CHAPTER XXIV
THE MURDER
Up to this point there are many events which I have drawn with blurred edges by reason of the distance of time; but from this to the end of my story I have the pettiest details of it in mind, many of them with a horrid distinctness.
On the evening of the twenty-third the Armstrongs held a dance in honor of the marriage of their daughter Jean with one of John Graham's lads, and a number of young folks were bid to dinner before this festivity should begin, Nancy being one of the number. His Grace of Borthwicke and I were asked for the dancing, a courtesy which he declined by reason of his indisposition, as well as from the fact that he was to start for the Highlands in the morning. Almost immediately after our dinner he excused himself to me, saying that an important letter must be got off on the early post. And his breeding was shown in the fact that he allowed no doubt to remain with me that this was any invented excuse to avoid my society, for he stated to whom the epistle was destined, and the need for its immediate sending, a point of conduct which seemed to me gentlemanly in the extreme.
"It's a letter to Pitt," he said.
"Ye are great friends now, are ye not?" I asked.
"He is the nearest friend I have in all the world," he answered. "We are both rhymesters," he added with a smile. "But this letter is a business one, for I have advices from France for which he is waiting, and they must be sent in cipher because of the trouble brewing in that country. If I do not get the letter off to-night he may not receive it for a fortnight, as he accompanies his Majesty to the country on Friday."
"Why not send it by special carrier?" I asked.
"It's not important enough for that," he answered lightly, as he crossed to Nancy's writing-room, which had been given to his use as an office during her absence at Allan-lough.
Left with the evening on my hands, I set out for Creech's with no weightier purpose than to divert myself and have some merry talk over a bowl of punch; but, as I entered, Blake, who was throwing dice with Dundas at the other end of the room, called to me to ask if I had heard whether Mr. Pitcairn was better.
"Is he ill?" I asked in surprise, as it was but the morning before he was at Stair.
"He was carried from the court this afternoon," he answered, and at the words I took up my coat and started for Pitcairn's house to see if there was some help that I could offer. I found him wrapped in flannels in front of a great fire in his own chamber, in as vile a frame of mind as I have ever seen any human being, bearing his indisposition as unphilosophically as I might have done myself, and I spent a highly uncomfortable, dry, and sober evening with him, escaping from his society somewhere at the back of the midnight with a feeling of relief and the intention of getting something to drink. Going down, unattended, I pulled the house-door hard after me to close it for the night, when Pitcairn called me from the window above to ask that I stop by the chemist's and hurry along a draught for which he was waiting.
A light and tricksey snow had begun to fall while I was in the house; snow which blew in gusts, now from one side, now from another; snow which came crosswise, to be caught by the high wind and carried up to the tops of the houses; and over all and around all the fog of the sea and beaten bells sounding far away, as of ships in trouble or as warnings from the shore.
I pulled my hat over my eyes, turned the collar of my great-coat around my ears, and took to the middle of the road, looking round warily from side to side to make sure that I was followed by none, for the town had been greatly excited during this winter by statements in the public prints of mysterious disappearances. Folks had been suddenly missed from their own doorways, of whom no subsequent traces could be found; visitors entering the city were lost sight of; Irish haymakers on their road to the agricultural districts of the lowlands had disappeared from their companions as if by magic, and suspicions of a dreadful nature were abroad.9
It was a uncanny night, black as chaos; and with my mind excited by these horrid tales, I hurried along to the chemist's, whose man was outside putting up the shutters. I stated my errand to the doctor, who said he would carry the medicine himself, as Mr. Pitcairn's house lay on the road to another patient with whom he had promised to pass the night. This occurrence seems of small moment, and I but set it down to show how slight a thing may turn many lives, for it was this very dose of rhubarb and jalap which brought about much of the trouble toward which we were drawing.
Starting again toward Stair I came directly upon some of the town-guard, who, with flaming torches held aloft, were carrying a couple of drunken wretches to the gaol. Turning to look after them I became aware that a man had stepped from the shadow and was walking beside me, going in the same direction, but at a much quicker gait than my own. By the uncertain flare of the torches I saw that he was tall, carried himself with distinction, and, what seemed markedly strange on such a night, wore no covering whatever upon his head. I felt that he noted me not at all, and as the gloom swallowed him up, saw him throw out his hand with a significant gesture, as of one who has neither hope nor courage.
It was this motion which made my heart give a sudden leap and set it throbbing light and quick in my throat, for the belief came to me that the stranger was none other than Danvers Carmichael, though any reasonable explanation for his being abroad alone at such an hour and going toward Stair was far from clear to me. My first thought was to call out to him, but a bit of caution held me back, and upon thinking it over I made sure that my eyes and the fog had combined to deceive me, and I put the thing out of my mind altogether and hurried on toward home. Nearing the house I kept close to the high stone wall for protection against the wind, thinking to enter the grounds from the lower carriage-way, but the gates were closed, and I was forced to the main gate, the irons of which were swung far back.
