"Twal' o'clock on the strike,And a fine fresh nicht."
"Twal' o'clock on the strike,And a fine fresh nicht."
But Jock had been early encountered near the abandoned guardhouse of the cavalry quarters, and there had been safely locked in with a loaf of bread and three gigantic tankards of ale. It was not likely, therefore, that the time of night would be cried in Stranryan by Jock McAdam's booming bellow. Jock was at peace with all the world and the town had better remain so also.
Then came the first of the little ponies. The town had often listened to the clatter of their feet. It was familiar with the jingling of their accoutrements. But never had Stranryan rung with that music from side to side, and from end to end, as it did that night of the twenty-fourth of May!
Patter, patter, tinkle, tinkle—two and three abreast they came. Timid citizens in breezy costumes about to blow out the candle made haste to do so, and peered goggle-eyed round the edges of the drawn-down blind.
"What's to do? It's the lads of the Free Trade—hundreds o' them, all armed, and never a load pony amang them. Every man on his horse and none led!—Not a pack-saddle to be seen. Will they never go by? It's no canny, I declare! I shouldna' be standin' here lookin'. There will be blood shed before the morn's morning. Guid send that they do not burn us a' in our beds!"
"Come to your ain bed, ye auld fule!" was the wife's sleepy rejoinder; "if the gentlemen have onything to sell, we will hear of it the morn as usual. 'Tis not for the like of us to be watching ower closely the doings of them that tak's the risk while we drink the drappie!"
Oh, wise and somnolent lady, somewhat ill-informed in the present case, but on the whole of excellent and approven advice! It were indeed better for your good Thomas that he should neither see nor hear, and be in no wise able to give any evidence as to the doings of "these gentlemen," this one night of the year.
Soon, however, the whole town was awake and listening. But nobody ventured out into the street. Accidents had been known to occur, painful errors in identification. Even the chief civil authority of the town was deterred from sallying forth by a remembrance of a predecessor in the provostship who had been buried in a stable mixen all but his head, to the detriment of his clothes and the still greater and more lasting hurt to his dignity.
The bell of the town steeple clanged loudly half-a-dozen times, and ceased as abruptly as if the breath had been choked out of the bellringer. That was the sole attempt at alarm which was given in the town of Stranryan on the night of the Great Riding.
By all the ports they came hurrying in—ceaseless, close ranked, without end and past counting. Over the wild uplands which lie between Leswalt and Stranryan, the Back Shore men arrived—not a man missing. They were the nearest and their horses were quite unbreathed. Stonykirk and Kirkmaiden came next, and then the lads from the moors with hair bushy about the fetlocks of their steeds. They were a broad-shouldered and go-as-you-please crowd. They marched directly to the door of the Castle, and took up their position before it, awaiting orders. Then you might see two score of black-a-vised Blairs and McKerrows from Garliestown and the two Luces. Last of all, with wearied horses but in ranks of unbroken firmness, came the Stewartry men, headed by Godfrey McCulloch.
On Stair's Honeypot rode Patsy, ordering and ranging everything everywhere. She was as calm as if on her own ground at Cairn Ferris, and neither she nor any of the chiefs made any attempt at concealment. Only some few of the rank-and-file, sons of lairds and functionaries, fiscals and suchlike cattle, wore masks so as not to implicate their fathers.
"And now, MacJannet," it was Patsy's clear voice that rang out, "open your old gates or we will have them down without your permission!"
But MacJannet, keeper of his Majesty's strong house of Stranryan, knew that there was a time to be silent as well as a time to speak. He did not speak, and the next minute tall ladders with ropes arranged from their tops were reared at the word of command against both the gates. The Garlies men swarmed up them and with sailorlike agility descended into the big courtyard of the ancient Cassillis townhouse.
A moment more and the bars were drawn from within. The multitude swarmed in without a sound. No cheer was heard, only the confused noise of many feet and suppressed calls to this one and that to come and help to man the scaling ladders. The young men of the town of Stranryan itself were masked, since it was not fitting that sons of high magistrates should hunt through all the building and wood yards, aye, and even the paternal back-premises, to bring up ladders and forehammers to the fray. It had been their duty to provide these things, and by Patsy's orders they were taking no chances beyond the ordinary personal ones common to all prison-breakers.
"MacJannet, MacJannet—open there, you lurking dog!"
But just then MacJannet was more than usually deaf. He knew that he would have to answer for that night's work and it did not suit him to do anything of his own accord. A pistol at his head and a demand for the keys—well, that would be coercion, and when a man is compelled and put in fear of his life, what can he do? But for the present MacJannet lay safe and quiet behind his six-foot-thick walls and waited for that to happen which should happen.
Torches began to flare smokily in the courtyard and ladders were hooked to roof cornices. More ladders, tied safely together, were hoisted to riggings of buildings and held in place by ropes conveniently cleeked round chimneys. On these little dark figures climbed upwards, up and up interminably, till they reached the grey hump of roof under which lay the prisoners.
Picks and hammers went up from hand to hand, many helping. Fragments of slate and tile began to rain down, but nothing had been achieved till the blacksmith brigade, headed by Andrew Sproat of Clachanpluck, a famous horse-shoer, laid into the iron-bound doors of the prison.
"Clang! Clang!" went the forehammers, as the men holding their torches low made a circle of murky light about the workers. Every blow made the doors leap, striking full on the huge lock. All who stood in the yard could hear them leap on their hinges.
"'Tis the bolts that are holding—can't you feel them draw?" cried Andrew, the smith. "Bring all the hammers to one side! Now for it! Strike a little lower there!" And the three great forehammers struck so accurately that the lock gave way with a grinding crunch. The doors hung only by the bolts at top and bottom. Soon the aperture was so widened that a hand could be introduced and the iron rods shot back. The gates of the prison on the sea-front were thrown back and with the same silence as before the crowd poured in—all, that is, except the unfortunates, chosen by lot, who had been designated to look after the horses.
"MacJannet—MacJannet—the keys, MacJannet!"
The gaoler's quarters were swiftly invaded. One blow of Andrew Sproat's massy hammer did that business, and thereafter the gaoler did not lack for coercion. Godfrey McCulloch had a pistol to his head, and the bell mouth of a huge blunderbuss lay chill between his shoulder-blades, thrusting him forward.
"Open every cell!" he was ordered by Godfrey McCulloch. "We must have them all out. There are torches and the old place might take light. The wood is sure to be as dry as tinder after four centuries!"
And the lads of the "Bands" let the prisoners go, every man and woman of them. Only some Irish reapers clamouring for their reaping-hooks to be returned to them were pitched neck and crop into the street with small consideration and few apologies. And still they pressed on! Above them the hammering on the roof could be heard. It ceased, and it was evident that the gaol from dungeon to rooftree was in the power of the "Lads of the Heather."
