“And do you really suppose, sir, that the whole policy of this country is to be suffered to trip up and tumble down for an ill-mannered colt of a boy?” he cried. “This has been made a test case, all who would prosper in the future must put a shoulder to the wheel. Look at me! Do you suppose it is for my pleasure that I put myself in the highly invidious position of persecuting a man that I have drawn the sword alongside of? The choice is not left me.” “But I think, sir, that you forfeited your choice when you mixed in with that unnatural rebellion,” I remarked. “My case is happily otherwise; I am a true man, and can look either the Duke or King George in the face without concern.” “Is it so the wind sits?” says he. “I protest you are fallen in the worst sort of error. Prestongrange has been hitherto so civil (he tells me) as not to combat your allegations; but you must not think they are not looked upon with strong suspicion. You say you are innocent. My dear sir, the facts declare you guilty.” “I was waiting for you there,” said I. “The evidence of Mungo Campbell; your flight after the completion of the murder; your long course of secresy—my good young man!” said Mr. Simon, “here is enough evidence to hang a bullock, let be a David Balfour! I shall be upon that trial; my voice shall be raised; I shall then speak much otherwise from what I do to-day, and far less to your gratification, little as you like it now! Ah, you look white!” cries he. “I have found the key of your impudent heart. You look pale, your eyes waver, Mr. David! You see the grave and the gallows nearer by than you had fancied.” “I own to a natural weakness,” said I. “I think no shame for that. Shame. . .” I was going on. “Shame waits for you on the gibbet,” he broke in. “Where I shall but be even’d with my lord your father,” said I. “Aha, but not so!” he cried, “and you do not yet see to the bottom of this business. My father suffered in a great cause, and for dealing in the affairs of kings. You are to hang for a dirty murder about boddle-pieces. Your personal part in it, the treacherous one of holding the poor wretch in talk, your accomplices a pack of ragged Highland gillies. And it can be shown, my great Mr. Balfour—it can be shown, and it _will_ be shown, trust _me_ that has a finger in the pie—it can be shown, and shall be shown, that you were paid to do it. I think I can see the looks go round the court when I adduce my evidence, and it shall appear that you, a young man of education, let yourself be corrupted to this shocking act for a suit of cast clothes, a bottle of Highland spirits, and three-and-fivepence-halfpenny in copper money.” There was a touch of the truth in these words that knocked me like a blow: clothes, a bottle of _usquebaugh_, and three-and-fivepence-halfpenny in change made up, indeed, the most of what Alan and I had carried from Auchurn; and I saw that some of James’s people had been blabbing in their dungeons.