"Yes, in an hour or less. Pitcairn had another witness--and Tod's sentenced to transportation!" No happening which I can think of would have set Nancy Stair more plainly before Danvers than this one, which fell directly beneath his eye. "But," she said, and her eyes blackened as she spoke, "the man is innocent." "Every one knows it," Jamie cried; "but Meenie's like to go to the grave because of the trouble, which means naught to Pitcairn or to him called the Duke of Borthwicke." "Ah, well, Jamie," said Nancy soothingly, "you must not worry over it. There is more than one way to circumvent Mr. Pitcairn; and a few jurymen, more or less, are nothing to fash one's soul about one way or another. Who was the new witness?" "His name was McGuirk." "A Hieland body?" Nancy inquired. "In the service of the duke himself." "What did he swear to?" "He swore to Tod's having threated the duke's life, and that Tod had said to him there was a way to even the matter of the raised rent." "Ah," said Nancy, and there was a bit of admiration in her tone, "the duke's a clever man. In all his law-suiting he finds out just what bit of testimony is needed and gets it." "If you'll excuse me," she said, rising, "I'll go down and see Meenie, who probably thinks everything in life is over." As she went over the grass with Jamie, Danvers Carmichael turned an astonished face toward us. "What is it all about?" he asked. "It's a long tale," I answered, "which, stripped of its trappings, runs like this: Meenie is Jamie's adopted sister, and the Lapraik man is a sweetheart of hers who owns a bit farm in the Highlands next to Borthwicke Castle----" "For Heaven's sake," Sandy exclaimed, blowing a cloud of smoke toward the sky, "don't tell that tale again, Jock Stair." "--And the Duke of Borthwicke wants the farm to add to his land," I went on, unperturbed, "and Lapraik will not sell. So one fine day he is accused of theft by the duke's factor, some of the Montrose silver is found under his roof, and he is arrested and convicted, as you have just heard. Common rumor has it that the duke wants him out of the country--the fact that he was brought to Edinburgh to be tried shows that there is a powerful influence pushing the thing along. Pitcairn is the duke's man of business, which makes the handling of it easier here where he is counsel for the crown." "It will make it an odd affair if Nancy takes the matter in hand, considering she's Pitcairn's own pupil," Sandy suggested. "Is it true she's studied the law under Pitcairn?" Danvers inquired. "Scots and English," I answered. "In the name of smitten Caesar," he cried, for that was a word of the time, "what for?" "We've never come to any settlement of it between us, but your father holds that she studied it to circumvent it," I answered, with a laugh. "She told us once that the more law one knew the safer one could break it."