But still no Stair Garland! The brows of the seekers grew black.
"If ye have sent him away secretly with the soldier men, 'ware yourself, MacJannet," said Godfrey, "we will roast you in your own black keep. We will gar your accursed Castle of the Press flame like a chimbly on fire, as sure as we came out of Rerrick!"
"He is here—I tell you—there is one of them, at any rate!" He threw open the door of a cell triumphantly and showed the pallid countenance of Eben the Spy.
For one instant the multitude stood silent, then with a howl of anger and disappointment they were flinging themselves upon him.
"Tear him to pieces!—Kill the spy. Who sent our Davie to the hulks?"
But Patsy's voice cried, "Back there, men! He has bought his pardon. He was with Stair Garland for two months on the Wild. He was captured with him. I tell you we owe him his life. Touch him not. Stair will vouch for him. And in the meanwhile, so will I!"
This did not satisfy the crowd, but they obeyed. They were compelled to obey, for that night there was only one leader among them. Smith Andrew, however, took Eben by the collar of his coat and marched him to the door of the prison. In the courtyard a new shout arose.
"Let him alone," cried his protector. "Patsy says he is with us. He is not to be killed."
So he led Eben to the outer gate, and with one enormous kick he discharged his duty to society and to his own feelings.
"Go," he cried, "be off! We are ordered not to do you any harm. But be out of the town before the morning light. For then Patsy may not be on the spot to speak up for you, and the lads are apt to get a little out of hand at sicht o' ye!"
It was the roof-breakers who descended first upon Stair Garland. They found him fully dressed and waiting for them. But the doors of his cell, which was that reserved for the most important criminals, could not be broken from the interior, and they could get no farther for the moment. However, the noise of the crowd beneath mounted higher and nearer, sounding like the roaring of a tide in a sea cave.
A key clicked in the lock. Bolts were drawn, and the men who had broken the doors and roofs stood back with respect to let Patsy go in alone.
She had been his only saviour, and she alone must tell Stair that he was free. She came to Stair Garland flushed and quick breathing, who stood before her pale and with his Viking hair flying all about his head.
"I came from London to do it, Stair, and it is done!" she said. She took his hand to lead him away, and at sight of them with one accord the Lads of the Heather uncovered.
Out in the courtyard it was like a triumphal procession as they passed to their horses. Men laughed aloud, they knew not why. A spirit of mirth was abroad, which had taken possession of all except dark Godfrey McCulloch.
"You are sure there is no prisoner left within your old tourock?" he demanded of MacJannet. The gaoler turned to his register and proved it.
"Very well!" said Godfrey, "off with you—sleep under some decent man's roof if ye can find any to shelter ye!"
And taking a torch from one of his followers he carefully fired the stores of kindling wood which filled part of the ground-floor of the ancient Wark of the Cassillis folk. In ten minutes, before even the cavalcade was entirely mounted, the flames were bursting through the humped roof in a fiery fountain of gold sparks and ruddy jags of flame, while the pillar of smoke rose many hundreds of feet into the still morning air.
At the English Gate, by which they rode out, they encountered a company of dragoons, weary from a long march, their horses footsore and the men reeling in their saddles with sleep.
"You have come too late," cried Godfrey McCulloch to the leader, waving his hand in the direction of the fiery beacon, now loudly crackling, and sprouting to the heavens.
But the officer answered not a word. His eyes were on Patsy Ferris riding by the side of Stair Garland, talking to him as one who had won a great prize, or has found her heart's desire.
So the captain of dragoons gave no order, for at the sight his heart was turned to stone within him.
His name was Louis Raincy, and he had quite forgotten pretty Mrs. Arlington.
The deed being done, the doers soon dispersed. A strong body-guard composed of Back Shore men and the lads from the Stewartry seaboard rode with Patsy and Stair to the small unfrequented landing-place of Port Luce, where a boat was waiting for them. Patsy dismounted from Honeypot and bade Stair Garland get on board.
"I am in command still, Stair," she cried, smiling at his bewilderment. "Besides, I am running off with you, as Uncle Ju says the Pictish women always did!"
And Stair humbly obeyed, for the thing he heard was too marvellous for him to believe. Though his heart beat hard, he kept his head, and did not allow his imagination to run away with him. He scented one of Patsy's jests. That she should come from London in theGood Intent, that she should raise the country, that she should head the prison-breakers—these things he could understand. Still he remembered what she had said when she had been run away with by the Duke of Lyonesse.
"I was in no danger: when it is my fate to love a man, it is I, Patsy Ferris, who shall run away with him!"
But he was a wise lad and had lived too long among the Will-o'-the-Wisps on the Wild of Blairmore to be easily led astray by them. So he took Patsy's speech as merely her way and thought no more about it—at least not more than he could help.
It was already high day, brisk and clean-blowing, when they reached the little herring smack which lay waiting for them out in the bay. Godfrey McCulloch went with them, dark-browed, silent. When he lifted his eyes he could see, across the plain of the middle Rhynns, the reek of the accursed prison-house of Stranryan still going up to heaven. Then he laughed a little, also silently.
"They will have to shift," he said: "John Knox was in the right o't. 'Pull down the nests and the craws will fly away.' No more cells for lads from the ploughtail and the heather. No more bloody whipping-posts, where one or two are killed out of every draft to put the fear of death into the others! All gone up in yon puff of smoke!" Then he subsided into silence and his hard features relaxed as his mind fell upon other thoughts.
Stair and he were working the little boat while Patsy steered. They were going up the Solway and the wind behind them was strong and equal. Still no indication of their destination had been made to Stair. At five of the afternoon they had passed all the familiar landmarks known to him, but by the alertness of young McCulloch he judged that they must be near the haunts allotted to his part of the Band.
The Isle of Man lay faintly blue far to the south, and the hills about Skiddaw and Helvellyn began to uplift themselves in amethystine ridges. Towns and villages ran white along the Cumberland coast, and once it seemed to Stair as if they might be going to land somewhere to the east of St. Bees. But they were only keeping well out till the twilight of the evening drew down. They came about in mid-channel and lay some hours with lowered sail in the lee of a cliffy island. During all this time Patsy watched the shore intently, and did not speak to him at all. She held what colloquy was necessary with Godfrey McCulloch, on whose face there was a quite inscrutable smile. He seemed to be turning over in his mind some jest known only to himself, perhaps no more than the burning of the Castle of Stranryan and how well MacJannet's firewood blazed up when he put the torch to it. But ever and anon he glanced at the unconscious Stair Garland, when he was looking another way, with an expression so humorsome that it was evident he considered that in some way the joke was against him.
