--"

I would be ashamed to set down all he poured out to me in this beggarly
vein, or the very short and grudging answers that I made to him. There
were times when I was tempted to stop his mouth with some small change;
but whether it was from shame or pride--whether it was for my own sake
or Catriona's--whether it was because I thought him no fit father for
his daughter, or because I resented that grossness of immediate falsity
that clung about the man himself--the thing was clean beyond me. And I
was still being wheedled and preached to, and still being marched to and
fro, three steps and a turn, in that small chamber, and had already, by
some very short replies, highly incensed, although not finally
discouraged, my beggar, when Prestongrange appeared in the doorway and
bade me eagerly into his big chamber.

"I have a moment's engagement," said he; "and that you may not sit
empty-handed I am going to present you to my three braw daughters, of
whom perhaps you may have heard, for I think they are more famous than
papa. This way."

He led me into another long room above, where a dry old lady sat at a
frame of embroidery, and the three handsomest young women (I suppose) in
Scotland stood together by a window.

"This is my new friend, Mr. Balfour," said he, presenting me by the arm.
"David, here is my sister, Miss Grant, who is so good as keep my house
for me, and will be very pleased if she can help you. And here," says
he, turning to the three younger ladies, "here are my _three braw
dauchters_. A fair question to ye, Mr. Davie: which of the three is the
best favoured? And I wager he will never have the impudence to propound
honest Alan Ramsay's answer!"

Hereupon all three, and the old Miss Grant as well, cried out against
this sally, which (as I was acquainted with the verses he referred to)
brought shame into my own cheek. It seemed to me a citation unpardonable
in a father, and I was amazed that these ladies could laugh even while
they reproved, or made believe to.

Under cover of this mirth, Prestongrange got forth of the chamber, and I
was left, like a fish upon dry land, in that very unsuitable society. I
could never deny, in looking back upon what followed, that I was
eminently stockish; and I must say the ladies were well drilled to have
so long a patience with me. The aunt indeed sat close at her embroidery,
only looking now and again and smiling; but the misses, and especially
the eldest, who was besides the most handsome, paid me a score of
attentions which I was very ill able to repay. It was all in vain to
tell myself I was a young fellow of some worth as well as good estate,
and had no call to feel abashed before these lasses, the eldest not so
much older than myself, and no one of them by any probability half as
learned. Reasoning would not change the fact; and there were times when
the colour came into my face to think I was shaved that day for the
first time.

The talk going, with all their endeavours, very heavily, the eldest took
pity on my awkwardness, sat down to her instrument, of which she was a
passed mistress, and entertained me for a while with playing and
singing, both in the Scots and in the Italian manners; this put me more
at my ease, and being reminded of Alan's air that he had taught me in
the hole near Carriden, I made so bold as to whistle a bar or two, and
ask if she knew that.

She shook her head. "I never heard a note of it," said she. "Whistle it
all through. And now once again," she added, after I had done so.

Then she picked it out upon the keyboard, and (to my surprise) instantly
enriched the same with well-sounding chords, and sang, as she played,
with a very droll expression and broad accent:

    "Haenae I got just the lilt of it?
    Isnae this the tune that ye whustled?"

"You see," she says, "I can do the poetry too, only it won't rhyme." And
then again:

    "I am Miss Grant, sib to the Advocate:
    You, I believe, are Dauvit Balfour."

I told her how much astonished I was by her genius.

"And what do you call the name of it?" she asked.

"I do not know the real name," said I. "I just call it _Alan's air_."

She looked at me directly in the face. "I shall call it _David's air_,"
said she; "though if it's the least like what your namesake of Israel
played to Saul I would never wonder that the king got little good by it,
for it's but melancholy music. Your other name I do not like; so, if you
was ever wishing to hear your tune again you are to ask for it by mine."

This was said with a significance that gave my heart a jog. "Why that,
Miss Grant?" I asked.

"Why," says she, "if ever you should come to get hanged, I will set your
last dying speech and confession to that tune and sing it."

This put it beyond a doubt that she was partly informed of my story and
peril. How, or just how much, it was more difficult to guess. It was
plain she knew there was something of danger in the name of Alan, and
thus warned me to leave it out of reference; and plain she knew that I
stood under some criminal suspicion. I judged besides that the harshness
of her last speech (which besides she had followed up immediately with a
very noisy piece of music) was to put an end to the present
conversation. I stood beside her, affecting to listen and admire, but
truly whirled away by my own thoughts. I have always found this young
lady to be a lover of the mysterious; and certainly this first interview
made a mystery that was beyond my plummet. One thing I learned long
after, the hours of the Sunday had been well employed, the bank porter
had been found and examined, my visit to Charles Stewart was discovered,
and the deduction made that I was pretty deep with James and Alan, and
most likely in a continued correspondence with the last. Hence this
broad hint that was given me across the harpsichord.

