lan and of James is
what I am here to declare in private to your lordship, and what I am
prepared to establish at the trial by my testimony," said I.

"To which I can only answer by an equal plainness, Mr. Balfour," said
he, "that (in that case) your testimony will not be called by me, and I
desire you to withhold it altogether."

"You are at the head of Justice in this country," I cried, "and you
propose to me a crime!"

"I am a man nursing with both hands the interests of this country," he
replied, "and I press on you a political necessity. Patriotism is not
always moral in the formal sense. You might be glad of it, I think: it
is your own protection; the facts are heavy against you; and if I am
still trying to except you from a very dangerous place, it is in part of
course because I am not insensible to your honesty in coming here; in
part because of Pilrig's letter; but in part, and in chief part, because
I regard in this matter my political duty first and my judicial duty
only second. For the same reason--I repeat it to you in the same frank
words--I do not want your testimony."

"I desire not to be thought to make a repartee, when I express only the
plain sense of our position," said I. "But if your lordship has no need
of my testimony, I believe the other side would be extremely blithe to
get it."

Prestongrange arose and began to pace to and fro in the room. "You are
not so young," he said, "but what you must remember very clearly the
year 'Forty-five and the shock that went about the country. I read in
Pilrig's letter that you are sound in Kirk and State. Who saved them in
that fatal year? I do not refer to his Royal Highness and his ramrods,
which were extremely useful in their day; but the country had been saved
and the field won before ever Cumberland came upon Drummossie. Who saved
it? I repeat; who saved the Protestant religion and the whole frame of
our civil institutions? The late Lord President Culloden, for one; he
played a man's part, and small thanks he got for it--even as I, whom you
see before you, straining every nerve in the same service, look for no
reward beyond the conscience of my duties done. After the President,
who else? You know the answer as well as I do; 'tis partly a scandal,
and you glanced at it yourself, and I reproved you for it, when you
first came in. It was the Duke and the great clan of Campbell. Now here
is a Campbell foully murdered, and that in the King's service. The D