At six of the evening, the tide aiding, they had drifted across many headlands and past carven cliffs of marvellous designs to a long sickle sweep of strand on which two men could be seen solemnly walking up and down. Then, at a signal from Patsy, Godfrey McCulloch let down the anchor and pulled in hand over hand the little skiff which they had been dragging in their wake all day.
Stair thought that it was a reckless thing to put ashore while the sun was still high above the horizon. Still the spot was a lonely one—on one side great heathy tracts rising slowly away towards the foothills of Criffel—on the other a turmoil of huge cliffs and purple summits to the west, while behind them all the expanse of Solway lay like polished silver, clean as a platter ready for the service of a great house.
The two men walked steadily to and fro. The boat, propelled lustily by Godfrey of the saturnine smile, bounded towards the land. It grounded on a rapidly shelving beach on which they sprang ashore. Godfrey attached the boat to a stone, and gave her plenty of rope to ride.
Then all three went to the encounter of the two men. Both of them were dressed in decent black with something vaguely official about it, and the taller of the two had a scrap of black cloth after the fashion of a college gown but infinitely shorter, thrown over his shoulders. The other was a smaller and tubbier man, pleasant to look upon, a man evidently who lived for and by good eating and drinking. He had a large book under his arm, so heavy that as often as the two paused in their walk he laid it carefully down on the sand and sat upon it—while the tall man, undisturbed, continued his monologue over his comrade's head.
The two parties met at last, their shadows thrown far beyond them on the moist sand and mingling ludicrously as they altered their positions.
"Aweel," said the tall man, "what's a' this?"
His voice was not at all unkindly, and it was to Patsy he spoke. He turned in time to catch the little round man in the act of plumping down his big book on the sand, and he lifted him up again by inserting the hook of a huge forefinger in his collar as if he had been a deep-sea catch.
"Stand up there, Saunders Duff! God made man to stand erect on his two feet, but you would be for ever hunkering like a monkey eatin' nuts. Chin up, and shoulders back, man! If you dinna ken your duty to King and Country, I ken mine!"
"Aye, aye, skipper," said Saunders Duff, shaking his head sadly, "but this vollum is a plaguey heavy cargo and 'tis a long time between ports!"
"It had need to be," said the tall man, "it contains weighty matters—matters that shall not run away as unprofitable water, as is so well said in the 'Book of the Wisdom.' But it appears to me, by what I have learned, that this young lady had some questions to ask in my presence. Well, Mistress Headstrong, if you will take my advice, refrain. I am of Paul's faction. It is meet for a woman to be silent. I say that without the least hope of having my advice attended to. Get ye up from off that book, Saunders Duff, or I, that am a 'Magister Artium' of the College of Edinburgh, will kick you into the salt tide, carefully retaining the folio which is worth many scores of Saunders Duffs!"
Stair understood not one word of his speech. He even began to think he had fallen among a collection of amiable lunatics, when Patsy turned swiftly upon him and, without a quiver of the voice, with her eyes dark and level upon his face, demanded point blank—
"Will you, Stair Garland, take me, Patricia Ferris, for your wife?"
The world spun round the astonished Stair. He clutched at the thing which happened to be nearest. This chanced to be the arm of Godfrey McCulloch, who seemed to wear a smile of diabolic sarcasm on his face.
"Steady there—stand up and say 'Yes' or 'No!' Will you or won't you?"
"I will!" cried Stair Garland, finding his voice in a manner that scared the gulls on the cliff ledges, so wild and raucous it was.
"Then I, Patricia Ferris, take you for my husband!"
"Before God and these witnesses!" added the man with the ragged college cloak: "to wit, before me, James Fraser, Magister Artium, minister of this pairish, and of the unworthy Saunders Duff, session clerk of the same. Saunders, ye were braw at the sittin' afore. Clatch doon noo, man, and make your entry. Get all the names and surnames, while I collect the fees. The business is, ecclesiastically speaking, a little irregular (though perfectly legal), but that will doubtless be considered in the matter of the marital dues. If I am duly satisfied as to these, I shall know how to arrange with the Presbytery."
"Let me attend to this business," said Godfrey McCulloch, suddenly alive, and forestalling Stair Garland. "Step this way, minister."
And while the session clerk, cross-legged like a Turk on the sand, made his entries with much dipping of ink out of a tax-collector's bottle swung from his breast pocket, weird screechings of goose-quill, and dabbings of pounce box, the sound of confused argumentation came from the other group.
"I tell ye I will not risk the scandal for less than half-a-dozen kegs—all the best Hollands—cheap at the price. Think of the Presbytery!"
"Minister, the thing is done and in your presence. I will promise no such quantity. But three of Hollands and three of Isle of Man brandy, as was agreed upon. Consider, it will be worse, for you to be denounced as art and part in an irregular marriage—a laird's daughter, too—a pretty-like thing to come before the Presbytery and you the moderator!"
"Let it be as you will, Godfrey McCulloch, but if ye have a spark of human kindness in your hard heart let it be Hollands! Your Isle of Man brandy agrees but ill with my stammack, and if I dee o't my ghost will haunt ye. I will preach to ye, one by one, all my forty sermons on the King's birthday!"
Godfrey McCulloch threw up his hands.
"Hollands let it be—six kegs at the next run, only lift the interdict. I would rather be hanged at once and be done with it."
"You are not polite, young man," said the minister. "The sermons have been pronounced excellent by the very best judges, but I was right in supposing that you would not care to listen to forty of the best sermons ever preached! Six of Hollands be it then, lad, and put in the auld place—I shall see that the clerk is duly paid to hold his tongue!Whom God hath joined, let no man put asunder!I nearly forgot, and indeed it is in nowise necessary, being but a Popish formula. Guid nicht to ye, and mind the Hollands!"
The breeze quickened from the south. The lugger sped through the water, and Stair Garland still sat dazed. Never had any man felt such a fool. Here he was firmly and legally wedded, and he dare not even address a word to his bride. He had spoken no syllable of gladness or affection—triple dolt—quadruple fool—prize-winner among idiots! He had nothing to say—he could say nothing. Nor was it the presence of a third person which prevented him. Perhaps, rather, something in Patsy's eye, and, though that he would not acknowledge, a lurking grimness in the smile about the wicks of Godfrey's mouth.
It was not courage that Stair lacked—only everything about Patsy awed him. He did not yet understand her. The whys and the wherefores of her actions were still completely dark to him.
