Patsy by Samuel Rutherford Crockett (read aloud TXT) 📖

till assisted by the westward rush of the Solway tides and the darkness which would hide everything. Captain Penman was a man of few words, and these few he did not waste. Inwardly he was boiling over at the ill-luck of his first spring run. He cursed Stair Garland and Julian Wemyss for mixing private quarrels with so sacred a mission as that of hoodwinking his Majesty's Customs.
"As good a cargo as ever came past the Point of Ayre," he grumbled, "and if young Garland had been attending to his business, we might have run it at the Mays Water as easy as changing money from one trousers pocket to the other. But now I must put these people on shore with the whole countryside humming with Preventives, and as like as not a brig-o'-war hovering about. There always is, when soldiers take a hand. The authorities get into a flurry and order up everything that can carry a gun. I shall have to make for Balcary or that narrow shingly cur's hole of a Portowarren, where a ship can't turn between the Boreland heuchs and the reefs of Port Ling. Then there are never enough boats there, and three tides will not serve to clear her. Why could not Kennedy McClure mind his business, which is also my business? He has been witched, as if he were only twenty, by this lass of Adam Ferris's. And the more shame to him that has passed sixty without ever a chick or a child to hamper him, or a petticoat to drag him to church o' Sundays!"
Yet for all his abuse this close-lipped captain of the _Good Intent_ allowed Patsy many favours. She was often beside him on the bridge, and the Captain would explain to her quite patiently why they were hanging off and on, when the cliffs of the Back Shore were clearly visible, and for a little while even she could make out through the glass the twin rifts of the Valleys of Abbey Burnfoot and the Mays Water.
"Ye see, bairn," Captain Penman would say, "we can see nothing at all of what is going on ashore, while to a Preventive man up on the heuchs yonder with a spy-glass, we are as plain to be seen as a fly on white paper. I changed her rigging about a bit in the winter months, but for all that there is something about the auld _Good Intent_ that makes her as easy to be told as the well-weathered brick-red of a sea-going face on shore!"
But of course Patsy was eager and impatient. She was hard to be held.
"If it is of your cargo you are thinking, why not go straight in and land us? Then you can take your tea and lace and brandy further on."
Captain Penman looked at the girl beside him, and was sorry for her disappointment.
"I would if I could, Mistress Patsy, but they would only grip the whole of you the moment you stepped on shore. Then that rough-haired rascal with the armoury in his belt would loose off half-a-dozen shots before they got him mastered, that would send you all straight to prison. And that's no place for them that want to help their friends in trouble. Besides, there are King's ships about, and who knows whether the wind may hold? If it dropped, we should be taken--all the lot of us, and the _Good Intent_ with her fine winter's cargo would be made a gauger's prize! No, bairn, we are better biding here till the dark of the night comes and then--we shall see where we can set you ashore!"
"Weel, Captain," interrupted Kennedy McClure, who had come up from below, "what think ye of the landing? Can we make the auld place within the bight of the Mays Water? That would be the nearest to the Bothy on the Wild o' Blairmore!"
"Maybe," said the Captain, grimly, "but being the nearest is not to say the safest. They will have a cordon o' marines and, what is far worse, maybe blue-jackets on the lookout. Sodjers and Preventives do not matter so muckle. For at night the sodjers canna see onything, and the Preventives are apt to be lookin' the ither road."
"Ye think, then, that we had better try the Burnfoot?"
"I think nothing," said Captain Penman, irritably. "I am here to sail my ship according to your orders. But I will take nothing to do with what may happen after you set your foot on shore."
"Na, then, wha was thinkin' itherwise?" said Kennedy McClure, soothingly, "but surely a word o' advice is worth having from siccan an auld hand as you!"
"If I were you, then," said the Captain, instantly mollified, "I should e'en keep the lower side o' the Abbey Water, away from the Wild. Even if the red-coats have caged the mice, they are sure to have reset the trap--and great fools would ye be to walk straight into it!"
* * * * *
As soon as it was dark enough, Captain Penman let his vessel drift landward with the tide, then running strong into the wide swallow of the Solway. The wind was light, and a jib was sufficient to give her steerage-way. It was intended that the passengers should be set on shore at a point nearly opposite to Julian Wemyss's house, where a spit of sand and the shoulder of cliff formed a neat little anchorage. The sailors of the _Good Intent_, accustomed to the work, were ordered to convey the little luggage they had brought with them from London to the nearest "hidie-hole" known to Kennedy McClure, where, if all went well, men from Supsorrow could easily dig them up and carry them to their owners.
