Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (Illustrated) (237 page)

If I had walked slowly on the way into that accursed park my heels were light enough on the way out.  They kept time to a very good old air, that is as ancient as the Bible, and the words of it are: “Surely the bitterness of death is passed.”  I mind that I was extremely thirsty, and had a drink at Saint Margaret’s well on the road down, and the sweetness of that water passed belief.  We went through the sanctuary, up the Canongate, in by the Netherbow, and straight to Prestongrange’s door, talking as we came and arranging the details of our affair.  The footman owned his master was at home, but declared him engaged with other gentlemen on very private business, and his door forbidden.

“My business is but for three minutes, and it cannot wait,” said I.  “You may say it is by no means private, and I shall be even glad to have some witnesses.”

As the man departed unwillingly enough upon this errand, we made so bold as to follow him to the ante-chamber, whence I could hear for a while the murmuring of several voices in the room within.  The truth is, they were three at the one table - Prestongrange, Simon Fraser, and Mr. Erskine, Sheriff of Perth; and as they were met in consultation on the very business of the Appin murder, they were a little disturbed at my appearance, but decided to receive me.

“Well, well, Mr. Balfour, and what brings you here again? and who is this you bring with you?” says Prestongrange.

As for Fraser, he looked before him on the table.

“He is here to bear a little testimony in my favour, my lord, which I think it very needful you should hear,” said I, and turned to Duncansby.

“I have only to say this,” said the lieutenant, “that I stood up this day with Palfour in the Hunter’s Pog, which I am now fery sorry for, and he behaved himself as pretty as a shentlemans could ask it.  And I have creat respects for Palfour,” he added.

“I thank you for your honest expressions,” said I.

Whereupon Duncansby made his bow to the company, and left the chamber, as we had agreed upon before.

“What have I to do with this?” says Prestongrange.

“I will tell your lordship in two words,” said I.  “I have brought this gentleman, a King’s officer, to do me so much justice.  Now I think my character in covered, and until a certain date, which your lordship can very well supply, it will be quite in vain to despatch against me any more officers.  I will not consent to fight my way through the garrison of the castle.”

The veins swelled on Prestongrange’s brow, and he regarded me with fury.

“I think the devil uncoupled this dog of a lad between my legs!” he cried; and then, turning fiercely on his neighbour, “This is some of your work, Simon,” he said.  “I spy your hand in the business, and, let me tell you, I resent it.  It is disloyal, when we are agreed upon one expedient, to follow another in the dark.  You are disloyal to me.  What! you let me send this lad to the place with my very daughters!  And because I let drop a word to you..... Fy, sir, keep your dishonours to yourself!”

Simon was deadly pale.  “I will be a kick-ball between you and the Duke no longer,” he exclaimed.  “Either come to an agreement, or come to a differ, and have it out among yourselves.  But I will no longer fetch and carry, and get your contrary instructions, and be blamed by both.  For if I were to tell you what I think of all your Hanover business it would make your head sing.”

But Sheriff Erskine had preserved his temper, and now intervened smoothly.  “And in the meantime,” says he, “I think we should tell Mr. Balfour that his character for valour is quite established.  He may sleep in peace.  Until the date he was so good as to refer to it shall be put to the proof no more.”

His coolness brought the others to their prudence; and they made haste, with a somewhat distracted civility, to pack me from the house.

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.