Роберт Льюис Стивенсон
The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson – Swanston Edition. Volume 11

CHAPTER XVI
THE MISSING WITNESS

On the seventeenth, the day I was trysted with the Writer, I had much rebellion against fate. The thought of him waiting in the “King’s Arms,” and of what he would think, and what he would say, when next we met, tormented and oppressed me. The truth was unbelievable, so much I had to grant, and it seemed cruel hard I should be posted as a liar and a coward, and have never consciously omitted what it was possible that I should do. I repeated this form of words with a kind of bitter relish, and re-examined in that light the steps of my behaviour. It seemed I had behaved to James Stewart as a brother might; all the past was a picture that I could be proud of, and there was only the present to consider. I could not swim the sea, nor yet fly in the air, but there was always Andie. I had done him a service, he liked me; I had a lever there to work on; if it were just for decency, I must try once more with Andie.

It was late afternoon; there was no sound in all the Bass but the lap and bubble of a very quiet sea; and my four companions were all crept apart, the three Macgregors higher on the rock, and Andie with his Bible to a sunny place among the ruins; there I found him in deep sleep, and, as soon as he was awake, appealed to him with some fervour of manner and a good show of argument.

“If I thocht it was to do guid to ye, Shaws!” said he, staring at me over his spectacles.

“It’s to save another,” said I, “and to redeem my word. What would be more good than that? Do ye no’ mind the scripture, Andie? And you with the Book upon your lap! What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world?”

“Ay,” said he, “that’s grand for you. But where do I come in? I have my word to redeem the same’s yoursel’. And what are ye asking me to do, but just to sell it ye for siller?”

“Andie! have I named the name of siller?” cried I.

“Ou, the name’s naething,” said he; “the thing is there, whatever. It just comes to this: if I am to service ye the way that you propose, I’ll lose my lifelihood. Then it’s clear ye’ll have to make it up to me, and a pickle mair, for your ain credit like. And what’s that but just a bribe? And if even I was certain of the bribe! But by a’ that I can learn, it’s far frae that; and if you were to hang, where would I be? Na: the thing’s no’ possible. And just awa’ wi’ ye like a bonny lad! and let Andie read his chapter.”

I remember I was at bottom a good deal gratified with this result; and the next humour I fell into was one (I had near said) of gratitude to Prestongrange, who had saved me, in this violent, illegal manner, out of the midst of my dangers, temptations, and perplexities. But this was both too flimsy and too cowardly to last me long, and the remembrance of James began to succeed to the possession of my spirits. The 21st, the day set for the trial, I passed in such misery of mind as I can scarce recall to have endured, save perhaps upon Isle Earraid only. Much of the time I lay on a brae-side betwixt sleep and waking, my body motionless, my mind full of violent thoughts. Sometimes I slept indeed; but the court-house of Inverary and the prisoner glancing on all sides to find his missing witness, followed me in slumber; and I would wake again with a start to darkness of spirit and distress of body. I thought Andie seemed to observe me, but I paid him little heed. Verily, my bread was bitter to me, and my days a burthen.

Early the next morning (Friday, 22nd) a boat came with provisions, and Andie placed a packet in my hand. The cover was without address but sealed with a Government seal. It enclosed two notes. “Mr. Balfour can now see for himself it is too late to meddle. His conduct will be observed and his discretion rewarded.” So ran the first, which seemed to be laboriously writ with the left hand. There was certainly nothing in these expressions to compromise the writer, even if that person could be found; the seal, which formidably served instead of signature, was affixed to a separate sheet on which there was no scratch of writing; and I had to confess that (so far) my adversaries knew what they were doing, and to digest as well as I was able the threat that peeped under the promise.

But the second enclosure was by far the more surprising. It was in a lady’s hand of writ. “Maister Dauvit Balfour is informed a friend was speiring for him, and her eyes were of the grey,” it ran – and seemed so extraordinary a piece to come to my hands at such a moment and under cover of a Government seal, that I stood stupid. Catriona’s grey eyes shone in my remembrance. I thought, with a bound of pleasure, she must be the friend. But who should the writer be, to have her billet thus enclosed with Prestongrange’s? And of all wonders, why was it thought needful to give me this pleasing but most inconsequential intelligence upon the Bass? For the writer, I could hit upon none possible except Miss Grant. Her family, I remembered, had remarked on Catriona’s eyes, and even named her for their colour; and she herself had been much in the habit to address me with a broad pronunciation, by way of a sniff, I supposed, at my rusticity. No doubt, besides, but she lived in the same house as this letter came from. So there remained but one step to be accounted for; and that was how Prestongrange should have permitted her at all in an affair so secret, or let her daft-like billet go in the same cover with his own. But even here I had a glimmering. For, first of all, there was something rather alarming about the young lady, and papa might be more under her domination than I knew. And second, there was the man’s continual policy to be remembered, how his conduct had been continually mingled with caresses, and he had scarce ever, in the midst of so much contention, laid aside a mask of friendship. He must conceive that my imprisonment had incensed me. Perhaps this little jesting, friendly message was intended to disarm my rancour?

