"I do not take your lordship's meaning," answered Murray flushing. "I, at any rate, have had no dealings with the Government."
"But that same Government would like fine to have some dealings with you, my man, and supposing they had, supposing they had..."
He looked at him keenly, then laid one finger against another in a manner very typical.
"It was a wicked business," he said, "and had I not moments of dotage I would never have even seemed to have sympathized with it, Murray. But what could an old man do? I had no power—no influence—I was deserted by the Lord-President, a man I trusted like a brother. It was a cruel attack on the crown, Murray, and well ye ken it. What men can do to rectify the wrong we should do, even if it goes against the grain."
Murray listened at first without much comprehension, then with a quickening suspicion of treachery in the air. He realized that Lovat was ready as ever to turn his coat.
"No, no," he cried, "I am not here for that."
Lovat, who had never imagined he was there for any other purpose, regarded him with his customary contempt.
"Then you are a greater fool," he rasped, "than even I took ye for. What have you to gain by your silence? This is the last rising for the Stuarts. There will be nothing now but the English and the English tongue. It makes me sick to see a man crying out against what must be."
Murray shook his head and rose to his feet.
"I have come," he said simply, "at some inconvenience to myself, to do you a service. Here is a token that I doubt not ye ken well and so I wish you good-bye," and handing Lovat the piece of tartan he prepared to leave. But with a strange hoarse cry the old man struggled to his feet. He was beside himself with rage.