Huntingtower Part 20

"The sea," Heritage repeated in a dazed voice.

"Ay, the sea. Think what that means. If they had been coming by the roads, we could have kept track of them, even if they beat us, and some of these laddies could have stuck to them and followed them up till help came. It can't be such an easy job to carry a young lady against her will along Scotch roads. But the sea's a different matter. If they've got a fast boat they could be out of the Firth and away beyond the law before we could wake up a single policeman. Ay, and even if the Government took it up and warned all the ports and s.h.i.+ps at sea, what's to hinder them to find a hidy-hole about Ireland--or Norway? I tell you, it's a far more desperate business than I thought, and it'll no' do to wait on and trust that the Chief Constable will turn up afore the mischief's done."

"The moral," said Heritage, "is that there can be no surrender. We've got to stick it out in this old place at all costs."

"No," said d.i.c.kson emphatically. "The moral is that we must s.h.i.+ft the ladies. We've got the chance while Dobson and his friends are locked up.

Let's get them as far away as we can from the sea. They're far safer tramping the moors, and it's no' likely the new folk will dare to follow us."

"But I cannot go." Saskia, who had been listening intently, shook her head. "I promised to wait here till my friend came. If I leave I shall never find him."

"If you stay you certainly never will, for you'll be away with the ruffians. Take a sensible view, Mem. You'll be no good to your friend or your friend to you if before night you're rocking in a s.h.i.+p."

The girl shook her head again, gently but decisively. "It was our arrangement. I cannot break it. Besides, I am sure that he will come in time, for he has never failed----"

There was a desperate finality about the quiet tones and the weary face with the shadow of a smile on it.

Then Heritage spoke. "I don't think your plan will quite do, Dogson.

Supposing we all break for the hinterland and the Danish brig finds the birds flown, that won't end the trouble. They will get on the Princess's trail, and the whole persecution will start again. I want to see things brought to a head here and now. If we can stick it out here long enough, we may trap the whole push and rid the world of a pretty gang of miscreants. Once let them show their hand, and then, if the police are here by that time, we can jug the lot for piracy or something worse."

"That's all right," said Dougal, "but we'd put up a better fight if we had the women off our mind. I've aye read that when a castle was going to be besieged the first thing was to rid get of the civilians."

"Sensible to the last, Dougal," said d.i.c.kson approvingly. "That's just what I'm saying. I'm strong for a fight, but put the ladies in a safe bit first, for they're our weak point."

"Do you think that if you were fighting my enemies, I would consent to be absent?" came Saskia's reproachful question.

"'Deed no, Mem," said d.i.c.kson heartily. His martial spirit was with Heritage, but his prudence did not sleep, and he suddenly saw a way of placating both. "Just you listen to what I propose. What do we amount to? Mr. Heritage, six laddies, and myself--and I'm no more used to fighting than an old wife. We've seven desperate villains against us, and afore night they may be seventy. We've a fine old castle here, but for defence we want more than stone walls--we want a garrison. I tell you we must get help somewhere. Ay, but how, says you? Well, coming here I noticed a gentleman's house away up ayont the railway and close to the hills. The laird's maybe not at home, but there will be men there of some kind--gamekeepers and woodmen and such like. My plan is to go there at once and ask for help. Now, it's useless me going alone, for n.o.body would listen to me. They'd tell me to go back to the shop or they'd think me demented. But with you, Mem, it would be a different matter.

They wouldn't disbelieve you. So I want you to come with me and to come at once, for G.o.d knows how soon our need will be sore. We'll leave your cousin with Mrs. Morran in the village, for bed's the place for her, and then you and me will be off on our business."

The girl looked at Heritage, who nodded. "It's the only way," he said.

"Get every man jack you can raise, and if it's humanly possible get a gun or two. I believe there's time enough, for I don't see the brig arriving in broad daylight."

"D'you not?" d.i.c.kson asked rudely. "Have you considered what day this is? It's the Sabbath, the best of days for an ill deed. There's no kirk hereaways, and everybody in the parish will be sitting indoors by the fire." He looked at his watch. "In half an hour it'll be light. Haste you, Mem, and get ready. Dougal, what's the weather?"

The Chieftain swung open the door, and sniffed the air. The wind had fallen for the time being, and the surge of the tides below the rocks rose like the clamour of a mob. With the lull, mist and a thin drizzle had cloaked the world again.

