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"I am glad so see you are thrifty, Mr. Balfour," says he, making his

notes.
"I would think shame to be otherwise the first day of my fortune," said

I. "And now, if you will compute the outlay and your own proper
charges, I would be glad to know if I could get some spending-money

back. It's not that I grudge the whole of it to get Alan safe; it's
not that I lack more; but having drawn so much the one day, I think it

would have a very ill appearance if I was back again seeking, the next.
Only be sure you have enough," I added, "for I am very undesirous to

meet with you again."
"Well, and I'm pleased to see you're cautious, too," said the Writer.

"But I think ye take a risk to lay so considerable a sum at my
discretion."

He said this with a plain sneer.
"I'll have to run the hazard," I replied. "O, and there's another

service I would ask, and that's to direct me to a lodging, for I have
no roof to my head. But it must be a lodging I may seem to have hit

upon by accident, for it would never do if the Lord Advocate were to
get any jealousy of our acquaintance."

"Ye may set your weary spirit at rest," said he. "I will never name
your name, sir; and it's my belief the Advocate is still so much to be

sympathised with that he doesnae ken of your existence."
I saw I had got to the wrong side of the man.

"There's a braw day coming for him, then," said I, "for he'll have to
learn of it on the deaf side of his head no later than to-morrow, when

I call on him."
"When ye CALL on him!" repeated Mr. Stewart. "Am I daft, or are you!

What takes ye near the Advocate!"
"O, just to give myself up," said I.

"Mr. Balfour," he cried, "are ye making a mock of me?"
"No, sir," said I, "though I think you have allowed yourself some such

freedom with myself. But I give you to understand once and for all
that I am in no jesting spirit."

"Nor yet me," says Stewart. "And I give yon to understand (if that's
to be the word) that I like the looks of your behaviour less and less.

You come here to me with all sorts of propositions, which will put me
in a train of very doubtful acts and bring me among very undesirable

persons this many a day to come. And then you tell me you're going
straight out of my office to make your peace with the Advocate! Alan's

button here or Alan's button there, the four quarters of Alan wouldnae
bribe me further in."

"I would take it with a little more temper," said I, "and perhaps we
can avoid what you object to. I can see no way for it but to give

myself up, but perhaps you can see another; and if you could, I could
never deny but what I would be rather relieved. For I think my traffic

with his lordship is little likely to agree with my health. There's
just the one thing clear, that I have to give my evidence; for I hope

it'll save Alan's character (what's left of it), and James's neck,
which is the more immediate."

He was silent for a breathing-space, and then, "My man," said he,
"you'll never be allowed to give such evidence."

"We'll have to see about that," said I; "I'm stiff-necked when I like."
"Ye muckle ass!" cried Stewart, "it's James they want; James has got to

hang - Alan, too, if they could catch him - but James whatever! Go
near the Advocate with any such business, and you'll see! he'll find a

way to muzzle, ye."
"I think better of the Advocate than that," said I.

"The Advocate be dammed!" cries he. "It's the Campbells, man! You'll
have the whole clanjamfry of them on your back; and so will the

Advocate too, poor body! It's extraordinar ye cannot see where ye
stand! If there's no fair way to stop your gab, there's a foul one

gaping. They can put ye in the dock, do ye no see that?" he cried, and
stabbed me with one finger in the leg.

"Ay," said I, "I was told that same no further back than this morning
by another lawyer."

"And who was he?" asked Stewart, "He spoke sense at least."
I told I must be excused from naming him, for he was a decent stout old

Whig, and had little mind to be mixed up in such affairs.
"I think all the world seems to be mixed up in it!" cries Stewart.

"But what said you?"
"I told him what had passed between Rankeillor and myself before the

house of Shaws.
"Well, and so ye will hang!" said he. "Ye'll hang beside James

Stewart. There's your fortune told."
"I hope better of it yet than that," said I; "but I could never deny

there was a risk."
"Risk!" says he, and then sat silent again. "I ought to thank you for

you staunchness to my friends, to whom you show a very good spirit," he
says, "if you have the strength to stand by it. But I warn you that

you're wading deep. I wouldn't put myself in your place (me that's a
Stewart born!) for all the Stewarts that ever there were since Noah.

Risk? ay, I take over-many; but to be tried in court before a Campbell
jury and a Campbell judge, and that in a Campbell country and upon a

Campbell quarrel - think what you like of me, Balfour, it's beyond me."
"It's a different way of thinking, I suppose," said I; "I was brought

up to this one by my father before me."
"Glory to his bones! he has left a decent son to his name," says he.

"Yet I would not have you judge me over-sorely. My case is dooms hard.
See, sir, ye tell me ye're a Whig: I wonder what I am. No Whig to be

sure; I couldnae be just that. But - laigh in your ear, man - I'm
maybe no very keen on the other side."

"Is that a fact?" cried I. "It's what I would think of a man of your
intelligence."

"Hut! none of your whillywhas!" cries he. "There's intelligence upon
both sides. But for my private part I have no particular desire to

harm King George; and as for King James, God bless him! he does very
well for me across the water. I'm a lawyer, ye see: fond of my books

and my bottle, a good plea, a well-drawn deed, a crack in the
Parliament House with other lawyer bodies, and perhaps a turn at the

golf on a Saturday at e'en. Where do ye come in with your Hieland
plaids and claymores?"

