REBEL GALLOWAY
"You were here on this spot with your command, Captain de Raincy,"
trumpeted Colonel Laurence, "and yet you let the prison-breakers ride
off! You ought to have attacked them, sir. You know you ought! It is as
much as your coat is worth. The whole crew of them were there--the low
fellow who shot the Duke where he drove into the infernal
barricades--and the girl who ran away from London to send the fiery
cross through the country. Damn it, sir, it makes me furious only to
think of it. And yet, with a chance like that, you sat your horse and
let them ride off!"
"I need not, I suppose," said Louis calmly, "point out to you that there
were some hundreds of them, at least ten to one, and that most of them
were known to me--though not, I believe, those who remained behind to
fire the prison."
"Well," said Colonel Laurence bitterly, "whether known to you or not,
you let them ride off unharmed after committing a capital crime. It is
evident that you cannot be trusted in your own district. Your sympathies
are not with law and order. Oh, I know something about the peculiar
difficulties of officials in Galloway. There are certain acts--such as
resistance to his Majesty's press, prison-breaking, and the whole
business of smuggling which are here favoured by all, from the Lord
Lieutenant to the herd on the hills. I cannot get a magistrate to issue
a warrant without referring the matter to the Secretary of State. I
cannot execute it without a battalion of regulars. As an instance in
point you were in command of a company of dragoons. You saw this thing
done. You knew those who did it, yet you did not lift a finger to stop
them."
"We had only just arrived as they were riding off," said Louis. "I had
no evidence that any offence against justice had been committed. I saw
the prison on fire afterwards and I helped to put out that. Without my
troopers it would have been wholly destroyed."
"No matter," said the irate Colonel, "we cannot have any such officer in
the district--certainly not under my command. I mean that my orders
shall be carried through at whatever risk. Now, I put it to you plainly,
do you prefer to send in your papers or be publicly broken?"
"I shall not send in my papers," said Louis de Raincy, warmly, "and you
cannot break me, publicly or otherwise!"
"And pray why not?"
Louis lifted his hand in the direction of Castle Raincy, an imposing
pile of towers showing up dark on a hill to the west.
"That's why," he said, curtly. "I am the heir to a peerage, and my
grandfather--well, I need not speak of him. Besides, I know the Duke of
York, who is still commander-in-chief."
Laurence's temper got the better of him.
"It is you and the like of you who defy regulations and are the shame of
the British army."
"Not so," said Louis, in a very level tone, "say rather officers who
scramble for every safe money-making little post-recruit--raising,
keg-hunting, 'stay-in-a-comfortable-corner' men, and keep as far away
from the real fighting as possible. If the cap fits, why, put it on! And
as soon as the war is over, if you still require any satisfaction, I am
your man. In the meantime, Colonel Laurence, you will no longer be
troubled with me. I have got my transfer to the Duke's army at
Hernandez, and I am ordered to join my new regiment by the first ship to
leave Liverpool with cavalry details. We shall soon be ready for the
push across the Pyrenees in the rear of Soult!"
Colonel Laurence took the paper and glanced at it. Then he grunted and
began to march out of barracks. He knew very well that, since the
British army was officered on much more aristocratic and family lines
than in later days, he could not hope to strike Louis Raincy with any
real penalty. But nevertheless he turned about for a parting shot.
"That paragon of yours, the daughter of Ferris of Cairn Ferris, ran off
with the chief criminal. She led the attack on the Castle here. They are
hidden somewhere. If I catch them within my jurisdiction, I shall put a
bullet through each of them."
"You can do as you like with Stair Garland," Louis Raincy called back,
"but remember if you touch Patsy Ferris I will put a bullet through you
if I have to hold the pistol to your ear! But I am not anxious--both of
them would be quickly avenged. I advise you, Laurence, to leave that
wasp's nest alone. You do not understand this people. I do!"
