as life and
death, and you have understood me perfectly. I am the boy who was speaking with
Glenure when he was shot.«
    »I can only suppose (seeing you here) that you claim to be innocent,« said
he.
    »The inference is clear,« said I. »I am a very loyal subject to King George,
but if I had anything to reproach myself with, I would have had more discretion
than to walk into your den.«
    »I am glad of that,« said he. »This horrid crime, Mr. Balfour, is of a dye
which cannot permit any clemency. Blood has been barbarously shed. It has been
shed in direct opposition to his Majesty and our whole frame of laws, by those
who are their known and public oppugnants. I take a very high sense of this. I
will not deny that I consider the crime as directly personal to his Majesty.«
    »And unfortunately, my lord,« I added, a little drily, »directly personal to
another great personage who may be nameless.«
    »If you mean anything by those words, I must tell you I consider them unfit
for a good subject; and were they spoke publicly I should make it my business to
take note of them,« said he. »You do not appear to me to recognise the gravity
of your situation, or you would be more careful not to pejorate the same by
words which glance upon the purity of justice. Justice, in this country, and in
my poor hands, is no respecter of persons.«
    »You give me too great a share in my own speech, my lord,« said I. »I did
but repeat the common talk of the country, which I have heard everywhere, and
from men of all opinions, as I came along.«
    »When you are come to more discretion you will understand such talk is not
to be listened to, how much less repeated,« says the Advocate. »But I acquit you
of an ill intention. That nobleman, whom we all honour, and who has indeed been
wounded in a near place by the late barbarity, sits too high to be reached by
these aspersions. The Duke of Argyle - you see that I deal plainly with you -
takes it to heart as I do, and as we are both bound to do by our judicial
functions and the service of his Majesty; and I could wish that all hands, in
this ill age, were equally clean of family rancour. But from the accident that
this is