As I turned into the path my eye was caught by a wide cone of light which came from the window of the room in which I had left his Grace of Borthwicke. Looking more attentively, I saw to my amazement that the window nearest the writing-table was wide open, and I thought to go directly to this place, for there was a low porch outside from which an entrance to the house could be effected. I had started across the lawn when I heard a pistol shot, followed by a pause, and then another, quick upon the heels of the first, which had seemed to come from the house. But the second, whether because of my confusion of mind or the blowing of the wind, appeared to have been somewhere behind me, and with a thought for my own safety I stepped under some frozen vines which hung above the gateway. As I did so, a small figure, coming from I know not what direction, passed through the cone of light. It ran low to the ground and light, and with incredible swiftness disappeared somewhere in the rose-garden by the south wall. Then a silence fell, and for a few seconds I stood waiting to hear a disturbance in the house, but finding naught happening I ran up the path in a preternatural hurry of spirits, and set the knocker of the main door clanging so that it might disturb the dead.
Even with all this racketing it was full five minutes before Huey MacGrath stuck his head, with a white nightcap upon it, from the attic window, holding a lighted candle high in his hand as he peered into the dark.
"I'll have ye arrestit!" he called down.
"Whist, Huey!" I cried. "It's I, the laird himself. There're burglars in the house!"
"Ye've no been drinkin'?" he shouted back, questioningly.
"Didn't ye hear the shots?" I asked.
"I heard nothing," he answered in an unconvinced manner.
"Do you want to be murdered in your bed?" I called up to him, "rather than come down to see what's going about?"
"There's just naething the matter at all," he returned. "Ye've been drinkin'. Is Rab Burns with ye?" he asked, resting his elbows imperturbably on the window-ledge.
His conduct, in my excited state, enraged me to the extent of using language which acquainted him with my wishes if not with my sobriety, and I noted him withdraw his head hastily, and the light grow bright and dim, and bright again, in his turning of the stairs, before the bars were let down and the door opened to me.
"There's just naething the matter at all," was his greeting. "Aye, ye will have been drinkin'!"
Although he carried such a brave front I saw that he had taken the precaution to bring an old blunderbuss with him, and two of the serving-men, who appeared from a rear stairway in a sleep-befuddled condition.
As we stood in the silence of the great dark hall a fear came over me that I had up-turned the house to no purpose, but underneath it lay the premonition of a great trouble, a feeling so strong that I was unable to put it by. The doors on both sides of the hall were closed, and there was no light save one small gleam which trickled from the keyhole of Nancy's writing-room. Advancing to the door I rapped boldly upon it, and waited for the duke to bid me enter; no voice answered, nor was any sound to be heard save the tick, tick, tick of a great clock that stood near. Again I beat upon the door, and called Montrose loudly by name, and with baited breath listened to the tick-ticking of the clock, and nothing else.
"He's fell asleep," Huey suggested, and upon this, thinking the door locked, I threw my weight against it, precipitating myself into the room with unnecessary violence, to find the duke sitting at the desk, his head thrown back upon the cushions, and one hand on the arm of the great chair in an attitude of peaceful slumber. But there came to me a dread of the sleep which could keep a man of his temperament unconscious while the house was being pulled about his ears. As I drew nearer to him the wind from the opened casement blew the curtains far into the room and rustled the papers on the table, the light of which was pushed back and the papers redd up, as if the business of the evening were by with.
I stepped softly to the sitting man and touched him on the shoulder, and, as I did so, fell back with a loud cry, while a voice with which I seemed to have nothing to do cried out:
"He's been murdered! He's shot! He's dead!"
I can not recall what other words this personless voice cried out, but I know that I stood staring at this man who but a few hours before had been so hated, feared, aye, and admired; staring at his dreadful pallor, his inhuman repose, and his inscrutable smile, as he sat before me with the blood trickling down the side of his face from a bullet-hole just over the temple.
In the first sight I had of him I knew that he was dead; the feeling of death was around him; there was death in the air, in the awful serenity of the pale face, in the hands which lay motionless and relaxed, as if surrendering all; in the faint smile, as though Death himself had come before the great man's vision and had been regarded calmly before his work was done; and while the four of us were standing, drunk with fear at this awful sight, there came to us the sound of carriage-wheels and gay voices, and before the power of action was with any of us, Nancy stood in the doorway, her eyes filled with laughter, her scarlet lips curved backward in a smile as she came forward to the place where I stood.
"Are ye giving a ball while the mistress of the house is from home?" she inquired, gayly; and, as the queerness of our actions struck her: "What is it?" she cried; and again, "What is it?"
To save her, some power of thought came back to my disordered mind.
"Come away, Nancy! Come away with me!" I cried; but before I could reach her she had moved forward toward the dead, her head lowered, her eyes widened with terror, and at sight of the blood clapped her hands over her eyes to shut out the horrid sight, and went white, and but for me would have fallen.
The telling of this takes longer than the acting of it, for it was less than a minute before she called, with some authority in her tone:
"Send them away, Jock. Send them all away! Leave me alone with him."
I motioned the men from the room. It was the common belief that his grace was Nancy's accepted lover, and there seemed nothing strange in her request to be alone with him. As I came back she held me by the sleeve.
"Have you found anything——" she began. "Do you know of anybody?"
"Nothing has been found," I answered, and a look passed between us which told me that my dread was her own.
