ts indeed. That is why I have had
these troops brought here. It is reported to me pretty circumstantially
that some of the Appin people are in the key to attempt a rescue of
James Stewart on his way to the place of execution at Lettermore. They
would think nothing of attempting it once he was brought the length of
Benderloch, if only a law officer or two had him in charge."

"I would have thought the duty of keeping down a ploy of that kind
would have been congenial to your own folk," said Elchies, drenching his
nostrils vulgarly with macabaw.

Argyll smiled. "You may give us credit for willingness to take our share
of the responsibility of keeping Appin in order," said he. "I should
not wonder if there are half a hundred claymores with hands in them
somewhere about our old barracks in Maltland. Eh! Simon?" and he smiled
down the table to his Chamberlain.

"Five-and-forty, to be strict," said the gentleman appealed to, and
never a word more but a sudden stop, for his half-eaten plum had
miraculously gone from his plate in the moment he had looked up at the
Duke.

"Was't in your lands?" asked Elchies, indifferent, but willing to
help on a good topic in a company where a variety of classes made the
conversation anything but brisk.

"No," said Argyll, "it was in Doom, the place of a small landowner,
Lamond, whose castle--it is but a ramshackle old bigging now--you may
have noticed on your left as you rode round. Lamond himself is a man I
have a sort of softness for, though, to tell the truth, he has forced me
into more litigation than he had money to pay for and I had patience to
take any lasting interest in."

"The Baron of Doom, is that the man?" cried Elchies, dryly. "Faith,
I ken him well. Some years syne he was living months at a time in the
Court of Session, and eating and sleeping in John's Coffee-house, and
his tale--it's a gey old one--was that the litigation was always from
the other side. I mind the man weel; Baron he called himself, though, if
I mind right, his title had never been confirmed by the king _n liberam
baroniam_ He had no civil nor criminal jurisdiction. A black-avised man;
the last time he came before me--Mr. Petullo, ye were there--it was in a
long-standing case o' multiple poinding, and if I'm no'mistaken, a place
ca'd Drimadry or Drimdarry, or something like that, changed hands ower
the head o't."

Petullo the writer, shrinking near the foot of the table in an adequate
sense of his insi