Catriona

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"Ay," said he, "that's grand for you. But where do I come in! I have
my word to redeem the same's yoursel'. And what are ye asking me to
do, but just to sell it ye for siller?"

"Andie! have I named the name of siller?" cried I.

"Ou, the name's naething", said he; "the thing is there, whatever. It
just comes to this; if I am to service ye the way that you propose,
I'll lose my lifelihood. Then it's clear ye'll have to make it up to
me, and a pickle mair, for your ain credit like. And what's that but
just a bribe? And if even I was certain of the bribe! But by a' that
I can learn, it's far frae that; and if YOU were to hang, where would I
be? Na: the thing's no possible. And just awa' wi' ye like a bonny
lad! and let Andie read his chapter."

I remember I was at bottom a good deal gratified with this result; and
the next humour I fell into was one (I had near said) of gratitude to
Prestongrange, who had saved me, in this violent, illegal manner, out
of the midst of my dangers, temptations, and perplexities. But this
was both too flimsy and too cowardly to last me long, and the
remembrance of James began to succeed to the possession of my spirits.
The 21st, the day set for the trial, I passed in such misery of mind as
I can scarce recall to have endured, save perhaps upon Isle Earraid
only. Much of the time I lay on a brae-side betwixt sleep and waking,
my body motionless, my mind full of violent thoughts. Sometimes I
slept indeed; but the court-house of Inverary and the prisoner glancing
on all sides to find his missing witness, followed me in slumber; and I
would wake again with a start to darkness of spirit and distress of
body. I thought Andie seemed to observe me, but I paid him little
heed. Verily, my bread was bitter to me, and my days a burthen.

Early the next morning (Friday, 22nd) a boat came with provisions, and
Andie placed a packet in my hand. The cover was without address but
sealed with a Government seal. It enclosed two notes. "Mr. Balfour
can now see for himself it is too late to meddle. His conduct will be
observed and his discretion rewarded." So ran the first, which seemed
to be laboriously writ with the left hand. There was certainly nothing
in these expressions to compromise the writer, even if that person
could be found; the seal, which formidably served instead of signature,
was affixed to a separate sheet on which there was no scratch of
writing; and I had to confess that (so far) my adversaries knew what
they were doing, and to digest as well as I was able the threat that
peeped under the promise.

But the second enclosure was by far the more surprising. It was in a
lady's hand of writ. "MAISTER DAUVIT BALFOUR IS INFORMED A FRIEND WAS
SPEIRING FOR HIM AND HER EYES WERE OF THE GREY," it ran - and seemed so
extraordinary a piece to come to my hands at such a moment and under
cover of a Government seal, that I stood stupid. Catriona's grey eyes
shone in my remembrance. I thought, with a bound of pleasure, she must
be the friend. But who should the writer be, to have her billet thus
enclosed with Prestongrange's? And of all wonders, why was it thought
needful to give me this pleasing but most inconsequent intelligence
upon the Bass? For the writer, I could hit upon none possible except
Miss Grant. Her family, I remembered, had remarked on Catriona's eyes
and even named her for their colour; and she herself had been much in
the habit to address me with a broad pronunciation, by way of a sniff,
I supposed, at my rusticity. No doubt, besides, but she lived in the
same house as this letter came from. So there remained but one step to
be accounted for; and that was how Prestongrange should have permitted
her at all in an affair so secret, or let her daft-like billet go in
the same cover with his own. But even here I had a glimmering. For,
first of all, there was something rather alarming about the young lady,
and papa might be more under her domination than I knew. And, second,
there was the man's continual policy to be remembered, how his conduct
had been continually mingled with caresses, and he had scarce ever, in
the midst of so much contention, laid aside a mask of friendship. He
must conceive that my imprisonment had incensed me. Perhaps this
little jesting, friendly message was intended to disarm my rancour?

I will be honest - and I think it did. I felt a sudden warmth towards
that beautiful Miss Grant, that she should stoop to so much interest in
my affairs. The summoning up of Catriona moved me of itself to milder
and more cowardly counsels. If the Advocate knew of her and our
acquaintance - if I should please him by some of that "discretion" at
which his letter pointed - to what might not this lead! IN VAIN IS THE
NET PREPARED IN THE SIGHT OF ANY FOWL, the Scripture says. Well, fowls
must be wiser than folk! For I thought I perceived the policy, and yet
fell in with it.