"Jock, darling," she went on, "stay here! but don'tseeanything you may have to tell of afterward," and a vision of the hatless man in the snow came back to me at her words.
"Fetch me some water," she went on, "and let none come in but you."
I stood holding the door ajar while the water for which she asked was being brought; but though my back was toward her I knew she made a hasty move between the open window and the desk, and as I drew near again she pointed out a pistol lying directly under the duke's left hand, at sight of which I fell back with a cry of dismay, for it was one of a brace which I had given Danvers Carmichael on his birthday two years before.
How this could have escaped my sight at the first look I had of the dead was a thing I could not understand, for it lay well in the light, and by its reflections would naturally be an object to hold the eye, and even in my confusion of mind I felt certain that it had been placed there since my first entrance to the room.
Turning to Nancy for some explanation, I found her conduct of a piece with the rest of her life, for every power of her mind was focused on present action, and there was something unnatural, beyond belief, and not like a feminine creature, in the manner with which she stood regarding each object in the room, and at sight of this self-control McMurtrie's talk came back to me.
"I will not have you here," I cried, putting my arm around her to lead her away. "It's horrible—horrible to think of such a trial for you," to which she paid no heed whatever, drawing herself from me in silence, to cross to the open window and peer out into the night.
"Thank God!" she cried, "it's snowing in clouds. It will be a foot deep by morning! But we must make an effort to search the grounds. We must seem to leave nothing undone," and the thought being conceived, it was executed on the instant.
"Why do you stand doing nothing?" she cried, throwing the door back and confronting the huddled servants. "Get your lanterns out, and the coach-lamps as well; the murderer may not be far gone. Search the carriage-way toward the town," she called twice, and even in the confusion I knew she was sending them as far from the road to Arran as she could.
Father Michel, Jamie Henderlin, and some other of the burn people had arrived by this time, but it was Nancy who thought for all of us, refusing to go to her rooms, and insisting upon taking a part in the search with us. Aside from the strain upon her, I was grateful in my soul for this determination, for laws and courts and country notwithstanding, my mind was fixed to do everything possible to prevent suspicion falling on the son of Alexander Carmichael, who, I began to fear, would be accused of a hand in the affair.
During the rest of the night, through all the talk and the searching of the grounds, there were two lines of thought in my mind, the one planning, explaining, and excusing Danvers, the other seeming to assist in present conduct and to suggest immediate courses of action.
It was Nancy herself who was first upon the little balcony of the window by which the dead man was still sitting. Father Michel, Huey MacGrath, and I followed, and going down the steps I struck my foot against some light object, kicking it far ahead of me, and on the instant Nancy sprang forward, leaned over and picked up something in the snow.
"What is it?" I cried.
She held out to me the piece of lace she had worn as a head covering to the dance—held it far out, so that all could see what it was, but made no response in words—and after the fruitless search was finished consented to go to her room. As I stood by her door, undecided whether or not to tell her of the hatless man I had met in the snow, she suddenly threw her arms wide apart and dropped unconscious at my feet. I lifted her up, wild with this new anxiety, and as I did so the lace unrolled, and from it fell a cap, with snow upon it, a man's cap with a strangely embroidered band which Nancy had worked for Danvers Carmichael the summer before. At sight of it I could have cried out as a woman does, for I knew it to be the object I had struck with my foot under the window, and the last hope for Danvers Carmichael seemed to vanish from my mind at sight of it.
Her consciousness was not long in returning, and before it came back I had wrapped the cap in the lace again, trusting her woman's wit to do the wise thing concerning it.
"Leave me alone, Jock," she said suddenly, as to my amazement she went to the wash-hand-stand, filled the basin with cold water, and dipped the whole top of her curly head into it.
"There must be no trifling with headaches to-night!" she explained. "I've others to think of than myself. Pray for me, dearest!" she cried, putting her hands on my breast and looking up pleadingly in my eyes. "Pray for your little girl, as she sits here all alone. Pray that I may have presence of mind!" and God knows the awe I felt as I saw the courage and spirit in that slim girlish body.
"Nancy," said I, for I felt that without words, we were banded together for the protection of a life dear to both of us, "with your knowledge of the law——" but before I could finish she interrupted me:
"Yesterday in my presence Danvers Carmichael threatened the duke's life not once but many times, with Pitcairn lying just outside the door. The law!" she cried. "It's not the law I'm afraid of—it's Hugh Pitcairn!"
9Benson's Noted Trials.
CHAPTER XXV
THE TRIAL
The great duke lay in state in St. Giles, and the Highlands emptied themselves into Edinburgh demanding justice. The lady-mother of the dead was there, broken-hearted, and Percival Montrose, to whom the title fell; and I had a fine taste of the fealty of Gaelic-folk, for kinsfolk and clansfolk took the duke's undoing as a personal affront, and put their own matters by to get some one hanged for it.
The streets, especially those around the courts, were thronged with the late duke's following; unkempt, hot-eyed, bare-legged gillies were grouped at every corner, glowering under their tartan bonnets; I found a huddle of them squatted behind some alders on the Burnside, and came upon another set by the carriage-way, who glared at me as I passed them as if I had had some part in the undoing of their clansman.
