"WHY DO THEY LOVE YOU?"
With the coming of Eben the Spy to Isle Rathan a new life began there.
At first Patsy was filled with indignation at the trust Stair placed in
him. She knew that he had been with Uncle Julian and Stair in the Bothy
of Blairmore. She had heard the tale of the test--the test of life or
death. But somehow, because she had not seen it--because she had not
been with the ex-spy day after day, she could not believe in the reality
of his repentance. His deep-rooted admiration for Stair remained in her
eyes peculiarly suspect. He seemed to be presuming too much. If she, to
whom Stair belonged by right of purchase at so great a price, did not
manifest her feelings--what right had he? Of course he had a purpose to
serve, and that purpose was to betray them. How else should he have
guessed about the island, and why should he come swimming out and
interrupting their picnic like that?
Still there was a pleasant side to the matter. The cows were milked, the
meals prepared. Fresh water was brought to every chamber by this man who
never showed his face outside the house during the day. Patsy and Stair
had nothing to do but to stray from one safe cove to another on the
seaward side all through these long days, and so, resentment falling
away, by and by Patsy fell into talk with Eben. He called her "madame,"
and rarely concluded a sentence without a reference to "Your husband,
madame!"
This Patsy thought a great liberty. What could he know about the matter?
He had not seen Saunders Duff's registers, and of a certainty Godfrey
McCulloch had not spoken. Still, she finished by liking to hear him say
the words, and often left the real Stair idly tossing stones into the
water, in order to go into the cool kitchen of Tower Rathan, to sit on
one of the ancient oaken chests, a row of which ran round the walls, and
hear tales of the dare-devil Stair, and especially to listen for the
respectful repetition of her favourite phrase, "Your husband, madame!"
She loved to hear how her husband (she could say the word to herself now
sometimes) had accepted the outcast and had treated him like a man when
he was trodden under foot. She could not listen often enough to the
history of the restitution of the money and jewels with which Eben had
ridden away from the White Loch. Stair had insisted on that, though he
had no reason to love the Duke of Lyonesse.
Then she would go back and lo! there--prone on the sand, his rough
muzzle on Stair's knees, his big brown eyes under shaggy bristles of
eyebrow, gazing up into his master's face, lay Whitefoot. Only, such was
the fineness of his breeding and the delicacy of his sheep-dog instinct,
that he rose instantly when he heard Patsy's returning footsteps, and
took himself out of the way. He worshipped none the less, only at a
greater distance. Patsy's was now the first right.
"Why do they love you so much, Stair?" said Patsy abruptly, as she sat
down beside him after one of these kitchen visits.
"They--who?" said Stair, sleepily. For warm pebbles, warm sands, the lee
of a rock and the gentle lap of a sheltered sea make for drowsiness.
"Well," said Patsy, "Eben and Whitefoot there--they don't care a straw
about me."
"Whitefoot would defend you with his life," put in Stair, sitting up.
"Yes, because you tell him," said Patsy, pulling discontentedly at a
blade of grass, "and as for Eben--he simply cannot keep from singing
your praises!"
Stair laughed, gaily for him. He did not often laugh aloud.
"Patsy," he answered, "how many have loved you--Princes and Princesses,
men and women in another world than mine? Now, none of these love
me--and strange as it may seem, I am not disquieted about the matter."
"I daresay not," snapped Patsy, who this morning for some reason was
easily irritated, "but they are not here. Eben and Whitefoot are, and
they go about worshipping you. Now, if you expect me to do the same, you
are mistaken!"
"I am not expecting anything of the sort," said Stair patiently, looking
past Patsy, away out to sea to the poised top of Snaefell lording it
above the low-lying channel mists.
"Well then you ought!" cried Patsy, and turning on her heel she sped to
the house to keep from crying, she did not in the least know why. And
when Stair followed her to ask what was the matter, it stood to reason
that he was met by silence and a locked door. If he had had more
experience he would have remained where he was and let Patsy find her
way back of her own accord.
One morning, a week or two after, Patsy had gone out with her books and
Stair was getting ready to follow her to the seaward looking side of the
Isle, when Eben called him to the window of the kitchen which overlooked
the long ridge of sand, shingle, and razor-like mussel shells which in
the deeps of the ebb, constituted a practicable pathway across to the
mainland.
For half-a-dozen tides each month, three in the middle of each neap,
unless there were heavy winds from the south-west, Isle Rathan became a
tidal island, and the ridge could be crossed on foot by those who made
haste. This was not, however, often attempted, for the tides and
currents were exceedingly tricky in these parts.
Eben pointed with his finger to a faint horizontal ridge on the
mainland.
"Do you see anything there, sir?" he asked.
"No," said Stair, anxious to be off to Patsy, "some shepherds on the
mainland have been making a new sheep-fold, I suppose."
"A sheep-fold is mostly round, sir," said Eben, "and if you will notice
there are two turf dykes one behind the other. I don't like that.
Besides, have you seen anybody working there? I have not. And would
herds cover their work so neatly with turf? From here it might be twenty
years old--only I know it was not there when I passed that way down to
the Orraland Point where I began to swim out."
"I see you have an idea," said Stair, "out with it! Tell me what you
think!"
"Sir," said Eben McClure, "I have every need to serve you faithfully,
and I should never forgive myself if by chance I had brought the enemy
on you. I learned from my uncle where you were. He also has grown to
trust me, sir, because you found me trustworthy, and he was willing that
I should come, in order to be of what help to you I could. He cherishes
the lady your wife above all others in the world. I had thought Kennedy
McClure a hard, selfish old man, and so he might have been but for her.
