Catriona
of his office and the great facilities afforded the defence_! But I’ll
begowk them there, Mr. David. I have a plan to waylay the witnesses
upon the road, and see if I cannae get I a little harle of justice out
of the _military man notoriously ignorant of the law_ that shall
command the party.”
It was actually so—it was actually on the wayside near Tynedrum, and by
the connivance of a soldier officer, that Mr. Stewart first saw the
witnesses upon the case.
“There is nothing that would surprise me in this business,” I remarked.
“I’ll surprise you ere I’m done!” cries he. “Do ye see this?”—producing
a print still wet from the press. “This is the libel: see, there’s
Prestongrange’s name to the list of witnesses, and I find no word of
any Balfour. But here is not the question. Who do ye think paid for the
printing of this paper?”
“I suppose it would likely be King George,” said I.
“But it happens it was me!” he cried. “Not but it was printed by and
for themselves, for the Grants and the Erskines, and yon thief of the
black midnight, Simon Fraser. But could _I_ win to get a copy! No! I
was to go blindfold to my defence; I was to hear the charges for the
first time in court alongst the jury.”
“Is not this against the law?” I asked.
“I cannot say so much,” he replied. “It was a favour so natural and so
constantly rendered (till this nonesuch business) that the law has
never looked to it. And now admire the hand of Providence! A stranger
is in Fleming’s printing house, spies a proof on the floor, picks it
up, and carries it to me. Of all things, it was just this libel.
Whereupon I had it set again—printed at the expense of the defence:
_sumptibus moesti rei_; heard ever man the like of it?—and here it is
for anybody, the muckle secret out—all may see it now. But how do you
think I would enjoy this, that has the life of my kinsman on my
conscience?”
“Troth, I think you would enjoy it ill,” said I.
“And now you see how it is,” he concluded, “and why, when you tell me
your evidence is to be let in, I laugh aloud in your face.”
It was now my turn. I laid before him in brief Mr. Simon’s threats and
offers, and the whole incident of the bravo, with the subsequent scene
at Prestongrange’s. Of my first talk, according to promise, I said
nothing, nor indeed was it necessary. All the time I was talking
Stewart nodded his head like a mechanical figure; and no sooner had my
voice ceased, than he opened his mouth and gave me his opinion in two
words, dwelling strong on both of them.
“Disappear yourself,” said he.
“I do not take you,” said I.
“Then I’ll carry you there,” said he. “By my view of it you’re to
disappear whatever. O, that’s outside debate. The Advocate, who is not
without some spunks of a remainder decency, has wrung your life-safe
out of Simon and the Duke. He has refused to put you on your trial, and
refused to have you killed; and there is the clue to their ill words
together, for Simon and the Duke can keep faith with neither friend nor
enemy. Ye’re not to be tried then, and ye’re not to be murdered; but
I’m in bitter error if ye’re not to be kidnapped and carried away like
the Lady Grange. Bet me what ye please—there was their _expedient_!”
“You make me think,” said I, and told him of the whistle and the
red-headed retainer, Neil.
“Wherever James More is there’s one big rogue, never be deceived on
that,” said he. “His father was none so ill a man, though a kenning on
the wrong side of the law, and no friend to my family, that I should
waste my breath to be defending him! But as for James he’s a brock and
a blagyard. I like the appearance of this red-headed Neil as little as
yourself. It looks uncanny: fiegh! it smells bad. It was old Lovat that
managed the Lady Grange affair; if young Lovat is to handle yours,
it’ll be all in the family. What’s James More in prison for? The same
offence: abduction. His men have had practice in the business. He’ll be
to lend them to be Simon’s instruments; and the next thing we’ll be
hearing, James will have made his peace, or else he’ll have escaped;
and you’ll be in Benbecula or Applecross.”
“Ye make a strong case,” I admitted.
“And what I want,” he resumed, “is that you should disappear yourself
ere they can get their hands upon ye. Lie quiet until just before the
trial, and spring upon them at the last of it when they’ll be looking
for you least. This is always supposing Mr. Balfour, that your evidence
is worth so very great a measure of both risk and fash.”
“I will tell you one thing,” said I. “I saw the murderer and it was not
Alan.”
“Then, by God, my cousin’s saved!” cried Stewart. “You have his life
upon your tongue; and there’s neither time, risk, nor money to be
spared to bring you to the trial.” He emptied his pockets on the floor.
“Here is all that I have by me,” he went on, “Take it, ye’ll want it
ere ye’re through. Go straight down this close, there’s a way out by
there to the Lang Dykes, and by my will of it! see no more of Edinburgh
till the clash is over.”
“Where am I to go, then?” I inquired.
“And I wish that I could tell ye!” says he, “but all the places that I
could send ye to, would be just the places they would seek. No, ye must
fend for yourself, and God be your guiding! Five days before the trial,
September the sixteen, get word to me at the _King’s Arms_ in Stirling;
and if ye’ve managed for yourself as long as that, I’ll see that ye
reach Inverary.”
“One thing more,” said I. “Can I no see Alan?”
He seemed boggled. “Hech, I would rather you wouldnae,” said he. “But I
can never deny that Alan is extremely keen of it, and is to lie this
night by Silvermills on purpose. If you’re sure that you’re not
followed, Mr. Balfour—but make sure of that—lie in a good place and
watch your road for a clear hour before ye risk it. It would be a
dreadful business if both you and him was to miscarry!”