Attempts were made to signal as the _Good Intent_ glided along the coast, but all remained obstinately dark. Dark lay Glenanmays at the head of the wide Mays Water. The cliffs of the Wild sent back no answering flashes, and it was not till the _Good Intent_ was well-nigh abreast of the Partan Craig that a faint light glimmered out, low down by the edge of the water.... _Flash--flash--flash_--(it went, and then darkness). _Flash--flash--flash_--each double the duration of the first. Then came the blackness of darkness again, and anon half-a-dozen swift needle-points of light chasing one another as quickly as the eye could register them.
"_There is danger ... to the north--keep farther away!_" Captain Penman read off the coded message. "That's one of our folk. At any rate they are not all hanged!"
When they reached the next bay to the south the whale-boat was manned, and Miss Aline first, and then Patsy, were carefully handed down. After them came Kennedy McClure, cursing his own weight and the rope which had scorched his hands, last of all old huntsman Wolf scrambled down, bags of ammunition and all, as alert as a monkey, his rifle slung over his shoulder and his jaeger's feather stuck rakishly in his green Tyrolean hat.
The men hardly dipped their oars into the water. The mate, Rob Blair from Garlieston, a dark, hook-nosed springald as strong as a horse, sat in the stern and steered, directing the men in whispers. Presently they entered into a purple gloom, and the stars were shut out over a full half of the heavens. On shore and quite near, the lantern flickered six times as swiftly as before.
"Still further to the south!" it said. "Hang the fellow, he will bring us up among the Port Patrick fishing-boats! Ah, there!"
Out of the loom of the land as the current swept them under the cliffs, came one long, steady flare--then a pause, which was followed by a second.
"Head in, men," said Rob Blair, laying his weight on the tiller, "the fellow on shore says that all is safe, which may be and again it may not! There is that devil of a nephew of yours, Spy McClure from Stonykirk. They say he is still at large. If he has sold us to the land-sharks, it is the last Judas-money he will touch. I know ten men in Garlieston who will see to that!"
"Attend to your own business, mate," growled Kennedy McClure. "I will be answerable for my nephew."
"That's more than I should care to undertake," said the black-browed, free-tongued Garliestonian. "'Tis no sort of a hearty welcome ye will get at the Last Day when ye face the Throne, if ye have such a wastrel's sins to answer for."
"Silence!" said Kennedy. "We are close in and we shall see in a minute. You, foreigner, if I tell you to shoot--_shoot_--but not before!"
Patsy could just see the jaeger's teeth bared in a permanent grin.
"Steady there, men! Back-water! Now, you with the lantern, let us have your name."
"Francis Airie," a voice called out of the darkness.
"Francis Airie--don't know him. Heads low, men--ready there to go about. I never heard of Francis Airie. He is none of ours. Hold on, not so fast, you Austrian, sight your man before you fire!"
"I see him very well in the dark--shall I let off so he dead be?"
"I am Francis Airie, called the Poor Scholar," said the voice; "Miss Patsy Ferris knows me, and Mr. Kennedy also!"
"Of course I do," said Patsy, recognizing the voice of the lad who had helped her with many a hard line of Virgil, and many a passage of Tacitus, in which the verbs were singularly thin-sown. "Is it safe to come in where you are, Francis?"
"Quite, Miss Ferris," said the voice. "They have got Stair and Mr. Wemyss cornered in the Bothy, but they are still holding out. Fergus and Agnew are away on the cliffs to the north, but they are too closely watched to venture a signal. So that is why I am here to meet you."
With a long, even glide the boat's keel touched soft sand.
"Steady now, men,--back her a little!" said the mate, who was afraid of being caught on an ebbing tide, "overboard with you, Lambert, and you McVane, and help the ladies ashore."
But a pair of strong arms came over the side and grasped Patsy.
"No need," said the Poor Scholar, "I know exactly where to land and--"
"Take Miss Aline first!" commanded Patsy; "think of the pious AEneas you used to preach to me about."
And she got herself carried ashore by the hirsute giant McVane.
"'Seniores priores' would have been a better quotation," said the Scholar, as he took up Miss Aline; "take hold of the lapels of my coat, Miss Aline--your arms not so close about my neck, if you please!"
"I doubt if you would have objected to the arms about your neck if they had been Patsy's, you and your 'Seniores'!" Miss Aline observed rather tartly as she was borne off. They were soon all safe in a tiny cove, their feet on the pleasant wet sand, and the dark undefined shapes of the crags overhanging them on every side. A moment more and the boat disappeared into the darkness. A lantern flashed and was answered. They were free to proceed on their quest. Francis the Scholar led them carefully above tide-mark, turned at right-angles into a still deeper darkness, bade them keep their heads low, and with Patsy's hand in his passed into a cave-shelter, in one corner of which the embers of his watch-fire still smouldered red. Francis threw a handful of pine-cones upon the fire. It blazed up instantly with a clear light and a fragrant odour, and the four night-voyagers looked at each other, wondering at the wild eyes and haggard faces which they