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 attentivecongregation, 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 extraordinaryexpedition 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 learnedcounsel, 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