Patsy Part 3

Patsy nodded brightly to her visitors, and the officers saluted, without, however, abandoning their gravity. The third man, a long, lean, hook-nosed fellow with curly black hair plastered about his brow and tied in a greasy fall of ringlets on his shoulders, frowned and growled.

He had understood at once that the game was up. If the authority had been his, he would have had the sailors and marines scouring the hillside and searching every rift in the rocks.

"May I ask you," said Captain Laurence, a tall, good-looking, blond officer, bowing to Patsy, "where the young men Garland are to be found?

We had come with warrants for their taking. This is His Majesty's press."

"Ah," said Patsy easily, "so you are the press-gang--let me look at you.

I have never seen a 'press' before. Where are your handcuffs? Which of you is the chief executioner? You tie up the poor fellows, they tell me."

"I must ask you to explain your presence here," said Captain Laurence, who had grown hot all over at being spoken to in this fas.h.i.+on.

"This is the Maid Marian of the gang," suggested Lieutenant Everard of the _Britomart_, with a sneer. "I have seen something like this get up in the Gulf of Corinth."

"Then you are a lucky man," said the captain of dragoons. "All the same I must ask you to account for your presence here, young lady."

"Rather might I ask you to explain yours," said Patsy, breathing on a gla.s.s, rubbing it, and holding it up to the light. "You are trespa.s.sing on my father's ground--and from what I see of your arms, in pursuit of game!"

"And who is your father, madame?"

"I have quite as good a right to ask you for the name of yours!"

The officers laughed and glanced at each other.

"Not quite," said the dragoon; "you observe that we are on special duty--"

"I should indeed hope so," said Patsy, standing up with her drying-cloth in her hand and shaking it contemptuously at them. "Special duty, indeed, that means the chasing of honest men and honest men's sons at the bidding of spies!"

"It is a duty which I perform as seldom as possible," said Captain Laurence. "Naturally I would rather be fighting the foes of my king and country, but as to that I am not consulted. Besides, the naval and military forces of the realm must be recruited in some way or other!"

"I should have thought that treating men like criminals was not the best way to make brave soldiers of them!"

"Tell us your father's name," broke in Lieutenant Everard, a small dark man, very nervous and restless, with eyes that winked continually and impatient fingers that fiddled endlessly with the ta.s.sel of his sword-hilt. "We will not be put off longer. The men are escaping all the time while you are left here to hold us in talk. If he be, as you say, a gentleman and a magistrate, he will give us a.s.sistance in our search, according to his oath."

"My father's name is Adam Ferris, of Cairn Ferris," said Patsy, pleasantly. "But whether he will be at your service or not, I cannot tell. As for me, if you are the gallant gentlemen you look, you will bring me a pailful of fresh water from the spring--see, yonder at the foot of the rock--ah, thank you!"

"Captain, we are wasting valuable time," insinuated Eben McClure, the superintendent of recruitment, touching the officer lightly on the arm.

"Keep your dirty fingers off my sleeve, sir, and go to the devil. I command here. Miss Ferris, I beg your pardon. I may as well fetch a pair when I am about it."

Captain Laurence had noticed that the second pail contained very little water. So with a quick heave he sent a s.h.i.+ning spout in the direction of the spy, who was drenched from knee to shoe-buckle. Then he caught up the pails with a clash of their iron handles and with the easiest swagger in the world took the direction of the spring, his spurs jingling as he went. A sailor on guard behind the rock would have aided him to fill them, but he told the man to keep his station, and dipped for himself. He brought them back br.i.m.m.i.n.g and with a courtly bow inquired of Patsy if she had any further commands for him, because if not he must go about the duties of his service.

Patsy thanked him with the distinctive simplicity of one who has officers of dragoons to carry water for her every day of her life. But she went to the door and showed Captain Laurence the way over the ridges to the house of Cairn Ferris. "My father is likely to be at home," she said, "but if you do not find him, he is sure to be at my Uncle Julian's at the Abbey. You have only to follow the glen."

"Your uncle?" said Captain Laurence, "your father's brother?"

"No, my mother's," said Patsy. "Mr. Julian Wemyss of Auchenyards and Wellwood--and the best man in the world--the wisest too!"

"I shall have pleasure in making the acquaintance of your uncle; his family (and that of your mother) is from my part of Scotland."

