Yet "the Doctor" was self-effacing beyond many, and only our proper respect for the "Lady of the Manse" kept the parishioners in their places. Discourses which he had preached in the callow days of his youth on the "Book of the Revelation" had brought hearers from many distant parishes, and at that time the Doctor had had several "calls" and "offers" to proceed to other spheres on account of their fame. But he had always refused to repeat any of them.

"I have changed my mind about many things since then," he would say; "young men are apt to be hasty! The greatest of all heresies is dogmatism."

But among the older saints of the parish that "series of expositions" was not forgotten. "It was" (they averred) "like the licht o' anither world to look on his face—just heeven itsel' to listen to him. Sirce me, there are no such discourses to be heard now-a-days—not even from himsel'!"

And be it remembered that our dear Doctor could unbend—that is, in fitting time and place. From the seats of the mighty, from Holyrood and the Moderator's chair our Cincinnatus returned to shepherd his quiet flock among the bosky silences of Eden Valley. He wore his learning, all his weight of honour lightly—with a smile, even with a slight shrug of the shoulder. The smile, even the jest, rose continually to his lips, especially when his wife was not present. But at all times he remembered his office, and often halted with the ancient maxim at the sight of some intruder, "Let us be sober—yonder comes a fool!" And many of his visitors noticed this sudden sobriety without once suspecting its cause.

Even the Cameronians agreed that there was "unction" in the Doctor. For his brave word's sake they forgave the heresies of his church about the Civil Magistrate, and said freely among themselves that if in every parish there was such a minister as Dr. Gillespie, the civil magistrate would be compelled to take a very back seat indeed. But it was on Communion Sabbath days that the Doctor became, as it were, transfigured, the face of him shining, though he wist not of it.

Something of the spirit of the Crucified was poured forth that day upon men and women humbly bowing their heads over the consecrated memorials of His love.

A silence of a rare and peculiar sanctity filled the little bare, deep-windowed kirk. The odour of the flowering lilacs came in like Nature's own incense, and the plain folk of Eden Valley got a foretaste, faint and dim, but sufficient, of the Land where the tables shall never be withdrawn.

Better preachers than the Doctor?—We grant it you, though there are many in the Valley who will not agree, but not one more fitted to break the bread of communion before the white-spread tables.

It was Agnes Anne who opened the door of Marnhoul, and stood a moment astonished at the sight of the Doctor all in black and silver—hat, coat, knee-breeches, silken hose and leathern shoes of the first, locks, studs, knee-buckles, shoe-buckles all of the second.

But our Agnes Anne was truly of the race of Mary Lyon, so in a moment she said, "Pray come in, sir!" with the self-respect of the daughter of a good house, as well as the dutifulness which she owed to one so reverend and so revered.

The Doctor was not surprised. He smiled as he recognized the school-master's daughter. But he betrayed nothing. He laid his hand as usual on her smooth locks by way of a blessing, and inquired if Miss Maitland and Sir Louis were at home.

"They are in the school-room," said Agnes Anne, in the most business-like tone in the world; "come this way, sir."

It was a very different house—that which Agnes Anne showed the Doctor—from the cobweb-draped, dust-strewn, deserted mansion of a few weeks ago. Simply considering them as caretakers, the Dumfries lawyers ought to have welcomed their new tenants. So far as cleanliness went, Miss Irma had done a great deal—so much, indeed, as to earn the praise of that severest of critics, my grandmother.

But there was much that no girl could do alone. Chair-seats and sofa-cushions had been beaten till no speck of dust was left. This had had to be carefully gone about. For though, apparently, no thieves had broken through to steal, it was evident that the house had last been occupied by people of excessively careless habits, who had put muddy boots on chairs and trampled regardlessly everywhere. But the other half of the text held good. Moth and rust had certainly corrupted.

However, Agnes Anne was handy with her needle, in spite of her father and his class on Ovid. There was always a good deal to do in our house, and since mother made no great effort, and was generally tired, it fell to Agnes Anne to do it.

She it was who had re-covered the worn old drawing-room chairs with brocade found in the deep, cedar-wood lined cupboards, along with wealth of ancient court dresses, provision of household linen, and all that had belonged to the Maitlands on the day when, after the falling of the head of their house upon Tower Hill, the great old mansion had been shut up.

The Doctor had been strictly enjoined to take good heed to write everything down on his mental tablets, and to give careful account to his lady. He found the two young Maitlands seated at a table from which the cloth had been lifted at one corner to make room for copybooks, ink, pens and reading-books. Evidently Miss Irma was instructing her brother.

"Now, Louis," they heard her say as they came in, "remember the destiny to which you are called, and that now is the time——"

"The Doctor to call upon you!" Agnes Anne announced in a tone of awe befitting the occasion.

Then the stately apparition in black and silver which followed her into the room came slowly forward, smiling with outstretched hand. Miss Irma was not in the least put out. She rose and swept a curtsey with bowed head. Little Sir Louis, evidently awed by the sedate grandeur which sat so well upon the visitor, paused a moment as if uncertain how he ought to behave.

He was a little behind his sister, and completely out of the range of her vision, so he felt himself safe in sucking the ink from the side of his second finger, and rubbing the wet place hard on his black velvet breeches. Then, as Miss Irma glanced round, he fell also to his manners and bowed gravely—unconsciously imitating the grand manner of the Doctor himself.

The room used for lessons was a wide, pleasant place, rather low in the roof, plainly panelled and wainscotted in dark oak, with a single line of dull gold beading running about it high up. There was a large fireplace, with a seat all the way round, and a stout iron basket to hold the fire of sea-coal, when such was used. Brass and irons stood at the side, convenient for faggots. A huge crane and many S-shaped pot-hooks discovered the fact that at some time this place had been occupied as a kitchen, perhaps in the straitened days of the last "attainted" Maitlands.

But now the chamber was pleasant and warm, the windows open to the air and the song of the birds. Dimity curtains hung on the great poles by the windows and stirred in the breeze, as if they had been lying for half a century in dusky cupboards. Agnes Anne looked carefully to see if the darning showed, and decided that not even her grandmother could spy it out—how much less, then, the Doctor.

She was, however, annoyed that the tall, brass-faced clock in the corner, dated "Kilmaurs, 1695," could not be made to go. But she had a promise from Boyd Connoway that he would "take a look at her" as soon as he had attended to three gardens and docked the tails of a litter of promising puppies.

The Doctor bowed graciously over the hand of Miss Irma, and shook hands gravely with Sir Louis, who a second time had rubbed his finger on his black velvet suit, just to make assurance doubly sure.

The conversation followed a high plane of social commonplace.

"Yes," said Miss Irma, "it is true that our family has been a long time absent from the neighbourhood, but you are right in supposing that we mean to settle down here for some time."

Then she deigned to enter into particulars. She had her brother to bring up according to his rank, for, since there was no one else to undertake the charge, it fell to her lot. Luckily she had received a good education up to the time when she had the misfortune——

"Ah," said the Doctor quickly, "I understand."

He said nothing further in words, but his sympathetic silence conveyed a great deal, and was more eloquent and consolatory than most people's speech.

"And where were you educated?" asked the Doctor gently.

