For the
same reason--I repeat it to you in the same frank words--I do not
want your testimony."
"I desire not to be thought to make a repartee, when I express only
the plain sense of our position," said I. "But if your lordship
has no need of my testimony, I believe the other side would be
extremely blythe to get it."
Prestongrange arose and began to pace to and fro in the room. "You
are not so young," he said, "but what you must remember very
clearly the year '45 and the shock that went about the country. I
read in Pilrig's letter that you are sound in Kirk and State. Who
saved them in that fatal year? I do not refer to His Royal
Highness and his ramrods, which were extremely useful in their day;
but the country had been saved and the field won before ever
Cumberland came upon Drummossie. Who saved it? I repeat; who
saved the Protestant religion and the whole frame of our civil
institutions? The late Lord President Culloden, for one; he played
a man's part, and small thanks he got for it--even as I, whom you
see before you, straining every nerve in the same service, look for
no reward beyond the conscience of my duties done.
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