"Well," said I, "it's a fact ye have little of the wild Highlandman."
"Little?" quoth he. "Nothing, man! And yet I'm Hieland born, and when

the clan pipes, who but me has to dance! The clan and the name, that
goes by all. It's just what you said yourself; my father learned it to

me, and a bonny trade I have of it. Treason and traitors, and the
smuggling of them out and in; and the French recruiting, weary fall it!

and the smuggling through of the recruits; and their pleas - a sorrow
of their pleas! Here have I been moving one for young Ardsheil, my

cousin; claimed the estate under the marriage contract - a forfeited
estate! I told them it was nonsense: muckle they cared! And there

was I cocking behind a yadvocate that liked the business as little as
myself, for it was fair ruin to the pair of us - a black mark,

DISAFFECTED, branded on our hurdies, like folk's names upon their kye!
And what can I do? I'm a Stewart, ye see, and must fend for my clan

and family. Then no later by than yesterday there was one of our
Stewart lads carried to the Castle. What for? I ken fine: Act of

1736: recruiting for King Lewie. And you'll see, he'll whistle me in
to be his lawyer, and there'll be another black mark on my chara'ter!

I tell you fair: if I but kent the heid of a Hebrew word from the
hurdies of it, be dammed but I would fling the whole thing up and turn

minister!"
"It's rather a hard position," said I.

"Dooms hard!" cries he. "And that's what makes me think so much of ye
- you that's no Stewart - to stick your head so deep in Stewart

business. And for what, I do not know: unless it was the sense of
duty."

"I hope it will be that," said I.
"Well," says he, "it's a grand quality. But here is my clerk back;

and, by your leave, we'll pick a bit of dinner, all the three of us.
When that's done, I'll give you the direction of a very decent man,

that'll be very fain to have you for a lodger. And I'll fill your
pockets to ye, forbye, out of your ain bag. For this business'll not

be near as dear as ye suppose - not even the ship part of it."
I made him a sign that his clerk was within hearing.

"Hoot, ye neednae mind for Robbie," cries he. "A Stewart, too, puir
deevil! and has smuggled out more French recruits and trafficking

Papists than what he has hairs upon his face. Why, it's Robin that
manages that branch of my affairs. Who will we have now, Rob, for

across the water!"
"There'll be Andie Scougal, in the THRISTLE," replied Rob. "I saw

Hoseason the other day, but it seems he's wanting the ship. Then
there'll be Tam Stobo; but I'm none so sure of Tam. I've seen him

colloguing with some gey queer acquaintances; and if was anybody
important, I would give Tam the go-by."

"The head's worth two hundred pounds, Robin," said Stewart.
"Gosh, that'll no be Alan Breck!" cried the clerk.

"Just Alan," said his master.
"Weary winds! that's sayrious," cried Robin. "I'll try Andie, then;

Andie'll be the best."
"It seems it's quite a big business," I observed.

"Mr. Balfour, there's no end to it," said Stewart.
"There was a name your clerk mentioned," I went on: "Hoseason. That

must be my man, I think: Hoseason, of the brig COVENANT. Would you
set your trust on him?"

"He didnae behave very well to you and Alan," said Mr. Stewart; "but my
mind of the man in general is rather otherwise. If he had taken Alan

on board his ship on an agreement, it's my notion he would have proved
a just dealer. How say ye, Rob?"

"No more honest skipper in the trade than Eli," said the clerk. "I
would lippen to Eli's word - ay, if it was the Chevalier, or Appin

himsel'," he added.
"And it was him that brought the doctor, wasnae't?" asked the master.

"He was the very man," said the clerk.
"And I think he took the doctor back?" says Stewart.

"Ay, with his sporran full!" cried Robin. "And Eli kent of that!"
"Well, it seems it's hard to ken folk rightly," said I.

"That was just what I forgot when ye came in, Mr. Balfour!" says the
Writer.

CHAPTER III - I GO TO PILRIG
THE next morning, I was no sooner awake in my new lodging than I was up

and into my new clothes; and no sooner the breakfast swallowed, than I
was forth on my adventurers. Alan, I could hope, was fended for; James

was like to be a more difficult affair, and I could not but think that
enterprise might cost me dear, even as everybody said to whom I had

opened my opinion. It seemed I was come to the top of the mountain
only to cast myself down; that I had clambered up, through so many and

hard trials, to be rich, to be recognised, to wear city clothes and a
sword to my side, all to commit mere suicide at the last end of it, and

the worst kind of suicide, besides, which is to get hanged at the
King's charges.

What was I doing it for? I asked, as I went down the high Street and
out north by Leith Wynd. First I said it was to save James Stewart;

and no doubt the memory of his distress, and his wife's cries, and a
word or so I had let drop on that occasion worked upon me strongly. At

the same time I reflected that it was (or ought to be) the most
indifferent matter to my father's son, whether James died in his bed or

from a scaffold. He was Alan's cousin, to be sure; but so far as
regarded Alan, the best thing would be to lie low, and let the King,

and his Grace of Argyll, and the corbie crows, pick the bones of his
kinsman their own way. Nor could I forget that, while we were all in

the pot together, James had shown no such particular anxiety whether
for Alan or me.

Next it came upon me I was acting for the sake of justice: and I
thought that a fine word, and reasoned it out that (since we dwelt in

polities, at some discomfort to each one of us) the main thing of all
must still be justice, and the death of any innocent man a wound upon

the whole community. Next, again, it was the Accuser of the Brethren
that gave me a turn of his argument; bade me think shame for pretending

myself concerned in these high matters, and told me I was but a prating
vain child, who had spoken big words to Rankeillor and to Stewart, and



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