Then, again, I would recover awhile, and pluck up heart. I would plead my
cause myself--I would testify against the tyrants to their face--I would
say no longer to their besotted slaves, but to the men themselves, "Go to,
ye rich men, weep and howl! The hire of your labourers who have reaped down
your fields, which is by you kept back by fraud, crieth; and the cries of
them that have reaped hath entered into the ears of the Lord God of Hosts."
I would brave my fate--I would die protesting, and glory in my martyrdom.
But--
"Martyrdom?" said Mackaye, who had come down to D * * * *, and was busy
night and day about my trial. "Ye'll just leave alone the martyr dodge, my
puir bairn. Ye're na martyr at a', ye'll understand, but a vera foolish
callant, that lost his temper, an' cast his pearls before swine--an' very
questionable pearls they, too, to judge by the price they fetch i' the
market."
And then my heart sank again. And a few days before the trial a letter
came, evidently in my cousin's handwriting, though only signed with his
initials:
"SIR,--You are in a very great scrape--you will not deny that.
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