Patsy by Samuel Rutherford Crockett (read aloud TXT) 📖

"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.


CHAPTER IV
BY FORCE OF ARMS
The press-gang and its ugly work, Castle Raincy and its feudal associations, stern Cairn Ferris, the Abbey Burn and the bright new house of Julian Wemyss--Patsy going from one to the other, and the patriarchal simplicity of the farm of Glenanmays, with its girls and boys, its cave-riddled shore and its interests in the Free Traffic--these are what the district of the Back Shore meant in later Napoleonic times.
Most of