ORDEAL BY FIRE
The Bothy on the Wild of Blairmore was an entrenched camp, for Stair was
too good a general not to see to the state of his defences, to his
victualling and armament from the beginning. So, though the moment of
the attack was a surprise, its manner had long been foreseen. As Stair
had repeatedly said, "The sea is never shut!"
Landing parties from the _Britomart_ and _Vandeleur_ had marched up the
Valleys, and the Preventive men of all the West of Galloway had quietly
gathered at Stranryan in order to co-operate with them.
It was Stair who stumbled upon a picket of the _Britomart_ men hidden
among the eastern sand-dunes. He was on his way to meet Joseph,
Whitefoot as usual at his heels, when suddenly the dog sprang forward,
eyes blazing, hackles stiff, his nose high in the air, and his teeth
bared, ready to bound. Stair restrained him and crept to the lip of a
little sandy cup where, from the midst of a clump of dry saw-edged
sea-grass, he could look down on a group of men busied about their
soup-kettle.
"Silly fools," he muttered to himself, "they do not know that the first
handful of heather and dried bracken they throw on their fire, will send
a skarrow to the sky that will warn every soul within twenty miles. If I
had not been a blind idiot, and thinking of something else, I should
have seen it long before I came so far."
And looking over his shoulder he saw to the right, to the left, and
behind him towards the cliffs seaward, multitudinous pulsing ruddy
camp-fire blooms, waking, waxing and falling, that told of a general
investment of their fastness, so long secure. In spite of the surprise,
however, Stair managed to meet Joseph and to warn him that nothing
further must be attempted except by means of Whitefoot. He introduced
the wise collie and made him give his two front paws to the confidential
servant in token of amity, while he repeated his name over and over
again--"Joseph! Joseph!"
"_Ao-ouch!_" whispered Whitefoot, as much as to say, "Of course I
understand! Do you think that I, Whitefoot Garland, am some silly puppy
gambolling through life?"
For Whitefoot was a grave dog and had had to do with many very serious
things indeed--things which touched even the life of his master. So it
is no wonder that at this time of day he rather resented pains being
taken with his education. It was like setting a double-first to construe
the first book of Cæsar.
Stair returned to the Bothy with his heart heavy and many thoughts
churning within him. He reached the Wild safely with nothing worse to
report than the fact that he was fired upon by a sentry, which warned
him that he must not come that way too often. He did not enter directly
into the Bothy, where, as he knew, Julian Wemyss would be doing an
hour's reading before turning in. Instead he betook himself to the dam
which his brothers and the band had constructed at the close of the
autumnal peat-leading.
All the winter the _Sunk_ of Blairmore had been full of black moss
water. For the greater part of the cold weather it had been frozen and
snow-bound. But now, swollen with spring rains, the ditches of the
_Sunk_ were lipping to the overflow. Stair took the great iron gelleck
and with a blow or two knocked back the clutches of the flood-barriers.
Then flinging down the huge crow-bar, he fled for his life, the
ink-black water hissing and spurting at his heels. It was not noisy,
that water. It ran silently, almost oilily, but all the same it followed
after, and it was swirling black about Stair Garland's knees as he
scrambled up the high platform of the Bothy, at the place where you
could dig out the sand and sea-shells of a past age from among the roots
of the heather.
"That will put out one or two of their fires for them!" he exclaimed
triumphantly, and even as he spoke he heard cries announcing danger,
hasty preparations for flight, while the red "skarrows" in the sky
winked only once or twice more and were then wiped out clean all along
the east and west borders of the Wild. Only on the high southern cliffs
the fires still shone. And Stair knew that it was thither that the
drowned-out investing parties would be compelled to retreat.
From the north there came no sign, for there alone no fires had been
lighted. But the Wild spread the farthest and was most dangerous and
inaccessible in that direction. Only morning would reveal the solitary
tiny zigzag of path which connected them with their fellows, a path
which Stair believed to be quite impossible--_unless_--and here a
suspicion went flashing through his mind which sent him indoors with a
bound. No, Eben the Spy was lying on his bed apparently sound asleep.
