CHAPTER IX.

THE HEATHER ON FIRE

When I left Prestongrange that afternoon I was for the first time

angry. The Advocate had made a mock of me. He had pretended my

testimony was to be received and myself respected; and in that very

hour, not only was Simon practising against my life by the hands of the

Highland soldier, but (as appeared from his own language) Prestongrange

himself had some design in operation. I counted my enemies;

Prestongrange with all the King’s authority behind him; and the Duke

with the power of the West Highlands; and the Lovat interest by their

side to help them with so great a force in the north, and the whole

clan of old Jacobite spies and traffickers. And when I remembered James

More, and the red head of Neil the son of Duncan, I thought there was

perhaps a fourth in the confederacy, and what remained of Rob Roy’s old

desperate sept of caterans would be banded against me with the others.

One thing was requisite—some strong friend or wise adviser. The country

must be full of such, both able and eager to support me, or Lovat and

the Duke and Prestongrange had not been nosing for expedients; and it

made me rage to think that I might brush against my champions in the

street and be no wiser.

And just then (like an answer) a gentleman brushed against me going by,

gave me a meaning look, and turned into a close. I knew him with the

tail of my eye—it was Stewart the Writer; and, blessing my good

fortune, turned in to follow him. As soon as I had entered the close I

saw him standing in the mouth of a stair, where he made me a signal and

immediately vanished. Seven storeys up, there he was again in a house

door, the which he looked behind us after we had entered. The house was

quite dismantled, with not a stick of furniture; indeed, it was one of

which Stewart had the letting in his hands.

“We’ll have to sit upon the floor,” said he; “but we’re safe here for

the time being, and I’ve been wearying to see ye, Mr. Balfour.”

“How’s it with Alan?” I asked.

“Brawly,” said he. “Andie picks him up at Gillane sands to-morrow,

Wednesday. He was keen to say good-bye to ye, but the way that things

were going, I was feared the pair of ye was maybe best apart. And that

brings me to the essential: how does your business speed?”

“Why,” said I, “I was told only this morning that my testimony was

accepted, and I was to travel to Inverary with the Advocate, no less.”

“Hout awa!” cried Stewart. “I’ll never believe that.”

“I have maybe a suspicion of my own,” says I, “but I would like fine to

hear your reasons.”

“Well, I tell ye fairly, I’m horn-mad,” cries Stewart. “If my one hand

could pull their Government down I would pluck it like a rotten apple.

I’m doer for Appin and for James of the Glens; and, of course, it’s my

duty to defend my kinsman for his life. Hear how it goes with me, and

I’ll leave the judgment of it to yourself. The first thing they have to

do is to get rid of Alan. They cannae bring in James as art and part

until they’ve brought in Alan first as principal; that’s sound law:

they could never put the cart before the horse.”

“And how are they to bring in Alan till they can catch him?” says I.

“Ah, but there is a way to evite that arrestment,” said he. “Sound law,

too. It would be a bonny thing if, by the escape of one ill-doer

another was to go scatheless, and the remeid is to summon the principal

and put him to outlawry for the non-compearance. Now there’s four

places where a person can be summoned: at his dwelling-house; at a

place where he has resided forty days; at the head burgh of the shire

where he ordinarily resorts; or lastly (if there be ground to think him

forth of Scotland) _at the cross of Edinburgh_, _and the pier and shore

of Leith_, _for sixty days_. The purpose of which last provision is

evident upon its face: being that outgoing ships may have time to carry

news of the transaction, and the summonsing be something other than a

form. Now take the case of Alan. He has no dwelling-house that ever I

could hear of; I would be obliged if anyone would show me where he has

lived forty days together since the ’45; there is no shire where he

resorts whether ordinarily or extraordinarily; if he has a domicile at

all, which I misdoubt, it must be with his regiment in France; and if

he is not yet forth of Scotland (as we happen to know and they happen

to guess) it must be evident to the most dull it’s what he’s aiming

for. Where, then, and what way should he be summoned? I ask it at

yourself, a layman.”

“You have given the very words,” said I. “Here at the cross, and at the

pier and shore of Leith, for sixty days.”

“Ye’re a sounder Scots lawyer than Prestongrange, then!” cries the

Writer. “He has had Alan summoned once; that was on the twenty-fifth,

the day that we first met. Once, and done with it. And where? Where,

but at the cross of Inverary, the head burgh of the Campbells? A word

in your ear, Mr. Balfour—they’re not seeking Alan.”

“What do you mean?” I cried. “Not seeking him?”

“By the best that I can make of it,” said he. “Not wanting to find him,

in my poor thought. They think perhaps he might set up a fair defence,

upon the back of which James, the man they’re really after, might climb

out. This is not a case, ye see, it’s a conspiracy.”

“Yet I can tell you Prestongrange asked after Alan keenly,” said I;

“though, when I come to think of it, he was something of the easiest

put by.”

“See that!” says he. “But there! I may be right or wrong, that’s

guesswork at the best, and let me get to my facts again. It comes to my

ears that James and the witnesses—the witnesses, Mr. Balfour!—lay in

close dungeons, and shackled forbye, in the military prison at Fort

William; none allowed in to them, nor they to write. The witnesses, Mr.

Balfour; heard ye ever the match of that? I assure ye, no old, crooked

Stewart of the gang ever out-faced the law more impudently. It’s clean

in the two eyes of the Act of Parliament of 1700, anent wrongous

imprisonment. No sooner did I get the news than I petitioned the Lord

Justice Clerk. I have his word to-day. There’s law for ye! here’s

justice!”

He put a paper in my hand, that same mealy-mouthed, false-faced paper

that was printed since in the pamphlet “by a bystander,” for behoof (as

the title says) of James’s “poor widow and five children.”

“See,” said Stewart, “he couldn’t dare to refuse me access to my

client, so he _recommends the commanding officer to let me in_.

Recommends!—the Lord Justice Clerk of Scotland recommends. Is not the

purpose of such language plain? They hope the officer may be so dull,

or so very much the reverse, as to refuse the recommendation. I would

have to make the journey back again betwixt here and Fort William. Then

would follow a fresh delay till I got fresh authority, and they had

disavowed the officer—military man, notoriously ignorant of the law,

and that—I ken the cant of it. Then the journey a third time; and there

we should be on the immediate heels of the trial before I had received

my first instruction. Am I not right to call this a conspiracy?”

“It will bear that colour,” said I.

“And I’ll go on to prove it you outright,” said he. “They have the

right to hold James in prison, yet they cannot deny me to visit him.

They have no right to hold the witnesses; but am I to get a sight of

them, that should be as free as the Lord Justice Clerk himself!

See—read: _For the rest_, _refuses to give any orders to keepers of

prisons who are not accused as having done anything contrary to the

duties of their office_. Anything contrary! Sirs! And the Act of

seventeen hunner? Mr. Balfour, this makes my heart to burst; the

heather is on fire inside my wame.”

“And the plain English of that phrase,” said I, “is that the witnesses

are still to lie in prison and you are not to see them?”

“And I am not to see them until Inverary, when the court is set!” cries

he, “and then to hear Prestongrange upon _the anxious responsibilities

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!”