During this time Nancy lay ill, for which, strange as it seems, I praised God, for the sickness saved her from the horrors of the coroner's inquest, McMurtrie coming to my aid in the matter by declaring it worth her life to be dragged into the affair. There was nothing more definite elicited from this tribunal, constituted largely of men under heavy obligations either to Sandy or myself, than "Death at the hands of a person or persons unknown," but the relief which came with the verdict was of short duration.
How rumor is bred none can tell, but on the day following the coroner's findings there was a waif-word wandering about that Danvers Carmichael knew more than he had told of the duke's taking off; and whether bred by servants' gossip or the talk of the fool chemist-doctor who had taken the medicine to Pitcairn on the night of the murder and encountered Danvers hatless in the snow, I can not say; but by the evening there rose a strong demand for his arrest, and two officers appeared at Arran and took the lad into custody.
Nancy, who had not left her room from that dreadful night, but who had recovered herself enough to sit up a little at a time, received the news in silence, asking if it were possible for me to get the exact testimony given before the coroner for her to see; and going through it, sitting in the bed, with flushed face and feverish eyes.
"It's not so bad," she said, as she put it aside; "not so bad. Will ye ride out and ask Mr. Pitcairn to come to me?" she asked.
"Pitcairn? Ye'll not be wanting Pitcairn," I answered. "It's Magendie we are having up from London for the defense."
"I—want—to—see—Mr.—Pitcairn," she said slowly.
"I don't understand at all," I answered. "When you refuse to see Sandy, who, in his own great distress, has never forgot you for a moment, I don't see why you should be sending for Pitcairn."
"I want to see neither Sandy nor any of the Arran people," she answered.
"And you've no word of comfort for Danvers?" I asked.
"None," she returned. "I have not one word of comfort or anything else to send to Danvers Carmichael, and I'd like to have it generally known."
Although I saw him not, I knew that Pitcairn came to Stair that afternoon; but, before God, by no message carried by me; and the following morning I visited him in his offices, finding him at a desk in the inner room looking frozenly out under his dome-like forehead in a way to suggest that his natural greeting would be: "What are you prepared to swear to?"
"Hugh," said I, "ye've doubtless heard of the trouble young Mr. Carmichael is in——" here I waited.
He nodded, as one might who had but a certain number of words given him at birth and was fearful that the supply might run out.
"It has occurred to me," I went on, "that your old friendship for me and my old friendship for Sandy being common knowledge, ye might show a fine courtesy by standing aside in the case and letting Mr. Inge take it altogether. Such a thing can be done, I know, for when the Lord-President himself had Ferrars to try, who was a known man to him, he asked to be relieved from presiding."
"I attended to the duke's affairs when he was living. I shall attend to them now that he is dead," he replied stolidly. "There is an ethical side to the matter as well, for I believe him to have been killed by the young——" he caught himself at this, with a correction. "I have my beliefs in the case," he amended. "But ye can rest by this, if a man is innocent of a crime in this country he can prove it. It is a prosecution, not a persecution, that will be conducted by the government."
And here a lighter vein seemed to take him, for he added:
"And so, Jock Stair, you would come to me to use an old friendship to buy the laddie off! Ye're a nice citizen; a fine, public-spirited body!"
"Hugh Pitcairn," I answered, "if you were in trouble, and it needed the last shilling I had in the world to help ye, you'd find me beside ye, with it held out in my hand; and it seems a little thing I am asking of you, and not for myself either——"
"Your daughter's a better man than you," he broke in on me. "It was a fine thing she did—a fine, public-spirited thing!"
"Ye've trained her well in the lawing," I said, leading him on a bit, for Nancy had held the silence of the dead concerning the murder since the day of his visit, and I had no knowledge of what he meant.
"Mark you," he said, and there was almost a glow upon his face, "the first day that she was able to sit up after her illness Nancy Stair sent for me. 'Mr. Pitcairn,' said she, 'a most unwelcome task has come to me, and I am needing your advice.' And on this she went over the talk, part of which I had overheard, between herself and the young Carmichael, with neither heat nor fallacy of emphasis, as accurately as I might have done myself," he ended, as though higher praise were inconceivable.
"There's a girl for ye!" he cried. "I've set but little store by her verse-making; or her charity work, which is sentiment; but by the lawing the very female quality of her mind has been changed, for she is able to put a duty to her country before her own feelings. Ye might take a lesson from your daughter in that, Jock Stair!" he finished.
I rode back to Stair on a gallop and went straight to Nancy's room.
"What is this ye've done?" I cried. "What is this thing that ye've done against the man who has loved ye ever since his eyes lighted upon you, and whom your own indecision has helped to the place he now stands?"
There was a look of reproach in her eyes as she sat looking up at me, but her words were quiet enough.
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"I've been having a talk with Pitcairn——" I began.
"For Heaven's sake!" she cried, springing to her feet. "It was the thing I wanted least. What did you tell him? Oh, what did ye tell him?" she asked excitedly.
"I told him nothing," I answered.
"You think you didn't, dearest," she answered; "but it's not in your nature to keep a secret. 'Tis because you're a fine gentleman, with never a thought in your life that needs hiding; but it's bad in law! Stay away from Hugh Pitcairn, dearest. Stay away from him!"