In the midst of the piece of music, one of the younger misses, who was
at a window over the close, cried on her sisters to come quick, for
there was "_Grey eyes_ again." The whole family trooped there at once,
and crowded one another for a look. The window whither they ran was in
an odd corner of that room, gave above the entrance door, and flanked up
the close.

"Come, Mr. Balfour," they cried, "come and see. She is the most
beautiful creature! She hangs round the close-head these last days,
always with some wretched-like gillies, and yet seems quite a lady."

I had no need to look; neither did I look twice, or long. I was afraid
she might have seen me there, looking down upon her from that chamber of
music, and she without, and her father in the same house, perhaps
begging for his life with tears, and myself come but newly from
rejecting his petitions. But even that glance set me in a better conceit
of myself, and much less awe of the young ladies. They were beautiful,
that was beyond question, but Catriona was beautiful too, and had a kind
of brightness in her like a coal of fire. As much as the others cast me
down, she lifted me up. I remembered I had talked easily with her. If I
could make no hand of it with these fine maids, it was perhaps something
their own fault. My embarrassment began to be a little mingled and
lightened with a sense of fun; and when the aunt smiled at me from her
embroidery, and the three daughters unbent to me like a baby, all with
"papa's orders" written on their faces, there were times when I could
have found it in my heart to smile myself.

Presently papa returned, the same kind, happy-like, pleasant-spoken man.

"Now, girls," said he, "I must take Mr. Balfour away again; but I hope
you have been able to persuade him to return where I shall be always
gratified to find him."

So they each made me a little farthing compliment, and I was led away.

If this visit to the family had been meant to soften my resistance, it
was the worst of failures. I was no such ass but what I understood how
poor a figure I had made, and that the girls would be yawning their jaws
off as soon as my stiff back was turned. I felt I had shown how little I
had in me of what was soft and graceful; and I longed for a chance to
prove that I had something of the other stuff, the stern and dangerous.

Well, I was to be served to my desire, for the scene to which he was
conducting me was of a different character.

       *       *       *       *       *




CHAPTER VI

UMQUILE THE MASTER OF LOVAT


There was a man waiting us in Prestongrange's study, whom I distasted at
the first look, as we distaste a ferret or an earwig. He was bitter
ugly, but seemed very much of a gentleman; had still manners, but
capable of sudden leaps and violences; and a small voice, which could
ring out shrill and dangerous when he so desired.

The Advocate presented us in a familiar, friendly way.

"Here, Fraser," said he, "here is Mr. Balfour whom we talked about. Mr.
David, this is Mr. Symon Fraser, whom we used to call by another title,
but that is an old song. Mr. Fraser has an errand to you."

With that he stepped aside to his book-shelves, and made believe to
consult a quarto volume in the far end.

I was thus left (in a sense) alone with perhaps the last person in the
world I had expected. There was no doubt upon the terms of introduction;
this could be no other than the forfeited Master of Lovat and chief of
the great clan Fraser. I knew he had led his men in the Rebellion; I
knew his father's head--my old lord's, that grey fox of the
mountains--to have fallen on the block for that offence, the lands of
the family to have been seized, and their nobility attainted. I could
not conceive what he should be doing in Grant's house; I could not
conceive that he had been called to the bar, had eaten all his
principles, and was now currying favour with the Government even to the
extent of acting Advocate-Depute in the Appin murder.

"Well, Mr. Balfour," said he, "what is all this I hear of ye?"

"It would not become me to prejudge," said I, "but if the Advocate was
your authority he is fully possessed of my opinions."

"I may tell you I am engaged in the Appin case," he went on; "I am to
appear under Prestongrange; and from my study of the precognitions I can
assure you your opinions are erroneous. The guilt of Breck is manifest;
and your testimony, in which you admit you saw him on the hill at the
very moment, will certify his hanging."

"It will be rather ill to hang him till you catch him," I observed. "And
for other matters I very willingly leave you to your own impressions."

