Then, however, the rumour quickly spread that
not only had the Captain been assaulted, but that he had been robbed.
Gossip flew from tongue to tongue, and folk began to look askance on
Wallace and Hislop, muttering that "they aye kenned what was to be the
outcome"; for who, thought they, but Wallace and Hislop could have been
the robbers? They had found him lying, the worse of liquor, having
damaged his head in falling, and they had robbed him, either then or
when they undressed him in his room, believing that he would have no
recollection of what money he had carried that night, nor, indeed, much
of the events of the entire evening. It was all quite plain, said those
amateur detectives. They wondered what the fiscal was thinking of that
he had not clapped the two in jail lang syne. So it fell out that,
almost before they realised their danger, the two men were at Jedburgh,
being tried on a capital charge.
The evidence brought against them was for the most part of no great
account, and the old sea captain was unable to say that either man had
assaulted him, or, indeed, that he had any clear recollection of
anything that had happened after he left the inn. They might have got
off--indeed they _would_ have got off--but for one unfortunate
circumstance, which in the eyes of the jury completely damned them.
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