"Nancy," said I, and my flattered vanity softened my tone, "I don't understand your conduct at all; for, as far as I can see, you seem to have done all ye could to get Danvers Carmichael hanged——"
"Seemed, Jock," she said, "only seemed! Ye might trust me a bit more——"
"And you're called for the prosecution——"
"Naturally," she returned, unmoved.
And here I just stared at her for a minute, and turned with a bit of temper showing in my conduct and left the room.
The same evening I was further blindfolded by a visit from Mr. Magendie, the London lawyer, who by Nancy's thought (although I did not recognize her suggestion in the matter at the time, so deftly was it made) had been brought up to Edinburgh for Danvers's defense. I found this renowned gentleman of a slight, wiry build, below the medium height, with a distinguished head, covered with thick silver hair, hawk eyes, and a nose which turned downward like a beak. There was a Sabbath calm in his manner; his voice was gentle and suave, and his most pertinent statements came as mere suggestions. He had, I noticed, the very rare quality of fixing his whole attention on the one to whom he listened, and of putting his own personality somewhere aside as he held up the speaker to the strong light of a mind trained for inspection. I found after the interview that I had told him almost everything that I had said, done, or imagined since my birth, and at remembrance of it, recalled Nancy's inquiries concerning my talk with Hugh, and prayed Heaven I had not been equally indiscreet before that block of steel.
It was as the London man was leaving the house that the blindfolding of me was begun anew by Huey MacGrath entering with a note, saying that Nancy would like to have Mr. Magendie come to her sitting-room on the second floor. I paced up and down the lower hall, perplexed in mind and sick with dread of the horror hanging over us, yet with something in my heart which told me that, in spite of Hugh's statements, Nancy Stair was with us—with Sandy, and Danvers, and myself.
Near one o'clock of the morning I heard Nancy's voice, at the turn of the stair, saying good night to the London man.
"People think he's ice," she cried, and I knew it was Pitcairn of whom she spoke; "but try a bit of flattery with him. Not on his looks, for he cares less for them than for the wind that blows, but on his abilities. Tell him that all knowledge of the Scots law will end at his death, and that you're flattered to be on the same case with him; tell him that Moses but anticipated him in the Ten Commandments, and that, before the time of Leviticus, he was. He will rest calm under it. He will show naught; but in his soul he will agree with you, and think that a man who has such penetration concerning himself must have a judgment worth consideration about others."
I heard Magendie laugh aloud, and when I joined him saw that his eyes had brightened during the interview, as though he had been drinking, and that he carried himself with some excitement.
"It will be a great case, my lord! a great case!" he said, with enthusiasm. "And it's a fine daughter ye have! A great woman! God!" he cried, seizing my hand, "if she'd go on the case with me, I'd undertake the defense of Judas!—and I'd get a verdict, too!" he added, with a laugh, as he went out into the night.
On the morning set for the trial, to add to our distressed state of mind, a tempest arose. There was rain driven into the town from the hills, and rain driven into the town from the sea, and banks of leaden clouds were blown back and forth over the trees, which were bent double by the Bedlamite wind. The grounds of Stair lay like a pond, the road ran like a river, and the broken bits of trees hurled everywhere made going abroad a dangerous business. As I entered the breakfast-room Huey threw a look at my attire.
"You'll not be thinking of going out?" he demanded, rather than asked.
"I'm thinking of nothing else," said I.
"Ye'll get killt," he cried, and at the words my eyes lighted with some amazement upon his own odd costume, for he was prepared to serve my breakfast in corduroys and thigh-boots.
"Why are you dressed like that?" I inquired.
"You wouldn't be wanting me to stay at home when there's trouble to Mr. Danvers, would you?" he demanded fiercely. "I, who have known him since he was a week old, and have had favors from him thousands of times! And now," he went on as though I had done him some personal injury, "when there's sorrow by him, ye'd have me keeping the chimney-lug, wi' a glass and a story-book, mayhap, and him needing friends as he sits wi' that deevil Pitcairn glowerin' at him. Nay! Nay!" he continued, "Huey MacGrath's not like that! I'll be there!" he cried, his conceit and loyalty carrying a singular comfort to me. "I'll be there, early and late, and they'll see they have me to contend wi'!"
"Ye can't stay in the court. You'll be sequestered until after you've testified. Ye know the law for that, Huey."
"They'll sequester me none"; he returned, grimly; "and if Dunsappie the macer tries it I'll have him read out of the church, for I know of him that which makes me able to do it!"
"There's Mr. Pitcairn, who knows ye well," said I.
"I'm not counting to see him," he returned with a squinting of his eye. "I'll stay where he is nae looking; but I'll get a glyff of the laddie himsel', and he'll know I'm there, and will feel better for it, though I'm only an old serving man!"
"I'm sure he will, Huey," I said, touched to the heart; "I'm sure he will; and I'll tell him of your coming if he misses a sight of you," I added, as I saw the poor fellow's face working with sorrow and anxiety; but his spirit and loyalty undaunted by all the courts of judiciary that ever sat.
We were preparing to be off together when Nancy came down to us, pale and heavy-eyed.
