Patsy by Samuel Rutherford Crockett (read aloud TXT) 📖

rode Patsy, ordering and ranging everything everywhere. She was as calm as if on her own ground at Cairn Ferris, and neither she nor any of the chiefs made any attempt at concealment. Only some few of the rank-and-file, sons of lairds and functionaries, fiscals and suchlike cattle, wore masks so as not to implicate their fathers.
"And now, MacJannet," it was Patsy's clear voice that rang out, "open your old gates or we will have them down without your permission!"
But MacJannet, keeper of his Majesty's strong house of Stranryan, knew that there was a time to be silent as well as a time to speak. He did not speak, and the next minute tall ladders with ropes arranged from their tops were reared at the word of command against both the gates. The Garlies men swarmed up them and with sailorlike agility descended into the big courtyard of the ancient Cassillis townhouse.
A moment more and the bars were drawn from within. The multitude swarmed in without a sound. No cheer was heard, only the confused noise of many feet and suppressed calls to this one and that to come and help to man the scaling ladders. The young men of the town of Stranryan itself were masked, since it was not fitting that sons of high magistrates should hunt through all the building and wood yards, aye, and even the paternal back-premises, to bring up ladders and forehammers to the fray. It had been their duty to provide these things, and by Patsy's orders they were taking no chances beyond the ordinary personal ones common to all prison-breakers.
"MacJannet, MacJannet--open there, you lurking dog!"
But just then MacJannet was more than usually deaf. He knew that he would have to answer for that night's work and it did not suit him to do anything of his own accord. A pistol at his head and a demand for the keys--well, that would be coercion, and when a man is compelled and put in fear of his life, what can he do? But for the present MacJannet lay safe and quiet behind his six-foot-thick walls and waited for that to happen which should happen.
Torches began to flare smokily in the courtyard and ladders were hooked to roof cornices. More ladders, tied safely together, were hoisted to riggings of buildings and held in place by ropes conveniently cleeked round chimneys. On these little dark figures climbed upwards, up and up interminably, till they reached the grey hump of roof under which lay the prisoners.
Picks and hammers went up from hand to hand, many helping. Fragments of slate and tile began to rain down, but nothing had been achieved till the blacksmith brigade, headed by Andrew Sproat of Clachanpluck, a famous horse-shoer, laid into the iron-bound doors of the prison.
"Clang! Clang!" went the forehammers, as the men holding their torches low made a circle of murky light about the workers. Every blow made the doors leap, striking full on the huge lock. All who stood in the yard could hear them leap on their hinges.
"'Tis the bolts that are holding--can't you feel them draw?" cried Andrew, the smith. "Bring all the hammers to one side! Now for it! Strike a little lower there!" And the three great forehammers struck so accurately that the lock gave way with a grinding crunch. The doors hung only by the bolts at top and bottom. Soon the aperture was so widened that a hand could be introduced and the iron rods shot back. The gates of the prison on the sea-front were thrown back and with the same silence as before the crowd poured in--all, that is, except the unfortunates, chosen by lot, who had been designated to look after the horses.
"MacJannet--MacJannet--the keys, MacJannet!"
The gaoler's quarters were swiftly invaded. One blow of Andrew Sproat's massy hammer did that business, and thereafter the gaoler did not lack for coercion. Godfrey McCulloch had a pistol to his head, and the bell mouth of a huge blunderbuss lay chill between his shoulder-blades, thrusting him forward.
"Open every cell!" he was ordered by Godfrey McCulloch. "We must have them all out. There are torches and the old place might take light. The wood is sure to be as dry as tinder after four centuries!"
And the lads of the "Bands" let the prisoners go, every man and woman of them. Only some Irish reapers clamouring for their reaping-hooks to be returned to them were pitched neck and crop into the street with small consideration and few apologies. And still they pressed on! Above them the hammering on the roof could be heard. It ceased, and it was evident that the gaol from dungeon to rooftree was in the power of the "Lads of the Heather."
But still no Stair Garland! The brows of the seekers grew black.
"If ye have sent him away secretly with the soldier men, 'ware yourself, MacJannet," said Godfrey, "we will roast you in your own black keep. We will gar your accursed Castle of the Press flame like a chimbly on fire, as sure as we came out of Rerrick!"
"He is here--I tell you--there is one of them, at any rate!" He threw open the door of a cell triumphantly and showed the pallid countenance of Eben the Spy.
For one instant the multitude stood silent, then with a howl of anger and disappointment they were flinging themselves upon him.
"Tear him to pieces!--Kill the spy. Who sent our Davie to the hulks?"
But Patsy's voice cried, "Back there, men! He has bought his pardon. He was with Stair Garland for two months on the Wild. He was captured with him. I tell you we owe him his life. Touch him not. Stair will vouch for him. And in the meanwhile, so will I!"
