Читать книгу Patsy - S. R. Crockett - Страница 8

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Patsy had always been a wonderful runner. She could outpace her pony. She could flee from Louis Raincy like the shadow of a wind-blown cloud crossing a mountain-side, and on the sands, with none but Jean Garland to see, Patsy could fleet it along the wet tide wash, sending the spray about her as a swallow that skims a pond and flirts the surface with its wings.

Old Diarmid mounted on the stile, balanced himself with his staff, and looked. The dogs accompanying him cocked their ears in hopes of a chase, but the next moment, their keen senses telling them that it was only Patsy running over the heather, they settled down, marvelling that men could be so strong with foot and hand and yet know so little.

There was half a mile to be run along the sands before turning up over the hot glacier-planed stones of the moor. Diarmid Garland watched and wondered. He had often seen Patsy giving his daughter Jean, of the heavier and slower-moving blonde Scandinavian blood, half the distance to Saythe Point and then passing her, as an arrow may miss and pass one who flees. Now she moved like a leaf blown by the hurricane. Her white feet in their sandals of yellow leather of Corinth hardly seemed to touch the sand. Then Patsy turned up the crumbling cliffs at their lowest point, mounting like a goat with an effortless ease till she crowned the causeway of seaworn rock and plunged to the armpits into the tall heather of the Wild of Blairmore.

Then Diarmid lost sight of the girl for a minute, but when he saw her again she was far out on the perilous goat-track which led down to the bothy itself. Diarmid scanned the distance with his eye—he knew the length of time it would have taken a hillsman to go from point to point.

"That girl is a miracle," he muttered to himself, "she can run through deep heather as fast as on the sand of the seashore."

He was wrong, however. She was only a Pictess, with some thousand years of the heather instinct in her blood. Her body was lithe and supple, her foot light, and her eye sure. Besides, she could hear what was hidden and unheard at the stile on which Diarmid stood, the rock-rock of the short, steady navy stroke, which was pulling the landing-party from His Majesty's ship Britomart nearer and nearer to the Bothy of Blairmore.

Then she passed quite out of sight. She had a long descent before her, sheltered seaward, so that she did not need to consider the danger of being seen by the enemy. The leather of her sandals pattered like rain on dry leaves on the narrow, twisted sheep-tracks, then mounted springily over the bulls'-fell of the knolls of stunted heather, and as it were in the clapping of a pair of hands, she appeared at the door of the Bothy of Blairmore, scarce heated, quite unbreathed, but with grave face and anxious eyes.

"Scatter!" she commanded, clapping her hands. "Off with you, lads! Take to the hills. The press-gang is landing at this moment at the Abbey Burnfoot to cut you off. Eben McClure is with them. He has heard of your cargo-running and he wants to send you all to the wars."

"And what will you do?" said Stair, who was always the boldest in speech as he was the most reckless in action.

"I—oh, pray don't give yourself the least trouble about me, Stair Garland. I shall stay here and wash the dishes."

The lads were declaring that under no circumstances should she remain where she was, but Patsy had made up her mind. She must see what a press-gang was like. She would see and speak with the officers who were at the head of it. Perhaps they had their side to it also, which would be worth the finding out. And the spy—she had never seen a spy, a marker-down of men—so she resolved to see this Eben McClure, the most hated man in all Wigtonshire. She would stay, and it was with a certain imperiousness that she ordered the boys away.

They went reluctantly, but they knew that because she was the daughter of a magistrate and a laird, nothing serious would happen to her, while they risked life and liberty every moment they stayed.

"Do you think I ran all the way from the bathing cove for nothing?" she said. "Save yourselves, lads. Do as I bid you and at once."

They went, though it was not with the best grace in the world. Stair wore a scowl on his handsome face as he slung his gun over his shoulder. Only Fergus thanked her for having come to warn them.

"Hold your tongue," said Patsy, peremptorily, "get out of sight. Keep yourselves safe. That is the best thanks, and all that I ask for from you."