"The Duke has been informed," he went on. "I have just come from his
Grace, and he expressed himself before me with an honest freedom like
the great nobleman he is. He spoke of you by name, Mr. Balfour, and
declared his gratitude beforehand in case you would be led by those who
understand your own interests and those of the country so much better
than yourself. Gratitude is no empty expression in that mouth: _experto
crede_. I daresay you know something of my name and clan, and the
damnable example and lamented end of my late father, to say nothing of
my own errata. Well, I have made my peace with that good Duke; he has
intervened for me with our friend Prestongrange; and here I am with my
foot in the stirrup again and some of the responsibility shared into my
hand of prosecuting King George's enemies and avenging the late daring
and barefaced insult to his Majesty."

"Doubtless a proud position for your father's son," says I.

He wagged his bald eyebrows at me. "You are pleased to make experiments
in the ironical, I think," said he. "But I am here upon duty, I am here
to discharge my errand in good faith, it is in vain you think to divert
me. And let me tell you, for a young fellow of spirit and ambition like
yourself, a good shove in the beginning will do more than ten years'
drudgery. The shove is now at your command; choose what you will to be
advanced in, the Duke will watch upon you with the affectionate
disposition of a father."

"I am thinking that I lack the docility of the son," says I.

"And do you really suppose, sir, that the whole policy of this country
is to be suffered to trip up and tumble down for an ill-mannered colt of
a boy?" he cried. "This has been made a test case, all who would prosper
in the future must put a shoulder to the wheel. Look at me! Do you
suppose it is for my pleasure that I put myself in the highly invidious
position of prosecuting a man that I have drawn the sword alongside of?
The choice is not left me."

"But I think, sir, that you forfeited your choice when you mixed in with
that unnatural rebellion," I remarked. "My case is happily otherwise; I
am a true man, and can look either the Duke or King George in the face
without concern."

"Is it so the wind sits?" says he. "I protest you are fallen in the
worst sort of error. Prestongrange has been hitherto so civil (he tells
me) as not to combat your allegations; but you must not think they are
not looked upon with strong suspicion. You say you are innocent. My dear
sir, the facts declare you guilty."

"I was waiting for you there," said I.

"The evidence of Mungo Campbell; your flight after the completion of the
murder; your long course of secresy--my good young man!" said Mr. Symon,
"here is enough evidence to hang a bullock, let be a David Balfour! I
shall be upon that trial; my voice shall be raised; I shall then speak
much otherwise from what I do to-day, and far less to your
gratification, little as you like it now! Ah, you look white!" cries he.
"I have found the key of your impudent heart. You look pale, your eyes
waver, Mr. David! You see the grave and the gallows nearer by than you
had fancied."

"I own to a natural weakness," said I. "I think no shame for that. Shame
. . ." I was going on.

"Shame waits for you on the gibbet," he broke in.

"Where I shall but be even'd with my lord your father," said I.

"Aha, but not so!" he cried, "and you do not yet see to the bottom of
this business. My father suffered in a great cause, and for dealing in
the affairs of kings. You are to hang for a dirty murder about
boddle-pieces. Your personal part in it, the treacherous one of holding
the poor wretch in talk, your accomplices a pack of ragged Highland
gillies. And it can be shown, my great Mr. Balfour--it can be shown, and
it _will_ be shown, trust _me_ that has a finger in the pie--it can be
shown, and shall be shown, that you were paid to do it. I think I can
see the looks go round the court when I adduce my evidence, and it shall
appear that you, a young man of education, let yourself be corrupted to
this shocking act for a suit of cast clothes, a bottle of Highland
spirits, and three-and-fivepence-halfpenny in copper money."

There was a touch of the truth in these words that knocked
me like a blow: clothes, a bottle of _usquebaugh_, and
three-and-fivepence-halfpenny in change made up, indeed, the most of what
Alan and I had carried from Aucharn; and I saw that some of James's
people had been blabbing in their dungeons.

"You see I know more than you fancied," he resumed in triumph. "And as
for giving it this turn, great Mr. David, you must not suppose the
Government of Great Britain and Ireland will ever be stuck for want of
evidence. We have men here in prison who will swear out their lives as
we direct them; as I direct, if you prefer the phrase. So now you are to
guess your part of glory if you choose to die. On the one hand, life,
wine, women, and a duke to be your hand-gun; on the other, a rope to
your craig, and a gibbet to clatter your bones on, and the lousiest,
lowest story to hand down to your namesakes in the future that was ever
told about a hired assassin. And see here!" he cried, with a formidable
shrill voice, "see this paper that I pull out of my pocket. Look at the
name there: it is the name of the great David, I believe, the ink scarce
dry yet. Can you guess its nature? It is the warrant for your arrest,
which I have but to touch this bell beside me to have executed on the
spot. Once in the Tolbooth upon this paper, may God help you, for the
die is cast!"

