r, wasnae't?" asked the master.

"He was the very man," said the clerk.

"And I think he took the doctor back?" says Stewart.

"Ay, with his sporran full!" cried Robin. "And Eli kent of that!"[6]

"Well, it seems it's hard to ken folk rightly," said I.

"That was just what I forgot when ye came in, Mr. Balfour!" says the
Writer.

* * * * *

CHAPTER III

I GO TO PILRIG

The next morning, I was no sooner awake in my new lodging than I was up
and into my new clothes; and no sooner the breakfast swallowed, than I
was forth on my adventures. Alan, I could hope, was fended for; James
was like to be a more difficult affair, and I could not but think that
enterprise might cost me dear, even as everybody said to whom I had
opened my opinion. It seemed I was come to the top of the mountain only
to cast myself down; that I had clambered up, through so many and hard
trials, to be rich, to be recognised, to wear city clothes and a sword
to my side, all to commit mere suicide at the last end of it, and the
worst kind of suicide besides, which is to get hanged at the King's
charges.

What was I doing it for? I asked, as I went down the High Street and out
north by Leith Wynd. First I said it was to save James Stewart, and no
doubt the memory of his distress, and his wife's cries, and a word or so
I had let drop on that occasion worked upon me strongly. At the same
time I reflected that it was (or ought to be) the most indifferent
matter to my father's son, whether James died in his bed or from a
scaffold. He was Alan's cousin, to be sure; but so far as regarded Alan,
the best thing would be to lie low, and let the King, and his Grace of
Argyll, and the corbie crows, pick the bones of his kinsman their own
way. Nor could I forget that, while we were all in the pot together,
James had shown no such particular anxiety whether for Alan or me.

Next it came upon me I was acting for the sake of justice: and I thought
that a fine word, and reasoned it out that (since we dwelt in polities,
at some discomfort to each one of us) the main thing of all must still
be justice, and the death of any innocent man a wound upon the whole
community. Next, again, it was the Accuser of the Brethren that gave me
a turn of his argument; bid me think shame for pretending myself
concerned in these high matters, and told me I was but a prating vain
child, who had spoken big words to Rankeillor and to Stewart