So it came about that fifteen minutes later, Lieutenant Everard of the Britomart, disembarking with Captain Laurence of the Dragoons and the Superintendent of Enlistments, Mr. Ebenezer McClure, came upon a picture framed in the doorway of the Bothy of Blairmore. Patsy had spread Jean Garland's scarlet sash to its broadest, and so had been able to let down her skirt of blue linen till it came to almost her ankles, above which the yellow cross-gartering of the sandals was diamonded in the Greek fashion her Uncle Julian had taught her.

Patsy had found piles of unwashen dishes and spoons, for the boys of the Glenanmays family depended for cleaning up upon uncertain, semi-occasional visits, from one or other of their sisters. What they wanted at the time they took out and washed in the pleasant tumble of the hill brook which passed their door on its way down to meet the Abbey Burn a little above Uncle Julian's house. The rest they left.

The two officers of His Majesty stood a moment too astonished for speech. This was not at all what they had come out to find, nor what their men had been posted all about the bothy to secure in case of an attempt to escape.

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 fashion.

"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 glass, rubbing it, and holding it up to the light. "You are trespassing 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 tassel 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 assistance 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 shining 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 brimming 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 nobody 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 ship Britomart, presently cruising in these waters."

Adam Ferris bowed gravely, as one who receives valuable information.

"I congratulate you," he said. "As for the young men, Fergus, Stair and Agnew Garland, they are fine lads and a credit to the neighbourhood. I cannot imagine that they have anything more to do with the traffic of which you speak than I myself. But if they have been reported to you as guilty, I am prepared to take cognizance of the evidence. I presume you did not come here without a warrant."

"We need no warrant," said the Lieutenant. "I am in command of His Majesty's press."

The expression of Adam Ferris's face changed suddenly.

"My tenants and my tenants' sons are not subject to the press-gang. There are no sailors among them—no, nor yet any fishermen."

"Captain Laurence of the dragoons is with us, sir," interpolated Eben McClure; "he has a right to beat up for recruits for the land forces."

"Ah," said Adam, "at fairs and markets, with fife and drum—yes! But not all over my estate, nor yet to meddle with my tenantry."

"He has particular permission from Earl Raincy," said the spy.

"I am not Earl Raincy, nor are my lands his," quoth Adam Ferris; "but, by the way, where is this Captain Laurence of whom you speak?"

The question seemed to embarrass the two men. "He was with us," said the Lieutenant at last, "but having discovered some fancied kinship with your brother's family, he separated himself from us and went (as I believe) to his house of Abbey Burnfoot!"

"Then I hope he does not press Julian for the cavalry. His cousin, the Secretary, might have something to say to that!"

Altogether there was small change to be got out of Adam Ferris, and as they gathered their men and, marched them off, they fell foul one of the other, the officer with his exercised sea-tongue having much the better of the word-strife. But presently they were friends again, both cursing Captain Laurence of the dragoons for deserting them in their time of need.

"I believe," said Lieutenant Everard, "that Laurence simply turned in his tracks and went back to that bothy to carry more water for the black-headed girl!"

This, however, was of little moment to the Superintendent of Enlistments, who had a bounty upon every pressed man safe drafted to headquarters or delivered on board ship.

"At any rate," he said, "we have lost our men, and we are little likely to see them again!"

The Lieutenant turned angrily upon him.

"You are thinking of your dirty dollars," he said bitterly. "It is for the sake of such as you that His Majesty's officers must be treated like huckstering excisemen by every dirty Scot who owns as much ground as a cow can turn round in! 'My estate!' 'My tenantry'—paugh, and the back of his hand to you because you are no better than an Englishman!"

"The Ferrises are an ill folk to come across!" insinuated the Superintendent of Enlistments.

Everard turned hotly upon his companion.

"And who brought us here to rub noses against rough stones climbing your accursed dykes, only to be insulted by country bumpkins and outwitted by half-clad minxes? You are a spy, and no fit company for gentlemen. I tell you so much to your face. But when you are in your own country and doing your foul business, you might at least have your information correct before calling out the forces of His Majesty."

And ten minutes later the boat of the Britomart was being rowed fast in the direction of that ship, because the men knew well that their officer was in no mood to be trifled with.