only for this strong drawing to have done with my declaration out

of hand and be able to lay me down to sleep with a free conscience.

At first I read, for the little cabinet where I was left contained

a variety of books.  But I fear I read with little profit; and the

weather falling cloudy, the dusk coming up earlier than usual, and

my cabinet being lighted with but a loophole of a window, I was at

last obliged to desist from this diversion (such as it was), and

pass the rest of my time of waiting in a very burthensome vacuity.

The sound of people talking in a near chamber, the pleasant note of

a harpsichord, and once the voice of a lady singing, bore me a kind

of company.



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 in 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 a 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

in 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 fomentor 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 oath 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," said 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 our promise until

then."



"Freely given, my lord," said I.  "And with regard to what has

fallen from yourself, I will give it for an 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 here

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 skirting 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 engagements," 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 check.  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 follow

of some worth as well as a 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. Simon 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 persecuting 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. Simon, "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 Auchurn; 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 handgun:  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.

Simon 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, Simon,"

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. Simon and myself.  And I know our friend

Simon 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 these

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," said 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. Simon, 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 womenfolk

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. Simon rang

in my memory, as a sudden noise rings after it is over in 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 Simon 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 Simon 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," said 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. Simon 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 HONOUR







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 Simon, property 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 out-faced these men, I would continue to out-face 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 folks' 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