t--the public was none the wiser; and in course of
time, on November 8th, and in the midst of a prodigious storm of wind
and rain, poor James of the Glens was duly hanged at Lettermore by
Balachulish.

So there was the final upshot of my politics! Innocent men have perished
before James, and are like to keep on perishing (in spite of all our
wisdom) till the end of time. And till the end of time young folk (who
are not yet used with the duplicity of life and men) will struggle as I
did, and make heroical resolves, and take long risks; and the course of
events will push them upon the one side and go on like a marching army.
James was hanged; and here was I, dwelling in the house of
Prestongrange, and grateful to him for his fatherly attention. He was
hanged; and behold! when I met Mr. Simon in the causeway, I was fain to
pull off my beaver to him like a good little boy before his dominie. He
had been hanged by fraud and violence, and the world wagged along, and
there was not a pennyweight of difference; and the villains of that
horrid plot were decent, kind, respectable fathers of families, who went
to kirk and took the sacrament!

But I had had my view of that detestable business they call politics--I
had seen it from behind, when it is all bones and blackness; and I was
cured for life of any temptations to take part in it again. A plain,
quiet, private path was that which I was ambitious to walk in, where I
might keep my head out of the way of dangers and my conscience out of
the road of temptation. For, upon a retrospect, it appeared I had not
done so grandly, after all; but, with the greatest possible amount of
big speech and preparation, had accomplished nothing.

The 25th of the same month a ship was advertised to sail from Leith; and
I was suddenly recommended to make up my mails for Leyden. To
Prestongrange I could, of course, say nothing; for I had already been a
long while sorning on his house and table. But with his daughter I was
more open, bewailing my fate that I should be sent out of the country,
and assuring her, unless she should bring me to farewell with Catriona,
I would refuse at the last hour.

"Have I not given you my advice?" she asked.

"I know you have," said I, "and I know how much I am beholden to you
already, and that I am bidden to obey your orders. But you must confess
you are something too merry a lass at times to lippen to[23] entirely."

"I will tell you, then," said she. "Be you on