As we descended the ladder I went first so as to help Irma. She was a little upset, as indeed she might well be. For it was quite evident that the number of our a.s.sailants had singularly increased, and we did not in the least know whether our signal would do us any good or not.
"It may waken Boyd Connoway," I thought, "but that will be all. He will come sneaking through the wood to see what is the matter so as to tell about it, but he never used a weapon more deadly than a jack-knife with a deer-horn handle."
As Irma"s foot slipped on the bottom rung of the ladder, I caught her as she swayed, and for a moment in that dark place I held her in my hands like a posy, fresh and sweet smelling, but sacred as if in church. She said, without drawing herself away, at least not for a moment longer than she need, "Duncan, you saved my life!"
I had it on my tongue tip to reply, "And my own at the same time, for I could not live without you!"
When one is young it is natural to talk like that, but my old awe of Miss Irma preserved me from the mistake. It was too early days for that, and I only said, "I am glad!" And when we got down there was Agnes Anne, with her finger on her lip, watching little Sir Louis sleeping. She whispered to me to know why we had made such a noise firing on the top of the tower.
"It isn"t like down in the cellar," she said, "you came as near as you can think to wakening him!"
I was so astonished that I could not even tell Agnes Anne that she would soon find it was not we who had done the firing. The most part of the guns were in the cellar any way, as she might have remembered. Besides, what was the use? She had caught that fell disease, which is baby-worship.
Instead, I posted myself in the window, my body hidden in the red rep curtain, and only my eyes showing through a slit I made with my knife as I peered along the barrel of "King George." I had resolved that with an arm of such short "carry," I would not fire till I had them right beneath the porch, or at least coming up the steps of the mansion.
It was in my mind that there would be a brutal rush at the door, perhaps with pickaxes, perhaps with one of the swinging battering-rams I had read of in the Roman wars, that do such wondrous things when cradled in the joined hands of many men.
But in this I was much mistaken. The a.s.sailants were indeed rascals of the same tarry, broad-breeched, stringfasted breed as Galligaskins of the cellar door. But Galligaskins himself I saw not. From which I judge that Agnes Anne had sorted him to rights with the contents of "King George," laid ready for her pointing at the top of the steps by which an enemy must of necessity appear.
But they had a far more powerful weapon than any battering-ram. We saw them moving about in the faint light of a moon in her last quarter just risen above the hills--a true moon of the small hours, ruddy as a fox and of an aspect exceedingly weariful.
Presently there came toward the door two men with a strange and shrouded figure walking painfully between them, as if upon hobbled feet. I could see that one of the men was the tall man of the cave, he in whose hand I had smashed the lantern. I knew him by a wrist that was freshly bandaged, and also by his voice when he spoke. The other who accompanied him was a sailor of some superior grade, a boatswain or such, dressed in good sea cloth, and with a kind of glazed c.o.c.ked hat upon his head.
It was a very weird business--the veiled woman, the dim skarrow of the beacon, the foxy old moon sifting an unearthly light between the branches, everything fallen silent, and our a.s.sailants each keeping carefully to the back of a tree to be out of reach of our muskets.
They came on, the two men leading the woman by the arms till they were out of the flicker of the flames both outside and under the shadow of the house.
Then the tall man, whom in my heart I made sure to be Lalor Maitland, as Irma said, held up his bandaged hand as a man does when he is about to make a speech and craves attention.
"I have been ill-received," he cried, "in this the house of my fathers----"
"Because you have striven to enter it as a thief and a robber!" cried Irma"s voice, close beside me. She had pa.s.sed behind me, slid the bolt of the window, and was now leaning out, resting upon her elbows and looking down at the men below. She was apparently quite fearless. The appearance of her cousin so near seemed somehow to sting her.
"Your brother and yourself are both under my care--I suppose, Mademoiselle Irma, you will not deny that?"
"We were," Irma answered, in a clear voice; "but then, Lalor Maitland, I heard what the fate was you were so kindly destining for me after having killed my brother----"
"And I know who put that foolishness into your head," said Lalor Maitland; "she regrets it at this moment, and has now come of her own will to tell you she lied!"