This did not satisfy the crowd, but they obeyed. They were compelled to obey, for that night there was only one leader among them. Smith Andrew, however, took Eben by the collar of his coat and marched him to the door of the prison. In the courtyard a new shout arose.
"Let him alone," cried his protector. "Patsy says he is with us. He is not to be killed."
So he led Eben to the outer gate, and with one enormous kick he discharged his duty to society and to his own feelings.
"Go," he cried, "be off! We are ordered not to do you any harm. But be out of the town before the morning light. For then Patsy may not be on the spot to speak up for you, and the lads are apt to get a little out of hand at sicht o' ye!"
It was the roof-breakers who descended first upon Stair Garland. They found him fully dressed and waiting for them. But the doors of his cell, which was that reserved for the most important criminals, could not be broken from the interior, and they could get no farther for the moment. However, the noise of the crowd beneath mounted higher and nearer, sounding like the roaring of a tide in a sea cave.
A key clicked in the lock. Bolts were drawn, and the men who had broken the doors and roofs stood back with respect to let Patsy go in alone.
She had been his only saviour, and she alone must tell Stair that he was free. She came to Stair Garland flushed and quick breathing, who stood before her pale and with his Viking hair flying all about his head.
"I came from London to do it, Stair, and it is done!" she said. She took his hand to lead him away, and at sight of them with one accord the Lads of the Heather uncovered.
Out in the courtyard it was like a triumphal procession as they passed to their horses. Men laughed aloud, they knew not why. A spirit of mirth was abroad, which had taken possession of all except dark Godfrey McCulloch.
"You are sure there is no prisoner left within your old tourock?" he demanded of MacJannet. The gaoler turned to his register and proved it.
"Very well!" said Godfrey, "off with you--sleep under some decent man's roof if ye can find any to shelter ye!"
And taking a torch from one of his followers he carefully fired the stores of kindling wood which filled part of the ground-floor of the ancient Wark of the Cassillis folk. In ten minutes, before even the cavalcade was entirely mounted, the flames were bursting through the humped roof in a fiery fountain of gold sparks and ruddy jags of flame, while the pillar of smoke rose many hundreds of feet into the still morning air.
At the English Gate, by which they rode out, they encountered a company of dragoons, weary from a long march, their horses footsore and the men reeling in their saddles with sleep.
"You have come too late," cried Godfrey McCulloch to the leader, waving his hand in the direction of the fiery beacon, now loudly crackling, and sprouting to the heavens.
But the officer answered not a word. His eyes were on Patsy Ferris riding by the side of Stair Garland, talking to him as one who had won a great prize, or has found her heart's desire.
So the captain of dragoons gave no order, for at the sight his heart was turned to stone within him.
His name was Louis Raincy, and he had quite forgotten pretty Mrs. Arlington.


CHAPTER XXXV
THE PICT'S WAY IS THE WOMAN'S WAY
The deed being done, the doers soon dispersed. A strong body-guard composed of Back Shore men and the lads from the Stewartry seaboard rode with Patsy and Stair to the small unfrequented landing-place of Port Luce, where a boat was waiting for them. Patsy dismounted from Honeypot and bade Stair Garland get on board.
"I am in command still, Stair," she cried, smiling at his bewilderment. "Besides, I am running off with you, as Uncle Ju says the Pictish women always did!"
And Stair humbly obeyed, for the thing he heard was too marvellous for him to believe. Though his heart beat hard, he kept his head, and did not allow his imagination to run away with him. He scented one of Patsy's jests. That she should come from London in the _Good Intent_, that she should raise the country, that she should head the prison-breakers--these things he could understand. Still he remembered what she had said when she had been run away with by the Duke of Lyonesse.
"I was in no danger: when it is my fate to love a man, it is I, Patsy Ferris, who shall run away with him!"
But he was a wise lad and had lived too long among the Will-o'-the-Wisps on the Wild of Blairmore to be easily led astray by them. So he took Patsy's speech as merely her way and thought no more about it--at least not more than he could help.
It was already high day, brisk and clean-blowing, when they reached the little herring smack which lay waiting for them out in the bay. Godfrey McCulloch went with them, dark-browed, silent. When he lifted his eyes he could see, across the plain of the middle Rhynns, the reek of the accursed prison-house of Stranryan still going up to heaven. Then he laughed a little, also silently.
"They will have to shift," he said: "John Knox was in the right o't. 'Pull down the nests and the craws will fly away.' No more cells for lads from the ploughtail and the heather. No more bloody whipping-posts, where one or two are killed out of every draft to put the fear of death into the others! All gone up in yon puff of smoke!" Then he subsided into silence and his hard features relaxed as his mind fell upon other thoughts.
Stair and he were working the