To d.i.c.kson's surprise Dougal seemed to be in good spirits. He began to sing to a hymn tune a strange ditty.

"Cla.s.s-conscious we are, and cla.s.s-conscious wull be Till our fit's on the neck o' the Boorjoyzee."

"What on earth are you singing?" d.i.c.kson inquired.

Dougal grinned. "Wee Jaikie went to a Socialist Sunday school last winter because he heard they were for fechtin' battles. Ay, and they telled him he was to jine a thing called an International, and Jaikie thought it was a fitba' club. But when he fund out there was no magic lantern or swaree at Christmas he gie'd it the chuck. They learned him a heap o' queer songs. That's one."

"What does the last word mean?"

"I don't ken. Jaikie thought it was some kind of a draigon."

"It's a daft-like thing anyway.... When's high water?"

Dougal answered that to the best of his knowledge it fell between four and five in the afternoon.

"Then that's when we may expect the foreign gentry if they think to bring their boat in to the Garple foot.... Dougal, lad, I trust you to keep a most careful and prayerful watch. You had better get the Die-Hards out of the Tower and all round the place afore Dobson and Co.

get loose, or you'll no' get a chance later. Don't lose your mobility, as the sodgers say. Mr. Heritage can hold the fort, but you laddies should be spread out like a screen."

"That was my notion," said Dougal. "I'll detail two Die-Hards--Thomas Yownie and Wee Jaikie--to keep in touch with ye and watch for ye comin'

back. Thomas ye ken already; ye'll no fickle Thomas Yownie. But don't be mistook about Wee Jaikie. He's terrible fond of greetin', but it's no fright with him but excitement. It's just a habit he's gotten. When ye see Jaikie begin to greet, ye may be sure that Jaikie's gettin'

dangerous."

The door shut behind them and d.i.c.kson found himself with his two charges in a world dim with fog and rain and the still lingering darkness. The air was raw, and had the sour smell which comes from soaked earth and wet boughs when the leaves are not yet fledged. Both the women were miserably equipped for such an expedition. Cousin Eugenie trailed heavy furs, Saskia's only wrap was a bright-coloured shawl about her shoulders, and both wore thin foreign shoes. d.i.c.kson insisted on stripping off his trusty waterproof and forcing it on the Princess, on whose slim body it hung very loose and very short. The elder woman stumbled and whimpered and needed the constant support of his arm, walking like a townswoman from the knees. But Saskia swung from the hips like a free woman, and d.i.c.kson had much ado to keep up with her. She seemed to delight in the bitter freshness of the dawn, inhaling deep breaths of it, and humming fragments of a tune.

Guided by Thomas Yownie they took the road which d.i.c.kson and Heritage had travelled the first evening, through the shrubberies on the north side of the House and the side avenue beyond which the ground fell to the Laver glen. On their right the House rose like a dark cloud, but d.i.c.kson had lost his terror of it. There were three angry men inside it, he remembered: long let them stay there. He marvelled at his mood, and also rejoiced, for his worst fear had always been that he might prove a coward. Now he was puzzled to think how he could ever be frightened again, for his one object was to succeed, and in that absorption fear seemed to him merely a waste of time. "It all comes of treating the thing as a business proposition," he told himself.

But there was far more in his heart than this sober resolution. He was intoxicated with the resurgence of youth and felt a rapture of audacity which he never remembered in his decorous boyhood. "I haven't been doing badly for an old man," he reflected with glee. What, oh, what had become of the pillar of commerce, the man who might have been a Bailie had he sought munic.i.p.al honours, the elder in the Guthrie Memorial Kirk, the instructor of literary young men? In the past three days he had levanted with jewels which had once been an Emperor's and certainly were not his; he had burglariously entered and made free of a strange house; he had played hide-and-seek at the risk of his neck and had wrestled in the dark with a foreign miscreant; he had shot at an eminent solicitor with intent to kill; and he was now engaged in tramping the world with a fairy-tale Princess. I blush to confess that of each of his doings he was unashamedly proud, and thirsted for many more in the same line.

"Gosh, but I'm seeing life," was his unregenerate conclusion.

Without sight or sound of a human being, they descended to the Laver, climbed again by the cart track, and pa.s.sed the deserted West Lodge and inn to the village. It was almost full dawn when the three stood in Mrs.

Morran's kitchen.

"I've brought you two ladies, Auntie Phemie," said d.i.c.kson.

