Patsy Part 19

Patsy set out for London with some pomp and circ.u.mstance. Quite unwittingly she had made herself a kind of idol in the countryside. The tale had been told of how she had run to warn the Bothy of Blairmore, how she had faced the press-gang that the Glenanmays lads might have time to escape. She had been carried off and rescued. Men had been shot and died for her sake. Louis had taken her to Castle Raincy for safety, and now, girt with a formidable escort, she was setting out to visit London, where it was reported that she should see the King and be the guest of royalty itself.

The old Earl had offered his coach for the journey, and early one September morning he brought Patsy out on his arm, and threw in after her his own driving-coat, made after the fas.h.i.+on of the Four-in-Hand Club--the very "Johnny Onslow" model, with fifteen capes, silk-lined and finished,--lest she should take cold on the way.

"My dear," he said, "fain would I have made you a present of another sort, but your uncle tells me that you are amply supplied with pocket-money, and so you take with you an old man's good will, and would have his blessing, too, if only he thought that of any value!"

Patsy had said good-bye the night before to her Uncle Julian, and had received from him a netted purse which was even then weighing down her pretty beaded reticule. Patsy had not thought that there could be so much money in the world, and she had cried out, "Oh Uncle Ju, is all this really for me? What in the world shall I ever do with it?"

"You will spend it, my dear," he said smilingly, "that and far more.

London is a great place for running away with money! There are so many pretty things to buy."

"Can't I give some of it to Stair Garland and his sister Jean?"

"I have no doubt that you would like to," said her uncle. "Was there ever a Wemyss yet who could be trusted not to throw away money? But it seems as if your Master Stair and I would be a good deal together in the future, and you may safely leave that part of it to me. Stair and Jean shall not lack."

"Uncle Ju," cried Patsy, almost dancing, "are you going to smuggle? What fun!"

"As you say, what fun! Well, there is some smuggling to be done, but I am the contraband goods this time, and I must trust your friend Stair to help me over the sea. He and I are marked down, and we shall both have to run and hide so long as we stay in this country. Even such paladins as he and I cannot go righting the wrongs of distressed maidens without a certain danger, when the ogres and giants are royal Princes and their favourites."

Thus, on the morning of the twenty-fourth of September, just one hundred years ago, Patsy was handed into the coach by Earl Raincy, who stood back with bared head to see her ride out of the courtyard of the Castle.

Her father was on one side, mounted on his big black horse, and Louis Raincy guarded the left flank on "Honeypot." He was to convoy the party as far as Carlisle and then return.

But at the gate of Ladykirk stood a dainty old lady, equipped for journey. Miss Aline was going to London. She was quite shaking with the excitement, and pulled at her openwork mitts with smiling expectancy.

"My dear," she said, "I am coming with you. I think it is more proper. I shall set you down at the house where you propose to stay, and I have taken a room at Ibbetson's Hotel, which is a well-known house, at very reasonable charges, much frequented by the clergy."

"Oh, Miss Aline," cried Patsy, "I am sure you are giving yourself a great deal of trouble. You would be much better at Ladykirk."

"'Deed then no," said Miss Aline, dropping into the vacant place beside Patsy. "'Tis the only chance I shall ever have to see London before I die, and I have given Tibbie, the cook, all instructions about the plums and the heather honey. The jam has been a great fret to me this year, and I deserve a bit jaunt. So I will e'en ride in this braw carriage all the road to London, and Eelen Young, the la.s.s that does for me, will bring on my kists by the coach. She is a clever wench, and very likely will be at Ibbetson's before me. At any rate I have nothing with me but this bandbox with a night-rail and a change of apparel, such as is suitable for posting-inns. You have, I see, plenty of men-folk to escort you, and, as I jalouse, more to follow--but what you need is a well-born gentlewoman of comfortable means for a duenna! Oh, ye will try to come round me with your 'Miss Aline's,' and your coaxing. But as long as ye are under my care, off to bed ye shall march at a reasonable hour. Then I shall lock the door on ye and keep the key under my pillow. I lost ye once out of Ladykirk when ye slippit out at the back door. But this time ye shall have a better gaoler. Hear ye that, Mistress Patsy?"

There was nothing to be said, and, indeed, it was a great sacrifice which Miss Aline was making in the upturning of all her cherished habits, and the abandoning of her dear Ladykirk in the season of all others which she preferred--the time, as she expressed it, "of the ingathering of the fruits of the earth."

The "more to follow," by which Miss Aline had intimated an addition to Patsy's escort, was in waiting a little farther on at the head of the Long Wood. Stair Garland and twenty-five of his best horsed and most gallant lads stood waiting to fall in behind the carriage. As Patsy came near she put her head out at the window and cried, "Oh, Stair, is it safe?"

But Stair only smiled, and took his broad blue bonnet off with a sweep which caused the eagle's plume in it to touch the dust. The twenty-five behind him uncovered also. They made a gallant show, every man with his carbine slung over his shoulder by the broad bandolier strap which crossed his chest, his cloak and provender rolled on the pommel of his saddle, and his bridle and spurs jingling as the ponies fidgeted restlessly in the narrow s.p.a.ce.