But Patsy was not a young woman to wrap up her mind. When she had anything to say, she said it. So after they had turned about and were beating up against wind and tide for their island, under the lee of which they had been laid to all the afternoon, she vouchsafed an explanation—or at least as much of a vindication as Patsy ever permitted herself.
"Stair Garland," she said, "listen to me; and you, Godfrey McCulloch, take that Satanic leer off your face. You have no idea how unattractive it makes you look! You should be framed and hung up to frighten naughty children.
"I am sick of being looked after. I am weary of being educated and leading-stringed and chaperoned. Now I am going to chaperon myself for ever and ever. I told father I should do this if he pestered me with his princesses. Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples, for I am sick of coddling—I hate Hanover Lodge. I hate all the things Uncle Julian loves, except only some few books. I cannot even have little Miss Aline put over me. It is too cruel to tag her round after me, jigging this way and that like the skiff there in our wake. She was made and invented to abide at Ladykirk, and to rule over Eelen Young and the brass preserving-pans. Why, because I am a girl, should the poor lady be traiked all over the world in an agony of dispeace? So I married you, Stair. It is hard on you, I know. Being a gentleman you could not very well refuse when I asked you before the minister—"
Here Stair made an indefinite noise in his throat, which, if he could have spoken, would have been an eloquent statement-at-large of the state of his affections. He cursed himself for his imbecility. Louis Raincy, he felt sure, would have found the right thing to say—even the Poor Scholar—not to say any of the fine gentlemen whom Patsy had left behind in London. After all she had left them. That was one comfort. She had come to save him. But what in the name of the prince of darkness was that idiot of a Godfrey McCulloch grinning at? Surely there was nothing so absolutely strange about the situation. The man they had seen was a minister—the minister of a parish. He was in Geneva gown, and bands—such as they were. His session clerk was with him. The kirk register had been duly signed.
If that ugly, black-browed McCulloch would only stop grinning and take himself off—perhaps even yet he could put the matter right.
"I only wanted you to know, before we land," said the clear-cut, faceted voice of Patsy, ringing out the syllables like the pouring of little diamonds into a thin wine-glass, "that you, Stair Garland, must be my chaperon—no princesses or Miss Alines any more. You can protect me from grand dukes with no more courage and determination than you did before, but now you will have an open indubitable right in that you are my husband! But here we are at the island. And there down on the rocks, do you see, Stair, who are there to welcome us? Your sister Jean, and Whitefoot. And Kennedy—Kennedy McClure—!"
She hung about the neck of a stout red-faced man, who murmured all the time of the embrace, "Tut, lassie. Think shame, lassie!" and dabbed at his eyes and blew his nose with a bandanna handkerchief with the noise of many trumpets.
"Guid-day to ye, lass, and to you, Stair Garland! Ye hae a wild filly to gentle. Be not downcast if the job be a long one. She will be worth it."
"What, Jean, you are never going?" cried Stair, when he saw his sister preparing to accompany the Laird of Supsorrow into the lugger. Somehow it seemed that he could have seen his way plainer before him if Jean had stayed. But as Godfrey McCulloch hoisted the sail, he shouted, "Go she must. There are a pair of fathers away yonder in the Cairn Ferris Valleys to be contented. And I am not sure that they will be easy to satisfy. But your sister Jean and Kennedy McClure there, and this extract from the parish register signed by parish minister and session clerk will show them that you and your wife are beyond all pursuit. As for the prison-breaking and the law, there will doubtless be great riding and running, but I do not believe that here on Isle Rathan you will be in any way disquieted."
It was nine of the clock when Patsy and Stair stood on the shore of the Isle Rathan of many famous exploits, and watched the lugger with its cargo of three go dancing out on the full current of the Solway ebb.
The two were left alone and the island seemed incredibly small and strange about them—at least to Stair. But Patsy was not in the least put about. She did the honours of the old tower of the Herons. She led the way to where Jean had spread their first meal, and motioned Stair to his place. He sat down like an automaton and looked about him as if he were seeing through a haze. It was a large and pleasant kitchen, stone-floored, with oak furniture as old as the time of Patrick Heron and May Mischief his wife. A bright fire was burning on the old-fashioned hearth, and the room looked cosy enough in spite of the old small-paned windows. It had recently been put into order, and new, bright utensils hung upon the ranges of pins and hooks against the wall.
But Stair's food seemed to choke him, somehow. He felt the imperious need of speech.
"Oh, Patsy!" he began—but he got no farther. Patsy was in possession of the field in a moment.
"Stair," she said warningly, as she held up her hand to stop him; "Stair, you have never failed me yet. Don't let me trust you in vain. I married you because I had need of you—"
"Not," said Stair, speaking disjointedly, "not because you wanted to marry me—not because—you loved me?"
"Oh, I wanted to marry you! Yes, I wanted that. I needed you to help me to do what I could not do in any other way. But—wait a while. Neither you nor I know what love means yet.Icertainly do not. I am too young. Meanwhile, you are the most dependable person in my world. Let love alone for a little. What difference can it make to you and me? Let us help one another, depend one on the other—I have run off with you, and if you are under age I dare say I could be put into prison for that. But that is the way of the Pict woman. What she wants, she takes. I ran away from London. I took you out of prison, and when I had you, I brought you here to live on herrings. I wanted to be rid of princes who pestered me to marry them, of royal dukes who ran away with me, of kind uncles and princesses who thought to make my bed all eider down and cotton wool, my food all rose-leaves and honey!"
"I understand—I understand," said Stair, with a certain fierce determination in his eye, "you shall have no cause to regret that you have chosen me as your squire and armour-bearer. I shall not claim more than is my due, and of what that is I have a very small opinion indeed!"
Patsy looked at Stair. He seemed to be understanding—almost too well. There was no need that he should remove himself to so vast a distance. She wanted them to be two comrades—two Crusoes without a man Friday, working harmoniously for the common good of the community. But Stair held out for a position frankly subaltern.
"If you will tell me what I am to do—you know the place better than I—it is time to do it!" He was outwardly calm, inwardly raging, as he spoke.
"There is, thank you, some water to bring in—the spring is within the courtyard. The well-rope has a bucket. Thank you!"
And Patsy was left alone. She thought Stair Garland long in returning. He had, indeed, looked into all the outbuildings, where he discovered a couple of cows that needed to be milked and let out on the dewy pastures for the night, fowls that must be shut up, and in the barn the remains of a once full mow of hay which would make excellent sleeping accommodation.
When he got back Patsy was covering up the fire for the night. She had washed the dishes, and dried them with a dispatch to which Julian Wemyss and he had never attained after months of practice on the Wild of Blairmore.