"My father sent me to the Ursuline Sisters in Paris," said Miss Irma calmly.

The Doctor was secretly astonished and much disappointed, but his face expressed nothing beyond his habitual good nature. He replied, "Then your father has had you brought up a Catholic, Miss Maitland?"

"Indeed, no," answered Miss Irma, "only he had often occasion to be away on his affairs, and to keep me out of mischief he left me with the Ursulines and my aunt the Abbess. At my father's death I might have stayed on with the good sisters, but I left because I was not allowed to see my brother."

"Then am I right in thinking that—that—in fact—you are a Presbyterian?" said the Doctor, playing with the inlaid snuffbox which he carried in his hand. The amount of time he occupied in tapping the lid and the invisibility of the pinches he had ever been seen to take were alike marvels in the district.

"I have no religious prejudices," said Miss Irma to the Doctor, in a calm, well-bred manner which must have secretly amused that distinguished theologian, fresh from editing the works of Manton.

"I did not speak of prejudices, dear young lady" (he spoke gently, yet with the thrill in his voice which showed how deeply he was moved), "but of belief, of religion, of principles of thought and action."

Miss Irma opened her eyes very wide. The sound of the Doctor's words came to her ears like the accents of an unknown tongue.

"The sisters were very good people," she said at last; "they give themselves a great deal of trouble——"

"What kind of trouble?" said the Doctor.

"Kneeling and scrubbing floors for one thing," said Miss Irma; "getting up at all hours, doing good works, praying, and burning candles to the Virgin."

"I should advise you," said the Doctor, with his most gentle accent, "to say as little as possible about that part of your experience here in Eden Valley."

Miss Irma looked exceedingly surprised.

"I thought I told you they were exceedingly good people. They were very kind to me, though they looked on me as a lost heretic. I am sure they said prayers for me many times a day!"

The Doctor looked more hopeful. He was thinking that after all he might make something of his strange parishioner, when the young lady recalled him by a repetition of her former declaration, "As I said, I have no religious prejudices!"

"No," said the Doctor a little sharply—for him, "but still each one of us ought to be fully persuaded in his own mind."

"And that means," Miss Irma answered, quick as a flash, "that most of us are fully persuaded according to our father and mother's mind, and the way they have brought us up. But then, you see, I never was brought up. I know very well that my family were Presbyterians. Once I read about their sufferings in two great volumes by a Mr. Wodrow, or some such name. But then my grandfather lost most of his estates fighting for the King——"

"For the Popish Pretender," said the Doctor, who could speak no smooth things when it was a matter of the Revolution Settlement and the government of King George.

"For the man he believed to be king, while others stayed snugly at home," persisted Miss Irma. "Then my mother was a Catholic, and my father too busy to care——"

"My poor young maid," said the Doctor, "it is wonderful to see you as you are!"

And secretly the excellent man was planning out a campaign to lead this lamb into the fold of that Kirk of Scotland, for the purity of whose doctrine and intact spiritual independence her forefathers had shed their blood.

"At any rate," said he, rising and bending again over the girl's hand with old-fashioned politeness, "you will remember that your family pew is in the front of our laft—I mean in the gallery of the parish kirk of Eden Valley."

And the Doctor took his leave without ever remembering that he had failed in the principal part of his mission, having quite forgotten to find out by what means these two young things came to find themselves alone in the Great House of Marnhoul.



CHAPTER VIII

KATE OF THE SHORE

It was, I think, ten days after Agnes Anne had left us for the old house of the Maitlands when she came to me at the school-house. My father had Fred Esquillant in with him, and the two were busy with Sophocles. I was sitting dreaming with a book of old plays in my hand when Agnes Anne came in.

"Duncan," she said, "I am feared to bide this night at Marnhoul. And I think so is Miss Irma. Now I would rather not tell grandmother—so you must come!"

"Feared?" said I; "surely you never mean ghosts—and such nonsense, Agnes Anne—and you the daughter of a school-master!"

"It's the solid ghosts I am feared of," said Agnes Anne; "haste you, and ask leave of father. He is so busy, he will never notice. He has Freddy in with him, I hear."

So Agnes Anne and I went in together. We could see the man's head and the boy's bent close together, and turned from us so that the westering light could fall upon their books. Fred Esquillant was to be a great scholar and to do my father infinite credit when he went to the university. For me I was only a reader of English, a scribbler of verses in that language, a paltry essayist, with no sense of the mathematics and no more than an average classic. Therefore in the school I was a mere hewer of wood and drawer of water to my father.

"Duncan is coming with me to bide the night at Marnhoul," said Agnes Anne, "and he is going to take 'King George' with him to—scare the foxes!"

"From the hen-coops?" said my father, looking carelessly up. "Let him take care not to shoot himself then. He has no nicety of handling!"

I am sure that really he meant in the classics, for his thoughts were running that way and I could see that he was itching to be at it again with Freddy.

"Tell your mother," he said, adjusting his spectacles on his nose, "and please shut the door after you!"

Having thus obtained leave from the power-that-was, the matter was broken to my mother. She only asked if we had told John, and being assured of that, felt that her entire responsibility was cleared, and so subsided into the fifth volume of Sir Charles Grandison, where thrilling things were going on in the cedar parlour. It was my mother's favourite book, but was carefully laid aside when my grandmother came—nay, even concealed as conscientiously as I under my coat conveyed away the bell-mouthed, silver-mounted blunderbuss which hung over the hat-rack in the lobby. Buckshot, wads, and a powderhorn I also secreted about my person.

On our way I catechized Agnes Anne tightly as to the nature of the danger which had put her so suddenly in fear. But she eluded me. Indeed, I am not sure she knew herself. All I could gather was that a letter which had reached Miss Irma that morning, had given warning of trouble of some particular deadly sort impending upon the dwellers in the house of Marnhoul. When Agnes Anne opened the door of the hall to let the sunshine and air into the gloomy recesses where the shadows still lurked in spite of the light from the high windows, she had found a folded letter nailed to the door of Marnhoul. The blade of a foreign-looking knife had been thrust through it deep into the wood, and the stag's-horn handle turned down in the shape of a reversed capital V—the spring holding the paper firm. It was addressed to Miss Irma Maitland, and evidently had reference to something disastrous, for all day Miss Irma had gone about with a pale face, and a pitiful wringing action of her fingers. No words, however, had escaped her except only "What shall I do? Oh, what shall I do? My Louis—my poor little Louis!"

The danger, then, whatever it might be, was one which particularly touched the boy baronet. I could not help hoping that it might not be any plot of the lawyers in Dumfries to get him away. For if I were obliged to fire off "King George," and perhaps kill somebody, I preferred that it should not be against those who had the law on their side. For in that case my father might lose his places, both as chief teacher and as postmaster.

I got Agnes Anne to look after "King George," my blunderbuss, while I went round to the village to see if anything was stirring about the dwelling of Constable Jacky. She would only permit me to do this on condition that I proved the gun unloaded, and permitted her to lock it carefully in one cupboard, while the powder and shot reposed each on a separate shelf outside in the kitchen, lest being left to themselves the elements of destruction might run together and blow up the house.