I was in this frame, my heart beating, the grey eyes plain before me
like two stars, when Andie broke in upon my musing.

"I see ye has gotten guid news," said he.

I found him looking curiously in my face; with that there came before
me like a vision of James Stewart and the court of Inverary; and my
mind turned at once like a door upon its hinges. Trials, I reflected,
sometimes draw out longer than is looked for. Even if I came to
Inverary just too late, something might yet be attempted in the
interests of James - and in those of my own character, the best would
be accomplished. In a moment, it seemed without thought, I had a plan
devised.

"Andie," said I, "is it still to be to-morrow?"

He told me nothing was changed.

"Was anything said about the hour?" I asked.

He told me it was to be two o'clock afternoon.

"And about the place?" I pursued.

"Whatten place?" says Andie.

"The place I am to be landed at?" said I.

He owned there was nothing as to that.

"Very well, then," I said, "this shall be mine to arrange. The wind is
in the east, my road lies westward: keep your boat, I hire it; let us
work up the Forth all day; and land me at two o'clock to-morrow at the
westmost we'll can have reached."

"Ye daft callant!" he cried; "ye would try for Inverary after a'!"

"Just that, Andie," says I.

"Weel, ye're ill to beat!" says he. "And I was a kind o' sorry for ye
a' day yesterday," he added. "Ye see, I was never entirely sure till
then, which way of it ye really wantit."

Here was a spur to a lame horse!

"A word in your ear, Andie," said I. "This plan of mine has another
advantage yet. We can leave these Hielandman behind us on the rock,
and one of your boats from the Castleton can bring them off to-morrow.
Yon Neil has a queer eye when he regards you; maybe, if I was once out
of the gate there might be knives again; these red-shanks are unco
grudgeful. And if there should come to be any question, here is your
excuse. Our lives were in danger by these savages; being answerable
for my safety, you chose the part to bring me from their neighbourhood
and detain me the rest of the time on board your boat: and do you
know, Andie?" says I, with a smile, "I think it was very wisely
chosen,"

"The truth is I have nae goo for Neil," says Andie, "nor he for me, I'm
thinking; and I would like ill to come to my hands wi' the man. Tam
Anster will make a better hand of it with the cattle onyway." (For
this man, Anster, came from Fife, where the Gaelic is still spoken.)
"Ay, ay!" says Andie, "Tam'll can deal with them the best. And troth!
the mair I think of it, the less I see we would be required. The place
- ay, feggs! they had forgot the place. Eh, Shaws, ye're a lang-heided
chield when ye like! Forby that I'm awing ye my life," he added, with
more solemnity, and offered me his hand upon the bargain.

Whereupon, with scarce more words, we stepped suddenly on board the
boat, cast off, and set the lug. The Gregara were then busy upon
breakfast, for the cookery was their usual part; but, one of them
stepping to the battlements, our flight was observed before we were
twenty fathoms from the rock; and the three of them ran about the ruins
and the landing-shelf, for all the world like ants about a broken nest,
hailing and crying on us to return. We were still in both the lee and
the shadow of the rock, which last lay broad upon the waters, but
presently came forth in almost the same moment into the wind and
sunshine; the sail filled, the boat heeled to the gunwale, and we swept
immediately beyond sound of the men's voices. To what terrors they
endured upon the rock, where they were now deserted without the
countenance of any civilised person or so much as the protection of a
Bible, no limit can be set; nor had they any brandy left to be their
consolation, for even in the haste and secrecy of our departure Andie
had managed to remove it.

It was our first care to set Anster ashore in a cove by the Glenteithy
Rocks, so that the deliverance of our maroons might be duly seen to the
next day. Thence we kept away up Firth. The breeze, which was then so
spirited, swiftly declined, but never wholly failed us. All day we
kept moving, though often not much more; and it was after dark ere we
were up with the Queensferry. To keep the letter of Andie's engagement
(or what was left of it) I must remain on board, but I thought no harm
to communicate with the shore in writing. On Prestongrange's cover,
where the Government seal must have a good deal surprised my
correspondent, I writ, by the boat's lantern, a few necessary words,
aboard and Andie carried them to Rankeillor. In about an hour he came
again, with a purse of money and the assurance that a good horse should
be standing saddled for me by two to-morrow at Clackmannan Pool. This
done, and the boat riding by her stone anchor, we lay down to sleep
under the sail.

