It was actually so--it was actually on the wayside near Tynedrum, and by
the connivance of a soldier officer, that Mr. Stewart first saw the
witnesses upon the case.

"There is nothing that would surprise me in this business," I remarked.

"I'll surprise you ere I'm done!" cries he. "Do ye see this?"--producing
a print still wet from the press. "This is the libel: see, there's
Prestongrange's name to the list of witnesses, and I find no word of any
Balfour. But here is not the question. Who do ye think paid for the
printing of this paper?"

"I suppose it would likely be King George," said I.

"But it happens it was me!" he cried. "Not but it was printed by and for
themselves, for the Grants and the Erskines, and yon thief of the black
midnight, Symon Fraser. But could _I_ win to get a copy? No! I was to go
blindfold to my defence; I was to hear the charges for the first time in
court alongst the jury."

"Is not this against the law?" I asked.

"I cannot say so much," he replied. "It was a favour so natural and so
constantly rendered (till this nonesuch business) that the law has never
looked to it. And now admire the hand of Providence! A stranger is in
Fleming's printing house, spies a proof on the floor, picks it up, and
carries it to me. Of all things, it was just this libel. Whereupon I had
it set again--printed at the expense of the defence: _sumptibus moesti
rei_; heard ever man the like of it?--and here it is for anybody, the