hile to tell his
absurd story on his return, and to accept the situation. No other
hypothesis 'colligates the facts.' What Harrison knew, why his absence
was essential, we cannot hope to discover. But he never was a captive
in 'famed Turkee.' Mr. Paget writes: 'It is impossible to assign a
sufficient motive for kidnapping the old man ... much profit was not
likely to arise from the sale of the old man as a slave.' Obviously
there was no profit, especially as the old man was delivered in a
wounded and imperfect condition. But a motive for keeping Harrison out
of the way is only hard to seek because we do not know the private
history of his neighbours. Roundheads among them may have had
excellent reasons, under the Restoration, for sequestering Harrison
till the revenges of the Restoration were accomplished. On this view
the mystery almost ceases to be mysterious, for such mad
self-accusations as that of John Perry are not uncommon.[7]

[Footnote 7: Not only have I failed to trace the records of the Assize
at which the Perrys were tried, but the newspapers of 1660 seem to
contain no account of the trial (as they do in the case of the Drummer
of Tedworth, 1663), and Miss E.M. Thompson, who kindly undertook the
search, has not even found a ballad or broadside on 'The Campden
Wonder' in the British Museum. The pamphlet of 1676 has frequently
been republished, in whole or in part, as in _State Trials_, vol.
xiv., in appendix to the case of Captain Green; which see, _infra_, p.
193, _et seq._]

IV

_THE CASE OF ALLAN BRECK_

Who killed the Red Fox? What was the secret that the Celts would not
communicate to Mr. R.L. Stevenson, when he was writing _Kidnapped_?
Like William of Deloraine, 'I know but may not tell'; at least, I know
all that the Celt knows. The great-grandfather and grandfather of a
friend of mine were with James Stewart of the Glens, the victim of
Hanoverian injustice, in a potato field, near the road from
Ballachulish Ferry to Appin, when they heard a horse galloping at a
break-neck pace. 'Whoever the rider is,' said poor James, 'he is not
riding his own horse.' The galloper shouted, 'Glenure has been shot!'

'Well,' said James to his companion, 'whoever did it, I am the man
that will hang for it.'

Hanged he was. The pit in which his gibbet stood is on the crest of a
circular 'knowe,' or hummock, on the east side of the Ballachulish
Hotel, overlooking the ferry across the narrows, where the tide