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.
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.
