s advocate told the jury, rather went to prove their want of
collusion in the manufacture of testimony. Had their memories been
absolutely coincident, we might suspect collusion--that they had been
'coached' in their parts. But a discrepancy of absolutely no
importance rather suggests independent and honest testimony. If this
be so, Allan and James had arranged no trysting-place on May 11, as
they must have done if Allan was to murder Glenure, and James was to
send him money for his escape.

But there was a discrepancy of evidence as to the hour when the pedlar
sent by James to Fort William on May 15 arrived there. Was he
despatched after the hour when Donald Stewart swore that he gave
Allan's message to James of the Glens, or earlier, with no knowledge
on James's part of the message carried by Donald? We really cannot
expect certainty of memory, after five months, as to hours of the
clock. Also James did not prove that he sent a message to Allan at
Coalisnacoan, bidding him draw on William Stewart for money; yet on
Friday, May 15, James did, by the pedlar, bid William Stewart give
Allan credit, and on Saturday, May 16, Allan did make a pen from a
bird's feather, and ink with powder and water, and write a letter for
money, on the strength of James's credit, to William Stewart. This is
certainly a difficulty for James, since he suggested John Breck
MacColl, a tenant of Appin's at Coalisnacoan, for the intermediary
between Allan and William Stewart, and Allan actually did employ this
man to carry his letter. But Allan knew this tenant well, as did
James, and there was nobody else at that desolate spot, Coalisnacoan,
whom Allan could employ. So lonely is the country that a few years ago
a gentleman of my acquaintance, climbing a rocky cliff, found the
bones of a man gnawed by foxes and eagles; a man who never had been
missed or inquired after. Remains of pencils and leather shoe strings
among the bones proved that the man had been a pedlar, like James
Stewart's messenger, who had fallen over the precipice in trying to
cross from Coalisnacoan to the road through Glencoe. But he never was
missed, nor is the date of his death known to this day.

The evidence of the lonely tenant at Coalisnacoan, as to his
interviews with Allan, is familiar to readers of _Kidnapped_. The
tenant had heard of the murder before he saw Allan. Two poor women,
who came up from Glencoe, told the story, saying that '_two men_ were
seen going from th