Patsy Part 11

"Miss Aline," said the lad, with a frankness which made the good chatelaine like him the better, "I rode over to see Patsy Ferris. I must hear what all this is about the Duke of Lyonesse."

"Nothing, so far as I can hear, Louis," said Miss Aline; "but our maid is afraid, and her father's house and her uncle's are both as full of soldiers and ribaldry as ever in the times of the Covenant. So where should she come if not to me? It was more wisely done than I could have expected from that 'fechtin' fule' of a Stair Garland."

Louis Raincy saw Patsy. She was sitting in Miss Aline's own room among the simple daintiness of many white linen "spreads" with raised broidery, the work of Miss Aline's own hands. Here she told him her determination to keep out of the way till the Prince and his train had left the country. The reasons for her instinctive dislike of her uncle's guest were not clear to any except herself, but on these Louis did not insist. It was enough that Patsy was so minded. In any case he wished her to know that he would follow the movements of the enemy with care, and warn her of their intentions. Captain Laurence, especially, was a free talker, and might let slip useful information. He, Louis, would ride over to headquarters that very afternoon, and, if Laurence was still absent, he would get an orderly to find him.

Thus was Patsy equipped with two cavaliers of courage and address, one of whom had his entries everywhere, while the other possessed the supreme skill of sea, sh.o.r.e, mora.s.s, hill, and heather, which comes only after generations of practice. But against them they had a man infinitely subtle and wholly without scruple. Eben McClure was of that breed of Galloway Scot, which, having been kicked and humiliated in youth for lack of strength and courage, pays back his own people by treachery with interest thereto.

The like of Eben McClure had tracked with Lag when he made his tours among his neighbours, with confiscation and fine for a main object, and the murder of this or that man of prayer, covenant-keeper or Bible-carrier, as only a wayside accident. Now Galloway is half Celtic, and the other half, at least till the Ayrs.h.i.+re invasion, was mostly Norse. So McClure was hated with all the Celtic vehemence which does not stop short of blood. He was the salaried betrayer of his own, and in time, unless he could make enough money and remove himself to some far hiding-place, would a.s.suredly die the death which such men die.

Of this, of course, he was perfectly aware, and had arranged his life accordingly.

In the meantime he watched and pondered. He disguised himself and made night journeys that he might learn what would suit his purpose. He could be in turn an Irish drover, a Loch Fyne fisherman, a moor shepherd, a flouris.h.i.+ng burgess of Lanark or Ruglen, even an enterprising spirit dealer from Edinburgh or Dundee, with facilities for storage of casks when the Solway undutied cargoes should reach these cities.

And the marvel was that in none of his personations had he yet been caught. In proof of which he was still alive, but McClure confessed to himself that it was only a matter of time. He must make a grand stroke for fortune--quick fortune, and then bolt for it. For his heart was sick with thinking on the gunshot from behind the hedge or the knife between his shoulders. He never now went to his own parish of Stonykirk where his father had been a well-doing packman--which is to say, a travelling merchant of silks and laces. McClure knew that he was in danger anywhere west of the Cree, but the danger increased as he went westwards, and in his own parish of Stonykirk there were at least a score of young blades who would have taken his life with as little thought as they would have blooded a pig--aye, and had sworn so to do, _handfasted_ upon it, kissing alternately Bible and cold steel.

It was no difficult matter for McClure to possess himself of the unavowed reason of my Lord Wargrove's ardent search for a carriage and horses. Clearly it was for a secret purpose--one that could not be declared. Because in any other case Lord Wargrove had only to take the pair which belonged to his host, or more easily still, Adam Ferris's in the north end of the Glen. If these were not regal enough, Earl Raincy had in his stables the finest horses in the county, and would certainly, though of old Jacobite stock, not refuse them to the King's son, albeit only a Guelph. Then there was old Sir Bunny Bunny. His wife would gladly have harnessed the horses herself and put her husband on the box, if only she had suspected a desire which she could have treated as a royal command.

As for the purpose, Eben McClure was in no greater difficulty. What but a pretty woman to run away with, did any of the king's sons care for?

There was but one such girl in the countryside. She had made the Duke hold wool for her--many hanks, it was said in the regiment--and he had fallen in love with her on the spot.

But that girl, whether taking alarm or to increase her value, had gone into hiding, and apparently no one knew where. It was certain that her kin at one time or another had dipped their fingers pretty deeply in the traffic. There were caves and hiding-places, which it would be death to search except with a company of sappers. And more than that, he would have to stay behind alone and face the back-stroke. He could not always ride out with the helmets of the dragoons making a hedge about him.

Now McClure was a clever man, and he had been with the soldiers that day when Whitefoot, questing for Jean, had entered the kitchen of the farm of Glenanmays. He had wondered at the persistency with which the dog had followed the girl. At first he had waited to see her give him something to eat from the debris of the meal which was being prepared for the soldiers.

