“Is it so the wind sits?” says he.  “I protest you are fallen in the worst sort of error.  Prestongrange has been hitherto so civil (he tells me) as not to combat your allegations; but you must not think they are not looked upon with strong suspicion.  You say you are innocent.  My dear sir, the facts declare you guilty.”

“I was waiting for you there,” said I.

“The evidence of Mungo Campbell; your flight after the completion of the murder; your long course of secresy—­my good young man!” said Mr. Symon, “here is enough evidence to hang a bullock, let be a David Balfour!  I shall be upon that trial; my voice shall be raised; I shall then speak much otherwise from what I do to-day, and far less to your gratification, little as you like it now!  Ah, you look white!” cries he.  “I have found the key of your impudent heart.  You look pale, your eyes waver, Mr. David!  You see the grave and the gallows nearer by than you had fancied.”

“I own to a natural weakness,” said I.  “I think no shame for that.  Shame . . .”  I was going on.

“Shame waits for you on the gibbet,” he broke in.

“Where I shall but be even’d with my lord your father,” said I.

“Aha, but not so!” he cried, “and you do not yet see to the bottom of this business.  My father suffered in a great cause, and for dealing in the affairs of kings.  You are to hang for a dirty murder about boddle-pieces.  Your personal part in it, the treacherous one of holding the poor wretch in talk, your accomplices a pack of ragged Highland gillies.  And it can be shown, my great Mr. Balfour—­it can be shown, and it will be shown, trust me that has a finger in the pie—­it can be shown, and shall be shown, that you were paid to do it.  I think I can see the looks go round the court when I adduce my evidence, and it shall appear that you, a young man of education, let yourself be corrupted to this shocking act for a suit of cast clothes, a bottle of Highland spirits, and three-and-fivepence-halfpenny in copper money.”

There was a touch of the truth in these words that knocked me like a blow:  clothes, a bottle of usquebaugh, and three-and-fivepence-halfpenny in change made up, indeed, the most of what Alan and I had carried from Aucharn; and I saw that some of James’s people had been blabbing in their dungeons.

“You see I know more than you fancied,” he resumed in triumph.  “And as for giving it this turn, great Mr. David, you must not suppose the Government of Great Britain and Ireland will ever be stuck for want of evidence.  We have men here in prison who will swear out their lives as we direct them; as I direct, if you prefer the phrase.  So now you are to guess your part of glory if you choose to die.  On the one hand, life, wine, women, and a duke to be your hand-gun; on the other, a rope to your craig, and a gibbet to clatter your bones on, and the lousiest, lowest story to hand down to your