"Jock," said she, "if Mr. Magendie had the word he hoped for from Father Michel, it would be wise for him to have as many Romanists in the jury as he can get. They have reason to know the priest's goodness." And then: "Jock, darling!" she cried, throwing her arms around my neck and weeping as though her heart would break, "there's a trial coming between us; and ye'll see me misjudged by the world, and by Sandy as well, who has been like an own father to me! And by him!—him, too! You'll all be ashamed of me; but when I'm called, mayhap to-morrow or the next day," and the little hands fastened themselves around my bare throat, "don't distrust me. Beloved, don't distrust me! Don't believe I'm bad, or wanting in loyalty to the dear ones of my life. Don't believe it, though ye hear me say it myself. I can abide all that's come to me, but to have something between us!" and she buried her face in my bosom, moaning like a hurt child.
"Nancy," said I, for the sight of any suffering of hers made me like a crazy man, "you've held yourself aloof from me, and have given out by your conduct that your sympathies are all for the prosecution; but in spite of it, if an angel from Heaven were to call you guilty of disloyalty to a friend I'd give him the lie, though I were damned for it!" I cried.
"Mine Jock," she said, "mine Jock!" and, comforted by the very violence of my language, she stood quietly by the window watching Huey as he waded through the river of water underneath which the road toward Edinburgh lay.
Sandy had remained in town over night to be with his boy at the earliest possible moment, and we sought him at the coffee-house where he had slept. He had his friends with him, but there were none to whom he paid attention save to me, holding my hand in his, and breathing deep in a kind of relief as I stood by him.
I asked him how Danvers bore himself, and he answered, with a courage and fortitude beyond belief, and that Magendie gave him comforting assurances. Of Nancy no word was spoken between us, for the hurt he had received from her conduct put an edge upon his suffering keener than he could bring himself to name, and there came upon me, at the sight of this pain, the impulse to tell him my own suspicions in the matter, but caution for the cause held me back.
Fierce as the morning was, the court-room was packed when we entered. I had asked and received permission to sit beside Sandy until such time as the empaneling should begin; and as we took our seats in that dread place I had a taste of the terror of the law which daunts my spirit to this day. It's one thing to read of murders by one's fireside, speculating over the evidence like a tale, and another to sit face to face with the charges and the life of one most dear dependent on the issue. And such was the awe inspired by the dreadful surroundings that when Carew, the Lord-President, in the wig and scarlet robes of criminal jurisdiction, preceded by the macers, took the bench, my body shook as though in mortal illness, from fear of the august power he represented, and this despite the fact that I'd drunken deeper than was wise with him many times in my early days and knew him to be sodden in his affection for Nancy from the time she had taken the case out of his hands for Jeanie Henderlin. When Danvers, who was by far the most composed of any of us, was brought in, I arose, laying my hand on his shoulder as we talked, determined that the whole town should know where my beliefs and sympathies lay.
There was little difficulty in getting the fifteen jurymen, and, as I was taken away to be sequestered, a thing happened which I tell for the love I have of human nature. There was a commotion at the door of the court-room, and I heard the macer's tones threatening some one, and then a clear voice crying:
"If you don't let me in I'll break every bone in your body," and Billy Deuceace, hard-ridden and disheveled, elbowed his way to the railing itself and held out both hands to Danvers.
"Couldn't get here any sooner, old man," he cried. "Have ridden all night! Just came up to say it's all damned nonsense, you know!" he finished, and I felt that a happier beginning could scarce have occurred for us.
I was not in the court-room when the case opened, and by this reason am forced for information to the papers recording the case, which forms one of thecauses célèbresof Scottish legal history. Even at this distance of time, at sight of these old files I feel again the helplessness and miserable sinking of heart which I felt the first time I read the indictment of Pitcairn against the boy whom I loved, no matter what he had done; and I write it again, no matter what he had done.
"The trial of Danvers Carmichael for the murder of John Stewart Aglionby Montrose, Duke of Borthwicke, Ardvilarchan, and Drumblaine in the Muirs, Lord of, etc., before the Lord-President Carew, beginning Tuesday, March tenth, 1788.
taken in shorthand by John Gurney of London.