I must never deny that I was greatly horrified by so much baseness, and
much unmanned by the immediacy and ugliness of my danger. Mr. Symon had
already gloried in the changes of my hue; I make no doubt I was now no
ruddier than my shirt; my speech besides trembled.

"There is a gentleman in this room," cried I. "I appeal to him. I put my
life and credit in his hands."

Prestongrange shut his book with a snap. "I told you so, Symon," said
he; "you have played your hand for all it was worth, and you have lost.
Mr. David," he went on, "I wish you to believe it was by no choice of
mine you were subjected to this proof. I wish you could understand how
glad I am you should come forth from it with so much credit. You may not
quite see how, but it is a little of a service to myself. For had our
friend here been more successful than I was last night, it might have
appeared that he was a better judge of men than I; it might have
appeared we were altogether in the wrong situations, Mr. Symon and
myself. And I know our friend Symon to be ambitious," says he, striking
lightly on Fraser's shoulder. "As for this stage play, it is over; my
sentiments are very much engaged in your behalf; and whatever issue we
can find to this unfortunate affair, I shall make it my business to see
it is adopted with tenderness to you."

These were very good words, and I could see besides that there was
little love, and perhaps a spice of genuine ill-will, between those two
who were opposed to me. For all that, it was unmistakable this interview
had been designed, perhaps rehearsed, with the consent of both; it was
plain my adversaries were in earnest to try me by all methods; and now
(persuasion, flattery, and menaces having been tried in vain) I could
not but wonder what would be their next expedient. My eyes besides were
still troubled, and my knees loose under me, with the distress of the
late ordeal; and I could do no more than stammer the same form of words:
"I put my life and credit in your hands."

"Well, well," says he, "we must try to save them. And in the meanwhile
let us return to gentler methods. You must not bear any grudge upon my
friend, Mr. Symon, who did but speak by his brief. And even if you did
conceive some malice against myself, who stood by and seemed rather to
hold a candle, I must not let that extend to innocent members of my
family. These are greatly engaged to see more of you, and I cannot
consent to have my young women-folk disappointed. To-morrow they will be
going to Hope Park, where I think it very proper you should make your
bow. Call for me first, when I may possibly have something for your
private hearing; then you shall be turned abroad again under the conduct
of my misses; and until that time repeat to me your promise of secrecy."

I had done better to have instantly refused, but in truth I was beside
the power of reasoning; did as I was bid; took my leave I know not how;
and when I was forth again in the close, and the door had shut behind
me, was glad to lean on a house wall and wipe my face. That horrid
apparition (as I may call it) of Mr. Symon rang in my memory, as a
sudden noise rings after it is over on the ear. Tales of the man's
father, of his falseness, of his manifold perpetual treacheries, rose
before me from all that I had heard and read, and joined on with what I
had just experienced of himself. Each time it occurred to me, the
ingenious foulness of that calumny he had proposed to nail upon my
character startled me afresh. The case of the man upon the gibbet by
Leith Walk appeared scarce distinguishable from that I was now to
consider as my own. To rob a child of so little more than nothing was
certainly a paltry enterprise for two grown men; but my own tale, as it
was to be represented in a court by Symon Fraser, appeared a fair second
in every possible point of view of sordidness and cowardice.

The voices of two of Prestongrange's liveried men upon his doorstep
recalled me to myself.

"Ha'e," said the one, "this billet as fast as ye can link to the
captain."

"Is that for the cateran back again?" asked the other.

"It would seem sae," returned the first. "Him and Symon are seeking
him."

"I think Prestongrange is gane gyte," says the second. "He'll have James
More in bed with him next."

"Weel, it's neither your affair nor mine's," says the first.

And they parted, the one upon his errand, and the other back into the
house.

This looked as ill as possible. I was scarce gone and they were sending
already for James More, to whom I thought Mr. Symon must have pointed
when he spoke of men in prison and ready to redeem their lives by all
extremities. My scalp curdled among my hair, and the next moment the
blood leaped in me to remember Catriona. Poor lass! her father stood to
be hanged for pretty indefensible misconduct. What was yet more
unpalatable, it now seemed he was prepared to save his four quarters by
the worst of shame and the most foul of cowardly murders--murder by the
false oath; and to complete our misfortunes, it seemed myself was picked
out to be the victim.

I began to walk swiftly and at random, conscious only of a desire for
movement, air, and the open country.

