"Sheriff Miller appears pretty easy upon this; but I
doubt you will scarce be able to pull down the house from under
him, without his Majesty coming by a knock or two, one of which
might easily prove fatal."
I have them a chance to answer, but none volunteered.
"Of those for whom the case was to be profitable," I went on,
"Sheriff Miller gave us the names of several, among the which he
was good enough to mention mine. I hope he will pardon me if I
think otherwise. I believe I hung not the least back in this
affair while there was life to be saved; but I own I thought myself
extremely hazarded, and I own I think it would be a pity for a
young man, with some idea of coming to the Bar, to ingrain upon
himself the character of a turbulent, factious fellow before he was
yet twenty. As for James, it seems--at this date of the
proceedings, with the sentence as good as pronounced--he has no
hope but in the King's mercy. May not his Majesty, then, be more
pointedly addressed, the characters of these high officers
sheltered from the public, and myself kept out of a position which
I think spells ruin for me?"
They all sat and gazed into their glasses, and I could see they
found my attitude on the affair unpalatable. But Miller was ready
at all events.
"If I may be allowed to put my young friend's notion in more formal
shape," says he, "I understand him to propose that we should embody
the fact of his sequestration, and perhaps some heads of the
testimony he was prepared to offer, in a memorial to the Crown.
This plan has elements of success. It is as likely as any other
(and perhaps likelier) to help our client. Perhaps his Majesty
would have the goodness to feel a certain gratitude to all
concerned in such a memorial, which might be construed into an
expression of a very delicate loyalty; and I think, in the drafting
of the same, this view might be brought forward."
They all nodded to each other, not without sighs, for the former
alternative was doubtless more after their inclination.
"Paper, then, Mr. Stewart, if you please," pursued Miller; "and I
think it might very fittingly be signed by the five of us here
present, as procurators for the condemned man."'
"It can do none of us any harm, at least," says Colstoun, heaving
another sigh, for he had seen himself Lord Advocate the last ten
minutes.
Thereupon they set themselves, not very enthusiastically, to draft
the memorial--a process in the course of which they soon caught
fire; and I had no more ado but to sit looking on and answer an
occasional question. The paper was very well expressed; beginning
with a recitation of the facts about myself, the reward offered for
my apprehension, my surrender, the pressure brought to bear upon
me; my sequestration; and my arrival at Inverary in time to be too
late; going on to explain the reasons of loyalty and public
interest for which it was agreed to waive any right of action; and
winding up with a forcible appeal to the King's mercy on behalf of
James.
Methought I was a good deal sacrificed, and rather represented in
the light of a firebrand of a fellow whom my cloud of lawyers had
restrained with difficulty from extremes. But I let it pass, and
made but the one suggestion, that I should be described as ready to
deliver my own evidence and adduce that of others before any
commission of inquiry--and the one demand, that I should be
immediately furnished with a copy.
Colstoun hummed and hawed. "This is a very confidential document,"
said he.
"And my position towards Prestongrange is highly peculiar," I
replied. "No question but I must have touched his heart at our
first interview, so that he has since stood my friend consistently.
But for him, gentlemen, I must now be lying dead or awaiting my
sentence alongside poor James. For which reason I choose to
communicate to him the fact of this memorial as soon as it is
copied.