r and shore of Leith, for sixty
days_. The purpose of which last provision is evident upon its face:
being that outgoing ships may have time to carry news of the
transaction, and the summoning be something other than a form. Now take
the case of Alan. He has no dwelling-house that ever I could hear of; I
would be obliged if any one would show me where he has lived forty days
together since the 'Forty-five; there is no shire where he resorts,
whether ordinarily or extraordinarily; if he has a domicile at all,
which I misdoubt, it must be with his regiment in France; and if he is
not yet furth of Scotland (as we happen to know and they happen to
guess) it must be evident to the most dull it's what he's aiming for.
Where, then, and what way should he be summoned? I ask it at yourself, a
layman."

"You have given the very words," said I. "Here at the cross, and at the
pier and shore of Leith, for sixty days."

"Ye're a sounder Scots lawyer than Prestongrange, then!" cries the
Writer. "He has had Alan summoned once; that was on the twenty-fifth,
the day that we first met. Once, and done with it. And where? Where, but
at the cross of Inverary, the head burgh of the Campbells? A word in
your ear, Mr. Balfour--they're not seeking Alan."

"What do you mean?" I cried. "Not seeking him?"

"By the best that I can make of it," said he. "Not wanting to find him,
in my poor thought. They think perhaps he might set up a fair defence,
upon the back of which James, the man they're really after, might climb
out. This is not a case, ye see, it's a conspiracy."

"Yet I can tell you Prestongrange asked after Alan keenly," said I;
"though, when I come to think of it, he was something of the easiest put
by."

"See that," says he. "But there! I may be right or wrong, that's
guesswork at the best, and let me get to my facts again. It comes to my
ears that James and the witnesses--the witnesses, Mr. Balfour!--lay in
close dungeons, and shackled forbye, in the military prison at Fort
William; none allowed in to them, nor they to write. The witnesses, Mr.
Balfour; heard ye ever the match of that? I assure ye, no old, crooked
Stewart of the gang ever outfaced the law more impudently. It's clean in
the two eyes of the Act of Parliament of 1700, anent wrongous
imprisonment. No sooner did I get the news than I petitioned the Lord
Justice-Clerk. I have his word to-day. There's law for ye! here's
justice!"

He put a paper in my hand, that same m