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
Symon 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 locked 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-by 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 outfaced 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. There 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 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, Symon 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. Symon'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 Symon 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 Symon 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 you 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 appearing 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 Symon'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!"
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