But he is never tired of telling how she saved him in London, and how
she was not ashamed of him even in the company of Princes and all the
great folk of the town. Ah, she was counted a world's wonder, sir--our
Miss Patsy, if I may make so bold as to call her so--when she was in
London. There was no one like her--and it's not coronets she could have
married, my uncle says, but crowns!"
"I know--I know," said Stair, somewhat impatiently, "but what is it you
are afraid of?"
"The sappers, sir--the little burrowing men. They have far more sense
than whole regiments of soldiers, and it is as likely as not that some
one of them, anxious for promotion, followed me across country, and
watched me down to the point of Orraland. I wish I had been more careful
of my footprints, but the woods were soft and I kept under shelter till
the last moment!"
"Well, what of it--get on, Eben!"
"Sir, these are sappers' trenches, or I am no judge! And what's more,
they are made to command the approach by the ridge to the tail of the
island."
"But we are almost at the height of the flood tides, and there can be
nothing to fear from that direction till the neaps come, and not then if
the south-west wind blows as it has done ever since we came here. Why,
we have hardly ever seen the back of the ridge black for half-an-hour."
"I know," said Eben, shaking his head, "but they are long-patienced
fellows, these sappers--not like cavalrymen or lazy Preventives, who
want nothing better than to lie up with a pipe and a mutchkin!"
"Some night we shall row over and see, Eben," said Stair, preparing to
depart. "If they are lying in their rabbit-hutches we might give them a
rare fright!"
"No," said Eben, "I don't mind going myself, but what would that child
do without you? Answer me that, sir! No, what I want you to do is to
send Whitefoot with a message to my uncle and get the _Good Intent_ here
by the next neaps. Could the dog do that, sir? They say he is wise."
"Well," said Stair, considering, "I don't think that Whitefoot could go
directly to Supsorrow and find out your uncle. But he could take a
message to Jean, if he were put a little bit on the road--say through
the Blue Hills glen and over the old bridge of Dee. I daresay he could
make it even from here, but he has never been past Dee Bridge by land.
Then Jean would send on the note to your uncle by Agnew--he is the
youngest and fleetest!"
"He and I shall start to-night," said Eben the Spy. "I shall be back
before the morning. I shall see him safe across Tongland Bridge and be
home before daybreak. The nights are lengthening."
"If you think it is necessary," said Stair, stepping out.
"It _is_ necessary," said Eben, emphatically. "It is so important that I
would run all the way myself, if I could do the journey as fast and as
surely."
Stair and Patsy spent the day in the usual way out on the cliffs, coming
in for their meals as leisurely as to an hotel and as certain that they
would find everything in order.
Stair said nothing to Patsy about his talk with Eben. He did not mention
the curious ridges so carefully turfed with green which were gradually
penning in the end of the shore passage. But in spite of this, he
thought a good deal. Who could be at the back of this steady pursuit?
Surely not Louis Raincy. No, Raincy was a Galloway man, and even if
Patsy were not there to be considered, he would not hunt Stair Garland.
He might have his own quarrel with him, but he would not take this way
of avenging himself.
That night, as soon as Patsy said good-night and went upstairs, Eben
made a parcel of his clothes, and at a sign from his master Whitefoot
stood ready to plunge in and swim across along with Eben. His collar,
duly charged with Jean's letter, was tied in the bundle along with the
ex-spy's clothes, and would be put upon him after the moorland winds had
dried the mane of hair about his neck.
"_To Jean_--you hear, Whitefoot--_to Jean!_"
And Whitefoot leaped up to lick Stair's face in token of complete
understanding.
It was not a long swim, and the pair took the water at the very height
of the tide. They would hardly lose any way as they pushed towards the
strand beneath the farmhouse of Craigdarroch, which was the nearest
point on their road to the old Bridge of Tongland, beyond which
Whitefoot knew his trail.
Stair watched them out of sight. They swam silently and evenly into the
darkness, and in a quarter of an hour he heard the signal agreed
upon--Whitefoot's singing yelp with which he assisted the precentor in
starting such minor tunes as Martyrs and Coleshill. Then he turned and
went slowly back to the old Tower of Rathan. Patsy's light was not out,
and he stood a long while in the courtyard looking up at it.
Many were making sacrifices for Patsy's sake, but none, he thought, such
great ones as he. Still, so it was nominated in the bond. And, touched
by a memory, he took out his Shakespeare and read the "Merchant of
Venice" till he fell asleep.
The candle had burned itself out when he awoke. The early rose of a
coming day was looking in at the top of the blinds. He heard the rattle
of pebbles tossed against the half-closed wooden shutter. He opened, and
there, pale as a spectre, stood Eben McClure. His teeth were chattering,
so Stair made haste to let him in. He gave him a strong "four fingers"
dram of Angoulême brandy, before making him roll himself up in a blanket
and lie down in his warm place. Stair would be cook for one morning.
He did not disturb the sleeper when Patsy came down, smiling and happy,
with another day of peaceful pleasure before her in their Rath or Isle
of the Fairy Folk.
"Eben McClure needed to send a message to his uncle," he said lightly,
"so he swam across with Whitefoot, and being chilled when he got back, I
gave him a dose of spirits and made him go to bed."
Patsy made no remark. She had accepted Eben as a fixture in their
_ménage_, and took no further concern about the matter. But Stair looked
out many times at the green trenches closing in the land entrance to the
isle, and even as he looked, it seemed that during the night the
parallels had crept down a little nearer to high-water mark.
If so, Eben the Spy was right, and for Patsy's sake their precautions
had not been taken a moment too soon. The sooner the _Good Intent_ was
on the spot the better.