She listened to the relation of the discoveries he had made out of doors, and agreed when he told her that he must be on hand to drive the cows back to the byre at daybreak. As seen from the sea, there must be nothing to mark the island as inhabited.
"Remember to lock the door on the inside," he said. "I shall sleep in the barn that I may be ready for my work in the morning. You will be quite safe here in the tower. Good-night, Patsy!"
And without waiting for a single word he was gone into the darkness. Patsy had pictured something much more idyllic than this. How they would enjoy their first meal! How they would chatter over it like a pair of daws in the same nest. How they would fight their battles over again, Patsy telling all her adventures in London, of the Prince Eitel, the riding of the dukes, the balls and levees—how she had met with Kennedy McClure, and how she had come all the way in theGood Intentto save him. She had her night-rides, her plots and combinations to relate—how this parish would have sent so many, but could not have them up to time—how another set of good lads were terrorized by a wrathful overlord.
From Stair she would sit and listen to the story of the defence of the Bothy on the Wild. She would hear of the Princess's letter to her uncle, how they passed the long dark winter months when the snow blocked all, the coming of spring, the cutting of the dunes by the company of sappers, and the capture. But instead, it was all distant and dry. A "Good-night" such as one might have thrown at a dog—no, he would not throw the word at Whitefoot. For even as she passed the postern window, looking out she saw Stair crossing the court in the direction of the barn, side by side with Whitefoot. The dog's eyes were raised to those of his master in a kind of adoration, and his tail waved triumphantly. As Stair bent to stroke the dog's head, Patsy became conscious of a strange new thing within her.
It was something she had never felt before, though almost any other woman would have diagnosed at once. It was, in fact, nothing less than her first twinge of jealousy.
She chose to forget all the wise precepts by which she had regulated Stair's conduct toward her. She forgot how she had carefully explained to him that all the duties were to be on his side, and all the benefits on hers.
"He did not even shake hands," she thought, looking at the wrist which the Prince and other great gentlemen has so often fervently kissed, "and yet he can stop to pat that dog's head!"
Nobody had told Patsy that marriage is a dish that cannot be eaten by one while the other looks on. She had chosen her way. She had carried it through, and now in spite of the luminous explanations which she had given Stair as to their relative positions and duties, he had chosen to misunderstand, and had marched off straight as a ramrod.
And she caught herself murmuring over and over to herself, "Stiff-necked and rebellious—stiff-necked and rebellious!"
It was to Stair she referred, but the accompanying stamp of the little foot might possibly have raised doubts as to the correctness of her application, had any been there to see.
Stair Garland slept little that night. He wandered in the cool purple darkness here and there about the island, listening to the curious noises of the birds, complaining vaguely, or calling one to the other from the rocky ledges. He was conscious of the perpetual drumming of the sea in his ears, as the tide ran, jostled in the narrow reaches, and hammered without ceasing on the outer cliffs of the little island.
The pair of cows were company to him. He wondered whence they came and who had placed them there. They did not waste their time, but munched steadily at the lush grasses in the interior meadow of the isle—the hollow palm of its hand, as it were. The problem took his mind for a while off his own miseries.
Some one had been there. Some one had been accustomed to tend and milk them. It could not be his sister Jean, for she could not have been long enough spared from the farm at Glenanmays. Who, then, had provided all that they found waiting for them? The poultry he had penned in darkness, so that their early crowing might not awaken Patsy. She must know. She had prepared all this. She had prepared everything. Even his own delivery from prison, even the great muster of the Bands to override authority and save him, were only little dove-tailings in the scheme which Patsy had designed for her own liberation.
Well, he had nothing to complain of. He had been asked a question, and if he had wished he might have answered "No." Was he a free man or bound? But having said "Yes" of his own good will, what remained to him but to take up the rôle which Patsy had reserved for him. It was not remarkably dignified, but—if any fault there were, the fault was his own.
Besides, he would have given the same answer then or any other moment. He had not been taken by surprise. So long as he was Patsy's husband, nobody else could be so also! Why, of course, he would stand by his bargain! What else was he for—he, Diarmid Garland's second son—the head of the Bands, the famous defier of the press and the Preventives? Pshaw! What did all that mean to him now—apples of Sodom in the mouth, an exceeding bitter fruit! What a fool he was with his airs! Would he ever have such a chance again, and he to dream of complaining!
Gradually he became conscious of Whitefoot moving, silent as a shadow, beside his master. Once, when Stair stood a long time on the craggy top of the Fell of Rathan, gazing out at the ranged lights on the English side of the firth, he was conscious of a cool, damp nose thrusting its way into his palm, causing him to open his hand by little calculated snout-pushes and burrowings. Whitefoot was sympathetic. Whitefoot felt for the trouble of his master, though he could not understand it, and Whitefoot would not be satisfied till his friend's hand was resting on his head. Even then little heavings and sidelong pushes expressed a desire to be caressed, and when at last Stair's hand ran over his head, across the thick ruff of hair about his neck and passed down his spine, Whitefoot shook with delight and leaped so high that his forepaws were on Stair's shoulders.
"Down, dog, down!" said his master, and at the word Whitefoot dropped back on all fours, obedient but content.
It now was past the hour of twelve. The central night stood still. The little chill breeze which ruffles the waves an hour or so in early morning had not yet begun to blow. Stair had been about the House of Rathan half-a-dozen of times. At last he went into the barn and, only removing his coat, he threw himself at length among the straw of which he had made a couch earlier in the evening. Whitefoot nuzzled comfortably up against him. He did not mean to sleep. It would soon be morning and there were the cows out in the little meadows. He would only close his eyes for a moment.
It will not be surprising to learn that the next sound he heard was a happy laugh, as Patsy appeared at the open door of the barn with "Awake, thou sluggard" upon her lips.
"I looked in half-an-hour ago," she laughed, "and you looked so sweet and peaceful that I went and milked the cows before wakening you."
"You milked the cows?"
Patsy nodded her head with its tight cover of curls, all of densest black, shapely and boyish.
"The milk is in the dairy!" she said. "Concerning what else does my lord please to inquire?"
"But the two cows?" he said, hastily getting up and putting on his coat, which he had spread over him, "they ought not to be left out all day on the high grass. Cruising sloops of war, and even Preventive men with spy-glasses, might easily see them from the shore."
"I had thought of that, my lord," said Patsy. "I confined them with a good reach of rope behind the old fold which lies hidden out of sight in the hollow of the island. No one can see them there, unless they mount on the cliffs and look down on them from the height of the island. They will be happy there, for the rabbits and gulls have not spoilt the grass."