He bowed low and withdrew. The lieutenant of the _Britomart_ and the Superintendent of Enlistments were in a state of incipient lunacy. Oh, the fool! They would break him if they could. They would write to the Secretary. They would--but as they growled and cursed behind him, Eben McClure suddenly remembered that Julian Wemyss and my Lord Erskine were first cousins, and that so long as the government remained in office, it would be advisable to stand well with all friends and neighbours of the Secretary, Erskines, Wemysses, Melvilles, wherever found. He was unpopular enough in the country as it was. He could not afford to be "ill seen" at headquarters as well.

Patsy found herself left alone in the bothy. But she knew that the two men who had not spoken would certainly leave some hidden spy to watch whether the young men returned, or if she attempted to communicate with them.

Therefore she did not hasten. Jean would arrive before long with the garments in which she had left home, and which she had shed, as it were providentially, to be able to run the better across the sands of Killantringan and the heathery fastnesses of the Wild of Blairmore.

Hardly had Patsy gotten the bothy to her liking--or something like it--when Jean arrived, full of wonder and joy. She carried a parcel under her arm, done up carefully in her neckerchief.

"It is a pity to change," she said, "you will never look so pretty again!"

And she detailed with the admiration of generous youth the beauty of the black locks, waved tightly about the small head, the pale blue linen gown girt with the sash of scarlet silk, and the cross-gartered sandals, showing Patsy's brown skin and pretty ankles half-way to the knee.

"It is a great shame," she repeated, "that you can't go about like that all the time."

"I shall think it over," said Patsy; "but if I went to the kirk on Sabbath dressed as you would have me, I believe Mr. MacCanny would have me turned out."

"Yes," said the loyal Jean, "because n.o.body would be able to attend to his sermon for looking at you!"

"But what are the lads going to do?"

"Oh," said Jean, "they have two or three places handy for lying up in.

They are snug by this time. At least Fergus and Agnew are. Stair I met on my way here. He was lurking in a moss-hag with his gun ready for the first red-coat or blue-jacket who should lift a hand to you."

"Send him off to join the rest," said Patsy more seriously. "I never was in the least danger, and there is no doubt but that the man McClure has left some of his rascals to watch the bothy."

"Then High Heaven help them if they come across Stair and his blunderbuss. He will bring them down like so many partridges. Not even father can manage Stair. He will take orders from no one, except in matters of the farm. He is a good boy, and has great influence among the young fellows, for he will stick at nothing. But he is easily angered, proud, and often both reckless and desperate. You may be sure that he will not leave you till he sees you safe in your own valley and among your own people."

Patsy heard this with outward impatience, but, like every girl, with something also of inward pride. She smiled at what Louis Raincy would have to say to this constant watchfulness, and how she herself would like it when next Louis and she climbed up to their "Nest" for one of their long talks. Would Louis be in danger from the bullets of the arrogant Stair?

She wondered if what Uncle Julian said could indeed be true--that though the men's secret of the heather ale had been lost, the women of the Picts would keep theirs and whistle men to heel, as sheep-dogs follow their masters. Uncle Julian said that she had in her the blood of Boadicca, who once on a day was a queen of the Picts far to the south.

But, after all, Uncle Julian jested so often, even when he appeared most serious, that you could not tell whether he meant it or no.

It would be nice if it were true, thought Patsy, but, after all, just because Uncle Julian said so did not make it true.

"Your daughter, sir," said Lieutenant Everard, half an hour later, "has aided the escape of three young men, all deeply implicated in breaking the laws of the land."

It was in the ancient hall of Cairn Ferris that Adam, tall, black and solemn, was receiving unexpected visitors. The hall, oak-beamed and still lighted mainly by tall, narrow windows, originally slotted for arrow and blunderbuss, was discouraging for men in search of the support of a modern justice of the peace.

The chief of a clan, some of whose members had been cattle-lifting, might have received them so.

"What men? What laws?" demanded Adam Ferris.

"The young men Garland, sons of one of your tenants," said the officer; "and as for the laws, they are those of His Majesty's excise."

"Ah," said Adam, dryly, "pardon me. Your uniform misled me. From your dress I took you for a naval officer."

"And so I am," cried Lieutenant Everard indignantly; "of His Majesty's s.h.i.+p _Britomart_, presently cruising in these waters."