They made an odd group in that cheerful place, where the new-lit fire was crackling in the big grate--the wet undignified form of d.i.c.kson, unshaven of cheek and chin and disreputable in garb: the shrouded figure of Cousin Eugenie, who had sunk into the arm-chair and closed her eyes; the slim girl, into whose face the weather had whipped a glow like blossom; and the hostess, with her petticoats kilted and an ancient mutch on her head.

Mrs. Morran looked once at Saskia, and then did a thing which she had not done since her girlhood. She curtseyed.

"I'm proud to see ye here, Mem. Off wi' your things, and I'll get ye dry claes. Losh, ye're fair soppin'. And your shoon! Ye maun change your feet.... d.i.c.kson! Awa' up to the loft, and dinna you stir till I give ye a cry. The leddies will change by the fire. And you, Mem"--this to Cousin Eugenie--"the place for you's your bed. I'll kinnle a fire ben the hoose in a jiffy. And syne ye'll have breakfast--ye'll hae a cup o'

tea wi' me now, for the kettle's just on the boil. Awa' wi' ye, d.i.c.kson," and she stamped her foot.

d.i.c.kson departed, and in the loft washed his face, and smoked a pipe on the edge of the bed, watching the mist eddying up the village street.

From below rose the sounds of hospitable bustle, and when after some twenty minutes' vigil he descended, he found Saskia toasting stockinged toes by the fire in the great arm-chair, and Mrs. Morran setting the table.

"Auntie Phemie, hearken to me. We've taken on too big a job for two men and six laddies, and help we've got to get, and that this very morning.

D'you mind the big white house away up near the hills ayont the station and east of the Ayr road? It looked like a gentleman's shooting lodge. I was thinking of trying there. Mercy!"

The exclamation was wrung from him by his eyes settling on Saskia and noting her apparel. Gone were her thin foreign clothes, and in their place she wore a heavy tweed skirt cut very short, and thick homespun stockings, which had been made for some one with larger feet than hers.

A pair of the coa.r.s.e low-heeled shoes, which country folk wear in the farmyard, stood warming by the hearth. She still had her russet jumper, but round her neck hung a grey wool scarf, of the kind known as a "comforter." Amazingly pretty she looked in d.i.c.kson's eyes, but with a different kind of prettiness. The sense of fragility had fled, and he saw how n.o.bly built she was for all her exquisiteness. She looked like a queen, he thought, but a queen to go gipsying through the world with.

"Ay, they're some o' Elspeth's things, rale guid furthy claes," said Mrs. Morran complacently. "And the shoon are what she used to gang about the byres wi' when she was in the Castlewham dairy. The leddy was tellin' me she was for trampin' the hills, and thae things will keep her dry and warm.... I ken the hoose ye mean. They ca' it the Mains of Garple. And I ken the man that bides in it. He's yin Sir Erchibald Roylance. English, but his mither was a Dalziel. I'm no weel acquaint wi' his forbears, but I'm weel eneuch acquaint wi' Sir Erchie, and 'better a guid coo than a coo o' a guid kind,' as my mither used to say.

He used to be an awfu' wild callant, a freend o' puir Maister Quentin, and up to ony deevilry. But they tell me he's a quieter lad since the war, and sair lamed by fa'in oot o' an airyplane."

"Will he be at the Mains just now?" d.i.c.kson asked.

"I wadna wonder. He has a muckle place in England, but he aye used to come here in the back-end for the shootin' and in Aprile for birds. He's clean daft about birds. He'll be out a' day at the Craig watchin'

solans, or lyin' a' mornin' i' the moss lookin' at bog-blitters."

"Will he help, think you?"

"I'll wager he'll help. Onyway it's your best chance, and better a wee bush than nae beild. Now, sit in to your breakfast."

It was a merry meal. Mrs. Morran dispensed tea and gnomic wisdom. Saskia ate heartily, speaking little, but once or twice laying her hand softly on her hostess's gnarled fingers. d.i.c.kson was in such spirits that he gobbled shamelessly, being both hungry and hurried, and he spoke of the still unconquered enemy with ease and disrespect, so that Mrs. Morran was moved to observe that there was "naething sae bauld as a blind mear." But when in a sudden return of modesty he belittled his usefulness and talked sombrely of his mature years he was told that he "wad never be auld wi' sae muckle honesty." Indeed it was very clear that Mrs. Morran approved of her nephew.