learn from Miss Geddes; but he heard
with pleasure that the good Quaker, her brother, had many friends among
those of his own profession in Cumberland, and without exposing himself
to so much danger as his sister seemed to apprehend, he trusted he might
be able to discover some traces of Darsie Latimer. He himself rode back
to Dumfries, having left with Miss Geddes his direction in that
place, and an earnest request that she would forward thither whatever
information she might obtain from her brother.

On Fairford's return to Dumfries, he employed the brief interval which
remained before dinner-time, in writing an account of what had befallen
Latimer and of the present uncertainty of his condition, to Mr. Samuel
Griffiths, through whose hands the remittances for his friend's service
had been regularly made, desiring he would instantly acquaint him with
such parts of his history as might direct him in the search which he
was about to institute through the border counties, and which he pledged
himself not; to give up until he had obtained news of his friend, alive
or dead, The young lawyer's mind felt easier when he had dispatched this
letter. He could not conceive any reason why his friend's life should be
aimed at; he knew Darsie had done nothing by which his liberty could
be legally affected; and although, even of late years, there had been
singular histories of men, and women also, who had been trepanned,
and concealed in solitudes and distant islands in order to serve some
temporary purpose, such violences had been chiefly practised by the rich
on the poor, and by the strong on the feeble; whereas, in the present
case, this Mr. Herries, or Redgauntlet, being amenable, for more reasons
than one, to the censure of the law, must be the weakest in any struggle
in which it could be appealed to. It is true, that his friendly anxiety
whispered that the very cause which rendered this oppressor less
formidable, might make him more desperate. Still, recalling his
language, so strikingly that of the gentleman, and even of the man
of honour, Alan Fairford concluded, that though, in his feudal pride,
Redgauntlet might venture on the deeds of violence exercised by the
aristocracy in other times, he could not be capable of any action of
deliberate atrocity. And in these convictions he went to dine with
Provost Crosbie, with a heart more at ease than might have been
expected. [See Note 7.]

CHAPTER XI

NARRATIVE OF ALAN FAI