I scudded through the village, passing from one end of the long street to the other. Constable Jacky in his shirt sleeves, was peaceably peeling potatoes on his doorstep, while with a pipe in his mouth Boyd Connoway was looking on and telling him how. The village of Eden Valley was never quieter. Several young men of the highest consideration were waiting within call of the millinery establishment of the elder Miss Huntingdon, on the chance of being able to lend her "young ladies" stray volumes of Rollin's Ancient History, Defoe's Religious Courtship, or such other volumes as were likely to fan the flame of love's young dream in their hearts. I saw Miss Huntingdon herself taking stock of them through the window, and as it were, separating the sheep from the goats. For she was a particular woman, Miss Huntingdon, and never allowed the lightest attentions to "her young ladies" without keeping the parents of her charges fully posted on the subject.

All, therefore, was peace in the village of Eden Valley. Yet I nearly chanced upon war. My grandmother called aloud to some one as I passed along the street. For a moment I thought she had caught me, in spite of the cap which I had pulled down over my eyes and the coat collar I had pulled up above my ears.

If she got me, I made sure that she would instantly come to the great house of Marnhoul with all the King's horses and all the King's men—and so, as it were, spoil the night from which I expected so much.

But it was the slouching figure of Boyd Connoway which had attracted her attention. As I sped on I heard her asking details as to the amount of work he had done that day, how he expected to keep his wife and family through the winter, whether he had split enough kindling wood and brought in the morning's supply of water—also (most unkindly of all) who had paid for the tobacco he was smoking.

To these inquiries, all put within the space of half-a-minute, I could not catch Connoway's replies. Nor did I wait to hear. It was enough for me to find myself once more safe between the hedges and going as hard as my feet could carry me in the direction of the gate of Marnhoul.

No sooner was I in the kitchen with the stone floor and the freshly scoured tin and pewter vessels glinting down from the dresser, than I heard the voice of Miss Irma asking to be informed if I had come. To Agnes Anne she called me "your big brother," and I hardly ever remember being so proud of anything as of that adjective.

Then after my sister had answered, Miss Irma came down the stairs with her quick light step, not like any I had ever heard. With a trip and a rustle she came bursting in upon us, so that all suddenly the quaint old kitchen, with its shining utensils catching the red sunshine through the low western window and the swaying ivy leaves dappling the floor of bluish-grey, was glorified by her presence.

She was younger in years than myself, but something of race, of refinement, of experience, some flavour of an adventurous past and of strange things seen and known, made her appear half-a-dozen years the senior of a country boy like me.

"Has he come?" she asked, before ever she came into the kitchen; "is he afraid?"

"Only of being in a house alone with two girls," said Agnes Anne, "but I am most afraid of father's blunderbuss which he has brought with him."

"Nonsense," said Miss Irma, determination marked in every line of her face. "We have a well-armed man on the premises. It is a house fit to stand a siege. Why, I turned away three score of them with a darning needle."

"Not but what it is far more serious this time!" she said, a little sadly. By this time I was reassembling the scattered pieces of "King George's" armament, while Agnes Anne, in terror of her life, was searching on the floor and along the passages for things she had not lost.

As soon as I had got over my first awe of Miss Irma, I asked her point-blank what was the danger, so that I might know what dispositions to take.

I had seen the phrase in an old book, thin and tall, which my father possessed, called Monro's Expedition. But Irma bade me help to make the ground floor of the mansion as strong as possible, and then come up-stairs to the parlour, where she would tell me "all that it was necessary for me to know."

I wished she had said "everything"—for, though not curious by nature, I should have been happy to be confided in by Miss Irma. To my delight, on going round I found that all the lower windows had been fitted with iron shutters, and these, though rusty, were in perfectly good condition. In this task of examination Miss Irma assisted me, and though I would not let her put a finger to the sharp-edged flaky iron, it was a pleasure to feel the touch of her skirt, while once she laid a hand on my arm to guide me to a little dark closet the window of which was protected by a hingeless plate of iron, held in position by a horizontal bar fitting into the stonework on either side.

There was not so much to be done above stairs, where the shutters were of fine solid oak and easily fitted. But I sought out an oriel window of a tower which commanded the pillared doorway. For I did not forget what I had seen when the Great House of Marnhoul was besieged by the rabble of Eden Valley. It was there that the danger was if the house should be attempted.

But I so arranged it, that whoever attacked the house, I should at least get one fair chance at them with "King George," our very wide-scattering blunderbuss.

In the little room in which this window was, we gathered. It made a kind of watch-tower, for from it one could see both ways—down the avenue to the main road, and across the policies towards the path that led up from the Killantringan shore.

I felt that it was high time for me to know against what I was to fight. Not that I was any way scared. I do not think I thought about that at all, so pleased was I at being where I was, and specially anxious that no one should come to help, so as to share with me any of the credit that was my due from Miss Irma.

Agnes Anne, indeed, was afraid of what she was going to hear. For as yet she had been told nothing definite. But then she was tenfold more afraid of "King George"—mostly, I believe, because it had been made a kind of fetish in our house, and the terrible things that would happen if we meddled with it continually represented to us by our mother. Finally, we arranged that "King George" should be set in the angle of the oriel window, the muzzle pointing to the sky, and that in the pauses of the tale, I should keep a look-out from the watch-tower.

"It is my brother Louis—Sir Louis Maitland—whom they are seeking!"

Miss Irma made this statement as if she had long faced it, and now found nothing strange about the matter. But I think both Agnes Anne and I were greatly astonished, though for different reasons. For my sister had never imagined that there was any danger worse than the presence of "King George" in the window corner, and as for me, the hope of helping to protect Miss Irma herself from unknown peril was enough. I asked for no better a chance than that.

"We have a cousin," she continued, "Lalor Maitland is his name, who was in the rebellion, and was outlawed just like my father. He took up the trade of spying on the poor folk abroad and all who had dealings with them. He was made governor of the strong castle of Dinant on the Meuse, deep in the Low Countries. With him my father, who wrongly trusted him as he trusted everybody, left little Louis. I was with my aunt, the Abbess of the Ursulines, at the time, or the thing had not befallen. For from the first I hated Lalor Maitland, knowing that though he appeared to be kind to us, it was only a pretence.

"He entertained us hospitably enough in a suite of rooms very high up in the Castle of Dinant above the Meuse river, and came to see us every day. He was waiting till he should make his peace with the English. Then he would do away with my brother and——"

She paused, and a kind of shuddering whiteness came across the girl's face. It was like the flashing of lightning from the east to the west that my grandmother reads about in her Bible—a sort of shining of hatred and determination like a footstep set on wet sand. "But no," she added, "he would not have married me, even if he had kept me shut up for ever in his Castle of Dinant on the Meuse!"

Then all at once I began very mightily to hate this Lalor Maitland, Governor of the Castle of Dinant. I resolved to charge "King George" to the very muzzle, wait till he was within half-a-dozen paces, and—let him have it. For I made no doubt that it was he who was coming in person to carry off Miss Irma and Sir Louis back again to his dungeons. For though Irma had not called them that, I felt sure that she had been shamefully used. And though I did not proclaim the fact, I knew the name and address of a willing deliverer. I grew so anxious about the matter that Agnes Anne three times bade me put down "King George" or I should be sure to shoot some of them, or, most likely of all, little Louis in his cot-bed up-stairs.