But after Whitefoot had twice sniffed at the alms tossed him without touching the gift, still continuing to follow Jean, now tugging at her ap.r.o.n-string and now licking her hand, McClure, a man of the country, began to suspect that the dog was a messenger from one of the lost Garland boys whom they had missed so narrowly the other day in the heather of the Wild of Blairmore.

So upon Jean's departure he stepped quietly to the door and noted that she took the way down the valley towards the sh.o.r.e. He had not thought much about it at the time, for at the moment all chasings of smugglers and expeditions in aid of the manning of the fleet were absolutely at a standstill. The Duke's arrival on the _Britomart_ by way of Stranryan had mobilized all the forces of order, as escorts of safety or guards of honour. So there would be no more raids till His Royal Highness was safe across the Water of Nith.

There remained to McClure the alternative of following Jean on his own responsibility, but the Stonykirker had far too great a respect for his skin to search a valley bristling like a thousand hedgehogs with all manner of thorn and gorse bushes, waved over with broom and darkened with undergrowth, any single clump of which might conceal half-a-dozen rifles, each with the eye of a sharpshooter behind it--a mere spark in the sheltering dusk, but quite enough to frighten most men in his position.

So, though strongly suspected, Jean sped on her way unopposed. McClure put the incident away in the pigeon-holes of his memory. It might be useful some day. He thought deeply upon the affair which now delayed Royalty and, incidentally, was stopping his business. If he could put the son of the King under a great obligation--he might at one stroke make his fortune and save his life. He had had enough of Galloway, and a permanent change of air was what he longed for--to a far land, under other skies, and among a people of a strange tongue, who had never heard of press-gangs and Solway smugglers.

CHAPTER X

THE WICKED LAYETH A SNARE

In the enforced leisure provided for him by the stoppage of compulsory recruitments, Eben McClure added to his knowledge. He left the men and women in the drama which was unrolling itself about Glenanmays to take care of themselves. He might not have had any the least interest in them. He gave his whole thought to Whitefoot, Stair's lean, s.h.a.ggy collie.

By observation he obtained a good working knowledge of the whereabouts of Whitefoot's master--not sufficient, certainly, to act upon if it had been a case of capture. But all the same, near enough to enable him to keep well out of Stair Garland's way, which at the moment was what he most desired.

He rather despised the heather-craft of the other brothers, Fergus and Agnew Garland, and he gave never a thought to G.o.dfrey McCulloch or the Free Trade band, which, he knew, was busy running in small cargoes as quickly as possible during the blessed time of relief from military and naval supervision.

But Stair Garland was another matter. Instinctively the spy knew his danger. This was not a man to hesitate about pulling a trigger, and his life, in the hollow of Stair Garland's hand, would weigh no heavier than a puff of dandelion smoke which a gust of wind carries along with it. So from his first acquaintance with him the spy had given Stair a wide berth.

As the result of many observations and much reflection, McClure decided that the lurking-place of this dangerous second son of the house of Glenanmays was on the hill called Knock Minto, a rocky, irregular ma.s.s, shaped like the knuckles of a clenched fist.

The summit overlooked the wide Bay of Luce, and the spy had remarked thin columns of smoke rising up into the twilight, and lights which glittered a moment and then were shut off in the short, pearl-grey nights of later June, when the heavens are filled with quite useless stars, and the darkness never altogether falls upon the earth.

Cargoes were being run on the east side--of that he was a.s.sured. But after all that was no business of his. Eben found it more in his way to watch Whitefoot. He had attempted, in the farm kitchen of Glenanmays, to make friends with the collie, but a swift upward curl of the lip and baring of the teeth, accompanied by a deep, snorting growl, warned him that Whitefoot would have none of him.

Nevertheless, the dog went and came freely, and as the spy made no further advances, Whitefoot soon ceased to regard him at all. And ever more curiously Eben McClure kept his eyes on the outgoings and incomings of Whitefoot.

And so it was that one still afternoon he found himself hidden under the dense greenish-black umbrella of a yew tree, lying p.r.o.ne on the ivied wall of the orchard of Ladykirk and listening to the talk of Patsy and Miss Aline, who were sitting beneath in a creeper-covered "tonelle,"

work-baskets by their sides, and as peaceful as if Ladykirk had been Eden on the eve of the coming of the serpent.

"Well," said Miss Aline, a little pleasantly tremulous with a sense of living among wild adventure, "have you had any news to-day? I saw your four-footed friend waiting for you at the corner of the shrubbery!"

"My Lord Wargrove has been to call upon Earl Raincy at the Castle," said Patsy with unusual demureness. "Louis could not tell what he wanted, but at any rate Earl Raincy promptly sent him and his insolence to--a place you have heard of in church. He said it so loud and plain that the whole house heard him, and he added remarks about royal dukes which would have brought him to the scaffold along with his grandfather, if only he had lived a century earlier."