Stair stood up beside Patsy in the doorway of the barn. The gate of the yard was open, and they walked slowly towards it, splendid widths of sea and heights of cloudless heaven opening out before them at every step. Instinctively Patsy caught Stair by the arm, gave it a little joyous tug, and cried out, "Oh, Stair, was ever anything so beautiful?"
The young man glanced down at her. But her eyes were on the distant, tender blue of the coast about Whitehaven, and the Isle of Man hovering in a mother-of-pearl haze, like a dream-island about to alight. All his instincts told him to clasp her to him and take the consequences. But unfortunately Stair reasoned, which is the wrong method with a woman, especially with such a Pictish daughter of impulse as Patsy Ferris. He remembered what she had said to him the night before, as if that could have any bearing on her mood of to-day.
But so the chance passed. The fine morning gold was dimmed. They had looked too long. Patsy released his arm and they fell apart.
She remembered it was time to go indoors for breakfast. They went, their eyes averted, lest the other should see the remains of the morning glory. They kept silence also lest the thrill of it should tremble in their voices. But at the sight of the spread table and the homely scents of fried bacon and smoked mutton ham, Patsy became again very human, and set herself down in the place of house-mistress with a ripple of glad laughter.
"Only think, Stair!" she cooed low in her throat, "here all by ourselves—a breakfast which I have prepared, eggs which I have found, milk which I drew from the cow—(they are two such nice cows, Stair!), and you and Whitefoot sitting opposite! Just ourselves two, Stair. Not a chaperon—not agouvernante, like the old horror the Princess used to threaten me with. No felt-footed lacqueys always bringing you the wrong thing, no Princess, no Miss Aline even! Oh, I declare I am so glad—that I could—take my breakfast!"
Patsy broke off suddenly, making a wilful anti-climax to her speech, and, as Stair knew very well, not in the least finishing as she had meant to. But her housekeeping pride was aroused. He must eat. She would heap his plate. She had heard him late last night moving about. Had he not slept well? That was why she had let him sleep on this morning, but he must not expect such indulgence every day. He would need to be out and at the net fishing or among the flounders, for though they had plenty for the present in their store-room, they did not know when they might be succoured.
Then Stair put a question he had been thirsting to have answered all night.
"Whose is this island, and who has given us the right to use all the larder and live-stock?"
Patsy clapped her hands gleefully.
"Guess!" she cried—"three guesses!"
"One, wrong—no, not my father!Two, wrong, not Uncle Ju!Three, wrong—not Miss Aline! You made me gasp that time. I thought you could not miss it. We are here on this Island of Rathan as caretakers for Mr. Kennedy McClure. These are his cows. His sheep are on the heuchs yonder, and we have liberty to kill them for mutton when we weary of fish. These are his hens I let out this morning, and he brought Jean here with selected stores to make everything cosy for us!"
"And why does he do all this?" Stair inquired. Patsy flung up her head and smiled dazzlingly.
"Who knows?" she said. "He was great friends with me in London. He made theGood Intenthurry up when I was ready—otherwise you might have stayed a long time in prison. And this is better, eh, Stair?"
"And your Uncle Julian—Mr. Wemyss? Will they not be harder on him because I have escaped?"
"You have not escaped—you have been carried off," Patsy corrected. "So was Uncle Ju. He walked off the step of his verandah into the arms of Captain Penman and half-a-dozen of the crew of theGood Intent. They seized him and carried him on theBilly Goat, which sailed immediately for parts unknown. But Joseph managed so well and the orders from headquarters were so strict, that the garrison did not even loot the house as they did at Cairn Ferris, that night when you disgraced us all by drawing royal blood at the White Loch. Here are some books which he sent for you—some from the Bothy, and some for me to read. I am not so learned as you, and Joseph chose accordingly. If we have wet days, Stair, we can read all day with our toes to the fire!"
"And why did not we also go on theGood Intentand so get away from all this trouble?" Stair inquired.
"If you wanted Uncle Ju all day telling us what his Princess would have thought, said and done—I did not. I wanted to be by our own two selves. Besides, if we were to get married, there is no country in the world where it can be done with such willingness and alacrity as at home. Also I have been brought up a good Presbyterian, and a parish minister and his session clerk—well, where in foreign parts will you find the like of Mr. Duff and honest James Fraser? TheGood Intent, indeed! I think you are hard to please if you are not content with your present quarters, young man!"
By the afternoon of the second day Stair was finding himself unfit for human society, because he had not been able to shave since he left the prison. Of course he had brought nothing with him. There was no time. His hand went unconsciously every other minute to his scrubby chin. In truth, his Norse blondness did not allow it to show as much as he supposed. But that did not detract from the pervading sensation of disgustful grubbiness.
Patsy's eyes missed nothing, and very soon she surprised him by opening the door of a little tower chamber on the ground floor, sparsely but quite sufficiently furnished.
"I should feel very much safer," she said, "if you were to sleep within the house. You will find shaving materials in the corner!"
Stair could not thank her, but then neither did his accursed pride rise up in rebellion. She closed the door and left him alone. The water in the jug was hot. In a case marked "A. F." were razors and other necessities. Evidently Patsy had done some plundering, and had not come to him altogether without a dowry, though she had managed to do without the paternal benediction.
It was wonderful to feel clean again, to get the stubble off his cheeks, and to plash the cool water over his head and about his ears. When he had finished he felt measurably nearer to Patsy. He found laid out also clean shirts and neckcloths. Two complete suits of clothes were folded in an open chest of drawers. Patsy had evidently looted to some purpose.
Stair's first instinct was not to put on any of these things till he had been assured that they were there with the consent of Adam Ferris. But he realized that he had already used the razors, and besides it would be idiotic, in his present awkward position, to strain at any gnats after swallowing such a camel as the marriage on the Colvend shore.
Besides, he had the sense to see that any obstinacy would terribly offend Patsy. She had evidently thought much about the matter, and whether her father knew or did not know was secondary to the great need in Stair's heart of making Patsy happy. He did not, however, realize how long had been her thoughts on the subject, or that the suits of clothes which he supposed to have been lifted from her father's drawers, had been talked over by Patsy and Kennedy McClure in the garden at Hanover Lodge, ordered at a first-class London tailor's, with such approximate indications as size, height, and general proportionateness of body could supply. Patsy had paid for them out of her own money, and it was for the sake of the Princess, who was curious about parcels, that the case of shaving utensils had been lettered in gold with the initials of Adam Ferris.
An hour later, Stair came forth like a bridegroom from his chamber. Patsy, who had been on the watch, called out "Oh!" And if she had permitted her heart to guide her actions, she would have clung about his neck. He looked so noble. But all that she said was just, "I am proud of you, Stair—very proud!"