We were in the Pool the next day long ere two; and there was nothing
left for me but to sit and wait. I felt little alacrity upon my
errand. I would have been glad of any passable excuse to lay it down;
but none being to be found, my uneasiness was no less great than if I
had been running to some desired pleasure. By shortly after one the
horse was at the waterside, and I could see a man walking it to and fro
till I should land, which vastly swelled my impatience. Andie ran the
moment of my liberation very fine, showing himself a man of his bare
word, but scarce serving his employers with a heaped measure; and by
about fifty seconds after two I was in the saddle and on the full
stretch for Stirling. In a little more than an hour I had passed that
town, and was already mounting Alan Water side, when the weather broke
in a small tempest. The rain blinded me, the wind had nearly beat me
from the saddle, and the first darkness of the night surprised me in a
wilderness still some way east of Balwhidder, not very sure of my
direction and mounted on a horse that began already to be weary.

In the press of my hurry, and to be spared the delay and annoyance of a
guide, I had followed (so far as it was possible for any horseman) the
line of my journey with Alan. This I did with open eyes, foreseeing a
great risk in it, which the tempest had now brought to a reality. The
last that I knew of where I was, I think it must have been about Uam
Var; the hour perhaps six at night. I must still think it great good
fortune that I got about eleven to my destination, the house of Duncan
Dhu. Where I had wandered in the interval perhaps the horse could
tell. I know we were twice down, and once over the saddle and for a
moment carried away in a roaring burn. Steed and rider were bemired up
to the eyes.

From Duncan I had news of the trial. It was followed in all these
Highland regions with religious interest; news of it spread from
Inverary as swift as men could travel; and I was rejoiced to learn
that, up to a late hour that Saturday it was not yet concluded; and all
men began to suppose it must spread over the Monday. Under the spur of
this intelligence I would not sit to eat; but, Duncan having agreed to
be my guide, took the road again on foot, with the piece in my hand and
munching as I went. Duncan brought with him a flask of usquebaugh and
a hand-lantern; which last enlightened us just so long as we could find
houses where to rekindle it, for the thing leaked outrageously and blew
out with every gust. The more part of the night we walked blindfold
among sheets of rain, and day found us aimless on the mountains. Hard
by we struck a hut on a burn-side, where we got bite and a direction;
and, a little before the end of the sermon, came to the kirk doors of
Inverary.

The rain had somewhat washed the upper parts of me, but I was still
bogged as high as to the knees; I streamed water; I was so weary I
could hardly limp, and my face was like a ghost's. I stood certainly
more in need of a change of raiment and a bed to lie on, than of all
the benefits in Christianity. For all which (being persuaded the chief
point for me was to make myself immediately public) I set the door of
the church with the dirty Duncan at my tails, and finding a vacant
place sat down.

"Thirteently, my brethren, and in parenthesis, the law itself must be
regarded as a means of grace," the minister was saying, in the voice of
one delighting to pursue an argument.

The sermon was in English on account of the assize. The judges were
present with their armed attendants, the halberts glittered in a corner
by the door, and the seats were thronged beyond custom with the array
of lawyers. The text was in Romans 5th and 13th - the minister a
skilled hand; and the whole of that able churchful - from Argyle, and
my Lords Elchies and Kilkerran, down to the halbertmen that came in
their attendance - was sunk with gathered brows in a profound critical
attention. The minister himself and a sprinkling of those about the
door observed our entrance at the moment and immediately forgot the
same; the rest either did not hear or would not hear or would not be
heard; and I sat amongst my friends and enemies unremarked.

The first that I singled out was Prestongrange. He sat well forward,
like an eager horseman in the saddle, his lips moving with relish, his
eyes glued on the minister; the doctrine was clearly to his mind.
Charles Stewart, on the other hand, was half asleep, and looked
harassed and pale. As for Simon Fraser, he appeared like a blot, and
almost a scandal, in the midst of that attentive congregation, digging
his hands in his pockets, shifting his legs, clearing his throat, and
rolling up his bald eyebrows and shooting out his eyes to right and
left, now with a yawn, now with a secret smile. At times, too, he
would take the Bible in front of him, run it through, seem to read a
bit, run it through again, and stop and yawn prodigiously: the whole
as if for exercise.