Then Stair commanded, "File out there," as the carriage rumbled into the shades of the wood and took the direction of the White Loch, and Patsy remembered that other journey and the dreadful uncertainty of it. She shut her eyes and recalled it till she shuddered so that Miss Aline asked if she were cold. She had never lost faith in her friends even then, and now Louis was riding close to the left window of the carriage, and Stair Garland, with his hors.e.m.e.n, guarding her, sending her forth out of her own country as hardly a Princess had ever left Galloway.

They sent the Earl's team back from Dumfries. Stair Garland and his company rode with them over the wild marshes of Solway moss to the Bridge of Gretna, where they formed into two lines, and between them Patsy pa.s.sed into England. Patsy looked out and kissed her hand to them.

They were all sitting still on their wiry little beasts except Stair, who had dismounted, and stood uncovered till the carriage, with its two flanking riders, had pa.s.sed into the distance. Stair got blown a kiss all to himself, but if he saw it he took no notice, and so was left standing pensive and motionless by the end of Gretna Bridge, the last thing that Patsy could see on Scottish ground, except the top of Criffel wreathed in thin pearly mist of the evening.

Louis, save for the glory of keeping on a little farther than Stair Garland, might very profitably have gone back with the troop of twenty-five. Few would observe too closely the road chosen by such a cavalcade. Supervisors drew back into convenient shelters. Outposts on craggy summits, after one long look, shut up the reglementary bra.s.s three-draw spy-gla.s.s and sat down with their backs to the road to smoke a pipe. But Louis Raincy was to stay a night at Corby Castle before turning his face homeward again towards his mother and grandfather.

When the time came to part Patsy held out her hand frankly to Louis.

"Thank you for coming so far," she said, "I shall not say good-bye, for we shall soon be meeting in London, and you will be ever so grand in your new uniform. The ladies will dote upon you. I shall tell them all you are coming."

"Patsy," said poor Louis, "you are very cruel to me. You know I shall only care for you in all the world."

"Fudge!" said Patsy irreverently, "you will like every single one of the pretty girls--the really pretty girls, I mean--who admire you, and if you don't know I shall tell you what to say to them."

"Patsy--!"

"Yes, I know, so you think now, but wait till you have had two or three months of being an officer of dragoons and the heir to an earldom--I wager that no Waters of Lethe would make you forget your old comrade Patsy Ferris so completely!"

"Oh, Patsy," groaned Louis, "do not laugh!--You did not use to talk like that in our nest under the big beech. Do not break my heart!"

"Strange to think," mused Patsy, "that it will not even affect his appet.i.te. Louis Raincy, c.o.c.k your beaver on the side of your head. Cry, 'I don't care a b.u.t.ton for you, Patsy Ferris' and ride away without once looking behind, and if you could do that--I verily believe I should run after you. But let me tell you, sir, whimpering never won a woman--at least not one like me!"

She turned and entered the carriage, which started at once on its pleasant journey through the Westmoreland dales towards the south.

Miss Aline was sitting with her handkerchief to her eyes when Patsy sat down beside her.

"Why, what in the world is the matter, dear Miss Aline?" cried Patsy.

"I do think you might have been kinder to him," said the old lady. "I could not bear you to send him away like that."

"All for his good," said Patsy easily. "He has been too long mollied over by his mother, besides getting all his own way from his grandfather. But ... before I finish I shall make a man of Master Louis!"

"And Stair Garland?" ventured Miss Aline, taking one swift glance sidelong at Patsy's dark, decided face.

"Oh, Stair Garland," said Patsy with emphasis, "he is a man already. As old Dupont, my French governess, used to say, Stair Garland was born with the 'panache.'"

"And what does that mean?"

"Why, that he was born with his hat-plume in the wind and his hand on a sword-hilt. But I am not sure that he has not been born a century or so too late. What a soldier of fortune he would make, what a cavalry leader, what an adventurer--what a lover!"

"But, my dear," said Miss Aline, speaking very softly, "what a very dangerous man to think of marrying!"

Patsy slid her hand under the silken half-mitt of fine lace and stroked the little dry, trembling hand which nestled into hers.

"Little angel, I am not thinking of marrying Stair Garland," she laughed; "rest easy in that dear peaceful soul of yours."

"I am so glad," said Miss Aline, furtively dabbing at her eyes. "Louis, there, is like a boy of my own, and he has always been good and brave.

One feels so safe with him--"

"Oh, please don't turn me against the poor lad!" cried Patsy, stuffing her fingers into her ears that she might hear no more of Louis Raincy's praises.

"And the other--that Stair Garland?" Miss Aline continued, with a certain unusual sharpness, "he is so wild. He rides at the head of gangs of smugglers and defies everybody, even the minister and my Lord Raincy.

I am sure that he would be very insusceptible to proper domestic influences. I doubt if even you could tame him."

"I doubt if I should want him tamed!" said Patsy, with the same dark gleam in her eye with which her uncle had gone out upon Calais sands to kill my Lord Wargrove.

And at this gentle Miss Aline sighed. She did not always understand Patsy.