Stair gazed at him with a bitter smile.
"That's what comes of having a bad record against you," he murmured,
"the man may be quite innocent. He may be really asleep. Yet as things
are I dare not treat him as if he were either. To-morrow he must do a
little scouting for us. He shall feel for the enemy, and if they fire
upon him--well and good, then he has not brought the enemy down upon us.
But because of his past, he must undergo the ordeal by fire and water.
"Well, we will let him sleep, but all the same I shall keep an eye upon
him to see that he does not take French leave during the night!"
Stair called Mr. Wemyss from his reading. The ex-ambassador thought that
a new parcel of books had arrived, and made haste to obey. He saw the
door of the Bothy open and Stair, a large, dark shape vaguely outlined
against a rosy illumination, the cause of which he did not understand,
leaning easily with his shoulder against the lintel-post, blocking all
exit.
"Well, Stair," said Julian, "did you find Joseph? Had he any word of the
_Good Intent_?"
"I did find Joseph," said Stair curtly, "and it will be a long time
before I find him again. Do you see that?"
"That" referred to the numerous fires which were now being lighted on
the heights of the sand-hills, by the fugitives from the camps in the
hollows of the Wild, who had been driven out by the invading waters of
the dam constructed by the Garland brothers and their followers.
Julian Wemyss gazed a little stupidly. His eyes were unaccustomed to the
dark, and he blinked like one who finds a difficulty in believing the
evidence of his senses.
"Are these really fires?" he asked, covering his eyes with his hand.
Stair softly shut the door behind the two of them. It would not now
matter whether the spy were asleep or awake.
"Now do you understand?" he said softly.
"They are fires, and we are surrounded by water. You have let out the
dam!"
Stair sketched his night's adventure, with his hand on Whitefoot's head,
who sat staring out at the winking fires gravely and wisely, as one who
knew all about it and would have a great deal to say to the matter
before all was done.
"Ah," said Julian Wemyss, "this is no chance business. They have been
preparing it with the long hand. But why did they not charge from all
sides at once and so rush the Bothy?"
"They could not," said Stair simply, "of course there were three easy
paths then where there is only one very difficult one now. But, you see,
they did not know that. They did not know and they do not know the
strength of our garrison, or how soon we hope to be reinforced."
"I suppose," Julian whispered, "you have every confidence--?" And he
indicated the ulterior of the Bothy where the ex-spy was sleeping.
"No," murmured Stair, "but I shall be sure to-morrow as soon as the sun
is up. Possible treachery within the camp is not the sort of thing one
can afford to let drag!"
"Provisions?" queried Julian.
"For a year!" said Stair.
"Water?"
"As you see!" And he swept his arm largely round the circle of the Wild.
"We shall make a filter with a little granite sand (silver sand they
call it). After passing it two or three times through this, the peat
water will be fairly palatable. At least we shall need to put up with
it!" And then Stair communicated to his fellow-prisoner his idea of the
defence of the Bothy.
"We do not want to kill any of these men who have been ordered to come
and starve us out," he said. "You have your house and your position. It
is true that you have killed Lord Wargrove, but if he had not been a
friend of the Regent and a confidant of Lyonesse, you might have walked
the streets of London after a month or so, and no man would have dreamed
of disquieting you. I am in a wholly different case. They are eager to
see me hanged, and would not hesitate to make it high treason--"
"High treason only affects the person of the King," said Julian Wemyss;
"not that that will help matters much, the Regent's judges being what
they are."
"At any rate," said Stair, "killing a blue-jacket or an exciseman will
do us no good, and I am for firing blanks except in the very last
extremity--of course, if it is our life or that of another man, I think
we owe it to ourselves to see that the funeral is the other fellow's!"
