"The Advocate be dammed!" cries he. "It's the Campbells, man!
You'll have the whole clanjamfry of them on your back; and so will
the Advocate too, poor body! It's extraordinar ye cannot see where
ye stand! If there's no fair way to stop your gab, there's a foul
one gaping. They can put ye in the dock, do ye no see that?" he
cried, and stabbed me with one finger in the leg.
"Ay," said I, "I was told that same no further back than this
morning by another lawyer."
"And who was he?" asked Stewart, "He spoke sense at least."
I told I must be excused from naming him, for he was a decent stout
old Whig, and had little mind to be mixed up in such affairs.
"I think all the world seems to be mixed up in it!" cries Stewart.
"But what said you?"
"I told him what had passed between Rankeillor and myself before
the house of Shaws.
"Well, and so ye will hang!" said he. "Ye'll hang beside James
Stewart. There's your fortune told."
"I hope better of it yet than that," said I; "but I could never
deny there was a risk."
"Risk!" says he, and then sat silent again. "I ought to thank you
for you staunchness to my friends, to whom you show a very good
spirit," he says, "if you have the strength to stand by it. But I
warn you that you're wading deep. I wouldn't put myself in your
place (me that's a Stewart born!) for all the Stewarts that ever
there were since Noah. Risk? ay, I take over-many; but to be tried
in court before a Campbell jury and a Campbell judge, and that in a
Campbell country and upon a Campbell quarrel--think what you like
of me, Balfour, it's beyond me."
"It's a different way of thinking, I suppose," said I; "I was
brought up to this one by my father before me."
"Glory to his bones! he has left a decent son to his name," says
he. "Yet I would not have you judge me over-sorely. My case is
dooms hard. See, sir, ye tell me ye're a Whig: I wonder what I
am. No Whig to be sure; I couldnae be just that. But--laigh in
your ear, man--I'm maybe no very keen on the other side."
"Is that a fact?" cried I. "It's what I would think of a man of
your intelligence."
"Hut! none of your whillywhas!" {4} cries he. "There's
intelligence upon both sides. But for my private part I have no
particular desire to harm King George; and as for King James, God
bless him! he does very well for me across the water. I'm a
lawyer, ye see: fond of my books and my bottle, a good plea, a
well-drawn deed, a crack in the Parliament House with other lawyer
bodies, and perhaps a turn at the golf on a Saturday at e'en.
Where do ye come in with your Hieland plaids and claymores?"
"Well," said I, "it's a fact ye have little of the wild
Highlandman."
"Little?" quoth he. "Nothing, man! And yet I'm Hieland born, and
when the clan pipes, who but me has to dance! The clan and the
name, that goes by all. It's just what you said yourself; my
father learned it to me, and a bonny trade I have of it. Treason
and traitors, and the smuggling of them out and in; and the French
recruiting, weary fall it! and the smuggling through of the
recruits; and their pleas--a sorrow of their pleas! Here have I
been moving one for young Ardsheil, my cousin; claimed the estate
under the marriage contract--a forfeited estate! I told them it
was nonsense: muckle they cared! And there was I cocking behind a
yadvocate that liked the business as little as myself, for it was
fair ruin to the pair of us--a black mark, DISAFFECTED, branded on
our hurdies, like folk's names upon their kye! And what can I do?
I'm a Stewart, ye see, and must fend for my clan and family. Then
no later by than yesterday there was one of our Stewart lads
carried to the Castle. What for? I ken fine: Act of 1736:
recruiting for King Lewie. And you'll see, he'll whistle me in to
be his lawyer, and there'll be another black mark on my chara'ter!
I tell you fair: if I but kent the heid of a Hebrew word from the
hurdies of it, be dammed but I would fling the whole thing up and
turn minister!"
"It's rather a hard position," said I.