I will be honest – and I think it did. I felt a sudden warmth towards that beautiful Miss Grant, that she should stoop to so much interest in my affairs. The summoning up of Catriona moved me of itself to milder and more cowardly counsels. If the Advocate knew of her and of our acquaintance – if I should please him by some of that “discretion” at which his letter pointed – to what might not this lead? In vain is the net spread in the sight of any fowl, the scripture says. Well, fowls must be wiser than folk! For I thought I perceived the policy, and yet fell in with it.

I was in this frame, my heart beating, the grey eyes plain before me like two stars, when Andie broke in upon my musing.

“I see ye hae gotten guid news,” said he.

I found him looking curiously in my face; with that, there came before me like a vision of James Stewart and the court of Inverary; and my mind turned at once like a door upon its hinges. Trials, I reflected, sometimes draw out longer than is looked for. Even if I came to Inverary just too late, something might yet be attempted in the interests of James – and in those of my own character, the best would be accomplished. In a moment, it seemed without thought, I had a plan devised.

“Andie,” said I, “is it still to be to-morrow?”

He told me nothing was changed.

“Was anything said about the hour?” I asked.

He told me it was to be two o’clock afternoon.

“And about the place?” I pursued.

“Whatten place?” says Andie.

“The place I’m to be landed at,” said I.

He owned there was nothing as to that.

“Very well, then,” I said, “this shall be mine to arrange. The wind is in the east, my road lies westward; keep your boat, I hire it; let us work up the Forth all day; and land me at two o’clock to-morrow at the westmost we’ll can have reached.”

“Ye daft callant!” he cried, “ye would try for Inverary after a’!”

“Just that, Andie,” says I.

“Weel, ye’re ill to beat!” says he. “And I was kind o’ sorry for ye a’ day yesterday,” he added. “Ye see, I was never entirely sure till then, which way of it ye really wantit.”

Here was a spur to a lame horse!

“A word in your ear, Andie,” said I. “This plan of mine has another advantage yet. We can leave these Hielandmen behind us on the rock, and one of your boats from the Castleton can bring them off to-morrow. Yon Neil has a queer eye when he regards you; maybe, if I was once out of the gate there might be knives again; these red-shanks are unco grudgeful. And if there should come to be any question, here is your excuse. Our lives were in danger by these savages; being answerable for my safety, you chose the part to bring me from their neighbourhood and detain me the rest of the time on board your boat: and do you know, Andie,” says I, with a smile, “I think it was very wisely chosen.”

“The truth is, I have nae goo for Neil,” says Andie, “nor he for me, I’m thinking; and I would like ill to come to my hands wi’ the man. Tam Anster will make a better hand of it with the cattle, onyway.” (For this man, Anster, came from Fife, where the Gaelic is still spoken.) “Ay, ay!” says Andie, “Tam’ll can deal wi’ them the best. And troth! the mair I think of it, the less I see what way we would be required. The place – ay, feggs! they had forgot the place. Eh, Shaws, ye’re a lang-heided chield when ye like! Forbye that I’m awing ye my life,” he added, with more solemnity, and offered me his hand upon the bargain.

Whereupon, with scarce more words, we stepped suddenly on board the boat, cast off, and set the lug. The Gregara were then busy upon breakfast, for the cookery was their usual part; but, one of them stepping to the battlements, our flight was observed before we were twenty fathoms from the rock; and the three of them ran about the ruins and the landing-shelf, for all the world like ants about a broken nest, hailing and crying on us to return. We were still in both the lee and the shadow of the rock, which last lay broad upon the waters, but presently came forth in almost the same moment into the wind and sunshine; the sail filled, the boat heeled to the gunwale, and we swept immediately beyond sound of the men’s voices. To what terrors they endured upon the rock, where they were now deserted without the countenance of any civilised person or so much as the protection of a Bible, no limit can be set, nor had they any brandy left to be their consolation, for even in the haste and secrecy of our departure Andie had managed to remove it.