"However, at last we escaped" (Miss Irma went on), "and I will tell you how—what I have not told to any here—not even to your good grandmother or the clergyman. It was through our nurse, a Kirkbean woman and her name Kate Maxwell, called Mickle Kate o' the Shore. Her father and all her folk were smugglers, as, I understand, are the most of the farmers along the Solway side. Some of these she could doubtless have married, but Kate herself had always looked higher. The son of a farmer over the hill, from a place called the Boreland of Colvend, had wintered sheep on her father's lands. Many a sore cold morning (so she said) had they gone out together to clear the snow from the feeding troughs. I suppose that was how it began, but in addition the lad had ambition. He learned well and readily, and after a while he went into a lawyer's office in Dumfries, while Kate o' the Shore went abroad with the family of a Leith merchant, to serve at Rotterdam. She wanted to save money for the house she was going to set up with the lawyer's clerk. So, rather than come back at the year's end, she took the place which the Governor of Dinant Castle offered her, and he was no other than our cousin Lalor.

"In a little while Kate of the Shore had grown to hate our cousin. Why, I cannot tell, for he always bowed to her as to a lady, and indeed showed her far more kindness than ever he used to us. When we wanted a little play on the terrace or a sweetcake from the town, we tried at first to get Kate to ask for us. But afterwards she would not. And she grew determined to leave the Castle of Dinant as soon as might be, making her escape and taking us with her. Her Boreland lad, Tam Hislop, had told her all about the estates and the great house standing empty. So nothing would do but that Kate o' the Shore would come to this house with us, where we would take possession, and hold it against all comers.

"'It is very difficult,' said Kate's friend, the Dumfries clerk, 'to put any one out of his own house.' Indeed he did not think that even the very Court of Session could do it."

"So during the governor's absence we brought little Louis from Dinant to Antwerp, where we hid him with some friends of Kate's who are Free Traders, and ran cargoes to the Isle of Man and the Solway shore. Kind they were, stout bold men and appeared to hold their lives cheap enough—also, for that matter, the lives of those who withstood them.

"Many of them were Kirkbean men, near kinsfolk of Kate o' the Shore, and others from Colvend—Hislops, Hendersons and McKerrows, long rooted in the place. But when we were in mid-passage, we were chased and almost taken by a schooner that fired cannon and bade us heave to, but the Kirkbean men, who had Kate o' the Shore with them, bade our boat carry on, and engaged the pursuer. We could see the flash of their guns a long distance, and cries came to us mixed with the thunderclap of the schooner's guns. The Colvend men would have turned back to help, but they had received strict orders to put us on shore, whatever might happen, the which they did at Killantringan.

"After that" (Miss Irma still went on) "I had so much ado to look after my brother, being fearful to let him out of my hands lest he should be taken from me, that I only heard the names of a place or two spoken among them—particularly the Brandy Knowe, a dark hole in a narrow ravine, under the roots of a great tree, with a burn across which we had to be carried. I remember the rushing sound of the water in the blackness of the night, and Louis's voice calling out, as the men trampled the pebbles, 'Are you there, sister Irma?'

"But long before it was day they had finished stowing their cargo. We were again on the march and the men took good care of us, leaving us here according to their orders with plenty of provisions for a week—also money, all good unclipped silver pieces and English gold. They bade us not to leave the house on any account, and in case of any sudden danger to light the fire on the tower head!

"'For the present our duty is done,' said one of them, a kind of chief or leader who had carried me before him on his own horse, 'but there may be more and worse yet to do, wherein we of the Free Trade may help you more than all the power of King George—to whom, however, we are very good friends, in all that does not concern our business of the private Over-Seas Traffic'—for so they named their trade of smuggling."

"I would like much to see this beacon," I said; "perhaps we may have to light it. At any rate it is well to be sure that we have all the ingredients of the pudding at hand in case of need."



CHAPTER IX

THE EVE OF ST. JOHN

We went up the narrow stair—that is, Miss Irma and I—because, since I carried my father's blunderbuss, Agnes Anne would not come, but stopped half-way, where the little Louis lay asleep in his cot-bed. On the top of the tower, and swinging on a kind of iron tripod bolted into the battlements, we found an iron basket, like that in which sea-coal is burned, but wider in the mesh. Then, in the "winnock cupboard" at the turn of the stair-head, were all the necessaries for a noble blaze—dry wood properly cut, tow, tar, and a firkin of spirit, with some rancid butter in a brown jar. There was even a little kindling box of foreign make, all complete with flint, steel and tinder lying on a shelf, enclosed in a small bag of felt.

Whoever had placed these things there was a person of no small experience, and left nothing to chance. It was obvious that such a beacon lit on the tower of the ancient house of Marnhoul would be seen far and near over the country.

Who should come to our rescue, supposing us to be beset, was not so clear. I did not believe that we could depend on the people of the village. They would, if I knew them, cuddle the closer between their blankets, while as for Constable Jacky, by that time of night he would certainly be in no condition to know his right hand from his left.

"And the message fixed to the front door with the knife—of which my sister told me," I suggested to Miss Irma, "what did it threaten?"

For in spite of her obvious reluctance to tell me even necessary things, I was resolved to make her speak out. She hesitated, but finally yielded, when I pointed out that we must decide whether it came from a friendly or an unfriendly hand.

She handed it to me out of the pocket of her dress, the two of us standing all the while on the top of the tower, the rusty basket wheezing in the wind, and her blown hair whipping my cheek in the sharp breeze from the north.

I may say that just at that moment I was pretty content with myself. I do not deny that I had fancied this maid and that before, or that some few things that might almost be called tender had passed between me and Gerty Greensleeves, chiefly cuffing and pinching of the amicable Scottish sort. Only I knew for certain that now I was finally and irrevocably in love—but it was with a star. Or rather, it might just as well have been, for any hope I had with Miss Irma Maitland, with her ancient family and her eyes fairly snapping with pride. What could she ever have to say to the rather stupid son of a village school-master?

But I took the paper, and for an instant Irma's eyes rested on mine with something different in them from anything I had ever seen there before. The contemptuous chill was gone. There was even a kind of soft appeal, which, however, she retracted and even seemed to excuse the next moment.

"Understand," she said, "it is not for myself that I care. It is for—for my brother, Sir Louis."

"But, Miss Irma, do not forget that I——" The words came bravely, but halted before the enormity of what I was going to say. So I had perforce to alter my formation in face of my dear enemy, and only continued lamely enough, "I had better see what the letter says."

"Yes," she answered shortly, "I suppose that is necessary."

The letter was written on a sheet of common paper, ruled vertically in red at either side as for a bill of lading. It had simply been folded once, not sealed in the ordinary way, but thrust through sharply with the knife which had pinned it to the wood, traversing both folds. The knife, which I saw afterwards down-stairs, was a small one, with a broadish blade shaped and pointed like a willow leaf. I had it a good while in my hand, and I can swear that it had been lately used in cutting the commonest kind of sailor tobacco.

