Patsy Part 41

Therefore she had a right to dictate her terms. He would not again behave like a sulky fool, as he had done on the first night of their coming to the Isle. He knew better now.

He watched Patsy's quiet untroubled breathing, the slow droop and quick recover of her eyelash as she grew a little drowsy. She pulled herself up and dug her elbow into the sand so that her head might be supported.

Her eyes drooped again, but this time the eyelashes did not rise. The arm bent into an adorable curve, and the head, heavy with sleep, finally deposited itself on Stair's shoulder. With infinite delicate precautions he drew a cloak over her and settled himself to watch the colour rise in the cheek which he could see. He marked the crescent-shaped shadow of the long, upturned eyelash, the lips exquisitely formed, but not too small to be expressionless like your rosebud-mouthed women. She was his, as the French say, "_en droit, mais pas encore en jouissance!_"

Still, n.o.body else could have her. That was the first and greatest consideration, and with that firm in his mind Stair kept himself steady till the sun was descending low in the sky of the west, and the clamorous birds began to flock back to the island--sand-pipers peeping in the hollows about the sheep-fold, gulls and guillemots squabbling on the cliffs, and tarns restlessly das.h.i.+ng and swooping. For the tide was coming up fast and would soon be at the full.

Then he saw something far out but coming nearer that made his heart leap to his throat. He waited to make sure before awakening Patsy. But after five minutes there could be no mistake. He must tell her.

"Dear," he said, and trembled at the word, lest she should have heard it, "I am sorry to wake you, but there is a man swimming towards the island!"

Patsy awoke, and in a moment was on her feet. Whether she had heard the word or not, certain it was that she had grasped the meaning of the sentence.

"Quick, Stair," she said, "get your gun!"

"The man is swimming," said Stair. "I think, instead, I had better get a dry suit of clothes. He cannot be very dangerous. I have my sheath-knife if--but there is no fear. I can handle him!"

"Run no risks, Stair. I have ventured my all upon you! You are very ... necessary to me!"

Ah, if he had only known that the word in her heart which she did not let her lips speak was not "necessary" but "precious"!

They went down together to the long spit of rock against which the swimmer was being driven. Stair looked at the black head on the surface of the water and realized that there might be trouble for both of them in the immediate future. He ordered Patsy to stand back.

"Why should I?" said Patsy, surprised at his tone.

"Because I tell you to!" said Stair Garland sharply, "there--on the top of the rock. Crouch down! Do not move till I give you leave." Then he began to wade out, and as he went she saw him a.s.sure himself that his sheath-knife moved sweetly in its scabbard with the click of easy-fitting steel.

"Eben McClure!" he cried, as in the long reach of the overhand stroke the man's face was turned towards him, "what are you doing here?"

Stair helped him out of the water. The man could hardly gasp at first, but in a moment words returned to him.

"The lost dog," he said hoa.r.s.ely, "follows the only man who is kind to it."

And he would have fallen on the rock spit, if Stair had not caught him in his arms, and carried him to the little cove.

CHAPTER x.x.xIX

REBEL GALLOWAY

"You were here on this spot with your command, Captain de Raincy,"

trumpeted Colonel Laurence, "and yet you let the prison-breakers ride off! You ought to have attacked them, sir. You know you ought! It is as much as your coat is worth. The whole crew of them were there--the low fellow who shot the Duke where he drove into the infernal barricades--and the girl who ran away from London to send the fiery cross through the country. d.a.m.n it, sir, it makes me furious only to think of it. And yet, with a chance like that, you sat your horse and let them ride off!"

"I need not, I suppose," said Louis calmly, "point out to you that there were some hundreds of them, at least ten to one, and that most of them were known to me--though not, I believe, those who remained behind to fire the prison."

"Well," said Colonel Laurence bitterly, "whether known to you or not, you let them ride off unharmed after committing a capital crime. It is evident that you cannot be trusted in your own district. Your sympathies are not with law and order. Oh, I know something about the peculiar difficulties of officials in Galloway. There are certain acts--such as resistance to his Majesty's press, prison-breaking, and the whole business of smuggling which are here favoured by all, from the Lord Lieutenant to the herd on the hills. I cannot get a magistrate to issue a warrant without referring the matter to the Secretary of State. I cannot execute it without a battalion of regulars. As an instance in point you were in command of a company of dragoons. You saw this thing done. You knew those who did it, yet you did not lift a finger to stop them."

"We had only just arrived as they were riding off," said Louis. "I had no evidence that any offence against justice had been committed. I saw the prison on fire afterwards and I helped to put out that. Without my troopers it would have been wholly destroyed."

"No matter," said the irate Colonel, "we cannot have any such officer in the district--certainly not under my command. I mean that my orders shall be carried through at whatever risk. Now, I put it to you plainly, do you prefer to send in your papers or be publicly broken?"

"I shall not send in my papers," said Louis de Raincy, warmly, "and you cannot break me, publicly or otherwise!"

"And pray why not?"

Louis lifted his hand in the direction of Castle Raincy, an imposing pile of towers showing up dark on a hill to the west.

"That's why," he said, curtly. "I am the heir to a peerage, and my grandfather--well, I need not speak of him. Besides, I know the Duke of York, who is still commander-in-chief."

Laurence's temper got the better of him.

"It is you and the like of you who defy regulations and are the shame of the British army."

