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An inscrutable face was there, as many Highland faces were to him, even among old friends in France, where Balhaldie, with the best possible hand at a game of cards, kept better than any gambler he had ever known before a mask of dull and hopeless resignation.
He bids his courier stop at Luneville, as she may be at the Court of Stanislas there. Balhaldie had been in London; he found the party staunch, 'but frighted out of their wits. The usual names of the official Jacobites are given Barrymore, Sir William Watkyns Wynne, and Beaufort.
"Do not mention it," said Count Victor carelessly, though the conduct of this marvel fairly bewildered him, and his distress seemed poorly accounted for by his explanation. "Ah, vieux blagueur!" he thought, "can it be Balhaldie again a humbug with no heart in his breast but an onion in his handkerchief?" And then he was ashamed of suspicions of which a day or two ago he would have been incapable.
But they are all alarmed 'by Lord Traquair's silly indiscretion in blabbing to Murray of Broughton of their concerns, wherein he could be of no use. They had summoned Balhaldie, and complained of the influence of Kelly, an adviser bequeathed to Charles by his old tutor, Sir Thomas Sheridan, now dead.
Next, we find this letter of April 10 to Madame Henrietta Drummond, doubtless of the family of Macgregor, called Drummond, of Balhaldie. Charles appears to have had enough of Paris, and is going to Venice. He is anxious to meet the Earl Marischal. 'April 10, 1749.
Gordon, Principal of the Scot's College, but that nothing particular passed there. Nobody, of course, can believe a word that James Mohr ever said, but his disclosures, in the following full report of his examination, could only have been made by a person pretty deep in Jacobite plans. For example, Balhaldie, chief of the Macgregors, did really live at Bievre, as James Mohr says.
To him Balhaldie wrote frequently on business, sent him also a 'most curious toy, a tortoise-shell snuff- box, containing, in a secret receptacle, a portrait of King James VIII. Letters of his, in April 1753, show that James Mohr was so far right; Balhaldie WAS living at Bievre, in a glen three leagues from Paris, and was amusing himself by the peaceful art of making loyal snuff-boxes in tortoise-shell.
Whether the Prince was really turning to Balhaldie and official Jacobitism or not, is matter of doubt. Mr. Macgregor's Information having been swallowed and digested by Lord Holdernesse, Pickle was appealed to for confirmation. We have seem his unfriendly report of Mr. Macgregor's character, as a spy mistrusted by both sides.
Peeping into a forbidden parlour she saw there a lovely lady, who fondled her, bade her speak only to her mother, and vanished while the little girl looked out of the window. This appearance was Mrs. Macfarlane, who shot Captain Cayley, and was now lying perdue at Swinton. Now, in 1753 the pretty lady's husband, Mr. Macfarlane, was agent in Scotland for Balhaldie.
"But yes, it is true, he did not see him any more than I did. Drimdarroch, by all accounts, was a spendthrift, a player, a bavard, his great friends, Glengarry and another Scot, Balhaldie " "Oh, Balhaldie! blethering Balhaldie!" cried Doom, contempt upon his countenance. "And Balhaldie would sell him, I'll warrant. He seems, this Drimdarroch, to have been dooms unlucky in his friends.
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