bearing on Old Bailey trials. A great package came in response to our

order, and very soon we were both absorbed, not so much in the trials

as in following the brilliant career of a Mr. Garrow, who appeared as

counsel in many of the cases. We sent for more books, and yet more,

still intent on Mr. Garrow, whose subtle cross-examination of witnesses

and masterly, if sometimes startling, methods of arriving at the truth

seemed more thrilling to us than any novel.

Occasionally other trials than those of the Old Bailey would be included

in the package of books we received from London; among these my husband

found and read with avidity:--

THE

TRIAL

OF

JAMES STEWART

in Aucharn in Duror of Appin

FOR THE

Murder of COLIN CAMPBELL of Glenure, Efq;

Factor for His Majefty on the forfeited

Estate of Ardfhiel.

My husband was always interested in this period of his country's

history, and had already the intention of writing a story that should

turn on the Appin murder. The tale was to be of a boy, David Balfour,

supposed to belong to my husband's own family, who should travel in

Scotland as though it were a foreign country, meeting with various

adventures and misadventures by the way. From the trial of James Stewart

my husband gleaned much valuable material for his novel, the most

important being the character of Alan Breck. Aside from having described

him as "smallish in stature," my husband seems to have taken Alan

Breck's personal appearance, even to his clothing, from the book.

A letter from James Stewart to Mr. John Macfarlane, introduced as

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