uke
and I are Highlanders. But we are Highlanders civilised, and it is not
so with the great mass of our clans and families. They have still savage
virtues and defects. They are still barbarians, like these Stewarts;
only the Campbells were barbarians on the right side, and the Stewarts
were barbarians on the wrong. Now be you the judge. The Campbells expect
vengeance. If they do not get it--if this man James escape--there will
be trouble with the Campbells. That means disturbance in the Highlands,
which are uneasy and very far from being disarmed: the disarming is a
farce...."

"I can bear you out in that," said I.

"Disturbance in the Highlands makes the hour of our old watchful enemy,"
pursued his lordship, holding out a finger as he paced; "and I give you
my word we may have a 'Forty-five again with the Campbells on the other
side. To protect the life of this man Stewart--which is forfeit already
on half a dozen different counts if not on this--do you propose to
plunge your country in war, to jeopardise the faith of your fathers, and
to expose the lives and fortunes of how many thousand innocent
persons?... These are considerations that weigh with me, and that I hope
will weigh no less with yourself, Mr. Balfour, as a lover of your
country, good government, and religious truth."

"You deal with me very frankly, and I thank you for it," said I. "I will
try on my side to be no less honest. I believe your policy to be sound.
I believe these deep duties may lie upon your lordship; I believe you
may have laid them on your conscience when you took the oaths of the
high office which you hold. But for me, who am just a plain man--or
scarce a man yet--the plain duties must suffice. I can think but of two
things: of a poor soul in the immediate and unjust danger of a shameful
death, and of the cries and tears of his wife, that still tingle in my
head. I cannot see beyond, my lord. It's the way that I am made. If the
country has to fall, it has to fall. And I pray God, if this be wilful
blindness, that He may enlighten me before too late."

He had heard me motionless, and stood so a while longer.

"This is an unexpected obstacle," says he, aloud, but to himself.

"And how is your lordship to dispose of me?" I asked.

"If I wished," said he, "you know that you might sleep in gaol."

"My lord," said I, "I have slept in worse places."

"Well, my boy," said he, "there is one thing appears very plainly from
our interview,