CHAPTER X.
THE RED-HEADED MAN
It was about half-past three when I came forth on the Lang Dykes. Dean
was where I wanted to go. Since Catriona dwelled there, and her
kinsfolk the Glengyle Macgregors appeared almost certainly to be
employed against me, it was just one of the few places I should have
kept away from; and being a very young man, and beginning to be very
much in love, I turned my face in that direction without pause. As a
slave to my conscience and common sense, however, I took a measure of
precaution. Coming over the crown of a bit of a rise in the road, I
clapped down suddenly among the barley and lay waiting. After a while,
a man went by that looked to be a Highlandman, but I had never seen him
till that hour. Presently after came Neil of the red head. The next to
go past was a miller’s cart, and after that nothing but manifest
country people. Here was enough to have turned the most foolhardy from
his purpose, but my inclination ran too strong the other way. I argued
it out that if Neil was on that road, it was the right road to find him
in, leading direct to his chief’s daughter; as for the other
Highlandman, if I was to be startled off by every Highlandman I saw, I
would scarce reach anywhere. And having quite satisfied myself with
this disingenuous debate, I made the better speed of it, and came a
little after four to Mrs. Drumond-Ogilvy’s.
Both ladies were within the house; and upon my perceiving them together
by the open door, I plucked off my hat and said, “Here was a lad come
seeking saxpence,” which I thought might please the dowager.
Catriona ran out to greet me heartily, and, to my surprise, the old
lady seemed scarce less forward than herself. I learned long afterwards
that she had despatched a horseman by daylight to Rankeillor at the
Queensferry, whom she knew to be the doer for Shaws, and had then in
her pocket a letter from that good friend of mine, presenting, in the
most favourable view, my character and prospects. But had I read it I
could scarce have seen more clear in her designs. Maybe I was
_countryfeed_; at least, I was not so much so as she thought; and it
was even to my homespun wits, that she was bent to hammer up a match
between her cousin and a beardless boy that was something of a laird in
Lothian.
“Saxpence had better take his broth with us, Catrine,” says she. “Run
and tell the lasses.”
And for the little while we were alone was at a good deal of pains to
flatter me; always cleverly, always with the appearance of a banter,
still calling me Saxpence, but with such a turn that should rather
uplift me in my own opinion. When Catriona returned, the design became
if possible more obvious; and she showed off the girl’s advantages like
a horse-couper with a horse. My face flamed that she should think me so
obtuse. Now I would fancy the girl was being innocently made a show of,
and then I could have beaten the old carline wife with a cudgel; and
now, that perhaps these two had set their heads together to entrap me,
and at that I sat and gloomed betwixt them like the very image of
ill-will. At last the matchmaker had a better device, which was to
leave the pair of us alone. When my suspicions are anyway roused it is
sometimes a little the wrong side of easy to allay them. But though I
knew what breed she was of, and that was a breed of thieves, I could
never look in Catriona’s face and disbelieve her.
“I must not ask?” says she, eagerly, the same moment we were left
alone.
“Ah, but to-day I can talk with a free conscience,” I replied. “I am
lightened of my pledge, and indeed (after what has come and gone since
morning) I would not have renewed it were it asked.”
“Tell me,” she said. “My cousin will not be so long.”
So I told her the tale of the lieutenant from the first step to the
last of it, making it as mirthful as I could, and, indeed, there was
matter of mirth in that absurdity.
“And I think you will be as little fitted for the rudas men as for the
pretty ladies, after all!” says she, when I had done. “But what was
your father that he could not learn you to draw the sword! It is most
ungentle; I have not heard the match of that in anyone.”
“It is most misconvenient at least,” said I; “and I think my father
(honest man!) must have been wool-gathering to learn me Latin in the
place of it. But you see I do the best I can, and just stand up like
Lot’s wife and let them hammer at me.”
“Do you know what makes me smile?” said she. “Well, it is this. I am
made this way, that I should have been a man child. In my own thoughts
it is so I am always; and I go on telling myself about this thing that
is to befall and that. Then it comes to the place of the fighting, and
it comes over me that I am only a girl at all events, and cannot hold a
sword or give one good blow; and then I have to twist my story round
about, so that the fighting is to stop, and yet me have the best of it,
just like you and the lieutenant; and I am the boy that makes the fine
speeches all through, like Mr. David Balfour.”
“You are a bloodthirsty maid,” said I.
“Well, I know it is good to sew and spin, and to make samplers,” she
said, “but if you were to do nothing else in the great world, I think
you will say yourself it is a driech business; and it is not that I
want to kill, I think. Did ever you kill anyone?”
“That I have, as it chances. Two, no less, and me still a lad that
should be at the college,” said I. “But yet, in the look-back, I take
no shame for it.”
“But how did you feel, then—after it?” she asked.
‘”Deed, I sat down and grat like a bairn,” said I.
“I know that, too,” she cried. “I feel where these tears should come
from. And at any rate, I would not wish to kill, only to be Catherine
Douglas that put her arm through the staples of the bolt, where it was
broken. That is my chief hero. Would you not love to die so—for your
king?” she asked.