It was our first care to set Anster ashore in a cove by the Glenteithy Rocks, so that the deliverance of our maroons might be duly seen to the next day. Thence we kept away up Firth. The breeze, which was then so spirited, swiftly declined, but never wholly failed us. All day we kept moving, though often not much more; and it was after dark ere we were up with the Queen’s Ferry. To keep the letter of Andie’s engagement (or what was left of it) I must remain on board, but I thought no harm to communicate with the shore in writing. On Prestongrange’s cover, where the Government seal must have a good deal surprised my correspondent, I writ, by the boat’s lantern, a few necessary words, and Andie carried them to Rankeillor. In about an hour he came aboard again, with a purse of money and the assurance that a good horse should be standing saddled for me by two to-morrow at Clackmannan Pool. This done, and the boat riding by her stone anchor, we lay down to sleep under the sail.

We were in the Pool the next day long ere two; and there was nothing left for me but sit and wait. I felt little alacrity upon my errand. I would have been glad of any passable excuse to lay it down; but, none being to be found, my uneasiness was no less great than if I had been running to some desired pleasure. By shortly after one the horse was at the water-side, and I could see a man walking it to and fro till I should land, which vastly swelled my impatience. Andie ran the moment of liberation very fine, showing himself a man of his bare word, but scarce serving his employers with a heaped measure; and by about fifty seconds after two I was in the saddle and on the full stretch for Stirling. In a little more than an hour I had passed that town and was already mounting Allan Water side, when the weather broke in a small tempest. The rain blinded me, the wind had nearly beat me from the saddle, and the first darkness of the night surprised me in a wilderness still some way east of Balwhidder, not very sure of my direction, and mounted on a horse that began already to be weary.

In the press of my hurry, and to be spared the delay and annoyance of a guide, I had followed (so far as it was possible for any horseman) the line of my journey with Alan. This I did with open eyes, foreseeing a great risk in it, which the tempest had now brought to a reality. The last that I knew of where I was, I think it must have been about Uam Var; the hour perhaps six at night. I must still think it great good fortune that I got about eleven to my destination, the house of Duncan Dhu. Where I had wandered in the interval perhaps the horse could tell. I know we were twice down, and once over the saddle and for a moment carried away in a roaring burn. Steed and rider were bemired up to the eyes.

From Duncan I had news of the trial. It was followed in all these Highland regions with religious interest; news of it spread from Inverary as swift as men could travel; and I was rejoiced to learn that, up to a late hour that Saturday, it was not yet concluded: and all men began to suppose it must spread over to the Monday. Under the spur of this intelligence I would not sit to eat; but, Duncan having agreed to be my guide, took the road again on foot, with the piece in my hand and munching as I went. Duncan brought with him a flask of usquebaugh and a hand-lantern; which last enlightened us just so long as we could find houses where to rekindle it, for the thing leaked outrageously and blew out with every gust. The more part of the night we walked blindfold among sheets of rain, and day found us aimless on the mountains. Hard by we struck a hut on a burn-side, where we got a bite and a direction: and, a little before the end of the sermon, came to the kirk-doors of Inverary.

The rain had somewhat washed the upper parts of me, but I was still bogged as high as to the knees; I streamed water; I was so weary I could hardly limp, and my face was like a ghost’s. I stood certainly more in need of a change of raiment and a bed to lie on than of all the benefits in Christianity. For all which (being persuaded the chief point for me was to make myself immediately public) I set the door open, entered that church with the dirty Duncan at my tails, and, finding a vacant place hard by, sat down.

“Thirteenthly, 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 heed; and I sat there 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, 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 to observe my presence was Charlie Stewart, and he too began to pencil and hand about despatches, 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 thus 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 be 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 kennt it, ‘Ye may do what ye will for me,’ whispers he two days ago. ‘I ken my fate by what the Duke of Argyle has just said to Mr. Macintosh.’ O, it’s been a scandal!

 
“The great Argyle 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 owercome. 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 cold 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 couldna 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, gentlemen, 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 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 side, – 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 gave 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?”

They all sat and gazed into their glasses, and I could see they found my attitude on the affair unpalatable. But Miller was ready at all events.

“If I may be allowed to put our young friend’s notion in more formal shape,” says he, “I understand him to propose that we should embody the fact of his sequestration, and perhaps some heads of the testimony he was prepared to offer, in a memorial to the Crown. This plan has elements of success. It is as likely as any other (and perhaps likelier) to help our client. Perhaps his Majesty would have the goodness to feel a certain gratitude to all concerned in such a memorial, which might be construed into an expression of a very delicate loyalty; and I think, in the drafting of the same, this view might be brought forward.”