STIFF-NECKED AND REBELLIOUS
The breeze quickened from the south. The lugger sped through the water,
and Stair Garland still sat dazed. Never had any man felt such a fool.
Here he was firmly and legally wedded, and he dare not even address a
word to his bride. He had spoken no syllable of gladness or
affection--triple dolt--quadruple fool--prize-winner among idiots! He
had nothing to say--he could say nothing. Nor was it the presence of a
third person which prevented him. Perhaps, rather, something in Patsy's
eye, and, though that he would not acknowledge, a lurking grimness in
the smile about the wicks of Godfrey's mouth.
It was not courage that Stair lacked--only everything about Patsy awed
him. He did not yet understand her. The whys and the wherefores of her
actions were still completely dark to him.
But Patsy was not a young woman to wrap up her mind. When she had
anything to say, she said it. So after they had turned about and were
beating up against wind and tide for their island, under the lee of
which they had been laid to all the afternoon, she vouchsafed an
explanation--or at least as much of a vindication as Patsy ever
permitted herself.
"Stair Garland," she said, "listen to me; and you, Godfrey McCulloch,
take that Satanic leer off your face. You have no idea how unattractive
it makes you look! You should be framed and hung up to frighten naughty
children.
"I am sick of being looked after. I am weary of being educated and
leading-stringed and chaperoned. Now I am going to chaperon myself for
ever and ever. I told father I should do this if he pestered me with his
princesses. Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples, for I am sick
of coddling--I hate Hanover Lodge. I hate all the things Uncle Julian
loves, except only some few books. I cannot even have little Miss Aline
put over me. It is too cruel to tag her round after me, jigging this way
and that like the skiff there in our wake. She was made and invented to
abide at Ladykirk, and to rule over Eelen Young and the brass
preserving-pans. Why, because I am a girl, should the poor lady be
traiked all over the world in an agony of dispeace? So I married you,
Stair. It is hard on you, I know. Being a gentleman you could not very
well refuse when I asked you before the minister--"
Here Stair made an indefinite noise in his throat, which, if he could
have spoken, would have been an eloquent statement-at-large of the state
of his affections. He cursed himself for his imbecility. Louis Raincy,
he felt sure, would have found the right thing to say--even the Poor
Scholar--not to say any of the fine gentlemen whom Patsy had left behind
in London. After all she had left them. That was one comfort. She had
come to save him. But what in the name of the prince of darkness was
that idiot of a Godfrey McCulloch grinning at? Surely there was nothing
so absolutely strange about the situation. The man they had seen was a
minister--the minister of a parish. He was in Geneva gown, and
bands--such as they were. His session clerk was with him. The kirk
register had been duly signed.
If that ugly, black-browed McCulloch would only stop grinning and take
himself off--perhaps even yet he could put the matter right.
"I only wanted you to know, before we land," said the clear-cut, faceted
voice of Patsy, ringing out the syllables like the pouring of little
diamonds into a thin wine-glass, "that you, Stair Garland, must be my
chaperon--no princesses or Miss Alines any more. You can protect me from
grand dukes with no more courage and determination than you did before,
but now you will have an open indubitable right in that you are my
husband! But here we are at the island. And there down on the rocks, do
you see, Stair, who are there to welcome us? Your sister Jean, and
Whitefoot. And Kennedy--Kennedy McClure--!"
She hung about the neck of a stout red-faced man, who murmured all the
time of the embrace, "Tut, lassie. Think shame, lassie!" and dabbed at
his eyes and blew his nose with a bandanna handkerchief with the noise
of many trumpets.
"Guid-day to ye, lass, and to you, Stair Garland! Ye hae a wild filly to
gentle. Be not downcast if the job be a long one. She will be worth it."
"What, Jean, you are never going?" cried Stair, when he saw his sister
preparing to accompany the Laird of Supsorrow into the lugger. Somehow
it seemed that he could have seen his way plainer before him if Jean had
stayed. But as Godfrey McCulloch hoisted the sail, he shouted, "Go she
must. There are a pair of fathers away yonder in the Cairn Ferris
Valleys to be contented. And I am not sure that they will be easy to
satisfy. But your sister Jean and Kennedy McClure there, and this
extract from the parish register signed by parish minister and session
clerk will show them that you and your wife are beyond all pursuit. As
for the prison-breaking and the law, there will doubtless be great
riding and running, but I do not believe that here on Isle Rathan you
will be in any way disquieted."
It was nine of the clock when Patsy and Stair stood on the shore of the
Isle Rathan of many famous exploits, and watched the lugger with its
cargo of three go dancing out on the full current of the Solway ebb.
The two were left alone and the island seemed incredibly small and
strange about them--at least to Stair. But Patsy was not in the least
put about. She did the honours of the old tower of the Herons. She led
the way to where Jean had spread their first meal, and motioned Stair to
his place. He sat down like an automaton and looked about him as if he
were seeing through a haze. It was a large and pleasant kitchen,
stone-floored, with oak furniture as old as the time of Patrick Heron
and May Mischief his wife. A bright fire was burning on the
old-fashioned hearth, and the room looked cosy enough in spite of the
old small-paned windows. It had recently been put into order, and new,
bright utensils hung upon the ranges of pins and hooks against the wall.
