Sir William looked across at me with a long face. Mountain forgot his wounds, staring and gaping.
“My lord,” said I, “I wish you would collect your spirits.” But my throat was so dry, and my own wits so scattered, I could add no more.
“No,” says my lord, “it’s not to be supposed that he would understand me. Mackellar does, for he kens all, and has seen him buried before now. This is a very good servant to me, Sir William, this man Mackellar; he buried him with his own hands—he and my father—by the light of two siller candlesticks. The other man is a familiar spirit; he brought him from Coromandel. I would have told ye this long syne, Sir William, only it was in the family.” These last remarks he made with a kind of melancholy composure, and his time of aberration seemed to pass away. “You can ask yourself what it all means,” he proceeded. “My brother falls sick, and dies, and is buried, or so they say; and all seems very plain. But why did the familiar go back? I think ye must see for yourself it’s a point that wants some clearing.”
“I will be at your service, my lord, in half a minute,” said Sir William, rising,—“Mr. Mackellar, two words from you”; and he led me without the camp, the frost crunching in our steps, the trees standing at our elbow, hoar with frost, even as on that night in the long shrubbery. “Of course, this is midsummer madness,” said Sir William, as soon as we were gotten out of hearing.
“Why, certainly,” said I. “The man is mad. I think that manifest.”
“Shall I seize and bind him?” asked Sir William. “I will upon your authority. If these are all ravings, that should certainly be done.”
I looked down upon the ground, back at the camp, with its bright fires and the folk watching us, and about me on the woods and mountains; there was just the one way that I could not look, and that was in Sir William’s face.
“Sir William,” said I at last, “I think my lord not sane, and have long thought him so. But there are degrees in madness; and whether he should be brought under restraint—Sir William, I am no fit judge,” I concluded.
“I Will be the judge,” said he. “I ask for facts. Was there, in all that jargon, any word of truth or sanity? Do you hesitate?” he asked. “Am I to understand you have buried this gentleman before?”
“Not buried,” said I; and then, taking up courage at last, “Sir William,” said I, “unless I were to tell you a long story, which much concerns a noble family (and myself not in the least), it would be impossible to make this matter clear to you. Say the word, and I will do it, right or wrong. And, at any rate, I will say so much, that my lord is not so crazy as he seems. This is a strange matter, into the tail of which you are unhappily drifted.”