Patsy Part 13

"I think," said a voice, "you had better let me manage her--for the present, that is. She has just bitten me. Ah--quick with that Indian shawl. Thank you, my Lord. We must keep her from crying out. Now, my pretty, there you are with your ankles tied and your hands kept from mischief, so we shall soon reconcile ourselves!"

Patsy strove vehemently, but the arm about her was strong. Her feet and hands were fastened with soft swathes of silk, while about her mouth and chin the Indian shawl proved an efficient gag.

She could hear the clatter of the horses' feet, and was conscious of the rapid movement of the carriage. Once or twice the man on the front seat leaned over and spoke soothingly to her, or so at least it seemed. But he appeared to be sorely at a loss for words.

"You will be glad of all this to-morrow," she recognized the thick voice of the man whom she had made hold her wool; "you shall be my little black pearl!"

"Better let her come round of herself, your Highness," said the man who held her. "They take it a bit hard at first, but after the anger and the tears, then it will be time to argue with her."

The man addressed as "your Highness" dropped back into his seat, and for a long time nothing was heard but the changeful clatter of the shod feet of horses. Patsy sat m.u.f.fled and helpless, conscious that she had been trapped, but determined that since somebody had dared, somebody also should die before a hand was laid upon her. She felt strangely at home.

Her Pictish blood spoke--perhaps still older bloods, too, within her. It was somehow perfectly natural that a man should try to carry her off.

She was obscurely but surely aware that men of her race had done things like that. But then, also, they did them at their peril. And Patsy the Pict felt herself strong enough for these things. It was the age of Miss Jane Austen's dainty heroines. Miss f.a.n.n.y Burney was still at court, writing in her _Diary_ that the King was very happy and innocent, imagining himself each day in intimate converse with the angels.

But Patsy had no idea of fainting. Tears were far indeed from her eyes.

She was only calling herself a fool, and wis.h.i.+ng that she had thought to bring her little dagger with her--the double-edged one that Julian Wemyss had given her on his return from the Canary Islands, black leather sheath scrolled in gold to be worn in the stocking. Still since she had not that, why, she would take the first weapon that came to her hand. And whenever they ran dear of the fog, which happened at the top of every considerable hill, her little white teeth gleamed in the darkness with something like antic.i.p.ation.

"Up, Louis, out with you--they are away! The Prince has carried off Patsy. Here is your pony. Get in the saddle. I must manage without!"

Unceremoniously Stair Garland awaked Louis from his drowse in the cave's mouth. He had ridden down from Castle Raincy to see if he could help.

The moment had come and Stair had not disappointed him.

"They are already on the road--in a carriage--Kennedy McClure's, I think," said Stair; "stand still there, Derry Down, or by the Holy--!"

And he leaped into his saddle which was no more than the corn-sack doubled and fastened close with broad bands of tape, used to go under the heavy pack saddles when a run was forward.

"Where have they gone? Are they far ahead of us?" questioned Louis.

"They are on the military road--in a carriage and pair, going west. They cannot get off it. But if you can trust your pony, we can cut corners and ride as we like."

"Of course," said Louis; "show me the way--you know it better than I!"

So, each on his deft, sure-footed Galloway pony, like their ancestors of the English forays of which Froissart tells, the two lads plunged into the night.

They sped along the barren side of the Moors, taking any path or none, whisking through the tall broom and leaping the whins. The ponies took naturally to the sport. Sometimes the going was heavier, but not for so little did the animals slacken. They were to the manner born, and minded no more the deep black ruts of the peat, which in the more easterly country are called "hags," than the open military road along which the carriage was bowling.

The heather was mostly short and easy--"bull's fell" heather as it was named. Tall cotton gra.s.s flaunted up suddenly through the slaty haze of the night of pursuit. The plant called "Honesty" with its flat, white seed vessels, gaunt and startling, swished past them, the dry pods crackling among their horses' legs.

