"As I left the cottage it was striking twelve, and I wondered what means
of reaching Glasgow I should find at midnight. But I walked straight to
the pier, and there was a small steamer with her steam up. She was
blowing her whistle impatiently, and when the skipper saw me coming, he
called to me, in a passion, 'Well, then, is it all night I shall wait
for thee?'

"I soon perceived that there was a mistake, and that it was not John
Balmuto he had been instructed to wait for. But I heeded not that; I was
under orders I durst not disobey. She was a trading steamer, with a
perishable cargo of game and lobsters, and so she touched at no place
whatever till we reached Glasgow. One of her passengers was David
MacPherson of Harris, a very good man, who had known me in my
visitations. He was going to Glasgow as a witness in a case to be tried
between the Harris fishers and their commission house in Glasgow.

"As we walked together from the steamer, he said to me, 'Let us go round
by the court house, John, and I'll find out when I'll be required.' That
was to my mind; I did not feel as if I could go astray, whatever road
was taken, and I turned with him the way he desired to go. He found the
lawyer who needed him in the court house, and while they talked together
I went forward and listened to the case that was in hand.

"It was a trial for murder, and I could not keep my eyes off the young
man who was charged with the crime. He seemed to be quite broken down
with shame and sorrow. Before MacPherson called me the court closed and
the constables took him away. As he passed me our eyes met, and my heart
dirled and burned, and I could not make out whatever would be the matter
with me. All night his face haunted me. I was sure I had seen it some
place; and besides it would blend itself with the dream which had