"Perhaps the man only wanted to find out if you were there. Well, now--" Miss Aline pondered, "the thing is not so foolish as it looks. For little Lady Raincy, Louis's mother, might have secreted you somewhere and never told the earl. The Castle is big enough, I'm sure. But, my dear, you are better here. I am glad that you gave me the preference."

At this moment there was a stir up at the house of Ladykirk, whereupon the spy modestly retired. He did not mind listening to the talk of women, spread-eagled on the wall and hidden by the yew shade, but then, again, he might chance upon men who were looking for him and find himself very suddenly with a gunshot through him, or packed along with the c.o.c.kroaches in the grimy hold of the _Good Intent_. Captain Penman was a singularly unsociable s.h.i.+pmate at the best of times for a man of Eben's profession, and might even go the length of throwing him overboard some dark night, merely, as it were, in order to lighten s.h.i.+p.

So the spy betook himself to a little fir-wood which commanded the entrance of Ladykirk, the avenue, the flowery borders of the parterres, the laurel copses, and the clumps of rhododendron through which the white statues peered.

McClure was not long in finding out that Whitefoot had one favourite mode of entering Ladykirk policies, a way contrived by himself. At the corner of the vegetable garden the wall ran to the edge of a ha-ha and there stopped short. A beech hedge met the masonry at right angles, and just at the point of juncture the hedge thinned off a little. Whitefoot had observed this, and was in the habit of racing like an arrow towards it, and taking a leap across the ha-ha. Then, with his nose close to the ground, he pa.s.sed through the hole in the beech-hedge with undiminished speed, skirted a flouris.h.i.+ng rhubarb plantation, and so emerged into the shaded path which led directly to the back door of the house.

As Eben McClure lay and watched, a plan flashed into his mind. By it he saw that he would put the son of the King, and with him my Lord of Wargrove, under everlasting obligations--such obligations as could not be denied or escaped. Scottish law did not treat the abduction of heiresses against their will in a gentle spirit, and before the northern courts the son of the King would be in no better case than the sons of Rob Roy, with whose exploits in this direction a taste for the reading of chap-books had made him familiar.

McClure had not the least doubt that, against his own judgment, Lord Wargrove had been compelled to call at Castle Raincy to ask for the loan of a carriage and horses, only to receive a rebuff from the haughty old Jacobite who held rule there.

Clearly, then, the princely party at Abbey Burnfoot must want a.s.sistance very badly, and would be willing to pay very highly for it. He, Eben McClure, was the man who would supply all that was necessary. He felt already that modest pride which comes to an intelligent, fore-thoughted man among a people of no initiative. He would take the whole matter into his own care. Single-handed he would carry it through, but at a price, a price to be arranged beforehand.

Now Eben McClure of Stonykirk, though held a traitor by the countryside, came of no mean parentage. The McClures are a strong clan, and the running of many cargoes has made them well-to-do. The day of their desperate deeds is over. They prefer the cattle-market and the tussle of wit with wit, matching knowledge with cunning in the arena of the "private bargain."

All these and an infinity of other characteristics were united in the burly person of Kennedy McClure of Supsorrow. A man of sixty, stout and hardy, he still added field to field. He laid out every s.h.i.+lling of his money wisely. He spent little, gave less, and swallowed up every neighbouring piece of property which came into the market. If a man were in difficulties, Kennedy McClure waited for the time when he would be ready to accept an offer for such and such a meadow or stretch of corn-land which he had long coveted. He would not cheat. He would pay the proper price in ringing guineas, but he must have the first chance.

And then, overjoyed by the mere sight of the added acres, he would pace the newly acquired territory with a step to which a full figure lent importance, a certain pride of bearing which went well with the length of his purse, and the authority which could be felt in his least word.

Kennedy kept up a certain parade of humility, but his looks and walk belied him. A Royal Commission once approached him with a summons to give evidence as to a plague of voles which was desolating the fertile fields of the south-west, and his opinion was valuable because he had recently acquired by purchase the great, barren hill called Ben Marrick.

"What is your business?" said the chairman, a profound English agriculturist, with as profound an ignorance of the fine shades of Galloway speech.

"_I work on the land_," said Kennedy McClure with smileless deference.

"What, a farm labourer?" said the great man; "this is first-hand evidence indeed. Well, I suppose that you have studied the devastation caused by these animals on the--the--what is the name--ah, yes, Ben Marrick?"

"My lord," said the many-acred "farm labourer," "there is never a vole on the Ben o' Marrick. The vole is far ower good a judge of land to waste his time on the Marrick."

It needed the intervention of the local clerk of the commission to convince the chairman that he was talking to a man far richer than himself, besides being experienced and sage to the confines of rural wisdom.

It was to this kinsman that Eben McClure was thinking of making an appeal. He knew that along with the property, Kennedy had taken over the carriage and capitally matched horses of the late laird of Glen Marrick.

Perhaps he would lend them to a kinsman in order to oblige a Royal Duke.

He need not be too precise as to what the Royal Duke wanted them for if the pay were good and sure.