Patsy by Samuel Rutherford Crockett (read aloud TXT) 📖

enough to Julian Wemyss, who rose to his feet and put away the letter of the Princess which he had been going over for the twentieth time.


CHAPTER XXVI
THE GIBBET RING
Ghastly behind the High Stile, just as you cross over into Raincy property, rose the three tall trees of the Gibbet Ring. Once the Raincys had jurisdiction to hang men and drown women, and it was on this "moot-hill" that they dispensed their feudal laws as seemed to them good. There was something grim about the place even now, and as Julian approached, the High Stile stood up against the last flare of red in the evening sky not yet blotted out by the mist, gaunt and sinister as a guillotine.
And the dark silhouette of Adam Ferris, waiting for them, might well have been that of the executioner himself. Stair saluted Adam Ferris, who held out his hand frankly enough to his tenant's son.
"So, Stair," he said, "you have been missing for a long time from your father's table. I had the honour of dining with Diarmid Garland yesterday, and heard nothing of you. Ah, Julian! So this Captain of the Coast has been taking care of you."
He turned to his brother-in-law, who had come more slowly up out of the darkness of the glen, following Stair as closely as might be in the uncertain dusk, for the eyes of the ex-ambassador were not habituated to night duty like those of his guide.
Stair Garland drew back a little after he had seen that the two men were safe in the shelter of the great Raincy ash trees. He would let them talk the matter out. But his mind followed their argument, such as it would doubtless be. He knew the end--that Julian would persuade Adam Ferris to go to London to arrange the future of his daughter. Adam would not be so easy to persuade. Not only would he dislike returning all the way to London, but he would be far more doubtful than his kinsman as to the power he could exercise over Patsy's choice.
Julian Wemyss naturally thought that no position could be better or more fortunate for any girl than that which the Prince Eitel was offering his niece. But Adam was constitutionally unable to imagine that any dignity could add to the position she already held as heiress of four hundred years of Ferrises of Cairn Ferris.
Stair wandered away up the slope towards the Gibbet Knoll, Whitefoot stealing along at his heels, walking almost in his tracks, but with his ears cocked to catch the slightest unexplained noise. As he arrived under the scant foliage of the few remaining gaunt trees, tall branchless trunks with a mere plume at the top of each, bent permanently away from the south-west by the sea-winds, he walked to the small stone platform on which the Baron had issued his decree. From that point of outlook it was possible to see the towers of Castle Raincy looming over the grey sea of vapour, which filled all the lower ground and now and then flung out an arm that momentarily snatched at and submerged the Gibbet Knoll.
Stair had not gone far when something large and dark darted across the path between the trees where the snow had been blown a little bare. Stair was instantly in pursuit. It was not a time when he could afford to overlook anything. A man it was, certainly, for the moment the thicker underbrush was reached he rose half erect and went plunging head foremost into it.
But Whitefoot was before him, and had him by the throat before he could run ten yards. Stair, immediately behind, saw the man's hand go to his belt, and comprehended that Whitefoot's life was in danger.
With a spring he was upon him. One hand gripped the fugitive's wrist. With a pull backward he had him on the ground. His foot pushed aside the eager jaws of Whitefoot and saved the man's life. Then he knelt stolidly on one arm, holding the other extended while he searched the man for arms in a swift professional manner. A knife and a pair of pistols were his booty. These he tossed aside and bade the dog keep guard over them.
"Now who are you and what are you doing here?" he demanded in a hoarse whisper in the fellow's ear. "Speak, man, if you have any wish to live."
The man kept silence, though he had given up struggling. But it was evident that he was not anxious to be recognized.
"This way, then," growled Stair, "and the worse for you if you have been out after any mischief."
He dragged the man roughly enough out upon the open surface of the snow, and knelt upon him, bringing his face close to that of his captive.
"Good God," he cried, forgetting his danger in his astonishment, "Eben the Spy!"
* * * * *
But the man lay limp in Stair's grasp. He appeared to have fainted. However, Stair knew a cure for that. He took a handful of the harsh half-melted sugar-loaf snow and rubbed the spy's face hard. Then he pulled him up into a sitting position.
"Come, Eben," he growled, "no malingering! I have no time to waste on you. If you do not get ready very quickly to do as I tell you, there is a chance that you will be found out here in the morning with an extra hole in your head which none of his Majesty's regimental surgeons will be able to plug--at least not in time to do you any good!"
"I ... am ... not what you think--indeed I am not," the man gasped, as he began to get his breath back after Stair's rough handling.