And with a jerk he loosened the ap.r.o.n which, as I now saw, had been wrapped about the head of the swathed figure. I shall never forget the face of the woman as I saw it then. The uncertain flicker of the flames and sparks from our beacon (which, though itself invisible, darkened and lightened like sheet lightning), the dismal umbery glimmer of the waning moon, and the pale approach of day over the mountains to the east, made the face appear almost ghastly. But I was quite unprepared for the effect which the sight produced upon Irma.
"Kate," she cried, "Kate of the Sh.o.r.e!"
The woman did not reply, though there was an obvious effort to speak--a straining of the neck muscles and a painful rolling of the eyes.
"Yes," said Lalor calmly, as if he were exhibiting a curiosity, "this is your friend to whom you owe your escape. She was doubtless to have received a reward, and in any case we shall give her a fine one. But if you will return to your protector, and come with me immediately on board the good ship _Golden Hind_, which in some considerable danger, is beating off and on between the heads of Killantringen--then I promise you, you will save the life of our friend Kate here. If not----" (He waved his hand expressively.)
"You dare not kill her," cried Irma; "in an hour the country will be up, and you will be hunted like dogs."
"Oh, it is not I," said Lalor calmly, "I do not love the shedding of blood, and that is why I am here now. But consider those stout fellows yonder. They are restive at having to wait for their pay, and the loss of their captain, wounded in aiding me in obtaining my rights in a quiet and peaceable manner, has by no means soothed them. I advise you, Mistress Irma, to bring down the boy and let us get on board while there is yet time. No one in the house shall be harmed. But listen to Kate--Kate of the Sh.o.r.e. She will speak to you better than I! But first we must perform a little surgical operation!"
And with that he whipped out a bandanna handkerchief, which had been knotted and thrust into her mouth in the manner of a gag.
"Now then," he said, "put a pistol to her head, Evans! Now, Kate, you have told many lies about your master, the late Governor of the fortress of Dinant. Speak the truth for once in a way. For if you do not tell these foolish children that they have nothing to fear--nay more, if you cannot persuade them to quit their foolish conduct and return to their rightful duty and obedience, it will be my painful duty to ask Evans there, who does not love you as I do, to--well, you know what will happen when that pistol goes off!"
But even in such straits Kate of the Sh.o.r.e was not to be frightened.
"You hear me, Miss Irma," she said, "I know this bad man. He is only seeking to betray you as he betrayed me. Defend your castle. Open not a window--keep the doors barred. They cannot take the place in the time, for they have the tide to think of."
"I expected this," said Lalor, with a vaguely pensive air, "it has ever been my lot to be calumniated, my motives suspected. But I have indeed deserved other things--especially from you, Irma, whom (though your senior in years, and during the minority of my ward Sir Louis, the head of the house), I have always treated with affectionate and, perhaps, too respectful deference!"
"Miss Irma," cried Kate of the Sh.o.r.e, "take care of that man. He has a pistol ready. I can see the hilt of it in his pocket. You he will not harm if he can help it, but if that be your brother whom I see at the fold of the window-hanging, bid him stand back for his life."
"Drop your pistol, Evans," commanded Lalor Maitland, "this part of the play is played out. She will not speak, or rather what she says will do us no good. Women are thrawn contrary things at the best, Evans, as I dare say you have noticed in your Princ.i.p.ality of Wales. But take heed, you and your precious defenders, I warn you that in an hour the house of Marnhoul shall be flaming over your heads with a torch that shall bring out, not your pitiful burghers from their rabbit-holes, but also the men of half a county.
"Hear me," he raised his voice suddenly to a strident shout, "hear me all you within the house. Give up the girl and the child to their legal protectors, and no harm shall befall either life or property. We shall be on shipboard in half-an-hour. I shall see to it that every man within the castle is rewarded from the Maitland money that is safe beyond seas, out of the reach of King George! Of that, at least I made sure, serving twice seven years for it in the service of a hard master. I offer a hundred pounds apiece to whoever will deliver the boy and the maid!"
