THE NIGHT LANDING
It was the gloaming of a late March day when the reefed top-sails of the
_Good Intent_ showed up against the horizon of bleak slate-grey which
was the Irish Sea. The North Channel foamed boisterously to the left,
heaping many waters together, a perpetual cave of the winds, a
play-ground for errant tides, or rather, as the folk on its shores say,
the meeting-place of all the Seven Seas.
From early morning they had been standing off, not daring to approach
nearer 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 Æneas 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 saw.
One corner of the cavern had been roughly screened off with sacking, and
within was a comfortable couch of broom and heather twigs, upon which
Miss Aline was advised to lie down. But this she refused emphatically to
do.
"And me as near to my ain decent house at Ladykirk," she said, "what for
should I do such a thing?"
"Because," said the Poor Scholar, "I have much to tell you, much you
must hear, and you will not see Ladykirk this night. In fact you could
not, without betraying the secrets of those who have been depending upon
your aid."
"Say on, then," quoth Miss Aline; "the Mintos are no tale-pyets, and
that ye shall ken. Let us hear what ye hae to say, laddie! Ye will be
Nicholas Airie's gyte--I kenned her when she was dairy lass up at the
Folds and mony is the time I warned her--but there's nae use harkin'
back on the things noo, and when a' is said and dune ye carried me nane
so ill, though the deil flee awa' wi' you and your 'Seniores'!--I would
have you know that the day has been when I was as young--I am no sayin'
sae bonnie or sae flichertsome as Miss Patsy there--but still weel
eneuch and young eneuch. 'Seniores,' indeed, and you thinkin' I wad not
tak' your meaning! Faith, I hae wasted my time ower Ruddiman's
Ruddiments as well as the best o' them."