But Stair's food seemed to choke him, somehow. He felt the imperious
need of speech.
"Oh, Patsy!" he began--but he got no farther. Patsy was in possession of
the field in a moment.
"Stair," she said warningly, as she held up her hand to stop him;
"Stair, you have never failed me yet. Don't let me trust you in vain. I
married you because I had need of you--"
"Not," said Stair, speaking disjointedly, "not because you wanted to
marry me--not because--you loved me?"
"Oh, I wanted to marry you! Yes, I wanted that. I needed you to help me
to do what I could not do in any other way. But--wait a while. Neither
you nor I know what love means yet. _I_ certainly do not. I am too
young. Meanwhile, you are the most dependable person in my world. Let
love alone for a little. What difference can it make to you and me? Let
us help one another, depend one on the other--I have run off with you,
and if you are under age I dare say I could be put into prison for that.
But that is the way of the Pict woman. What she wants, she takes. I ran
away from London. I took you out of prison, and when I had you, I
brought you here to live on herrings. I wanted to be rid of princes who
pestered me to marry them, of royal dukes who ran away with me, of kind
uncles and princesses who thought to make my bed all eider down and
cotton wool, my food all rose-leaves and honey!"
"I understand--I understand," said Stair, with a certain fierce
determination in his eye, "you shall have no cause to regret that you
have chosen me as your squire and armour-bearer. I shall not claim more
than is my due, and of what that is I have a very small opinion indeed!"
Patsy looked at Stair. He seemed to be understanding--almost too well.
There was no need that he should remove himself to so vast a distance.
She wanted them to be two comrades--two Crusoes without a man Friday,
working harmoniously for the common good of the community. But Stair
held out for a position frankly subaltern.
"If you will tell me what I am to do--you know the place better than
I--it is time to do it!" He was outwardly calm, inwardly raging, as he
spoke.
"There is, thank you, some water to bring in--the spring is within the
courtyard. The well-rope has a bucket. Thank you!"
And Patsy was left alone. She thought Stair Garland long in returning.
He had, indeed, looked into all the outbuildings, where he discovered a
couple of cows that needed to be milked and let out on the dewy pastures
for the night, fowls that must be shut up, and in the barn the remains
of a once full mow of hay which would make excellent sleeping
accommodation.
When he got back Patsy was covering up the fire for the night. She had
washed the dishes, and dried them with a dispatch to which Julian Wemyss
and he had never attained after months of practice on the Wild of
Blairmore.
She listened to the relation of the discoveries he had made out of
doors, and agreed when he told her that he must be on hand to drive the
cows back to the byre at daybreak. As seen from the sea, there must be
nothing to mark the island as inhabited.
"Remember to lock the door on the inside," he said. "I shall sleep in
the barn that I may be ready for my work in the morning. You will be
quite safe here in the tower. Good-night, Patsy!"
And without waiting for a single word he was gone into the darkness.
Patsy had pictured something much more idyllic than this. How they would
enjoy their first meal! How they would chatter over it like a pair of
daws in the same nest. How they would fight their battles over again,
Patsy telling all her adventures in London, of the Prince Eitel, the
riding of the dukes, the balls and levees--how she had met with Kennedy
McClure, and how she had come all the way in the _Good Intent_ to save
him. She had her night-rides, her plots and combinations to relate--how
this parish would have sent so many, but could not have them up to
time--how another set of good lads were terrorized by a wrathful
overlord.
From Stair she would sit and listen to the story of the defence of the
Bothy on the Wild. She would hear of the Princess's letter to her uncle,
how they passed the long dark winter months when the snow blocked all,
the coming of spring, the cutting of the dunes by the company of
sappers, and the capture. But instead, it was all distant and dry. A
"Good-night" such as one might have thrown at a dog--no, he would not
throw the word at Whitefoot. For even as she passed the postern window,
looking out she saw Stair crossing the court in the direction of the
barn, side by side with Whitefoot. The dog's eyes were raised to those
of his master in a kind of adoration, and his tail waved triumphantly.
As Stair bent to stroke the dog's head, Patsy became conscious of a
strange new thing within her.
It was something she had never felt before, though almost any other
woman would have diagnosed at once. It was, in fact, nothing less than
her first twinge of jealousy.
She chose to forget all the wise precepts by which she had regulated
Stair's conduct toward her. She forgot how she had carefully explained
to him that all the duties were to be on his side, and all the benefits
on hers.
"He did not even shake hands," she thought, looking at the wrist which
the Prince and other great gentlemen has so often fervently kissed, "and
yet he can stop to pat that dog's head!"
Nobody had told Patsy that marriage is a dish that cannot be eaten by
one while the other looks on. She had chosen her way. She had carried it
through, and now in spite of the luminous explanations which she had
given Stair as to their relative positions and duties, he had chosen to
misunderstand, and had marched off straight as a ramrod.
And she caught herself murmuring over and over to herself, "Stiff-necked
and rebellious--stiff-necked and rebellious!"
It was to Stair she referred, but the accompanying stamp of the little
foot might possibly have raised doubts as to the correctness of her
application, had any been there to see.