Part 2 (2/2)
”When ye call on him!” repeated Mr Stewart ”Am I daft, or are you! What takes ye near the Advocate!”
”O, just to give myself up,” said I
”Mr Balfour,” he cried, ”are ye h I think you have allowed yourself soive you to understand once and for all that I a spirit”
”Nor yet ive yon to understand (if that's to be the word) that I like the looks of your behaviour less and less You come here to me with all sorts of propositions, which will putvery undesirable persons this ht out of my office to make your peace with the Advocate! Alan's button here or Alan's button there, the four quarters of Alan wouldnae bribe me further in”
”I would take it with a little more temper,” said I, ”and perhaps we can avoid what you object to I can see no way for it but to give myself up, but perhaps you can see another; and if you could, I could never deny but what I would be rather relieved For I think ree with ive my evidence; for I hope it'll save Alan's character (what's left of it), and James's neck, which is the -space, and then, ”My ive such evidence”
”We'll have to see about that,” said I; ”I'm stiff-necked when I like”
”Ye muckle ass!” cried Stewart, ”it's Ja-Alan, too, if they could catch him-but James whatever! Go near the Advocate with any such business, and you'll see! he'll find a way to muzzle, ye”
”I think better of the Advocate than that,” said I
”The Advocate be dammed!” cries he ”It's the Campbells, man! You'll have the whole clanjamfry of them on your back; and so will the Advocate too, poor body! It's extraordinar ye cannot see where ye stand! If there's no fair way to stop your gab, there's a foul one gaping They can put ye in the dock, do ye no see that?” he cried, and stabbed
”Ay,” said I, ”I was told that sa by another lawyer”
”And as he?” asked Stewart, ”He spoke sense at least”
I told Ihi, and had little mind to be mixed up in such affairs
”I think all the world seems to be mixed up in it!” cries Stewart ”But what said you?”
”I told him what had passed between Rankeillor and myself before the house of Shaws
”Well, and so ye will hang!” said he ”Ye'll hang beside James Stewart There's your fortune told”
”I hope better of it yet than that,” said I; ”but I could never deny there was a risk”
”Risk!” says he, and then sat silent again ”I ought to thank you for your staunchness to ood spirit,” he says, ”if you have the strength to stand by it But I warn you that you're wading deep I wouldn't put myself in your place (me that's a Stewart born!) for all the Stewarts that ever there were since Noah Risk? ay, I take over-many; but to be tried in court before a Cae, and that in a Campbell country and upon a Campbell quarrel-think what you like of me, Balfour, it's beyond , I suppose,” said I; ”I was brought up to this one by my father before me”
”Glory to his bones! he has left a decent son to his nae me over-sorely My case is doo: I wonder what I ah in your ear, man-I'm maybe no very keen on the other side”
”Is that a fact?” cried I ”It's what I would think of a ence”
”Hut! none of your whillywhas!” [4] cries he ”There's intelligence upon both sides But for e; and as for King James, God bless him! he does very well for me across the water I'ood plea, a well-drawn deed, a crack in the Parliament House with other lawyer bodies, and perhaps a turn at the golf on a Saturday at e'en Where do ye come in with your Hieland plaids and claymores?”
”Well,” said I, ”it's a fact ye have little of the wild Highlandman”