Prestongrange arose and began to pace to and fro in the room. "You
are not so young," he said, "but what you must remember very
clearly the year '45 and the shock that went about the country. I
read in Pilrig's letter that you are sound in Kirk and State. Who
saved them in that fatal year? I do not refer to His Royal
Highness and his ramrods, which were extremely useful in their day;
but the country had been saved and the field won before ever
Cumberland came upon Drummossie. Who saved it? I repeat; who
saved the Protestant religion and the whole frame of our civil
institutions? The late Lord President Culloden, for one; he played
a man's part, and small thanks he got for it--even as I, whom you
see before you, straining every nerve in the same service, look for
no reward beyond the conscience of my duties done. After the
President, who else? You know the answer as well as I do; 'tis
partly a scandal, and you glanced at it yourself, and I reproved
you for it, when you first came in. It was the Duke and the great
clan of Campbell. Now here is a Campbell foully murdered, and that
in the King's service. The Duke and I are Highlanders. But we are
Highlanders civilised, and it is not so with the great mass of our
clans and families. They have still savage virtues and defects.
They are still barbarians, like these Stewarts; only the Campbells
were barbarians on the right side, and the Stewarts were barbarians
on the wrong. Now be you the judge. The Campbells expect
vengeance. If they do not get it--if this man James escape--there
will be trouble with the Campbells. That means disturbance in the
Highlands, which are uneasy and very far from being disarmed: the
disarming is a farce. . ."

"I can bear you out in that," said I.