* * * * *
Now Colonel Laurence, though he got the worst of his colloquy with
Captain Louis Raincy, had a real grievance. It was true that throughout
the province, and especially in its westerly parts, the Government
hardly received the semblance of support. Some lairds and a few big
tenants were loud Governmental men, but at home each had his store of
"run" stuff ripening under some inconspicuous cellar, generally quite
unconnected with his mansion. In those days they built even cothouses
with more space below ground than could be seen above. The stones were
quarried in the laird's own quarries. They were carried in his tenant's
carts. They were laid by his own masons. The earth out of the cellarage
was tipped into the nearest burn or over the cliffs into the sea.
There was hardly a farm lad from the Braes of Glenap to the Brigend of
Dumfries who was not protected by his landlord from his Majesty's press.
The sentiment of a whole countryside soon tells on the spirits of a man
like Laurence, and especially since he had lost Eben McClure (who had
taken off from him the sharpest of the popular hatred) his soul had
become darkened and embittered. He was expected to make bricks in a
country where the straw did not grow--to fill regimental _cadres_ with
men, every one of whom was under the secret protection of the loyal
gentlemen with whom he dined and talked. At hospitable boards he
sometimes forgot himself and revealed his plans, only to repent most
bitterly the next morning. For very sure was he that a messenger had
started as soon as he had been shut into his bedroom, and that long
before morning the quarry would be far away among the moors, lurking
there as safely as ever did Peden, called the Prophet, once minister of
New Luce.
His men were continually being called out by this Supervisor and that,
but he had grown to be profoundly distrustful of such summonses. They
brought him no honour, and not even any satisfaction. The wily
exciseman, knowing well on which side his bread was buttered, had
generally made his pact with the "runners." When the troops and the
Preventive arrived on the scene of the "run," nothing remained except a
multitude of pony-tracks, and occasionally, if they were very swift and
very lucky, the top-masts of a schooner or brig might be seen hanging
like mist against the morning sky. Then the Preventives would run round
looking behind ridges of rocks and exploring the bottoms of shallow
pools, till they heroically took possession of the twenty or thirty
casks of Edam Hollands or Angoulême brandy which had been left for them.
Then the newspaper account would run somewhat as follows:
"IMPORTANT SMUGGLING CAPTURE.--On the night of the 7th, acting on
information received, the Preventive officers of Stranryan (Chief
Supervisor Pirlock in command), assisted by a troop of H.M. 27th
Dragoons stationed at the same place, succeeded in intercepting a
most serious attempt at smuggling at Port Logan. Supervisor Pirlock
had had the place under observation for several weeks, and on the
evening of the 7th he swooped down upon the law-breakers,
completely broke them up, and captured no fewer than thirty large
casks of fine liquors, both Dutch and French, probably all that the
smuggling ship had been able to put on shore. The vessel was seen
and her description will be sent to all ports, harbours, offices,
as well as to the general agencies under the charge of H.M. Board
of Excise.
"A few more such successes and our law-breaking friends will fight
shy of the district occupied by the keen eyes and ready hands of so
able and zealous an officer as Mr. Chief Supervisor Pirlock."
When a paragraph such as this came under the notice of Colonel Laurence,
he would stamp up and down his room, swearing great oaths, till his
majors had to take him in hand to prevent him speaking out in front of
the men. He would have liked to throttle, not only Mr. Chief Supervisor
Pirlock, but every Preventive officer in the district.
Decidedly there was something to be said for Colonel Laurence. Yet why
did he remain? As Louis had hinted, he had more than once exchanged when
his regiments had been ordered abroad to the wars, in order to continue
in the district. His long experience in the work was urged as a reason.
But really the Colonel was hot on the track of his pension. He could not
now expect any further promotion, and he knew nothing better to do than
just to continue where he was, month after month, till the slow
revolution of the years should bring him an income and repose.
If, however, he could lay his hand upon Stair and have him hanged in the
teeth of all the lairds in Galloway, that would surely count for
something with the Regent, and especially with the Boards of Revenue and
Recruitment, which were naturally very sore upon the subject of the
aforesaid Stair Garland.