And, rightly considered, that was a great deal for Patsy to say.
That day was a memorable one for Stair Garland. Patsy was charming and gay as she alone knew how to be. Having scanned the sea horizon with the Dollond glass to make sure that the firth was absolutely free from ships, they gave themselves up to the delights of the sunshine and summer air. Now they dipped into little coves, among dainty shells and glistening sand-breadths, where they sat down cross-legged and played at "jecks" or "jacks"—one pebble in the air and lift five. Five in the air and lift one—with all sorts of intricate devices and variations, such as catching the tossed stones on the back of the hand, collecting them with a sudden side swoop, and so forth till Patsy was tired. Her nimble fingers left Stair's stiffer members far behind.
But it was different when a white stone was poised on the top of a rock, for Stair could send it rolling down nine times out of ten before Patsy had never so much as touched the target. Again on sheltered stretches Stair could send a smooth, flat stone skipping from one side to the other of the still bay, which Patsy declared was no sort of sport because hers, though every bit as well thrown as Stair's, invariably plumped to the bottom with a little farewell "cloop" as soon as they encountered the water. "You get all the best stones!" Patsy cried at last, vexed at her lack of success. Whereupon Stair handed over his ammunition to her, which "clooped" and sank as before.
"Then youdosomething to them—you must!" said Patsy, and with this luminous reasoning she turned and set off back to the old Rathan tower to get a book. Thereafter they read. That is, Patsy spun white cobwebs with her needle and Stair read to her—Shakespeare it was, and the play "The Tempest."
She did not know—she could never have guessed that Stair could read like that. She often stopped him to ask the meaning of a passage, and never did she ask in vain. Sometimes, indeed, she could have two or three interpretations to choose from, for in the Bothy Stair had gone over the play with Theobald's notes, comparing them with Pope's and Johnson's.
Patsy's heart was in a strange topsy-turvy state all that day. Sometimes she would forget herself and "cosy up" against Stair as she used to snuggle close to her Uncle Julian. Then something in the strong, clear voice, the square unyieldingness of shoulders, the body massive and forceful, caused her to draw hastily away. She thought that Stair had not noticed, but his whole heart and body became tremulous to the brief caress, and when she recalled her favour, it was like the sun hiding his face and the air growing chilled as before snow.
Still Stair managed to keep his face as steady as his voice, and ended by growing so interested in the play that he forgot Patsy altogether. Being infinitely more subtle than he, Patsy knew and resented this, and it was only her cheek rubbing softly to and fro against his shoulder that made him gasp and fail in the middle of a great harangue.
At which Patsy smiled well-contented. She did not know what she wanted, exactly, but of this she was certain, that whatever it might be, she wanted it very badly.
The most curious thing was that occasionally she felt very angry with Stair, without being able to give a reason for her anger. The feeling passed in a flash and she saw what she called the "monumental Stair" again erected on a pedestal and knew that she had been cross with him because she wished him a little less "monumental." She did not blame herself in the least nor recall that Stair was only keeping his pledged and plighted word.
"I can't slap him as I used to do Louis Raincy. He is too big and too solemn. He would think it part of the treatment and only set his lips the firmer. But oh! (clenching her fists) how I wish I could!"
And indeed it might have helped matters.
The day sped on. Dinner was an outdoor meal. Stair carried it from the back door of the tower down to a little hidden cove where sea-pinks and prickly blue holly grew right down to the edge of the sand. Patsy served and they talked merrily. Though a famous "runner" of all manner of Hollands and Bordeaux, Stair tasted nothing except the water from the spring which he had himself drawn up clear and cold from the well in the courtyard—the well that had been made by the father of Patrick Heron, long before the time of the Raiders from the Hills.
Afterwards they stretched themselves out and chatted, making each other's acquaintance, and deepening their mutual experiences. Patsy could now unseal her treasured tales. She spoke of Eitel the Prince, and Stair first blushed crimson and then went pale with desire to wring that well-nigh regal neck. He could forgive a great deal to the Princess, however, because she was acting as she thought best for Julian Wemyss's niece. And of course Patsy did deserve the best. Yet she had chosen the greatest detrimental of them all. However, he was a good watch-dog, and would guard her well.
Louis Raincy he had less patience with. Why should any man slight Patsy, make love to another woman, and then come whining to be forgiven and taken back into favour? And this same Louis Raincy had been with them at the White Loch and had taken Patsy safe to his grandfather's at Castle Raincy, the most sensible act of his life.
But after all Stair found much cause to be content. He possessed, if not all he hoped for—at least he had Patsy, all to himself, and that by her own choosing and good will. What signified a few conditions to the bargain? He never could have dared to ask her, and she had asked him. Therefore she had a right to dictate her terms. He would not again behave like a sulky fool, as he had done on the first night of their coming to the Isle. He knew better now.
He watched Patsy's quiet untroubled breathing, the slow droop and quick recover of her eyelash as she grew a little drowsy. She pulled herself up and dug her elbow into the sand so that her head might be supported. Her eyes drooped again, but this time the eyelashes did not rise. The arm bent into an adorable curve, and the head, heavy with sleep, finally deposited itself on Stair's shoulder. With infinite delicate precautions he drew a cloak over her and settled himself to watch the colour rise in the cheek which he could see. He marked the crescent-shaped shadow of the long, upturned eyelash, the lips exquisitely formed, but not too small to be expressionless like your rosebud-mouthed women. She was his, as the French say, "en droit, mais pas encore en jouissance!"
Still, nobody else could have her. That was the first and greatest consideration, and with that firm in his mind Stair kept himself steady till the sun was descending low in the sky of the west, and the clamorous birds began to flock back to the island—sand-pipers peeping in the hollows about the sheep-fold, gulls and guillemots squabbling on the cliffs, and tarns restlessly dashing and swooping. For the tide was coming up fast and would soon be at the full.
Then he saw something far out but coming nearer that made his heart leap to his throat. He waited to make sure before awakening Patsy. But after five minutes there could be no mistake. He must tell her.
"Dear," he said, and trembled at the word, lest she should have heard it, "I am sorry to wake you, but there is a man swimming towards the island!"
Patsy awoke, and in a moment was on her feet. Whether she had heard the word or not, certain it was that she had grasped the meaning of the sentence.
"Quick, Stair," she said, "get your gun!"
"The man is swimming," said Stair. "I think, instead, I had better get a dry suit of clothes. He cannot be very dangerous. I have my sheath-knife if—but there is no fear. I can handle him!"
"Run no risks, Stair. I have ventured my all upon you! You are very ... necessary to me!"
Ah, if he had only known that the word in her heart which she did not let her lips speak was not "necessary" but "precious"!
