ou by Monday.' He went on with much
more I do not recall, but it was all threats and warnings of what would
befall all concerned if Kerr was not released. The Sheriff at last got
in a word. 'The charge is sedition and ordinary processes of procedure
do not apply.'

'You might have said that 30 years ago when you infernal Tories sent
Thomas Muir of Huntershill to his death, and William Skirving and others
to banishment for seeking reform in representation and upholding the
right of petition, but you are not able now to make the law to suit your
ends. You are holding this man without shadow of law or justice, and I
demand his being set at liberty.'

'Quite an authority in law!' sneered the Sheriff.

'Yes, I have been three times before the court of session and won each
time. I knew your father, who was a decent shoemaker in Cupar, and when
he sent you to learn to be a lawyer he little thought he was making a
tool for those he despised. Pick a man from the plow, clap on his back a
black coat, send him to college, and in five years he is a Conservative,
and puckers his mouth at anything so vulgar as a Reformer, booing and
clawing to the gentry and nobility. Dod, set a beggar on horseback and
he will ride over his own father, and your father was no lick-the-ladle
like you, but a Liberal who stood up for his rights.' The bitterness and
force with which the stranger spoke cowed his hearers.

'These insults are too much,' stammered the Bailie.

The stranger at once turned upon him. 'O, this is you McSweem, to whom I
have sold many a box of soap and tea when you wore an apron and kept a
grocer's shop. Set you up and push you forward, indeed. You have got a
bit of an estate with your wife's money and call yourself a laird! The
grand folk having taken you under their wing, you forget that you once
sat, cheek-by-jowl, with Joseph Gerrald, and now you sit in judgment on
a better man than a dozen like you.'

'Mr Sheriff,' shouted his lordship. 'Remove this man to the cells.'

'I dare you to put a finger on me,' and he grasped a chair ready to
knock down the officer who advanced to obey the order. 'I am within my
lawful rights. Dod, wee Henderson would ask nothing better than to
prosecute you before the lords of session were you to keep me in jail
even for an hour. Release this innocent man Kerr, and let us go.'

'You are a vulgar bully,' exclaimed his lordship haughtily.

The stranger dropped his bitter tone, and asked smoot