Mostly they rode easily, swaying to the movements of their beasts, letting the little horses do the work as the Lord of the moors gave them wisdom to do--using no whip or spur--these were not needed--and very little guidance of rein. The little Galloways, Louis's black "Honeypot"

and Stair's "Derry Down," picked their way swiftly and cleanly. They might have been steering by the stars. But it was only their instinct sense of smell which told them when they were approaching a bog too soft to be negotiated. Then they would turn their faces to the hill, questing for the good odour of the "gall" or bog-myrtle, which is the characteristic smell of good going in the Galloway wilderness. Stretches of that delightful plant surround all bogs, mora.s.ses and other dangerously wet spots, but the little beasts knew that so far as they were concerned they were safe where the gall bushes grew. And, indeed, it was well to keep wide. On the moorland face the silver flowes glittered unwholesomely, deadly as quicksands in the Bay of Luce. It was marvellous to see how gingerly the little beasts footed it in such places. Never did they let a foot sink to the fetlock. With a quick flinging swerve, they cast themselves to the side of safety and the foot would come loose with the "cloop" of an opening bottle.

Sometimes the sand was firm, and then they would scour fearlessly along it with many tossings of their heads and playful attempts at biting one another. But so soon as they came upon the green froth of the "quaking bogs" or the snake-bell s.h.i.+ne of the s.h.i.+vering sands, it was each for himself again--or rather for himself and herself, for Stair's mount was a small barren mare, which in such things is even better than a horse, better and more cunning, besides being more companionable for her journey-mate.

They rode through banks of midges so huge that they almost reached the dignity of mosquitoes. For where in the world except on the lonely road past Clatteringshaws and the Loch of the Lilies, can you meet with midges which for number and ferocity can compare with those of the Moors of Wigtons.h.i.+re? Sometimes the two lads, riding easy, would come to water. This was a negotiation which was better left to Honeypot and Derry Down. If the water was black and peaty with a heavy smell of rotting vegetation, the ponies knew it, but if they scented the fresh rush of a hill burn, or the soft coolness of an arm of sandy-bottomed loch, then Louis and Stair would suddenly feel the cool sluicing of water about their legs, causing them to turn their pistol belts over their shoulders, where Stair already carried his long-barrelled gun with the stock upwards.

"We shall close upon them at the White Loch," said Stair, during one of these pauses. "They have a long detour to make. I would rather have waited till they had got to the crossing of the Tarf, but that is too far for our beasts on these short nights of June."

(He meant the Wigtons.h.i.+re Tarf, which comes from far Laggangairn and the b.l.o.o.d.y Moss, not the shorter, fiercer tributary of the Dee.)

"The White Loch be it," said Louis, for indeed it was all the same to him. He was out to fight for Patsy, and fight he would. He did not care what his grandfather might say, nor what penalties he might incur. What Stair Garland was ready to do for Patsy, surely he had the better right to be a partner in.

They drove through a herd of kyloes recently sent down from Highland hills to try their luck on Galloway heather. The horns clicked sharply together. There was a whisking scamper of hoofs as the beasts fled every way, only to bunch anew a little farther out of the path of these wild riders.

Now Stair and Louis found themselves on a kind of track, narrow and stony underfoot. The blackfaced sheep of the hills had made it so, with their little pattering trotters which dug out a stone at every step.

Above was a waste of boulder, grey teeth grinning through the black heather. They began to see more clearly, for they were now far above the mist, into which they would not again need to descend till they should reach the White Loch and cut down to head off their prey, comfortably rolling Gretnawards--a duke royal, a peer of the realm, and a spy with a promise of fortune in his breastpocket, all looking after Patsy Ferris, the daughter of the Picts, and drawn by Kennedy McClure's excellent pair of horses along the best road in all the south country.

Sometimes a wilder track led Stair and Louis unbreathed across an open moor, the path being too narrow to ride abreast, when it was the mare's privilege to lead. She snuffed the air, and even while keeping to her pace, would reach forward her neck to smell the better. Derry Down knew that she was on one of the old "drove roads" by which horses had been driven to the eastern fairs and trysts for hundreds of years, before ever Lord Hillsborough came into the land, or the pick of a governmental sapper had been set in the heather.

Generally the pursuers kept wide of all human habitation. They could see the stars now, and so in a manner choose their direction. The details they left to the horses, and especially to Stair's wise "Derry Down."

But the scent of a single "keeping" peat in a herd's house would send them all up the hill again. It had been carefully bent over the red ashes to hold them alight till the morrow, for the goodwife's greater ease on rising, and also because it was the immemorial custom of all Moor folk from Killantringan even to the Moss of Cree.

