And Sandy Macdonald, being one of the idyllic people, had no choice but to take a Campbell’s word against the evidence of his own senses. And to add to it, the public passion was further inflamed by pictures of Makian and his wife shot dead as they hurried with wine to serve their guests, of babies lying quartered in the snow and women’s fingers chopped off for the sake of their rings, of butchered children and of the blood-stained Campbells driving the flocks and herds of the slaughtered people into Fort William. There was silence as to where these captured cattle had originally come from. The commissioners had been sworn to secrecy and the inquiry had been conducted behind closed doors; of the actual depositions of the witnesses few knew the truth, but their tales carefully invented, artfully spread, were in every man’s mouth and the machinations of Lord Stair’s enemies had converted the necessary execution of a gang of lawless thieves into one of the most reviled crimes in the annals of Scotland. England and France took up the cry; Justice, they said, had suddenly cried aloud, and no one remarked how curiously silent Justice had been over some of the Macdonald’s actions. And the odium, the hatred, the scorn, the fury, were all directed against one man,—Lord Stair. He, they said, was the sole author of these abominations; he had suppressed the Macdonalds’ oath, he had, under false pretenses, obtained the warrant from the King, he had written letters breathing blood and fire; he had exclaimed when he heard that it had been done: “I only regret that any of the wretches have escaped.” They had always hated him; these men, and it chimed well with their mood to assume the part of avenging justice and take a pitying interest in these wronged people. Their enemy had put himself in the wrong before the world; they would see it to that he paid the price. An address was sent to the King in which justice was demanded and judgment on the Lord Stair as the author of the “massacre” of Glencoe. A haughty spectator of his own ruin, the Earl of Stair watched these events in silence. To have shown himself in the Parliament would have been to court instant arrest; he was asked for no defense or vindication and his pride would not permit him to offer one. The King was in the Netherlands and no further action would be taken until his pleasure was known; but all Scotland had decided that his judgment must affect the estate and probably the life of the disgraced minister. For his own sake William could not show clemency; mercy to Lord Stair would be complicity in his crime; the King dare not, if he would, blacken himself to save his servant. On this blue June afternoon, Lord Stair paced his garden; a festival of flowers lying lavishing abroad to the kisses of the sun.