"After addressing the bench, the case was opened for the prosecution by Mr. Pitcairn, as follows:
"Gentlemen of the Jury:"The crime imputed to the prisoner at the bar is that of wilful murder, effected by means and in a manner most abhorred. Such an accusation naturally excites the indignation of honest minds against the criminal. I will not endeavor to increase it, and it is your duty to resist it and to investigate and determine the case wholly upon the evidence which will be placed before you."On the night of the twenty-third of February, 1788, John Stewart Aglionby Montrose, Duke of Borthwicke, was found, between the hours of midnight and one of the morning, dead in a desk-chair, in a chamber on the ground floor of Stair House, near Edinburgh, by Lord Stair and his serving-men, Huey MacGrath, John Elliott, and James MacColl. The window by the late duke it will be proven was wide open, forming an easy entrance from outside; a pistol, the property of the accused, was found lying by the chair upon which the duke sat, and a wound above the temple of the deceased was discovered, made by a bullet similar to those used in the pistol before mentioned."It will be proven by testimony of such a character and from such a source as to render it singularly forcible, that on the morning of the day previous to the night of the murder the accused had threatened the duke's life, applying vile and scurrilous names to the deceased; repeating these threats several times and in various forms."It will be proven that there had existed for the accused one of the most powerful incentives to murder known, in the fact that the late duke and he loved, and had loved for some time past, the same lady, Nancy, daughter to Lord Stair; that both had addressed her in marriage, and that in September last the quarrel between them rode so high that a meeting was arranged between the late duke and the accused; and there will be testimony to show that the duel was averted by the late duke's apologizing to Mr. Carmichael, a course urged upon him by the lady herself."It will be proven that in October past, after a bitter quarrel with Miss Stair, the accused espoused in a hasty (and in a person of his rank and station), unseemly manner, his mother's cousin, Miss Isabel Erskine; that since that time he has been little in her presence, leaving her alone at the time when a woman most needs the comfort and support of a husband's presence, and paying marked attentions, both in public and private, to the first lady of his choice."It will be proven that on the day preceding the murder there was published in an Edinburgh paper called The Lounger the news that an engagement of marriage had been contracted between the late John Stewart Aglionby Montrose, Duke of Borthwicke, Muir, etc., and Mistress Nancy Stair, only daughter of John Stair, Lord of Stair and Alton in the Mearns."It will be proven that immediately upon reading this the accused came directly to Stair, and after entering unannounced into the room where the lady was sitting, asked her if the tale were true, calling the late duke a thiever from the poor, a seducer of women, a man drenched in all manner of villainy, and one whom he would rather see her dead than married to. That he had declared that he still loved and had always loved her, that his marriage was but the result of a crazy jealousy, and besought her to promise him that she would never marry the duke. It will be proven by two competent witnesses that upon her refusing to do this, the accused had cried out, 'I will save you the promising, for I swear he shall never live to marry you.'"It will be proven by a physician of repute that within ten minutes of the time of the murder the accused was seen, hatless, walking very fast or running away from Stair House toward his own home of Arran, and this along a very secluded and unusual path."In conclusion, testimony will be brought to show that the day before the murder the accused made an agreement with a boatman of Leith to keep a boat ready for him at an hour's notice, either for Ireland or France."It may be urged that this testimony, even if fully established, is purely circumstantial, for that none saw the accused commit the fatal deed. To this I would answer:"The true question is, not what is thekindof evidence in this cause, but what is the result of it in your minds."If it fail to satisfy you of the guilt of the prisoner, if your minds are not convinced, if you remain in doubt, you must acquit him, be the evidence positive or presumptive, because the law regards a man as innocent so long as any reasonable doubt of his guilt exists. But if, on the contrary, you are convinced of the fact, if there is no chance for a reasonable doubt to exist, it is imperatively your duty to yourselves, to your country, and to your God to convict, even if the evidence be wholly presumptive."
"Gentlemen of the Jury:
"The crime imputed to the prisoner at the bar is that of wilful murder, effected by means and in a manner most abhorred. Such an accusation naturally excites the indignation of honest minds against the criminal. I will not endeavor to increase it, and it is your duty to resist it and to investigate and determine the case wholly upon the evidence which will be placed before you.
"On the night of the twenty-third of February, 1788, John Stewart Aglionby Montrose, Duke of Borthwicke, was found, between the hours of midnight and one of the morning, dead in a desk-chair, in a chamber on the ground floor of Stair House, near Edinburgh, by Lord Stair and his serving-men, Huey MacGrath, John Elliott, and James MacColl. The window by the late duke it will be proven was wide open, forming an easy entrance from outside; a pistol, the property of the accused, was found lying by the chair upon which the duke sat, and a wound above the temple of the deceased was discovered, made by a bullet similar to those used in the pistol before mentioned.
"It will be proven by testimony of such a character and from such a source as to render it singularly forcible, that on the morning of the day previous to the night of the murder the accused had threatened the duke's life, applying vile and scurrilous names to the deceased; repeating these threats several times and in various forms.
"It will be proven that there had existed for the accused one of the most powerful incentives to murder known, in the fact that the late duke and he loved, and had loved for some time past, the same lady, Nancy, daughter to Lord Stair; that both had addressed her in marriage, and that in September last the quarrel between them rode so high that a meeting was arranged between the late duke and the accused; and there will be testimony to show that the duel was averted by the late duke's apologizing to Mr. Carmichael, a course urged upon him by the lady herself.
"It will be proven that in October past, after a bitter quarrel with Miss Stair, the accused espoused in a hasty (and in a person of his rank and station), unseemly manner, his mother's cousin, Miss Isabel Erskine; that since that time he has been little in her presence, leaving her alone at the time when a woman most needs the comfort and support of a husband's presence, and paying marked attentions, both in public and private, to the first lady of his choice.
"It will be proven that on the day preceding the murder there was published in an Edinburgh paper called The Lounger the news that an engagement of marriage had been contracted between the late John Stewart Aglionby Montrose, Duke of Borthwicke, Muir, etc., and Mistress Nancy Stair, only daughter of John Stair, Lord of Stair and Alton in the Mearns.
