'Wherefore, my Lord Earl,' cried John Mure of Auchendrayne, 'is this violence done to me and to the heir of my house? I demand to know concerning what we are called in question and by whom?'
Then the Earl of Cassillis answered him,—
'John Mure of Auchendrayne, know then that you are charged, along with this your son, with the bloody murder of Sir Thomas Kennedy of Culzean, Tutor of Cassillis; and also with the cruel death of William Dalrymple, the young lad who brought you the message to your own house of Auchendrayne, telling at what hour the Tutor should pass the trysting place, where he was by you and yours foully assaulted and slain.'
'And who declares these things?' cried Mure, boldly, with a bearing more like that of an innocent man than that of any criminal that ever I saw.
The Earl bade us who had accused them so justly to stand forth. Then John Mure eyed us with a grave and amused contempt.
'My son's false wife, whom sorrow has caused to dote concerning her father's death—her night-raking rantipole sister, and her paramour, a loutish, land-louping squire—the Dominie of Maybole, a crippledick and piping merry-Andrew that travelled with them—these are the accusers of John Mure of Auchendrayne. They have seen, heard, noted what others have been ignorant of! Nay, rather, is it not clear that they have collogued together, conspiring to bear false witness against me and mine—for the sake of the frantic splenetic madness of her who is my son's fugitive wife, whose wrongs exist only in her own imaginings.'
'You have forgotten me!' said Robert Harburgh, quietly, stepping forward.
'I know you well,' said John Mure, 'and I would have remembered you had you been worth remembering. You are my Lord of Cassillis's squire and erstwhile a gay cock-sparrow ruffler, now married to the Grieve's daughter at Culzean.'
'Well,' said Harburgh, 'and what of that? Can a man not be all that and yet tell the truth?'
'That I leave to one who is greater, to judge,' said John Mure.