Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (Illustrated) (246 page)

“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.”

“And if the damned Campbells get their ears rubbed, what care I?” cries Stewart, smiting down his fist.

It will be thought I was not very well pleased with all this, though I could scarce forbear smiling at a kind of innocency in these old intriguers.  But it was not my view to have undergone so many sorrows for the advancement of Sheriff Miller or to make a revolution in the Parliament House: and I interposed accordingly with as much simplicity of manner as I could assume.

“I have to thank you, gentlemen, for your advice,” said I.  “And now I would like, by your leave, to set you two or three questions.  There is one thing that has fallen rather on one aide, for instance: Will this cause do any good to our friend James of the Glens?”

They seemed all a hair set back, and gave various answers, but concurring practically in one point, that James had now no hope but in the King’s mercy.

“To proceed, then,” said I, “will it do any good to Scotland?  We have a saying that it is an ill bird that fouls his own nest.  I remember hearing we had a riot in Edinburgh when I was an infant child, which gave occasion to the late Queen to call this country barbarous; and I always understood that we had rather lost than gained by that.  Then came the year ‘Forty-five, which made Scotland to be talked of everywhere; but I never heard it said we had anyway gained by the ‘Forty-five.  And now we come to this cause of Mr. Balfour’s, as you call it.  Sheriff Miller tells us historical writers are to date from it, and I would not wonder.  It is only my fear they would date from it as a period of calamity and public reproach.”

The nimble-witted Miller had already smelt where I was travelling to, and made haste to get on the same road.  “Forcibly put, Mr. Balfour,” says he.  “A weighty observe, sir.”

“We have next to ask ourselves if it will be good for King George,” I pursued.  “Sheriff Miller appears pretty easy upon this; but I doubt you will scarce be able to pull down the house from under him, without his Majesty coming by a knock or two, one of which might easily prove fatal.”

I have them a chance to answer, but none volunteered.

“Of those for whom the case was to be profitable,” I went on, “Sheriff Miller gave us the names of several, among the which he was good enough to mention mine.  I hope he will pardon me if I think otherwise.  I believe I hung not the least back in this affair while there was life to be saved; but I own I thought myself extremely hazarded, and I own I think it would be a pity for a young man, with some idea of coming to the Bar, to ingrain upon himself the character of a turbulent, factious fellow before he was yet twenty.  As for James, it seems - at this date of the proceedings, with the sentence as good as pronounced - he has no hope but in the King’s mercy.  May not his Majesty, then, be more pointedly addressed, the characters of these high officers sheltered from the public, and myself kept out of a position which I think spells ruin for me?”