This was a speech which pleased me much, for it showed that from the stoutness of our defence, and the many guns which had been shot off, Lalor was under the impression that the house was garrisoned by a proper force of men--when in truth there was only Miss Irma and me--that is, not counting Agnes Anne.
CHAPTER XIV
THE WHITE FREE TRADERS
But the country was by no means so craven as Lalor supposed. There were bold hearts and ready saddles still in Galloway. The signal from the top of the beacon tower of Marnhoul was seen and understood in half-a-dozen parishes.
Not that the young fellows who saw the flame connected it with the two children who had taken refuge in the old place of the Maitlands. In fact, most knew nothing about their existence. But their alacrity was connected with quite another matter--the great cargo of dutiable and undutied goods stored away in the cellars of Marnhoul!
There was stirring, therefore, in remote farms, rattling on doors, hurried scrambling up and down stable ladders. Young men on the outskirts of villages might have been seen stealing through gardens, stumbling among cabbage-stocks and gooseberry bushes as they made their way by the uncertain flicker of our far-away beacon to the place of rendezvous.
Herds rising early to "look the hill" gave one glance at the red dance of the flames over the tree-tops of Marnhoul great wood, and anon ran to waken their masters.
For in that country every farmer--aye, and most of the lairds, including a majority of the Justices of the Peace--had a share in the "venture."
Sometimes the value of the cargo brought in by a single run would be from fifty to seventy thousand pounds. All this great amount of goods had to be scattered and concealed locally, before it was carried to Glasgow and Edinburgh over the wildest and most unfrequented tracks.
The officers of the revenue, few and ill-supported, could do little.
Most of them, indeed, accepted the quiet greasing of the palm, and called off their men to some distant place during the night of a big run. But even when on the spot and under arms, a cavalcade of a couple of hundred men could laugh at half-a-dozen preventives, and pa.s.s by defiantly waving their hands and clinking the chains which held the kegs upon their horses. The bolder cried out invitations to come and drink, and the good-will of the leaders of the Land Free Traders was even pushed so far that, if a Surveyor of Customs showed himself pleasantly amenable, a dozen or more small kegs of second-rate Hollands would be tipped before his eyes into a convenient bog, so that, if it pleased him, he could pose before his superiors as having effected an important capture.
The report which he was wont to edit on these occasions will often compare with the higher fiction--as followeth:--
"Supervisor Henry Baskett, in charge of the Lower Solway district, reports as follows under date June 30th: Found a strong body of smugglers marching between the wild mountains called Ben Tuthor and Blew Hills. They were of the number of three hundred, all well mounted and armed, desperate men, evidently not of this district, but, from their talk and accoutrement, from the Upper Ward of Lanerickshire. Followed them carefully to note their dispositions and discover a favourable place for attack. I had only four men with me, whereof one a boy, being all the force under my command.
Nevertheless, at a place called the Corse of Slakes I advanced boldly and summoned them, in the King"s name and at the peril of their lives, to surrender.
"Whereat they turned their guns upon us, each man standing behind his horse and having his face hidden in a napkin lest he should be known. But we four and the boy advanced firmly and with such resolution that the band of three hundred law-breakers broke up incontinent, and taking to flight this way and that through the heather, left us under the necessity of pursuing. We pursued that band which promised the best taking, and I am glad to intimate to your Excellencies, His Majesty"s Commissioners, that we were successful in putting the said Free Traders to flight, and capturing twenty-five casks best Hollands, six loads of Vallenceen, etc., etc., as per schedule appended to be accounted for by me as your lordship"s commissioners shall direct. In the hope that this will be noted to our credit on the table of advancement (and in this connect I may mention the names of the three men, Thomas c.o.ke, Edward Loval, Timothy Pierce, and the boy Joseph McDougal, whom I recommend as having done their duty in the face of peril), I have the honour to sign myself,