In the course of this restlessness his eye alighted on myself. He sat
a second stupefied, then tore a half-leaf out of the Bible, scrawled
upon it with a pencil, and passed it with a whispered word to his next
neighbour. The note came to Prestongrange, who gave me but the one
look; thence it voyaged to the hands of Mr. Erskine; thence again to
Argyle, where he sat between the other two lords of session, and his
Grace turned and fixed me with an arrogant eye. The last of those
interested in my presence was Charlie Stewart, and he too began to
pencil and hand about dispatches, none of which I was able to trace to
their destination in the crowd.

But the passage of these notes had aroused notice; all who were in the
secret (or supposed themselves to be so) were whispering information -
the rest questions; and the minister himself seemed quite
discountenanced by the flutter in the church and sudden stir and
whispering. His voice changed, he plainly faltered, nor did he again
recover the easy conviction and full tones of his delivery. It would
be a puzzle to him till his dying day, why a sermon that had gone with
triumph through four parts, should this miscarry in the fifth.

As for me, I continued to sit there, very wet and weary, and a good
deal anxious as to what should happen next, but greatly exulting in my
success.

CHAPTER XVII - THE MEMORIAL

THE last word of the blessing was scarce out of the minister's mouth
before Stewart had me by the arm. We were the first to be forth of the
church, and he made such extraordinary expedition that we were safe
within the four walls of a house before the street had begun to be
thronged with the home-going congregation.

"Am I yet in time?" I asked.

"Ay and no," said he. "The case is over; the jury is enclosed, and
will so kind as let us ken their view of it to-morrow in the morning,
the same as I could have told it my own self three days ago before the
play began. The thing has been public from the start. The panel kent
it, 'YE MAY DO WHAT YE WILL FOR ME,' whispers he two days ago. 'YE KEN
MY FATE BY WHAT THE DUKE OF ARGYLE HAS JUST SAID TO MR. MACINTOSH.' O,
it's been a scandal!

"The great Agyle he gaed before,
He gart the cannons and guns to roar,"

and the very macer cried 'Cruachan!' But now that I have got you again
I'll never despair. The oak shall go over the myrtle yet; we'll ding
the Campbells yet in their own town. Praise God that I should see the
day!"

He was leaping with excitement, emptied out his mails upon the floor
that I might have a change of clothes, and incommoded me with his
assistance as I changed. What remained to be done, or how I was to do
it, was what he never told me nor, I believe, so much as thought of.
"We'll ding the Campbells yet!" that was still his overcome. And it
was forced home upon my mind how this, that had the externals of a
sober process of law, was in its essence a clan battle between savage
clans. I thought my friend the Writer none of the least savage. Who
that had only seen him at a counsel's back before the Lord Ordinary or
following a golf ball and laying down his clubs on Bruntsfield links,
could have recognised for the same person this voluble and violent
clansman?

James Stewart's counsel were four in number - Sheriffs Brown of
Colstoun and Miller, Mr. Robert Macintosh, and Mr. Stewart younger of
Stewart Hall. These were covenanted to dine with the Writer after
sermon, and I was very obligingly included of the party. No sooner the
cloth lifted, and the first bowl very artfully compounded by Sheriff
Miller, than we fell to the subject in hand. I made a short narration
of my seizure and captivity, and was then examined and re-examined upon
the circumstances of the murder. It will be remembered this was the
first time I had had my say out, or the matter at all handled, among
lawyers; and the consequence was very dispiriting to the others and (I
must own) disappointing to myself.

"To sum up," said Colstoun, "you prove that Alan was on the spot; you
have heard him proffer menaces against Glenure; and though you assure
us he was not the man who fired, you leave a strong impression that he
was in league with him, and consenting, perhaps immediately assisting,
in the act. You show him besides, at the risk of his own liberty,
actively furthering the criminal's escape. And the rest of your
testimony (so far as the least material) depends on the bare word of
Alan or of James, the two accused. In short, you do not at all break,
but only lengthen by one personage, the chain that binds our client to
the murderer; and I need scarcely say that the introduction of a third
accomplice rather aggravates that appearance of a conspiracy which has
been our stumbling block from the beginning."

"I am of the same opinion," said Sheriff Miller. "I think we may all
be very much obliged to Prestongrange for taking a most uncomfortable
witness out of our way. And chiefly, I think, Mr. Balfour himself
might be obliged. For you talk of a third accomplice, but Mr. Balfour
(in my view) has very much the appearance of a fourth."

