The Earl bade us who had accused them so justly to stand forth. Then John Mure eyed us with a grave and amused contempt. ’My son’s false wife, whom sorrow has caused to dote concerning her father’s death—her night-raking rantipole sister, and her paramour, a loutish, land-louping squire—the Dominie of Maybole, a crippledick and piping merry-Andrew that travelled with them—these are the accusers of John Mure of Auchendrayne. They have seen, heard, noted what others have been ignorant of! Nay, rather, is it not clear that they have collogued together, conspiring to bear false witness against me and mine—for the sake of the frantic splenetic madness of her who is my son’s fugitive wife, whose wrongs exist only in her own imaginings.’ ’You have forgotten me!’ said Robert Harburgh, quietly, stepping forward. ’I know you well,’ said John Mure, ’and I would have remembered you had you been worth remembering. You are my Lord of Cassillis’s squire and erstwhile a gay cock-sparrow ruffler, now married to the Grieve’s daughter at Culzean.’ ’Well,’ said Harburgh, ’and what of that? Can a man not be all that and yet tell the truth?’ ’That I leave to one who is greater, to judge,’ said John Mure. ’And I do judge, John Mure,’ cried the Earl, rising in his chair of state. ’I judge you to be a man rebel and mansworn, a traitor and a man-slayer. For a score of years ye have keeped all this realm of Carrick in a turmoil, you and they that have partaken with you in your evil deeds.’ ’Loud, swelling words are but wind, my lord Earl of Cassillis,’ answered Mure of Auchendrayne, a dry smile of contempt coming over his features. ’Now I will show thee, bold ill-doer,’ said the Earl, fiercely, ’whether I speak the words of a dotard or no. Forward, men, take him up and bind him. Methinks we have yet engines within the castle of Dunure that can make him declare the rights of this murderous treason!’ Then I rejoiced, not for the torture of our enemy, but because at last the Earl saw fully with our eyes, and would right us against the cruel oppressor of Marjorie Kennedy, and for the murder of my gentle and courteous master. But ere the men could carry out the orders of the Earl, the broad-breeched man who had accompanied Auchendrayne, and who had all the while stood still and watchful, dropped his plaid, which like a mask he had held beneath his eyes. He was a middle-sized, fleshy man, with no great dignity of face, and with a weak mouth that dribbled perpetually at the side as if the tongue were too large for it. He wore a slashed doublet very full at the sleeves, baggy trunks, and a sword in a plain scabbard hanging at his side. I saw nothing further very particular about the man save the shambling inward bend of his knees. But it was with dumb amaze that the Earl looked at him, standing there arrested in the act of pointing with his hand at John Mure. He stood with his jaw fallen, and his eyes starting from his head.