his hands
in his pockets, shifting his legs, clearing his throat, rolling up his
bald eyebrows and shooting out his eyes to right and left, now with a
yawn, now with a secret smile. At times too, he would take the Bible in
front of him, run it through, seem to read a bit, run it through again,
and stop and yawn prodigiously: the whole as if for exercise.

In the course of this restlessness his eye alighted on myself. He sat a
second stupefied, then tore a half leaf out of the Bible, scrawled upon
it with a pencil, and passed it with a whispered word to his next
neighbour. The note came to Prestongrange, who gave me but the one look;
thence it voyaged to the hands of Mr. Erskine; thence again to Argyle,
where he sat between the other two lords of session, and his Grace
turned and fixed me with an arrogant eye. The last of those interested
to observe my presence was Charlie Stewart, and he too began to pencil
and hand about despatches, none of which I was able to trace to their
destination in the crowd.

But the passage of these notes had aroused notice; all who were in the
secret (or supposed themselves to be so) were whispering
information--the rest questions; and the minister himself seemed quite
discountenanced by the flutter in the church and sudden stir and
whispering. His voice changed, he plainly faltered, nor did he again
recover the easy conviction and full tones of his delivery. It would be
a puzzle to him till his dying day, why a sermon that had gone with
triumph through four parts, should thus miscarry in the fifth.

As for me, I continued to sit there, very wet and weary, and a good deal
anxious as to what should happen next, but greatly exulting in my
success.

CHAPTER XVII

THE MEMORIAL

The last word of the blessing was scarce out of the minister's mouth
before Stewart had me by the arm. We were the first to be forth of the
church, and he made such extraordinary expedition that we were safe
within the four walls of a house before the street had begun to be
thronged with the home-going congregation.

"Am I yet in time?" I asked.

"Ay and no," said he. "The case is over; the jury is enclosed, and will
be so kind as let us ken their view of it to-morrow in the morning, the
same as I could have told it my own self three days ago before the play
began. The thing has been public from the start. The panel kennt it,
'_Ye may do what ye will for me_,' whispers he two days ago. '_I ken my
fate