“Nairn, your Grace,” answered poor Margaret, still sobbing, while Lady Jane stood glowering behind her. My gorge rose at his heartlessness.
“Nairn. Umph! That's an evil-smelling name these days for any such petition,” he grumbled.
Then suddenly turning to face me, “Now I suppose you had nothing to do with this barelegged rebellion?” he went on, to my dismay, but answered it himself with a self-satisfied chuckle: “But no, of course not. You never would have come here if you had. No, no! No man of sense would.”
“I should think not!” snorted Lady Jane, fairly beside herself.
“Quite right, madam, quite right. You are a woman, of perspicacity,” answered his lordship, without a ruffle. Then he turned to me again:
“And pray what did bring you here, sir?”
“Your Grace, it was at my earnest recommendation these ladies were moved to appear in person to lay their case before the most powerful nobleman in the Three Kingdoms. They come here, your Grace, not to plead, but to explain. Their explanation is now made, and they are satisfied it is in the hands of one who is ever ready to listen to the suit of innocence, whose whole life is a guarantee for the exercise of justice, and whose finger need but be lifted to relieve the unfortunate from unmerited disgrace.”
To my surprise, he did not seem so taken with my effort as I had hoped. Even as I was speaking he had thrown himself back in his chair, and sate resting his elbows on the arms, staring at me over his finger-tips in the most disconcerting fashion without moving a muscle of his face. I was positively afraid to venture a word more under the spell of that equivocal gaze.
“Yes, yes, yes,” he broke out, suddenly, drawing himself close up to his desk and seizing a pen, with which he began making slow notes on the paper before him.
“What did you say the young man's name was?” he muttered. “Oh, yes, Nairn—Archibald Nairn. Yes. Fort William—eh? French officer in active service. And you can give me your word he was not in arms— eh?”