Stair Garland slept that night outside, wrapped in his plaid, with
Whitefoot crouched in the corner of it. The watcher's back was against
the door of the Bothy, the key of which was in his pocket. He was taking
care that his ex-spy did not take it into his head to escape the ordeal
of the morning.
At daybreak Stair rose to his feet and shook himself comprehensively.
His limbs were stiff with the cold and damp. Whitefoot had been alert
most of the night. He was unquiet and whined occasionally to himself,
but very softly. The fires on the sand-dunes agitated him--perhaps also
the unrest of his master, who with his own comfortable bed within a
dozen yards, had chosen so incommodious a way of spending the night.
Every few minutes Whitefoot aroused himself and paced stealthily round
the little hut, his head in the air, sniffing the four winds for
information. He tried the black lipping water with his paw and shook it
dry again. That also he did not understand. However, he believed that
Stair Garland did. The knowledge comforted him and sent him back to the
nook of his master's plaid, where he nestled down without turning round,
which was perhaps the most wonderful accomplishment of this wonderful
dog.
* * * * *
Whether Eben McClure, ex-superintendent of recruitment and common
informer, slept well or not during the first night of the investing of
the Bothy of the Wild, is known only to himself. He at least pretended
to pass an excellent night. The pretence was forced upon him by Stair
Garland camping outside, his rifle ready to his hand, and the ceaseless
patter of Whitefoot's alert sentry-go going round and round the hut.
By half-past five the day was beginning to come. Stair entered the
Bothy, shook Eben by the shoulder and bade him prepare breakfast. Meals
must now be taken as occasion served, and the whole business of their
daily life would have to be reorganized. For they were now a city in a
state of siege.
Eben knew too well the conditions of his life's tenure, to refuse to do
anything Stair Garland bade him. He believed that while in the company
of any of the band, he existed only by sufferance and had reason to be
grateful for each hour of life vouchsafed to him.
So he made the porridge without demur, just as he had gone to bed fully
dressed so as to be ready for any demand that the night might bring.
The meal being properly stirred, the porridge was poured into three
wooden platters. Then Stair took a lump of fine Glenanmays salt butter
from the firkin and dabbed it into the centre of each dish, the same
amount for each. After which he went and knocked on the thin partition
of Julian Wemyss's cubicle. Mr. Wemyss was already on foot, and had, in
fact, almost finished the elaborate toilette which was habitual to him.
He saluted Stair and the spy with his usual calm civility, and with one
glance at the stained, "up-all-night" look of Stair's dress, he gathered
the truth. Stair Garland had been watching while he slept. He blushed a
little at the thought, and resolved that for the future he would do his
full share of night duty. Nay, even to-day he would see to it that Stair
got his proper hours of repose. In the meantime, however, Stair's mind
was full of quite another matter.
The loyalty of Eben McClure must be tested, and Stair was only waiting
for the end of the meal in order to instruct the victim how he was to
prove it. The door was open and Eben sat on the inner side of the table
facing it. Between him and the light were Stair Garland and Stair
Garland's gun. As usual Mr. Wemyss sat at the end of the table nearest
to the fire.
"Eben," said Stair Garland, setting his elbows squarely on the table and
leaning forward, "you are an intelligent man and you will understand
that since the Bothy has been surrounded by an armed force and we may
expect an assault any hour, your position has very much changed. We took
you, to a very great extent, on your own statement. Now I do not think
that you have sold us, or that you have brought these people down upon
us. But we need to be sure. It will be obvious to you that if we are to
depend on a third man in our midst, that third man must have all our
confidence. Now, this is what I intend that you shall do. You and I
shall follow the path as far as the big peat knoll. There we shall be in
full view of the posts of the Preventive men. Having arrived there, you
will appear to break from me after a struggle, and run as hard as you
can towards the north in the direction of the excisemen. They will know
you very well, having been your old cronies. You will have a white
handkerchief in your hand which you will wave to them. If they take that
signal to mean that you are escaping, we on our side will understand
that you have been at your old tricks. If they fire--then you are
cleared and can turn and come back to us. I will protect your retreat.
Now do you quite understand?"
Frequently in the exercise of his profession, Eben had need of
indomitable courage, but now perhaps more than ever. Yet he was
steadfast.
"I see no reason why you should trust me," he said. "I am willing to
take the risk. When shall we start?"
"Now," said Stair, and in a minute more he was marching his man along
the narrowing pathway between the dark pools of peat water. "There is
only one thing I have to say. Do not pass the dwarf thorn-tree at the
big elbow. If you run past that, I shall know you have it in your mind
to desert, and it will be my duty to shoot. You know I do not miss."
It was a grey day with a gentle wind, the sky of a teased pearl
woolliness with curious warm tints in it here and there. The face of the
moorland was generally black, sometimes broken by borders of vivid green
about the pools, and along the path edges by the little rosy rootlets of
the plant called Venus's Flytrap.
They came to the outlying peat knoll, where an extra supply of fuel had
been left under shelter during the previous autumn. Quite half of it
still remained, and the "fause-hoose," or cavernous pit left from the
digging out of the peats, afforded the best of cover. From it Stair
would be able to follow the spy with his rifle all the way to the posts
of the Preventive men which had been established on the rising ground
above the edge of the Wild. A portable semaphore stiffly flapped its
arms as they looked, no doubt signalling their coming to other and more
distant posts.
"There," said Stair, "they are all ready for you. Come outside and let
us get our bit of a trial over. There is your handkerchief. As soon as
you hear the bullets whistle, you can drop. Then turn about and crawl
back to me."
"It does not seem to you somewhat cruel--this test?" said Eben McClure,
looking wistfully at Stair. It was his only sign of weakness, and there
are few who would have shown so little.
"No," said Stair, sternly, "when I think of those lads beaten insensible
in the military prisons of your _dépôts_ or bleeding at the
triangles--they gave Craig Easton a thousand lashes and he had had eight
hundred of them before he died--I think I am letting you off easy. I
ought to shoot you myself where you stand. And don't let me think too
much about it or I may do it even yet. I am giving you your chance to be
an honest man!"
They went together out into the open. Before them a little zigzag of
pathway angled intricately among the sullen floods of the morass. The
sky was pleasantly shell-tinted overhead. There was the way he must go.
Never had life appeared so sweet to the spy.
But he went through his part like a man in a dream. He struggled with
Stair Garland, and though he did not hear himself he shouted fiercely as
if for life. It was very real indeed. Then suddenly he broke loose and
ran down the narrow towpath of dry land between the ink-black pools. He
was still shouting. He had forgotten to wave the handkerchief. Then
suddenly before him he saw the thorn at the angle of the big elbow.
He longed for the rattle of muskets--either from before or behind. It
did not seem to matter much to him now which it was to be. He felt
desperate and forlorn, hating everybody--Stair Garland most of all.
"_Hist--Skip! Crackle!_" came a volley from far away to the north, and
Eben cast himself down behind a heather bush to draw breath. They had
fired, and he was a proven man. He had faced death to certify his truth
to the salt he was eating, and now nothing remained but to withdraw as
carefully as might be. He crawled backward, now scuttling from one
little rickle of peats left forlornly out on the moor to the next sodden
whin bush, the prickles of which yirked him as he threw himself down.
Stair kept his word, and from his peatstack delivered a lively fire upon
the men in the shelters on the northern hillsides.
Eben was very white when he came back and dropped limp among the peat.
Stair said nothing, but for the first time he held out his hand. The spy
had become a clean man again, and the same would be known from among all
the folk from Nith Brig to the heuchs of the Back Shore of Leswalt. His
kin would own him openly. Stonykirk parish was again free to him. Eben
knew that he had not paid too dearly for his rehabilitation, for
whatever the dangers he had faced or might be called upon to face, they
were as nothing to the hate and opprobrium of the whole body of one's
own people.