Nancy Stair Part 33

Turning to Nancy for some explanation, I found her conduct of a piece with the rest of her life, for every power of her mind was focused on present action, and there was something unnatural, beyond belief, and not like a feminine creature, in the manner with which she stood regarding each object in the room, and at sight of this self-control McMurtrie's talk came back to me.

"I will not have you here," I cried, putting my arm around her to lead her away. "It's horrible--horrible to think of such a trial for you,"

to which she paid no heed whatever, drawing herself from me in silence, to cross to the open window and peer out into the night.

"Thank G.o.d!" she cried, "it's snowing in clouds. It will be a foot deep by morning! But we must make an effort to search the grounds. We must seem to leave nothing undone," and the thought being conceived, it was executed on the instant.

"Why do you stand doing nothing?" she cried, throwing the door back and confronting the huddled servants. "Get your lanterns out, and the coach-lamps as well; the murderer may not be far gone. Search the carriage-way toward the town," she called twice, and even in the confusion I knew she was sending them as far from the road to Arran as she could.

Father Michel, Jamie Henderlin, and some other of the burn people had arrived by this time, but it was Nancy who thought for all of us, refusing to go to her rooms, and insisting upon taking a part in the search with us. Aside from the strain upon her, I was grateful in my soul for this determination, for laws and courts and country notwithstanding, my mind was fixed to do everything possible to prevent suspicion falling on the son of Alexander Carmichael, who, I began to fear, would be accused of a hand in the affair.

During the rest of the night, through all the talk and the searching of the grounds, there were two lines of thought in my mind, the one planning, explaining, and excusing Danvers, the other seeming to a.s.sist in present conduct and to suggest immediate courses of action.

It was Nancy herself who was first upon the little balcony of the window by which the dead man was still sitting. Father Michel, Huey MacGrath, and I followed, and going down the steps I struck my foot against some light object, kicking it far ahead of me, and on the instant Nancy sprang forward, leaned over and picked up something in the snow.

"What is it?" I cried.

She held out to me the piece of lace she had worn as a head covering to the dance--held it far out, so that all could see what it was, but made no response in words--and after the fruitless search was finished consented to go to her room. As I stood by her door, undecided whether or not to tell her of the hatless man I had met in the snow, she suddenly threw her arms wide apart and dropped unconscious at my feet.

I lifted her up, wild with this new anxiety, and as I did so the lace unrolled, and from it fell a cap, with snow upon it, a man's cap with a strangely embroidered band which Nancy had worked for Danvers Carmichael the summer before. At sight of it I could have cried out as a woman does, for I knew it to be the object I had struck with my foot under the window, and the last hope for Danvers Carmichael seemed to vanish from my mind at sight of it.

Her consciousness was not long in returning, and before it came back I had wrapped the cap in the lace again, trusting her woman's wit to do the wise thing concerning it.

"Leave me alone, Jock," she said suddenly, as to my amazement she went to the wash-hand-stand, filled the basin with cold water, and dipped the whole top of her curly head into it.

"There must be no trifling with headaches to-night!" she explained.

"I've others to think of than myself. Pray for me, dearest!" she cried, putting her hands on my breast and looking up pleadingly in my eyes.

"Pray for your little girl, as she sits here all alone. Pray that I may have presence of mind!" and G.o.d knows the awe I felt as I saw the courage and spirit in that slim girlish body.

"Nancy," said I, for I felt that without words, we were banded together for the protection of a life dear to both of us, "with your knowledge of the law----" but before I could finish she interrupted me:

"Yesterday in my presence Danvers Carmichael threatened the duke's life not once but many times, with Pitcairn lying just outside the door. The law!" she cried. "It's not the law I'm afraid of--it's Hugh Pitcairn!"

CHAPTER XXV

THE TRIAL

The great duke lay in state in St. Giles, and the Highlands emptied themselves into Edinburgh demanding justice. The lady-mother of the dead was there, broken-hearted, and Percival Montrose, to whom the t.i.tle fell; and I had a fine taste of the fealty of Gaelic-folk, for kinsfolk and clansfolk took the duke's undoing as a personal affront, and put their own matters by to get some one hanged for it.

The streets, especially those around the courts, were thronged with the late duke's following; unkempt, hot-eyed, bare-legged gillies were grouped at every corner, glowering under their tartan bonnets; I found a huddle of them squatted behind some alders on the Burnside, and came upon another set by the carriage-way, who glared at me as I pa.s.sed them as if I had had some part in the undoing of their clansman.

During this time Nancy lay ill, for which, strange as it seems, I praised G.o.d, for the sickness saved her from the horrors of the coroner's inquest, McMurtrie coming to my aid in the matter by declaring it worth her life to be dragged into the affair. There was nothing more definite elicited from this tribunal, const.i.tuted largely of men under heavy obligations either to Sandy or myself, than "Death at the hands of a person or persons unknown," but the relief which came with the verdict was of short duration.