"That's as may be," said his captor, "you are too open-minded a man to expect me to believe a syllable of what you say, merely on your word."
"No, sir," said Eben, "but I am the more to be pitied--I am outlawed by the Government, and your people shot at me as I was escaping--"
"Ah," said Stair, "you mean when you fled with the Duke's money and jewels the night of the little trouble at the White Loch."
"Indeed," said Eben the Spy, "I am altogether on your side, though I cannot expect you to believe it. But I can bring you a good witness. Even before what occurred there, I had given up all my work for the Government. I intended to make a bolt for it anyway. I knew it was only a question of time when I should be shot. I had been missed already more than once, and indeed, sir, I carry lead in my body at this moment."
Stair grinned so that the man caught the flash of his teeth in the uncertain glimmer, and got his first ray of hope that his life might be spared. He knew very well that nothing he could say would convince Stair of his good faith, but it might be possible to soften him by taking the situation with a certain humour.
"Ah, you laugh, sir," he continued, "but it is no light thing to be a superintendent of recruitment and to belong to the parish of Stonykirk!"
"Say a press-gang spy!" flashed Stair. "That will be the truth."
"A press-gang spy, then," said Eben meekly. "I am not boggling about words--"
"And your business to betray your own folk!"
"I always endeavoured to temper justice with mercy," said the man, feeling at his throat with one of his now disengaged hands.
"Come--none of that," said Stair, "at least, have the courage of your rascality. I shall like you none the worse. Where have you been all this time?"
"Well," said the man, "that's telling. But I know you, Stair Garland, and I have confidence in the man I am talking to--"
"If you abuse that confidence you are good enough to profess in me," said Stair with biting irony, "I beg you to remember that it will be at a price!"
"I know--I know, sir," the man from Stonykirk moaned, "I should not dream of deceiving you."
"Better not," said Stair, "you are on our side, you say. Take care and do not forget again, or the next time you will not be missed. I shall go spy-hunting myself."
"I swear to you--" he began, gasping at the thought.
"Do not swear--I would not believe you if you swore on a pile of Bibles as high as Criffel!"
"But you would believe my uncle Kennedy on his bare word--"
"What uncle?" queried Stair, sharply. "D'ye mean Kennedy McClure of Supsorrow?"
"The same, sir--you would believe him if he spoke a good word for me?"
Stair paused a moment before answering. The Laird of Supsorrow had lent his horses for the carrying off of Patsy, but it was quite certain that had he known the risks, or the purpose for which they were to be used, he would have done nothing of the kind. He was too deep in the traffic, and had used his money to finance too many cargoes.
"Yes," he answered at last, "I would take your uncle's word, if he says that he will go bail that you mean to be faithful to us. But how can I get that word--Kennedy McClure is in London."
"I know that," said the spy, "but I have been abiding all the winter at Supsorrow with my uncle. He gave me shelter and aid when my life was in danger on every side, when I was hunted like a partridge on the mountains--"
"You would make an excellent preacher, Eben, and I dare say you are telling the truth for once. If you have been with us--"
"Will this convince you, sir?" the spy broke in eagerly, seeing his chance. "I have known all the winter that you and Mr. Wemyss were at the Bothy. I knew that you met with Joseph from the Burnfoot, and that your washing was done at Glenanmays. Now there is a reward out for Mr. Julian, sir, and yet I have never breathed a word!"
"Lucky for you, or you would never have breathed another," growled Stair, "but there does seem to be something in what you say. That reward--your uncle must have had something to say against that. It must have gone hard against the grain with you."
"I beg that you will think of my own position, Mr. Stair--I might have made my peace!"
"Ah, you mean about the Duke's money and the jewels--no, I do not forget that part of it, Eben. I shall further confer with you as to what shall be done with these. In the meantime--do not budge. Here, watch him, Whitefoot!"
And very calmly Stair picked up the pistols and reprimed them. Then, having stuck the sheath-dagger into his belt under his coat, he faced his captive.
"In the meanwhile you are coming back with us to the Bothy. I don't know what I shall do with you yet. But at any rate I cannot afford to run any chances. You must stay with us till we get the first ship off. Perhaps if you behave well, you shall have a passage on her. But in the meantime--right-about-face ... _march!_"
The spy obeyed, though there were several things for which he would have wished to stipulate. But Stair had a newly primed pistol pointed midway between his ears as viewed from behind, and the spy felt keenly the one-sidedness of any discussion in such a situation. He marched down the hill, guided now to right and anon to left by a growled order from