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 kent it, '_Ye
may do what ye will for me_,' whispers he two days ago. '_I ken my fate
by what the Duke of Argyle has just said to Mr. Macintosh_.' O, it's
been a scandal!

The great Argyle he gaed before,
He gart the cannons and guns to roar,

and the very macer cried 'Cruachan!' But now that I have got you again
I'll never despair. The oak shall go over the myrtle yet; we'll ding the
Campbells yet in their own town. Praise God that I should see the day!"

He was leaping with excitement, emptied out his mails upon the floor
that I might have a change of clothes, and incommoded me with his
assistance as I changed. What remained to be done, or how I was to do
it, was what he never told me nor, I believe, so much as thought of.
"We'll ding the Camphells yet!" that was still his overcome. And it was
forced home upon my mind how this, that had the externals of a sober
process of law, was in its essence a clan battle between savage clans. I
thought my friend the Writer none of the least savage. Who, that had
only seen him at a counsel's back before the Lord Ordinary o