       *       *       *       *       *




CHAPTER VII

I MAKE A FAULT IN HONOR


I came forth, I vow I know not how, on the _Lang Dykes_.[12] This is a
rural road which runs on the north side over against the city. Thence I
could see the whole black length of it tail down, from where the castle
stands upon its crags above the loch in a long line of spires and gable
ends, and smoking chimneys, and at the sight my heart swelled in my
bosom. My youth, as I have told, was already inured to dangers; but such
danger as I had seen the face of but that morning, in the midst of what
they call the safety of a town, shook me beyond experience. Peril of
slavery, peril of shipwreck, peril of sword and shot, I had stood all of
these without discredit; but the peril there was in the sharp voice and
the fat face of Symon, properly Lord Lovat, daunted me wholly.

I sat by the lake side in a place where the rushes went down into the
water, and there steeped my wrists and laved my temples. If I could have
done so with any remains of self-esteem I would now have fled from my
foolhardy enterprise. But (call it courage or cowardice, and I believe
it was both the one and the other) I decided I was ventured out beyond
the possibility of a retreat. I had outfaced these men, I would continue
to outface them; come what might, I would stand by the word spoken.

The sense of my own constancy somewhat uplifted my spirits, but not
much. At the best of it there was an icy place about my heart, and life
seemed a black business to be at all engaged in. For two souls in
particular my pity flowed. The one was myself, to be so friendless and
lost among dangers. The other was the girl, the daughter of James More.
I had seen but little of her; yet my view was taken and my judgment
made. I thought her a lass of a clean honour, like a man's; I thought
her one to die of a disgrace; and now I believed her father to be at
that moment bargaining his vile life for mine. It made a bond in my
thoughts betwixt the girl and me. I had seen her before only as a
wayside appearance, though one that pleased me strangely; I saw her now
in a sudden nearness of relation, as the daughter of my blood foe, and I
might say, my murderer. I reflected it was hard I should be so plagued
and persecuted all my days for other folk's affairs, and have no manner
of pleasure myself. I got meals and a bed to sleep in when my concerns
would suffer it; beyond that my wealth was of no help to me. If I was to
hang, my days were like to be short; if I was not to hang but to escape
out of this trouble, they might yet seem long to me ere I was done with
them. Of a sudden her face appeared in my memory, the way I had first
seen it, with the parted lips; at that, weakness came in my bosom and
strength into my legs; and I set resolutely forward on the way to Dean.
If I was to hang to-morrow, and it was sure enough I might very likely
sleep that night in a dungeon, I determined I should hear and speak once
more with Catriona.

The exercise of walking and the thought of my destination braced me yet
more, so that I began to pluck up a kind of spirit. In the village of
Dean, where it sits in the bottom of a glen beside the river, I inquired
my way of a miller's man, who sent me up the hill upon the farther side
by a plain path, and so to a decent-like small house in a garden of
lawns and apple-trees. My heart beat high as I stepped inside the garden
hedge, but it fell low indeed when I came face to face with a grim and
fierce old lady, walking there in a white mutch with a man's hat
strapped upon the top of it.

"What do ye come seeking here?" she asked.

I told her I was after Miss Drummond.

"And what may be your business with Miss Drummond?" says she.

I told her I had met her on Saturday last, had been so fortunate as to
render her a trifling service, and was come now on the young lady's
invitation.

"Oh, so you're Saxpence!" she cried, with a very sneering manner. "A
braw gift, a bonny gentleman. And hae ye ony ither name and designation,
or were ye bapteesed Saxpence?" she asked.

I told my name.

"Preserve me!" she cried. "Has Ebenezer gotten a son?"

"No, ma'am," said I. "I am a son of Alexander's. It's I that am the
Laird of Shaws."

"Ye'll find your work cut out for ye to establish that," quoth she.

"I perceive you know my uncle," said I; "and I daresay you may be the
better pleased to hear that business is arranged."

"And what brings ye here after Miss Drummond?" she pursued.

"I'm come after my saxpence, mem," said I. "It's to be thought, being my
uncle's nephew, I would be found a careful lad."

"So ye have a spark of sleeness in ye," observed the old lady, with some
approval. "I thought ye had just been a cuif--you and your saxpence, and
your _lucky day_ and your _sake of Balwhidder_"--from which I was
gratified to learn that Catriona had not forgotten some of our talk.
"But all this is by the purpose," she resumed. "Am I to understand that
ye come here keeping company?"

"This is surely rather an early question," said I. "The maid is young,
so am I, worse fortune. I have but seen her the once. I'll not deny," I
added, making up my mind to try her with some frankness, "I'll not deny
but she has run in my head a good deal since I met in with her. That is
one thing; but it would be quite another, and I think I would look very
like a fool, to commit myself."