The message read in these words exactly, which I copied carefully on my killivine-tablets—

"The first danger is for this night, being the eve of Saint John. Admit no one excepting those who bring with them friends you can trust. Fear not to use the signal agreed upon. Help will be near."

Now this seemed to me to be very straightforward. None but a friend to the children would speak of the beacon so familiarly, yet so discreetly—"the signal agreed upon." Nor would an enemy advise caution as to any being admitted to the house.

But Miss Irma had not passed through so many troubles without acquiring a certain lack of confidence in the fairest pretences. She shook her head when I ventured to tell her what I thought. She was willing to take my help, but not my judgment.

The words, "Admit no one, excepting those who bring with them friends you can trust," did not ring true in her ear. And the phrase, "the signal agreed upon," might possibly show that while the writer made sure of there being a signal of some kind, he was ignorant of its nature.

In face of all this there seemed nothing for it but to wait—doors shut, windows barred, "King George" ready charged, and the stuff for the beacon knowingly arranged.

And this last I immediately proceeded to set in order. I had had considerable experience. For during the late French wars we of Eden Valley, though the most peaceful people in the world, had often been turned upside down by reports of famous victories. After each of these every one had to illuminate, if it were only with a tallow dip, on the penalty of having his windows broken by the mob of loyal, but stay-at-home patriots. At the same time, all the boys of Eden Valley had full permission to carry off old barrels and other combustibles from the houses of the zealous, or even to commandeer them without permission from the barns and fences of suspected "black-nebs" to raise nearer heaven the flare of our victorious bonfires.

With all the ingredients laid ready to my hand, it was exceedingly simple for me to put together such a brazier as could be seen over half the county. Not the least useful of my improvements was the lengthening of the chain, so that the whole fire-basket could be hoisted to the top of the tripod, and so stand clear of the battlements of the tower, showing over the tree-tops to the very cliffs of Killantringan, and doubtless far out to sea.

Last of all, before descending, I covered everything over with a thick mat of tarred cloth, which would keep the fuel dry as tinder even in case of rain, or the dense dews that pearled down out of the clear heavens on these short nights of a northern June.

It is a strange thing, watching together, and in the case of young people it is apt to make curious things hop up in the heart all unexpectedly. It was so, at least, with myself. As to Miss Irma I cannot say, and, of course, Agnes Anne does not count, for she sat back in the shelter of a great cupboard, well out of range of "King George," and went on with her knitting till she fell asleep.

However, Miss Irma and I sat together in the jutting window, where, as the night darkened and the curtains of the clouds drew down to meet the sombre tree-tops, a kind of black despair came over me. Would "King George" really do any good? Would I prove myself stout and brave when the moment came? Would the beacon we had prepared really burn, and, supposing it did, would any one see it, drowned in woods as we were, and far from all folk, except the peaceable villagers of Eden Valley?

But I had the grace to keep such thoughts to myself, and if they visited Miss Irma, she did the like. The crying of the owls made the place of a strange eeriness, especially sometimes when a bat or other night creature would come and cling a moment under the leaden pent of the window.

Such things as these, together with the strain of the waiting on the unknown, drew us insensibly together—I do not mean Agnes Anne—but just the two of us who were shut off apart in the window-seat. No, whatever her faults and shortcomings (too many of them recorded in this book), Agnes Anne acted the part of a good sister to me that night, and her peaceful breathing seemed to wall us off from the world.

"Duncan?" queried Miss Irma, repeating my name softly as to herself; "you are called Duncan, are you not?"

I nodded. "And you?" I asked, though of course I knew well enough.

"Irma Sobieski," she answered. And then, perhaps because everything inside and out was so still and lonely, she shivered a little, and, without any reason at all, we moved nearer to each other on the window-seat—ever so little, but still nearer.

"You may call me Irma, if you like!" she said, very low, after a long pause.

Just then something brushed the window, going by with a soft woof of feathers.

"An owl! A big white one—I saw him!" I said. For indeed the bird had seemed as large as a goose, and appeared alarming enough to people so strung as we were, with ears and eyes grown almost intolerably acute in the effort of watching.

"Are you not frightened?" she demanded.

"No, Irma—no, Miss Irma!" I faltered.

"Well, I am," she whispered; "I was not before when the mob came, because I had to do everything. But now—I am glad that you are here" (she paused the space of a breath), "you and your sister."

I was glad, too, though not particularly about Agnes Anne.

"How old are you, Duncan?" she asked next.

I gave my age with the usual one year's majoration. It was not a lie, for my birthday had been the day before. Still, it made Irma thoughtful.

"I did not think you were so much older than your sister," she said musingly; "why, you are older than I am!"

"Of course I am," I answered, gallantly facing the danger, and determined to brave it out.

On the spot I resolved to have a private interview with Agnes Anne as soon as might be, and, after reminding her of my birthday just past, tell her that in future I was to be referred to as "going on for twenty"—and that there was no real need to insert the words "going on for."

Irma Sobieski considered the subject a while longer, and I could see her eyes turned towards me as if studying me deeply. I wondered what she was thinking about with a brow so knotted, and I knew instinctively that it must be something of consequence, because it made her forget the letter nailed to the door, and the warning which might veil a threat. She fixed me so long that her eyes seemed to glow out of the pale face which made an oval patch against the darkness of the trees. Irma's face was only starlit, but her eyes shone by their own light.

"Yes, I will trust you," she said at last. "I saw you the day when the mob came. You were ashamed, and would have helped me if you could. Even then I liked your face. I did not forget you, and when Agnes Anne spoke of her brother who was afraid of nothing, I was happy that you should come. I wanted you to come."

The words made my heart leap, but the next moment I knew that I was a fool, and might have known better. This was no Gerty Gower, to put her hand on your arm unasked, and let her face say what her lips had not the words to utter.

"I want a friend," she said; "I need a friend—a big brother—nothing else, remember. If you think I want to be made love to, you are mistaken. And, if you do, there will be an end. You cannot help me that way. I have no use for what people call love. But I have a mission, and that mission is my brother, Sir Louis. If you will consent to help me, I shall love you as I love him, and you—can care about me—as you care about Agnes Anne!"

Now I did not see what was the use of bringing Agnes Anne into the business. At home she and I were quarrelling about half our time. But since it was to be that or nothing, of course I was not such a fool as to choose the nothing.

All the same, after the promising beginning, I was enormously disappointed, and if only it had been lighter, doubtless my chagrin would have showed on my face. It seemed to me (not knowing) the death-blow to all my hopes. I did not then understand that in all the unending and necessarily eternal game of chess, which men and women play one against the other, there is no better opening than this.

But I was still crassly ignorant, intensely disappointed. I even swore that I would not have given a brass farthing to be "cared about" by Irma as I myself did about Agnes Anne.

Dimly, however, I did feel, even then, that there was a fallacy somewhere. And that, however much human beings with youthful hearts and answering eyes may pretend they are brother and sister, there is something deep within them that moves the Previous Question—as we are used to say in the Eden Valley Debating Parliament, which Mr. Oglethorpe and my father have organized on the model of that in the Gentleman's Magazine.