A fly-by-night b.u.mblebee, honey-drunk, followed the cavalcade blunderingly a little way, perhaps in the hope that they who seemed to know their way so well, might lead him safely home, ring the door-bell for him, and tumble him into the lobby of his home under the bent tussock where he fain would be. Nevermore would he stay out so late again. So much he would gladly promise the reproachful wife who had sat up for his coming.

But the ponies drew away, and there was nothing for him but to snuggle down with a buzz and a grumble among the wet bluebells and wait for daybreak, for sobriety and with it a new sense of direction.

Occasionally Stair urged his mare forward, though only by a closer clip of the knees. She was a willing beast, and responded gallantly. It was easy going now, and the night was speeding quickly. Presently they would need to go down the side of the fell, and skirt the White Water to their ambush place at the head of the Loch. Of this last, Stair thought exclusively. But with more of the mystery of an older race about him, Louis Raincy listened to the firs whispering confidences overhead as they sped downhill. Then came the birches' clean rustle--for the burn they were following led them among copses where the legs of the horses risped with a pleasant sound through the lash of leaves.

The ponies were going easily now, their masters being sure that they were far in advance of their time. They had cut the circle cleanly, and those they were pursuing would have to make nearly three times the distance they had traversed.

Besides, Patsy's captors did not know they were being pursued. Never once did the "clash of the spurs" warn them that Care and his hors.e.m.e.n rode behind.

As the two came down from the high moors, tracking cautiously through the woods and stray belts of culture which hung about the thatched steadings and shy, deep-hidden farm-towns, a wildness awoke in Stair Garland. The little mare, Derry Down, responded to his mood. She held her head high, and capered like an unbitted yearling fresh off the first spring pastures.

Louis rode more quietly and also more steadily, and especially so when at last they got down to a made road in the valley of the White Water.

Here Louis had several times to urge his companion to save the beasts a little, for if they rescued Patsy, they would need to bring her home on one or the other of them.

"We have to settle our accounts first," said Stair, "then we will think about taking her back to those who knew so ill how to protect her!"

He was silent a moment and then added as if in pity for Louis's ignorance, "See here, man, this is all my country. Think you there is a farm where I could not leave the ponies and get the loan of other? We are on the main caravan trail of the Free Traffickers, and there are few hereabouts who would venture to refuse Stair Garland."

Perhaps there was some boyish pride in this, but Louis had been long enough within the sound of the jingling anker chains and the creaking pack saddles to know that Stair spoke well within the truth. He felt with a sudden pang that in this rescue of Patsy he was playing a very secondary part. But the true n.o.bility of soul shown by Stair Garland was not at the time revealed to him. He did not understand the reason why Stair had brought him at all. It was because he disdained to take an advantage. He would not magnify himself in Patsy's eyes while Louis, unwarned, slept in his bed at Castle Raincy.

Whatever the odds against him, Stair would give his adversary the floor, and at the end of the day accept the umpire's judgment as to which was the better man.

CHAPTER XII

PATSY'S RESCUE

Like a greyhound coursing sped the little mare. After Derry Down stretched the more st.u.r.dily built Honeypot. He made no flourishes with head or tail but simply laid well into his work, going so fast that his rider Louis Raincy seemed to be bending to meet a strong wind. The hedges and tree clumps poured behind as water from the prow of a wind-driven boat in a difficult sea-way.

Three or four times Louis tried to stop his companion, but Stair had a spot in his mind where he could hold up the carriage. It was a sharp angle of road, designed in days when levels and gradients were unthought of, and still permitted to linger on to the danger of travellers' necks.

In fact the White Loch elbow remains to the moment of writing, in spite of all modern improvements, a trap for the unwary, merely because a laird's lodge-gate lies a few hundred feet to the north, and any new road must cut a shaving off the entrance to his avenue.

But that night Stair made use of the gates manorial. Tying their ponies to trees, they lifted the heavy gates off their hinges and "angled" them skillfully across the road so as to form a barrier which must stop the horses and carriage. Stair would have set up the barricade between the double turn of the S-shaped curve, but Louis pointed out that if the carriage went over the bridge, Patsy might very well be injured. So the gates were ultimately placed where the horses would be halted while ascending the long after slope with slackened pace.