How rumor is bred none can tell, but on the day following the coroner's findings there was a waif-word wandering about that Danvers Carmichael knew more than he had told of the duke's taking off; and whether bred by servants' gossip or the talk of the fool chemist-doctor who had taken the medicine to Pitcairn on the night of the murder and encountered Danvers hatless in the snow, I can not say; but by the evening there rose a strong demand for his arrest, and two officers appeared at Arran and took the lad into custody.

Nancy, who had not left her room from that dreadful night, but who had recovered herself enough to sit up a little at a time, received the news in silence, asking if it were possible for me to get the exact testimony given before the coroner for her to see; and going through it, sitting in the bed, with flushed face and feverish eyes.

"It's not so bad," she said, as she put it aside; "not so bad. Will ye ride out and ask Mr. Pitcairn to come to me?" she asked.

"Pitcairn? Ye'll not be wanting Pitcairn," I answered. "It's Magendie we are having up from London for the defense."

"I--want--to--see--Mr.--Pitcairn," she said slowly.

"I don't understand at all," I answered. "When you refuse to see Sandy, who, in his own great distress, has never forgot you for a moment, I don't see why you should be sending for Pitcairn."

"I want to see neither Sandy nor any of the Arran people," she answered.

"And you've no word of comfort for Danvers?" I asked.

"None," she returned. "I have not one word of comfort or anything else to send to Danvers Carmichael, and I'd like to have it generally known."

Although I saw him not, I knew that Pitcairn came to Stair that afternoon; but, before G.o.d, by no message carried by me; and the following morning I visited him in his offices, finding him at a desk in the inner room looking frozenly out under his dome-like forehead in a way to suggest that his natural greeting would be: "What are you prepared to swear to?"

"Hugh," said I, "ye've doubtless heard of the trouble young Mr.

Carmichael is in----" here I waited.

He nodded, as one might who had but a certain number of words given him at birth and was fearful that the supply might run out.

"It has occurred to me," I went on, "that your old friendship for me and my old friendship for Sandy being common knowledge, ye might show a fine courtesy by standing aside in the case and letting Mr. Inge take it altogether. Such a thing can be done, I know, for when the Lord-President himself had Ferrars to try, who was a known man to him, he asked to be relieved from presiding."

"I attended to the duke's affairs when he was living. I shall attend to them now that he is dead," he replied stolidly. "There is an ethical side to the matter as well, for I believe him to have been killed by the young----" he caught himself at this, with a correction. "I have my beliefs in the case," he amended. "But ye can rest by this, if a man is innocent of a crime in this country he can prove it. It is a prosecution, not a persecution, that will be conducted by the government."

And here a lighter vein seemed to take him, for he added:

"And so, Jock Stair, you would come to me to use an old friendship to buy the laddie off! Ye're a nice citizen; a fine, public-spirited body!"

"Hugh Pitcairn," I answered, "if you were in trouble, and it needed the last shilling I had in the world to help ye, you'd find me beside ye, with it held out in my hand; and it seems a little thing I am asking of you, and not for myself either----"

"Your daughter's a better man than you," he broke in on me. "It was a fine thing she did--a fine, public-spirited thing!"

"Ye've trained her well in the lawing," I said, leading him on a bit, for Nancy had held the silence of the dead concerning the murder since the day of his visit, and I had no knowledge of what he meant.

"Mark you," he said, and there was almost a glow upon his face, "the first day that she was able to sit up after her illness Nancy Stair sent for me. 'Mr. Pitcairn,' said she, 'a most unwelcome task has come to me, and I am needing your advice.' And on this she went over the talk, part of which I had overheard, between herself and the young Carmichael, with neither heat nor fallacy of emphasis, as accurately as I might have done myself," he ended, as though higher praise were inconceivable.

"There's a girl for ye!" he cried. "I've set but little store by her verse-making; or her charity work, which is sentiment; but by the lawing the very female quality of her mind has been changed, for she is able to put a duty to her country before her own feelings. Ye might take a lesson from your daughter in that, Jock Stair!" he finished.

I rode back to Stair on a gallop and went straight to Nancy's room.

"What is this ye've done?" I cried. "What is this thing that ye've done against the man who has loved ye ever since his eyes lighted upon you, and whom your own indecision has helped to the place he now stands?"

There was a look of reproach in her eyes as she sat looking up at me, but her words were quiet enough.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"I've been having a talk with Pitcairn----" I began.

"For Heaven's sake!" she cried, springing to her feet. "It was the thing I wanted least. What did you tell him? Oh, what did ye tell him?"