"This is a nice kettle of fish, Malcolm, about young Leslie. I have had
the justices down here, asking me all sorts of questions, and they have
got into their minds that I taught him not only swordplay but treason,
and they have been threatening to put me in the stocks as a vagabond; but
I snapped my fingers in their faces, saying I earned my money as honestly
as they did, and that I concern myself in no way in politics, but teach
English officers and the sons of Glasgow tradesmen as well as those of
Highland gentlemen. They were nicely put out, I can tell you; but I
didn't care for that, for I knew I was in the right of it. But what on
earth made the young cock meddle in this matter? How came he to be mixed
up in a Jacobite plot? Have you got your finger in it?"

"Not I, James; and how it happens that he is concerned in it is more than
I can guess. I know, of course, his heart is with the king over the
water; but how he came to get his hand into the pie is altogether beyond
me."

"The people here are well nigh mad about it. I know not who the gallant
who has escaped is; but it is certain that his capture was considered a
very important one, and that the justices here expected to have gained no
small credit by his arrest, whereas now they will be regarded as fools
for letting him slip through their fingers."

"I cannot for the life of me make out how he came to be mixed up in such
a matter. No one but you and I could have known that he was a lad of
mettle, who might be trusted in such a business. It can hardly be that
they would have confided any secrets to him; still, the fact that he was
in the house with the man they are in search of, and that he drew and
risked his life and certain imprisonment to secure his escape, shows that
he must have been heart and soul in the plot."