But Irma, at least, had no such fear. She had, she believed, solved for ever a difficult and troublesome question, and, on easy terms, provided herself with a new relative, useful, safe and insured against danger by fire. Perhaps the underwriters of the city would not have taken the latter risk, but at that moment it seemed a slight one to Irma Sobieski.

At any rate, to seal the new alliance, in all sisterly freedom she gave me her hand, and did not appear to notice how long I kept it in the darkness. This was certainly a considerable set-off against the feeling of loneliness, and, if not quite content, I was at least more so. I wondered, among other things, if Irma's heart kept knocking in a choking kind of way against the bottom of her throat.

At least mine did, and I had never, to my knowledge, felt just so about Agnes Anne. Indeed, I don't think I had ever held Agnes Anne's hand so long in my life, except to pick a thorn out of it with a needle, or to point out how disgracefully grubby it was.



CHAPTER X

THE CROWBAR IN THE WOOD

We sat so long that I grew hungry. And then forethought was rewarded. For as I well knew, Agnes Anne had much ado to keep the house supplied (and the larder too often bare with all her trying!), I had done some trifle of providing on my own account. I had a flask of milk in my pouch—the big one in the skirt of the coat that I always wore when taking a walk in the General's plantations. Cakes, too, and well-risen scones cut and with butter between them, most refreshing. I gave first of all to Irma, and at the sound of the eating and drinking Agnes Anne awakened and came forward. So I handed her some, but with my foot cautioned her not to take too much, because it was certain that she would by no means do her share of the fighting.

Both were my sisters. We had agreed upon that. But then some roses smell sweeter than others, though all are called by the same name.

We had just finished partaking of the food (and great good it did us) when Agnes Anne heard a sound that sent her suddenly back to her corner with a face as white as a linen clout. She was always quicker of hearing than I, but certain it is that after a while I did hear something like the trampling of horses, and especially, repeated more than once, the sharp jingle which the head of a caparisoned horse makes when, wearied of waiting, it casts it up suddenly.

They were coming.

We said the words, looking at each other, and I suppose each one of us felt the same—that we were a lot of poor weak children, in our folly fighting against men. At least this is how I took it, and a sick disdain of self for being no stronger rose in my throat. A moment and it had passed. For I took "King George" in hand, and bidding Irma see that little Louis was sleeping, I ran up the stairs to the open tower-top. Here I had thought to be alone, but there before me, crouched behind the ramparts and looking out upon a dim glade which led down towards the landing-place at Killantringan, was Agnes Anne. In answer to my question as to what she was doing there, she answered at first that she could see in the dark better than I, and when I denied this she said that surely I did not think she was going to be left down there alone, nearest to the assailants if they should force a passage!

One should never encourage one's real sister in the belief that she can ever by any chance do right. So I said at once that whether she was behind the door or sitting on the weathercock at Marnhoul Tower would make no difference if the people were enemies and once got in.

"Hush!" she said. "What is that I hear now?"

And from away down the glade came slow and steady blows like those which a man might make as he lifts his axe and smites into the butt. There was a sort of reverberation, too, as if the tree were hollow. But that might only be the effect of the night, the stillness, and the heavy covert of great woods which lay like a big green blanket all about us, and tossed every sound back to us like a wall at ball-play.

"Oh, if we could only see what they were doing—who they are?" I groaned. "I could go out quite safely by the door in the tower, but then who would fire off 'King George'?"

"Toc! Toc!" came the sounds. And then a pause as if the woodsman had straightened himself up and was wiping his brow. The timing of the strokes was very slow. Probably, therefore, the labour itself was fatiguing. Sometimes, too, the axe fell with a different swing, as if other hands grasped it, but always with the same dull thudding and irritating slowness.

Then Agnes Anne made an astonishing proposition.

"See here, Duncan," she whispered, "let me out by the little postern door at the foot of the tower. Miss Irma can watch behind it to let me in if I come running back, and you stay on the top ready with 'King George.' I will find out for you everything you want to know." And I got ready to say, brother-like, "Agnes Anne, you are a fool—your legs would give way under you in the first hundred yards."

But somehow she saw (or felt) the speech that was coming, and cut me short.

"No, I wouldn't either," she said hurriedly and quite boldly. "You think that because I hate that great thing there filled with powder and slugs (which even you can't tell when it will go off, or what harm it will do when it does) that I am a coward. I am no more frightened than you are yourself—perhaps less. Who was the best tracker when we played at Indians and colonists, I should like to know? Who could go most quietly through the wood? Or run the quickest? Just me, Agnes Anne MacAlpine!"

Well, I had to admit it. These things were true. But then they had little to do with courage. This was serious. It was taking one's life in one's hand.

"And pray what are we doing here and now?" snapped Agnes Anne. "If they are strong enough to break in one of the doors, or get through one of the windows, what can we do? Till we know what is coming against us, we are only going from one blunder to another!"

Now this was most astonishing of our Agnes Anne. So I told her that I had known that Irma was plucky, but not her. And she only said, very shortly, "Better come and see!"

So we went down and told Irma. At first she was all against opening any door, even for a moment, on any account. The strength of these defences was our only protection. She would rather do anything than endanger that. But we made her listen to the slow thud of the axe out in the wood, and even as we looked the figure of a man passed across the glade, black against the greyish-green of the grass, on which a thick rise of dew was catching the starlight.

This figure wrapped in a sea-cloak, with head bent forward, passing across the pale glimmer of the glade, sufficed to alter the mind of Irma. She agreed in a moment, and locking the door of little Louis's room, she declared herself willing to keep watch behind the little postern door of the tower, ready to let Agnes Anne in again, on the understanding that I should be prepared from the open window above to deal with any pursuer.

I admit that in this I was persuaded against my judgment. For I felt certain that though Agnes Anne could move with perfect stillness through woods, and was a fleet runner, her nerve would certainly fail her when it came to a real danger. And so great was the sympathy of my imagination that I seemed already to feel the pursuer gaining at every stride, the muscles of my limbs failing beneath me and refusing to carry me farther, just as they do in a dream.

But Agnes Anne was serious and determined, and in the end had to have her way. I can see the reason now. She knew exactly what she meant to do, which neither Irma nor I did—though of course both of us far braver.

We got the door open quite silently—for it was the one Irma had used in her few and brief outgates. Then, shrouded in her school cloak of grey, and clad, I mean, in but little else, Agnes flitted out as silent as a shadow along a wall.

But oh, the agony I suffered to think what my father, and still more my grandmother, would say to me because I had let my sister expose herself on such an errand. Twenty times I was on the point of sallying forth after her. Twenty times the sight of the pale face of Irma waiting there stopped me, and the thought that I was the only protector of the two poor things in that great house. Also after all Agnes Anne had gone of her own accord.

All the same I shivered as I kneeled by the window above with the wide muzzle of "King George" pointing down the path which led from the glade. Every moment I expected to hear the air rent with a hideous scream, and "King George" wobbled in my hands as I thought of Agnes Anne lying slain in the glow-worm shining of that abominable glade, with that across her white neck for which my conscience and my grandmother would reproach me as long as I (and she) lived. One thing comforted me during that weary waiting. The hollow thudding as of axe on wood never ceased for a moment. So from that I gathered (and was blithe to believe) that the alarm had not been given, and that wherever Agnes Anne was, she herself was still undiscovered.