"Allow me, sirs!" interposed Stewart the Writer. "There is another
view. Here we have a witness - never fash whether material or not - a
witness in this cause, kidnapped by that old, lawless, bandit crew of
the Glengyle Macgregors, and sequestered for near upon a month in a
bourock of old ruins on the Bass. Move that and see what dirt you
fling on the proceedings! Sirs, this is a tale to make the world ring
with! It would be strange, with such a grip as this, if we couldnae
squeeze out a pardon for my client."

"And suppose we took up Mr. Balfour's cause to-morrow?" said Stewart
Hall. "I am much deceived or we should find so many impediments thrown
in our path, as that James should have been hanged before we had found
a court to hear us. This is a great scandal, but I suppose we have
none of us forgot a greater still, I mean the matter of the Lady
Grange. The woman was still in durance; my friend Mr. Hope of
Rankeillor did what was humanly possible; and how did he speed? He
never got a warrant! Well, it'll be the same now; the same weapons
will be used. This is a scene, gentleman, of clan animosity. The
hatred of the name which I have the honour to bear, rages in high
quarters. There is nothing here to be viewed but naked Campbell spite
and scurvy Campbell intrigue."

You may be sure this was to touch a welcome topic, and I sat for some
time in the midst of my learned counsel, almost deaved with their talk
but extremely little the wiser for its purport. The Writer was led
into some hot expressions; Colstoun must take him up and set him right;
the rest joined in on different sides, but all pretty noisy; the Duke
of Argyle was beaten like a blanket; King George came in for a few digs
in the by-going and a great deal of rather elaborate defence; and there
was only one person that seemed to be forgotten, and that was James of
the Glens.

Through all this Mr. Miller sat quiet. He was a slip of an oldish
gentleman, ruddy and twinkling; he spoke in a smooth rich voice, with
an infinite effect of pawkiness, dealing out each word the way an actor
does, to give the most expression possible; and even now, when he was
silent, and sat there with his wig laid aside, his glass in both hands,
his mouth funnily pursed, and his chin out, he seemed the mere picture
of a merry slyness. It was plain he had a word to say, and waited for
the fit occasion.

It came presently. Colstoun had wound up one of his speeches with some
expression of their duty to their client. His brother sheriff was
pleased, I suppose, with the transition. He took the table in his
confidence with a gesture and a look.

"That suggests to me a consideration which seems overlooked," said he.
"The interest of our client goes certainly before all, but the world
does not come to an end with James Stewart." Whereat he cocked his eye.
"I might condescend, EXEMPLI GRATIA, upon a Mr. George Brown, a Mr.
Thomas Miller, and a Mr. David Balfour. Mr. David Balfour has a very
good ground of complaint, and I think, gentlemen - if his story was
properly redd out - I think there would be a number of wigs on the
green."

The whole table turned to him with a common movement.

"Properly handled and carefully redd out, his is a story that could
scarcely fail to have some consequence," he continued. "The whole
administration of justice, from its highest officer downward, would be
totally discredited; and it looks to me as if they would need to be
replaced." He seemed to shine with cunning as he said it. "And I need
not point out to ye that this of Mr. Balfour's would be a remarkable
bonny cause to appear in," he added.

Well, there they all were started on another hare; Mr. Balfour's cause,
and what kind of speeches could be there delivered, and what officials
could be thus turned out, and who would succeed to their positions. I
shall give but the two specimens. It was proposed to approach Simon
Fraser, whose testimony, if it could be obtained, would prove certainly
fatal to Argyle and to Prestongrange. Miller highly approved of the
attempt. "We have here before us a dreeping roast," said he, "here is
cut-and-come-again for all." And methought all licked their lips. The
other was already near the end. Stewart the Writer was out of the body
with delight, smelling vengeance on his chief enemy, the Duke.

"Gentlemen," cried he, charging his glass, "here is to Sheriff Miller.
His legal abilities are known to all. His culinary, this bowl in front
of us is here to speak for. But when it comes to the poleetical!" -
cries he, and drains the glass.

"Ay, but it will hardly prove politics in your meaning, my friend,"
said the gratified Miller. "A revolution, if you like, and I think I
can promise you that historical writers shall date from Mr. Balfour's
cause. But properly guided, Mr. Stewart, tenderly guided, it shall
prove a peaceful revolution."

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