"Not so," said Louis, in a very level tone, "say rather officers who scramble for every safe money-making little post-recruit--raising, keg-hunting, 'stay-in-a-comfortable-corner' men, and keep as far away from the real fighting as possible. If the cap fits, why, put it on! And as soon as the war is over, if you still require any satisfaction, I am your man. In the meantime, Colonel Laurence, you will no longer be troubled with me. I have got my transfer to the Duke's army at Hernandez, and I am ordered to join my new regiment by the first s.h.i.+p to leave Liverpool with cavalry details. We shall soon be ready for the push across the Pyrenees in the rear of Soult!"

Colonel Laurence took the paper and glanced at it. Then he grunted and began to march out of barracks. He knew very well that, since the British army was officered on much more aristocratic and family lines than in later days, he could not hope to strike Louis Raincy with any real penalty. But nevertheless he turned about for a parting shot.

"That paragon of yours, the daughter of Ferris of Cairn Ferris, ran off with the chief criminal. She led the attack on the Castle here. They are hidden somewhere. If I catch them within my jurisdiction, I shall put a bullet through each of them."

"You can do as you like with Stair Garland," Louis Raincy called back, "but remember if you touch Patsy Ferris I will put a bullet through you if I have to hold the pistol to your ear! But I am not anxious--both of them would be quickly avenged. I advise you, Laurence, to leave that wasp's nest alone. You do not understand this people. I do!"

Now Colonel Laurence, though he got the worst of his colloquy with Captain Louis Raincy, had a real grievance. It was true that throughout the province, and especially in its westerly parts, the Government hardly received the semblance of support. Some lairds and a few big tenants were loud Governmental men, but at home each had his store of "run" stuff ripening under some inconspicuous cellar, generally quite unconnected with his mansion. In those days they built even cothouses with more s.p.a.ce below ground than could be seen above. The stones were quarried in the laird's own quarries. They were carried in his tenant's carts. They were laid by his own masons. The earth out of the cellarage was tipped into the nearest burn or over the cliffs into the sea.

There was hardly a farm lad from the Braes of Glenap to the Brigend of Dumfries who was not protected by his landlord from his Majesty's press.

The sentiment of a whole countryside soon tells on the spirits of a man like Laurence, and especially since he had lost Eben McClure (who had taken off from him the sharpest of the popular hatred) his soul had become darkened and embittered. He was expected to make bricks in a country where the straw did not grow--to fill regimental _cadres_ with men, every one of whom was under the secret protection of the loyal gentlemen with whom he dined and talked. At hospitable boards he sometimes forgot himself and revealed his plans, only to repent most bitterly the next morning. For very sure was he that a messenger had started as soon as he had been shut into his bedroom, and that long before morning the quarry would be far away among the moors, lurking there as safely as ever did Peden, called the Prophet, once minister of New Luce.

His men were continually being called out by this Supervisor and that, but he had grown to be profoundly distrustful of such summonses. They brought him no honour, and not even any satisfaction. The wily exciseman, knowing well on which side his bread was b.u.t.tered, had generally made his pact with the "runners." When the troops and the Preventive arrived on the scene of the "run," nothing remained except a mult.i.tude of pony-tracks, and occasionally, if they were very swift and very lucky, the top-masts of a schooner or brig might be seen hanging like mist against the morning sky. Then the Preventives would run round looking behind ridges of rocks and exploring the bottoms of shallow pools, till they heroically took possession of the twenty or thirty casks of Edam Hollands or Angouleme brandy which had been left for them.

Then the newspaper account would run somewhat as follows:

"IMPORTANT SMUGGLING CAPTURE.--On the night of the 7th, acting on information received, the Preventive officers of Stranryan (Chief Supervisor Pirlock in command), a.s.sisted by a troop of H.M. 27th Dragoons stationed at the same place, succeeded in intercepting a most serious attempt at smuggling at Port Logan. Supervisor Pirlock had had the place under observation for several weeks, and on the evening of the 7th he swooped down upon the law-breakers, completely broke them up, and captured no fewer than thirty large casks of fine liquors, both Dutch and French, probably all that the smuggling s.h.i.+p had been able to put on sh.o.r.e. The vessel was seen and her description will be sent to all ports, harbours, offices, as well as to the general agencies under the charge of H.M. Board of Excise.

"A few more such successes and our law-breaking friends will fight shy of the district occupied by the keen eyes and ready hands of so able and zealous an officer as Mr. Chief Supervisor Pirlock."

When a paragraph such as this came under the notice of Colonel Laurence, he would stamp up and down his room, swearing great oaths, till his majors had to take him in hand to prevent him speaking out in front of the men. He would have liked to throttle, not only Mr. Chief Supervisor Pirlock, but every Preventive officer in the district.

Decidedly there was something to be said for Colonel Laurence. Yet why did he remain? As Louis had hinted, he had more than once exchanged when his regiments had been ordered abroad to the wars, in order to continue in the district. His long experience in the work was urged as a reason.

But really the Colonel was hot on the track of his pension. He could not now expect any further promotion, and he knew nothing better to do than just to continue where he was, month after month, till the slow revolution of the years should bring him an income and repose.

If, however, he could lay his hand upon Stair and have him hanged in the teeth of all the lairds in Galloway, that would surely count for something with the Regent, and especially with the Boards of Revenue and Recruitment, which were naturally very sore upon the subject of the aforesaid Stair Garland.