They went down together to the long spit of rock against which the swimmer was being driven. Stair looked at the black head on the surface of the water and realized that there might be trouble for both of them in the immediate future. He ordered Patsy to stand back.
"Why should I?" said Patsy, surprised at his tone.
"Because I tell you to!" said Stair Garland sharply, "there—on the top of the rock. Crouch down! Do not move till I give you leave." Then he began to wade out, and as he went she saw him assure himself that his sheath-knife moved sweetly in its scabbard with the click of easy-fitting steel.
"Eben McClure!" he cried, as in the long reach of the overhand stroke the man's face was turned towards him, "what are you doing here?"
Stair helped him out of the water. The man could hardly gasp at first, but in a moment words returned to him.
"The lost dog," he said hoarsely, "follows the only man who is kind to it."
And he would have fallen on the rock spit, if Stair had not caught him in his arms, and carried him to the little cove.
"You were here on this spot with your command, Captain de Raincy," trumpeted Colonel Laurence, "and yet you let the prison-breakers ride off! You ought to have attacked them, sir. You know you ought! It is as much as your coat is worth. The whole crew of them were there—the low fellow who shot the Duke where he drove into the infernal barricades—and the girl who ran away from London to send the fiery cross through the country. Damn it, sir, it makes me furious only to think of it. And yet, with a chance like that, you sat your horse and let them ride off!"
"I need not, I suppose," said Louis calmly, "point out to you that there were some hundreds of them, at least ten to one, and that most of them were known to me—though not, I believe, those who remained behind to fire the prison."
"Well," said Colonel Laurence bitterly, "whether known to you or not, you let them ride off unharmed after committing a capital crime. It is evident that you cannot be trusted in your own district. Your sympathies are not with law and order. Oh, I know something about the peculiar difficulties of officials in Galloway. There are certain acts—such as resistance to his Majesty's press, prison-breaking, and the whole business of smuggling which are here favoured by all, from the Lord Lieutenant to the herd on the hills. I cannot get a magistrate to issue a warrant without referring the matter to the Secretary of State. I cannot execute it without a battalion of regulars. As an instance in point you were in command of a company of dragoons. You saw this thing done. You knew those who did it, yet you did not lift a finger to stop them."
"We had only just arrived as they were riding off," said Louis. "I had no evidence that any offence against justice had been committed. I saw the prison on fire afterwards and I helped to put out that. Without my troopers it would have been wholly destroyed."
"No matter," said the irate Colonel, "we cannot have any such officer in the district—certainly not under my command. I mean that my orders shall be carried through at whatever risk. Now, I put it to you plainly, do you prefer to send in your papers or be publicly broken?"
"I shall not send in my papers," said Louis de Raincy, warmly, "and you cannot break me, publicly or otherwise!"
"And pray why not?"
Louis lifted his hand in the direction of Castle Raincy, an imposing pile of towers showing up dark on a hill to the west.
"That's why," he said, curtly. "I am the heir to a peerage, and my grandfather—well, I need not speak of him. Besides, I know the Duke of York, who is still commander-in-chief."
Laurence's temper got the better of him.
"It is you and the like of you who defy regulations and are the shame of the British army."
"Not so," said Louis, in a very level tone, "say rather officers who scramble for every safe money-making little post-recruit—raising, keg-hunting, 'stay-in-a-comfortable-corner' men, and keep as far away from the real fighting as possible. If the cap fits, why, put it on! And as soon as the war is over, if you still require any satisfaction, I am your man. In the meantime, Colonel Laurence, you will no longer be troubled with me. I have got my transfer to the Duke's army at Hernandez, and I am ordered to join my new regiment by the first ship to leave Liverpool with cavalry details. We shall soon be ready for the push across the Pyrenees in the rear of Soult!"
Colonel Laurence took the paper and glanced at it. Then he grunted and began to march out of barracks. He knew very well that, since the British army was officered on much more aristocratic and family lines than in later days, he could not hope to strike Louis Raincy with any real penalty. But nevertheless he turned about for a parting shot.
"That paragon of yours, the daughter of Ferris of Cairn Ferris, ran off with the chief criminal. She led the attack on the Castle here. They are hidden somewhere. If I catch them within my jurisdiction, I shall put a bullet through each of them."
"You can do as you like with Stair Garland," Louis Raincy called back, "but remember if you touch Patsy Ferris I will put a bullet through you if I have to hold the pistol to your ear! But I am not anxious—both of them would be quickly avenged. I advise you, Laurence, to leave that wasp's nest alone. You do not understand this people. I do!"
Now Colonel Laurence, though he got the worst of his colloquy with Captain Louis Raincy, had a real grievance. It was true that throughout the province, and especially in its westerly parts, the Government hardly received the semblance of support. Some lairds and a few big tenants were loud Governmental men, but at home each had his store of "run" stuff ripening under some inconspicuous cellar, generally quite unconnected with his mansion. In those days they built even cothouses with more space below ground than could be seen above. The stones were quarried in the laird's own quarries. They were carried in his tenant's carts. They were laid by his own masons. The earth out of the cellarage was tipped into the nearest burn or over the cliffs into the sea.
There was hardly a farm lad from the Braes of Glenap to the Brigend of Dumfries who was not protected by his landlord from his Majesty's press. The sentiment of a whole countryside soon tells on the spirits of a man like Laurence, and especially since he had lost Eben McClure (who had taken off from him the sharpest of the popular hatred) his soul had become darkened and embittered. He was expected to make bricks in a country where the straw did not grow—to fill regimentalcadreswith men, every one of whom was under the secret protection of the loyal gentlemen with whom he dined and talked. At hospitable boards he sometimes forgot himself and revealed his plans, only to repent most bitterly the next morning. For very sure was he that a messenger had started as soon as he had been shut into his bedroom, and that long before morning the quarry would be far away among the moors, lurking there as safely as ever did Peden, called the Prophet, once minister of New Luce.
His men were continually being called out by this Supervisor and that, but he had grown to be profoundly distrustful of such summonses. They brought him no honour, and not even any satisfaction. The wily exciseman, knowing well on which side his bread was buttered, had generally made his pact with the "runners." When the troops and the Preventive arrived on the scene of the "run," nothing remained except a multitude of pony-tracks, and occasionally, if they were very swift and very lucky, the top-masts of a schooner or brig might be seen hanging like mist against the morning sky. Then the Preventives would run round looking behind ridges of rocks and exploring the bottoms of shallow pools, till they heroically took possession of the twenty or thirty casks of Edam Hollands or Angoulême brandy which had been left for them.
Then the newspaper account would run somewhat as follows: