CAMPBELL (quietly).  Say ye so?  Noo, I widna be so very sure if I were you.  I’ve had a lairge experience o’ life, and speaking out of it I would say that only fools and the dead never change their minds.

STEWART (quietly too).  Then you’ll be adding to your experience to-night, Mr. Campbell, and you’ll have something to put on to the other side of it.

CAMPBELL (tapping his snuff-box).  Very possibly, young sir, but what I would present for your consideration is this:  While ye may be prepared to keep your mouth shut under the condition of a fool, are ye equally prepared to do so in the condition of a dead man?

(CAMPBELL waits expectantly. STEWART silent as before.)

CAMPBELL.  Tut, tut, now, if it’s afraid ye are, my lad, with my hand on my heart and on my word as a gentleman—­

STEWART.  Afraid!

(He spits in contempt towards CAMPBELL.)

CAMPBELL (enraged).  Ye damned stubborn Hieland stot. (To
SANDEMAN) Have him taken out.  We’ll get it another way.

(CAMPBELL rises. STEWART is moved into barn by soldiers.)

CAMPBELL (walking).  Some puling eediots, Sandeman, would applaud this contumacy and call it constancy.  Constancy!  Now, I’ve had a lairge experience o’ life, and I never saw yet a sensible man insensible to the touch of yellow metal.  If there may be such a man, it is demonstrable that he is no sensible man.  Fideelity! quotha, it’s sheer obstinacy.  They just see that ye want something oot o’ them, and they’re so damned selfish and thrawn they winna pairt.  And with the natural inabeelity o’ their brains to hold mair than one idea at a time they canna see that in return you could put something into their palms far more profitable. (Sits again at table.) Aweel, bring Mistress Stewart up.

(Old woman is placed before him where son had been.)

CAMPBELL (more ingratiatingly).  Weel noo, Mistress Stewart, good woman, this is a sair predeecament for ye to be in.  I would jist counsel ye to be candid.  Doubtless yer mind is a’ in a swirl.  Ye kenna what way to turn.  Maybe ye are like the Psalmist and say:  “I lookit this way and that, and there was no man to peety me, or to have compassion upon my fatherless children.”  But, see now, ye would be wrong; and, if ye tell me a’ ye ken, I’ll stand freends wi’ ye.  Put your trust in Erchie Campbell.

MARY STEWART.  I trust no Campbell.

CAMPBELL.  Weel, weel noo, I’m no’ jist that set up wi’ them myself.  There’s but ae Campbell that I care muckle aboot, after a’.  But, good wife, it’s no’ the Campbells we’re trying the noo; so as time presses we’ll jist “birze yont,” as they say themselves.  Noo then, speak up.

(MARY STEWART is silent.)