My eyes were so glued to that misty glade that presently I got a great surprise. "There she is!" cried Irma, looking round the door, and I saw a figure flit out of the dusk of the copse-covert within two yards of the postern door. The next moment, without advertisement or the least fuss, Agnes Anne was within. I heard the sliding of bolts, the hum of talk, and then the patter of returning feet on the stair.



CHAPTER XI

AGNES ANNE'S EXPERIENCES AS A SPY

"Well, at first I did not think much about anything" (said Agnes Anne), "except keeping quiet and doing what Duncan did not believe I could do. But I knew the wood. It was not so dark as one would think, and once out of the echo of the house walls I could hear far better. I leaned against a larch, holding on to the trunk and counting the sticky rosettes on its trailers to keep me from thinking while I listened. Twice I thought I had made out exactly from which direction the sound came, and twice I found I was mistaken. But the third time I followed the ditch under the sunk fence till I came to the mound which is shaped like a green hat at the end next the house. The thudding came from there—I was sure of it. When I could hear men talking, I was (and I am not saying it to put Duncan in the wrong) more glad than afraid.

"The bottom of the ditch was full of all sorts of underbrush—hazel and birch roots mostly—growing pretty close as I found when once I got there, but rustling horribly while I was getting settled. However, there was nothing for it, if I wanted to find out anything, but to go on. So on I went. I was close to the mound now, and could hear the voices.

"'Quiet there a moment!' said some one, 'I'll swear I heard a noise in the ditch!'

"And as I crouched something like a blade of a sword or maybe a pike came high above me stabbing this way and that. Twigs and leaves pattered down, but I was safe behind the stump of a fallen tree. Presently the steel thing I had seen glinting struck the dead and sodden wood of the tree-trunk, and snapped with a sharp tang like a fiddle-string—a hayfork it may have been, or one of the long thin swords such as are hung up in the hall.

"But another and deeper voice—like that of a man somewhat out of breath, said gruffly, 'Better get the job done! 'Tis only a fox or a rabbit—what else would be out here at this hour?'

"And then, with the noise of spitting on the hands, the sound of the heavy tool began again. It had a ring in it like steel on stone. I think they had been chopping something with a pickaxe and had got through. For now the clink was quite different, though that again might be because I was nearer.

"'Have you found the passage? Surely it is long in showing?'

"That was the first voice again, the better educated one, I take it. He spoke like a gentleman, like the General or even the Doctor himself, though there was much rudeness in the voice of the other when he answered him.

"'D'ye think I am breaking my back over this stone-door for fun?' growled the man in panting gasps. 'If I imagined you were any hand at a tool, you should have a chance at this one quick enough!'

"'Steady, Dick!' said the first, always in his pleasant tone, 'it can't be far away at the farthest now!'

"'Hang it, it may not be there at all. Did you ever hear of a mouldy old castle but had its tale about a secret passage? And did anybody ever see one? Better make the woman speak, I tell you!'

"'Well,' argued the first suavely, 'it may come to that, of course. But let us give this a good trial first. To it, Dick—to it!'

"'Aye, "To it, Dick—to it!" And your own arm up to the elbow in your blessed pocket,' he grunted, and I could hear him set to work again with an angry snarl. 'If this doesn't fetch it—well—there's always the woman!'

"'Aye—but it will do it this time,' said the man with the soft voice. 'I hear by the clink of the crow that you are nearly through. My uncle used often to tell me about this. The big green mound is the ice-house of Marnhoul. It was his father that made it, and the passage also to connect with the cellar. See where it drains sideways into that ditch. That is what makes the green stuff grow so rank about there!'

"Between the noise of the heavy crowbar and the dispute, I ventured to edge a bit closer, so that at last I could make out the two men, and beyond them something that looked like a figure of a woman lying under a cloak. But all was under the dimness of the stars and the twinkling dew, so that I could see nothing clearly.

"But what I had heard was enough, for in the middle of the worker's gasping and cursing there came a sudden crash and a jingle.

"'She's through—I told you so. Uncle Edward was right!' cried the first and taller man, while the other only stared at the sudden disappearance of his tool, and stood looking blankly at his own empty hands.

"'What's to be done now?' said the tall man.

"'Lever it up with the nose of the pick!' growled the short thick man; 'here, you—hang on to that!'

"And then I knew that the sooner Duncan and 'King George' were down in the cellar of Marnhoul House, the better it would be for our lives."

* * * * *

When Agnes Anne finished we sat a moment agape. But very evidently there was no time to be lost. They would be among us before we knew it, if once they got down into the passage. We tried to find out from Irma where the cellar was, but she was sunk in terrible thoughts, and for a long while she could say nothing but "Lalor Maitland—it is Lalor Maitland, come to kill my poor Louis!"

And indeed it was difficult to get her aroused sufficiently to help us. Left to herself I do not doubt that she would have gone up-stairs and fled with the child in her arms in the hope of hiding him in the wood.

At last we got it out of her that the keys of the cellar were in the great cupboard behind the door. She directed us to a double flight of broad stairs. Irma had only looked into the cellar when she first came, and had found it rifled, the barrels dry and gaping, full of dust, dry-rot and the smell of decay.

But she too had heard her father tell of the passage to the ice-house, and how he and his brothers had used it for their escapades when the house was locked up and the keys taken to their father's room.

We went down—I leading with "King George" under my arm and the two girls following. But on the stairway a sudden terror leaped upon Irma. While we were all down in the cellar, might not Lalor and his companion enter by the front door, or by some unguarded window. So she turned and ran back to the little boy's room to defend him with an old pistol I had found on the wall and loaded for her with powder and ball.

Then Agnes Anne and I made our way into the cellar. We had taken with us the lantern, which we had hitherto kept covered, lest by the moving of the light about the house we might be suspected of being on our guard.

Hastily I made the tour of the great cellar. The back of the place was full of the debris of ancient barrels, some intact, some with gaping sides, many held together with no more than a single hoop. But packed together in one corner and occupying a place about one third of the whole area of the floor was something very different. Tarpaulined, fastened together by ropes, and guarded from damp by planks laid below them, were some hundreds of kegs and packages—all, so far as I could see, marked with curious signs, and in some cases the names of places. One I remember, "Sallet Ooil—Apuglia," gave me a sense of such distance and strangeness, that for a moment I seemed to be travelling in strange countries and seeing curious sights, rather than going down to risk my life in Miss Irma's quarrel with men I had never seen.

It was very evident that there could be but one place where the passage Irma had spoken of (on her father's information) could debouch upon the great cellar of Marnhoul. In the angle behind the mass of kegs was an open space of some yards square, so clean that it looked as if it had been recently swept.

Beyond this again and quite in the corner, there was a step or two downwards, as if it were into the bowels of the earth. This was stopped with a door of stone accurately arranged and fitted with uncommon skill. And I could see at a glance that it was probably one of the same kind that the men whom Agnes Anne had seen were engaged in bursting by stroke of crow. I understood more than that. For there was all the winter in Eden Valley scarce any other subject of talk than the Free Trade (which is to say, plainly, smuggling), and concerning the various "ventures" or boats and crews attached to some famous leader engaged in it.

