"Where I shall but be even'd with my lord your father," said I.
"Aha, but not so!" he cried, "and you do not yet see to the bottom
of this business. My father suffered in a great cause, and for
dealing in the affairs of kings. You are to hang for a dirty
murder about boddle-pieces. Your personal part in it, the
treacherous one of holding the poor wretch in talk, your
accomplices a pack of ragged Highland gillies. And it can be
shown, my great Mr. Balfour--it can be shown, and it WILL be shown,
trust ME that has a finger in the pie--it can be shown, and shall
be shown, that you were paid to do it. I think I can see the looks
go round the court when I adduce my evidence, and it shall appear
that you, a young man of education, let yourself be corrupted to
this shocking act for a suit of cast clothes, a bottle of Highland
spirits, and three-and-fivepence-halfpenny in copper money."
There was a touch of the truth in these words that knocked me like
a blow: clothes, a bottle of usquebaugh, and three-and-fivepence-
halfpenny in change made up, indeed, the most of what Alan and I
had carried from Auchurn; and I saw that some of James's people had
been blabbing in their dungeons.
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