There was an exclamation of incredulity from the magistrates.
“If you doubt me,” Ronald said, “you can send a man to the wall. I felt my feet loosen a tile and it slid down into the gutter.”
One of the magistrates gave an order, and two of the watch left the court.
“And who did you find in the house?”
“I found this good woman, and sorely frightened she was when I told her what kind of folk were lurking outside.”
“And was there anyone else there?”
“There was a man there,” Ronald said quietly, “and he seemed alarmed too.”
“What became of him?”
“I cannot say for certain,” Ronald replied; “but if you ask my opinion I should say, that having no stomach for meeting people outside, he just went out the way I came in, especially as I heard the worshipful magistrate say that a board in the attic had been lifted.”
The magistrates looked at each other in astonishment; the mode of escape had not occurred to any, and the disappearance of the fugitive was now explained.
“I never heard such a tale,” one of the magistrates said after a pause. “It passes belief that a lad, belonging to the family of a worthy and respectable citizen, a bailie of the city and one who stands well with his fellow townsmen, should take a desperate leap from the wall through a window of a house where a traitor was in hiding, warn him that the house was watched, and give him time to escape while he defended the stairs. Such a tale, sure, was never told in a court. What say you, bailie?”
“I can say nought,” Andrew said. “The boy is a good boy and a quiet one; given to mischief like other boys of his age, doubtless, but always amenable. What can have possessed him to behave in such a wild manner I cannot conceive, but it seems to me that it was but a boy's freak.”
“It was no freak when he ran his sword through Peter Muir's shoulder,” Mr. M'Whirtle said. “Ye will allow that, neighbour Anderson.”
“The man must have run against the sword,” the bailie said, “seeing the boy scarce knows one end of a weapon from another.”
“You are wrong there, bailie,” one of the constables said; “for I have seen him many a time going into the school of James Macklewain, and I have heard a comrade say, who knows James, that the lad can handle a sword with the best of them.”
“I will admit at once,” Ronald said, “that I have gone to Macklewain's school and learned fencing of him. My father, Colonel Leslie of Glenlyon, was a gentleman, and it was right that I should wield a sword, and James Macklewain, who had fought in the French wars and knew my father, was good enough to teach me. I may say that my guardian knew nothing of this.”
“No, indeed,” Andrew said. “I never so much as dreamt of it. If I had done so he and I would have talked together to a purpose.”
“Leslie of Glenlyon was concerned in the '15, was he not?” Mr. M'Whirtle said; “and had to fly the country; and his son seems to be treading in his steps, bailie. I doubt ye have been nourishing a viper in your bosom.”
At this moment the two constables returned, and reported that certainly a tile was loose as the prisoner had described, and there were scratches as if of the feet of someone entering the window, but the leap was one that very few men would undertake.
“Your story is so far confirmed, prisoner; but it does not seem to us that even had you seen two men watching a house it would be reasonable that you would risk your neck in this way without cause. Clearly you have aided and abetted a traitor to escape justice, and you will be remanded. I hope, before you are brought before us again, you will make up your mind to make a clean breast of it, and throw yourself on the king's mercy.”
Ronald was accordingly led back to the cell, the bailie being too much overwhelmed with surprise at what he had heard to utter any remonstrance.
CHAPTER III: Free.
After Ronald had been removed from the court the woman was questioned. She asserted that her master was away, and was, she believed, in France, and that in his absence she often let lodgings to strangers. That two days before, a man whom she knew not came and hired a room for a few days. That on the evening before, hearing a noise in the attic, she went up with him, and met Ronald coming down stairs. That when Ronald said there were strange men outside the house, and when immediately afterwards there was a great knocking at the door, the man drew his sword and ordered her to come up stairs with him. That he then made her assist him to pull up a plank, and thrust it from the attic to the wall, and ordered her to replace it when he had gone. She supposed he was a thief flying from justice, but was afraid to refuse to do his bidding.
“And why did you not tell us all this, woman, when we came in?” Mr. M'Whirtle asked sternly. “Had ye told us we might have overtaken him.”
“I was too much frightened,” the woman answered. “There were swords out and blood running, and men using words contrary both to the law and Scripture. I was frighted enough before, and I just put my apron over my head and sat down till the hubbub was over. And then as no one asked me any questions, and I feared I might have done wrong in aiding a thief to escape, I just held my tongue.”
No cross questioning could elicit anything further from the woman, who indeed seemed frightened almost out of her senses, and the magistrate at last ordered her to return to the house and remain there under the supervision of the constable until again sent for.
Andrew Anderson returned home sorely disturbed in his mind. Hitherto he had told none, even of his intimates, that the boy living in his house was the son of Colonel Leslie, but had spoken of him as the child of an old acquaintance who had left him to his care. The open announcement of Ronald that he was the son of one of the leaders in the last rebellion, coming just as it did when the air was thick with rumours of another rising, troubled him greatly; and there was the fact that the boy had, unknown to him, been learning fencing; and lastly this interference, which had enabled a notorious emissary of the Pretender to escape arrest.
“The boy's story may be true as far as it goes,” he said to his wife when relating to her the circumstances, “for I have never known him to tell a lie; but I cannot think it was all the truth. A boy does not take such a dreadful leap as that, and risk breaking his neck, simply because he sees two men near the house. He must somehow have known that man was there, and went to give him warning. Now I think of it, he passed through the shop when Peter M'Whirtle was talking to me about it, though, indeed, he did not know then where the loon was in hiding. The boy went out soon afterwards, and must somehow have learned, if indeed he did not know before. Janet, I fear that you and I have been like two blind owls with regard to the boy, and I dread sorely that my brother Malcolm is at the bottom of all this mischief.”
This Mrs. Anderson was ready enough to credit, but she was too much bewildered and horrified to do more than to shake her head and weep.
“Will they cut off his head, Andrew?” she asked at last.
“No, there's no fear of that; but they may imprison him for a bit, and perhaps give him a good flogging —the young rascal. But there, don't fret over it, Janet. I will do all I can for him. And in truth I think Malcolm is more to blame than he is; and we have been to blame too for letting the lad be so much with him, seeing that we might be sure he would put all sorts of notions in the boy's head.”
“But what is to be done, Andrew? We cannot let the poor lad remain in prison.”
“We have no choice in the matter, Janet. In prison he is, and in prison he has to remain until he is let out, and I see no chance of that. If it had only been a brawl with the watch it could have been got over easily enough; but this is an affair of high treason —aiding and abetting the king's enemies, and the rest of it. If it were in the old times they would put the thumb screws on him to find out all he knew about it, for they will never believe he risked his life in the plot; and the fact that his father before him was in arms for the Chevalier tells that way. I should not be surprised if an order comes for him to be sent to London to be examined by the king's councillors; but I will go round now and ask the justices what they think of the matter.”