A sheet of paper was before him; clear save for the heading:
“To Sir John Dalrymple, Master of Stair.” The Earl was very clear as to what he wished to write to the Secretary; it was merely to inform him that there was little likelihood of many of the clans coming in by the prescribed time; to advise him that the new regiment of his cousin, Argyll, should be armed and quartered in Glasgow with as little disturbance as possible.
But it was not so easy to couch this in terms satisfactory to his own cautious mind; it must be in his own hand, his name attached; there must be possibility of a perfectly innocent construing of it if ever it were produced.
Breadalbane had often raised his eyebrows of late at the letters the Master of Stair put his hand to; the utterly reckless letters of a man too powerful to heed caution.
“But times change,” smiled Breadalbane, “he’d no’ be so powerful if there was a revolution.” He opened a drawer and pulled out a packet of the Master of Stair’s letters; written mostly from Kensington and in a powerful, picturesque style, flowing and eloquent. They set forth a scheme evidently very passionately dear to the writer’s heart, namely, the utter destruction of that “damnable den of thieves,” the Highlanders.
Breadalbane took up the last and read it over again; it contained these words:
“Your troops will destroy entirely the country of Lochaber, Lochiel’s lands, Keppoch’s, Glengarry’s and Glencoe’s. Your power shall be large enough. I hope the soldiers will not trouble the government with prisoners.”
The Earl folded and put the letters away. “You are very confident, Sir John,” he reflected, “that the clans will no’ be coming in.”
It was now the third of December and none had taken the oaths; there seemed fair ground for the Master of Stair’s eager hope that none would; who was to warn the remote Highlands of the secret vengeance preparing against them; of the soldiers sent quietly in readiness for the first day of the new year, of the Master of Stair, Secretary and Prime Minister for Scotland, waiting for that day with the terrible calmness of a black resolve?
The Highlanders saw none of this; only the suave smile of the loathed Campbell who was the government’s instrument, and a demand for the avowal of submission their haughtiness would not stoop to grant.