"It will be proven that immediately upon reading this the accused came directly to Stair, and after entering unannounced into the room where the lady was sitting, asked her if the tale were true, calling the late duke a thiever from the poor, a seducer of women, a man drenched in all manner of villainy, and one whom he would rather see her dead than married to. That he had declared that he still loved and had always loved her, that his marriage was but the result of a crazy jealousy, and besought her to promise him that she would never marry the duke. It will be proven by two competent witnesses that upon her refusing to do this, the accused had cried out, 'I will save you the promising, for I swear he shall never live to marry you.'
"It will be proven by a physician of repute that within ten minutes of the time of the murder the accused was seen, hatless, walking very fast or running away from Stair House toward his own home of Arran, and this along a very secluded and unusual path.
"In conclusion, testimony will be brought to show that the day before the murder the accused made an agreement with a boatman of Leith to keep a boat ready for him at an hour's notice, either for Ireland or France.
"It may be urged that this testimony, even if fully established, is purely circumstantial, for that none saw the accused commit the fatal deed. To this I would answer:
"The true question is, not what is thekindof evidence in this cause, but what is the result of it in your minds.
"If it fail to satisfy you of the guilt of the prisoner, if your minds are not convinced, if you remain in doubt, you must acquit him, be the evidence positive or presumptive, because the law regards a man as innocent so long as any reasonable doubt of his guilt exists. But if, on the contrary, you are convinced of the fact, if there is no chance for a reasonable doubt to exist, it is imperatively your duty to yourselves, to your country, and to your God to convict, even if the evidence be wholly presumptive."
I set this extremely dry document down exactly as it is recorded in the files for two reasons: first, that it contains all of the charges against Danvers, and to show how black the case stood against him when I say that all Pitcairn said he would prove he proved to the last letter.
After my own testimony was taken, the nature of which is already known, I was granted the privilege of sitting beside Sandy and his boy, the three of us being joined daily by Billy Deuceace, whom I love to the minute of this writing for his devotion to my lad.
Nancy's appearance in court was naturally looked upon as the most exciting point of the trial, and the morning she was to be called the crowd was dense to suffocation, the court-officers busy, dashing to and fro, trying to keep some orderliness among the women, who jostled each other and gave vent to loud exclamations of annoyance in their efforts to get places from which the best view might be obtained. It is curious to note the way some trivial vexation will linger in the mind, for in recalling this scene it is the annoyance I had from Mrs. MacLeod, mine landlady of the Star and Garter, that stands out clearest in my memory of that dreadful waiting time.
She sat well to the front, giving herself important airs, and I could hear her going back and forth in whispers over the story of Nancy's visiting the duke at her house to obtain the pardon of Timothy Lapraik. Wagging her head to and fro, applying her smelling-salts vigorously, and assuming the manner of an intimate sufferer in the cause, she exasperated us to such an extent that Billy Deuceace was for throwing her out of a window.
When Nancy entered every eye in that immense throng was fixed upon her, and as she stood, so fair to see, in her black hat and gown, waiting to take the oath, Mrs. MacLeod's feelings overcame her entirely, and she cried out, in a loud voice: "Ah, the beauty! 'Tis her that should hae been a duchess!" immediately falling into strong hysterics, upon which the macers summarily ejected her, to our great satisfaction, and Billy Deuceace all but cheered.
Danvers's bearing changed at the mere sound of Nancy's name, and the look of adoration that he cast upon her as she came near him was as unwise a piece of conduct as could well be imagined, and one which would have gone far toward convincing an onlooker of his willingness to die or to murder for her protection, if necessary. The look had no weight with the one for whom it was intended, however, for she let her eyes pass over rather than encounter his, turning from him, with what might easily seem a bit of disdain, to the business in hand.
As I gazed at her I noted with astonishment that the little creature's face seemed to have taken on something of Pitcairn's expression, and from the first moment to the clear end it was toward Pitcairn she gazed, her eyes tutored by his, her passionless, unheated manner his own, her adjustments and discrimination in words showing her legal training, while he sat as a maiden schoolmistress might who listened to the reciting of a favorite pupil. As she went on with her tale; omitting nothing of the duel; dragging in details of the quarrel which seemed unnecessary; stating that for some time past Mr. Carmichael's attentions to her had been pronounced to such an extent that she had shunned all company for fear of meeting him; damaging him in every way, as it appeared, while the poor fellow turned a piteous color, putting his hand over his eyes, and, for the first time in his great trouble, I saw his lips tremble and his body quiver with emotion. I could scarce endure the sight of this, and to show my feelings threw my arm across his shoulder, at which movement a murmur went through the crowd, no doubt at the oddity of the situation, that I should be so strongly marked on the one side and Nancy as strongly set on the other.
Danvers's conduct changed, however, before her testimony was finished, a thing which I was glad to see, for he brought himself together with fine bravery and courage, but with a bitterness showing in his face as of one who has been betrayed.
There were two things in Nancy's testimony to which I looked forward with dread. The first was the story of the cap, and the second the finding of the pistol which I was morally certain she had moved. The first of these was not mentioned at all, by which I knew that Pitcairn had had that incident concealed from him, and the pistol episode, about which I had been questioned at length, swearing that the first sight I had of the weapon was when it lay within a foot of the duke's hand, was answered like this: