THE HEATHER ON FIRE


When I left Prestongrange that afternoon I was for the first time angry.
The Advocate had made a mock of me. He had pretended my testimony was to
be received and myself respected; and in that very hour, not only was
Symon practising against my life by the hands of the Highland soldier,
but (as appeared from his own language) Prestongrange himself had some
design in operation. I counted my enemies: Prestongrange with all the
King's authority behind him; and the Duke with the power of the West
Highlands; and the Lovat interest by their side to help them with so
great a force in the north, and the whole clan of old Jacobite spies and
traffickers. And when I remembered James More, and the red head of Neil
the son of Duncan, I thought there was perhaps a fourth in the
confederacy, and what remained of Rob Roy's old desperate sept of
caterans would be banded against me with the others. One thing was
requisite, some strong friend or wise adviser. The country must be full
of such, both able and eager to support me, or Lovat and the Duke and
Prestongrange had not been nosing for expedients; and it made me rage to
think that I might brush against my champions in the street and be no
wiser.

And just then (like an answer) a gentleman brushed against me going by,
gave me a meaning look, and turned into a close. I knew him with the
tail of my eye--it was Stewart the Writer; and, blessing my good
fortune, turned in to follow him. As soon as I had entered the close I
saw him standing in the mouth of a stair, where he made me a signal and
immediately vanished. Seven storeys up, there he was again in a house
door, the which he locked behind us after we had entered. The house was
quite dismantled, with not a stick of furniture; indeed, it was one of