Patsy Part 39

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 G.o.dfrey 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-gla.s.s, "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, la.s.sie. Think shame, la.s.sie!" and dabbed at his eyes and blew his nose with a bandanna handkerchief with the noise of many trumpets.

"Guid-day to ye, la.s.s, 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 G.o.dfrey 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 sh.o.r.e 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-fas.h.i.+oned 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. _I_ certainly 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 b.a.l.l.s and levees--how she had met with Kennedy McClure, and how she had come all the way in the _Good Intent_ to 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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!"

n.o.body 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.

CHAPTER x.x.xVII

A PICTISH HONEYMOON

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 gra.s.ses 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 role 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, n.o.body 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 pa.s.sed 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?"