There was, in fact, no particular moral wrong attaching to the business in Eden Valley or along the Solway shore high and low—rather a sort of piety, since the common folk remembered that the excise had first been instituted by that perjured persecutor of the Church, Charles II. Even the Doctor, though he denounced the practice from the pulpit in befitting words, did so chiefly on the ground that the attractions of Free Trade, its dangers even, carried so many promising young men forth of the parish, and a goodly proportion of them to return no more.

But for all that, I never heard that he refused to partake of the anker of Guernsey which his lady found by chance in the milk-house among the creaming-pans, or by the tombstones of his predecessors in the "Ministers' Corner" of the kirkyard.

I looked at the means of defence, and hidden among the packages at the back I found two good muskets and one or two very worn ones—yet all bearing the marks of recent attention. So, since the smuggled casks formed a kind of breastwork right round the steps—up from the passage that was blocked by the stone door—it came into my head that I could there set up a kind of battery and run from one to the other of them, firing—that is, if the worst came to the worst and the passage were forced. So, having plenty of powder and shot and the wrappings of the lace packages making excellent wads, I set about loading all the muskets. I knew that Agnes Anne would be afraid of what I was doing, having had a horror of firearms ever since, as a child, she had seen Florrie, our old dun cow, shot dead by Boyd Connoway to be our "mart" of the year, and salted down for the winter's food in the big beef barrel. Agnes Anne would never be induced to eat a bit of Florrie, though indeed she was very good and sweet, because forsooth she had been used to milk her and give her handfuls of fresh grass. Since then she had never forgiven Boyd Connoway, and had never been able to look upon a gun with any complaisance.

Yet when I told her to stand back and keep away from the powder horn and the lantern (for it is none of the easiest to charge strange pieces in a dark cellar) she said that she would stand by "King George" while I was at hand—yes, and fire him off, too, if need were. Only I must show her how to pull the trigger, and also adjust the muzzle so as to bear on the steps by which the villains would come up!

This I relate to show how (for the time being) Agnes Anne was worked upon. For, as all have seen, she was naturally of a very timorsome and quavering disposition. At any rate I did get the muskets, all five of them, loaded, and set in position with their noses cocked over the squared bulwarks of Mechlin and Vallenceens, of Strasburg yarn, and Italian silver-gilt wire.

And I can tell you they looked imposing in the light of the lantern, though I was more than a little doubtful about some of them going off without blowing themselves up. But it was no time to cavil about small matters like that, and I said nothing about this to Agnes Anne, who, for her part, continued to glance along the barrel of "King George" at the stone door with the fixity of my father viewing a star through his large brass spy-glass. Only Agnes Anne, being unable to keep one eye shut and the other open, had to hold the lid of the unoccupied organ hard down with her left hand, as if it too were about to bounce out on us like the two men she had seen in the ice-house mound by the edge of the sunk fence.

We waited a good while with the light of the lamp smothered—all, that is, but barely sufficient to give air to the flame. And I tell you our hearts were gigotting rarely. Even Agnes Anne had taken a sudden liking to "King George," and would not let him go as I proposed to her, now that all the other muskets were loaded and ready.

"You would do better service with the lantern," I told her, "you could hold it up to let us see them better."

But she answered that the lantern could take care of itself. She was going to do some of the real fighting, and so I should not scorn her any more. But I knew very well that it was only a kind of hysteria and would all go off at the dangerous moment. Down she would go on the floor like a bundle of wet rags!

However, to encourage Agnes Anne (as one must do to a girl), I said that she was not to fire till she saw the white of their eyes. I remembered that my father, in speaking of some battle or other, told how the general had given his men that order, so that they might not miss. I thought it very fine.

But Agnes Anne said promptly that she would not wait for the white of anybody's eyes. She would fire and run for it as soon as she saw their ugly heads coming up out of the ground. This shows how little you can do with a girl, even if she have occasional fits of bravery. And I do not deny that Agnes Anne had, though not naturally brave like myself and Miss Irma.

It was anywhere between five minutes and a century before we heard the first stroke of the crow behind the barricade. It sounded dull and painful, as if inside of one's head. At first we heard no talking such as Agnes Anne had described at the entrance of the ice-house.

Also, as they had been a good while on the way; I believe that they had found other difficulties which they had not counted upon in traversing the passage. But they were very near now, for presently, after perhaps twenty strokes we could hear the striker sending out his breath with a "Har" of effort each time he drove his crow home.

It was very dark in the cellar, for we had covered the lamp more carefully and almost ceased to breathe. But we saw through certain chinks that our assailants had a light of some sort with them. We could discern a faint glimmering all round the upper portion of the stone, and stray rays also pierced at various places elsewhere.

The long line of light at the top suddenly split and seemed to break open in the middle. There came a fierce "Hech" from the assailant, and the point of his crowbar showed, slid, and was as sharply recovered. Next moment it came again.

"Lever it!" cried the gruff voice, "if you have the backbone of a windlestraw, lever!"

And after a short, hard-breathing struggle, the stone door fell inwards, the aperture was filled with intense light, dazzling, as it appeared to us—and in the midst we saw two fierce and set faces peering into the dark of the cellar.



CHAPTER XII

THE FIGHT IN THE DARK

One of the peering faces was hot and angry, bearded too, which few then used to do except such as followed the sea. The other was dark and beaked like a hawk, so that the shadow of an aquiline nose fell on the man's chin as he held the lantern high above his head.

At first we could only see them to about the middle of the breast, as for a little space of time they stood thus, hearkening with their heads thrust forward.

"Not a ratton—forward there, Dick!" said the man behind, and the man with the bushy beard advanced, rising as he did so till I could see the ties of tarry cord with which he looped up his corduroy small-clothes.

Now it was high time to act. The game had been played far enough.

"Hold there—stand!" I cried. "Not a step further or we fire!"

I suppose my voice was echoed and fortified by the hollow vault. Certainly in my own ears it roared like the sound of many waters. At any rate the men stood, dumb-stricken, the tarry sailorly man a little in front with his mouth open and his yellow dog-teeth gleaming. The other, he who had given the orders, held the lantern higher in the air almost against the stones of the vault, so as to see over the barricade of boxes and barrels.

"'Tis no more than the——" he was beginning. But he never got the sentence completed. For I took good aim from a rest upon a package of cloth, and let fly with the best of the muskets—but at the clear lowe of the lantern, not at the man's face, as I had at first intended. Somehow, a kind of pity came over me. I did not want to slay such men, who, taken in their iniquity, must go right to their accounts. But the lantern was hit clean, and the glass went jingling to the ground in a hundred fragments.

I judge also that some of the slugs must have strayed a little, for out of the darkness came curses and the voice of the commander crying on Dick to get back—that they were too strong for only two men. But the sailor man advanced till I could hear him actually pulling himself over the breastwork, gasping (or, as we say, "pech-"ing) with the effort. Then I ran along my battery, and directing the next two of the old muskets to the arched roof, I fired them off, bringing down with a crash handfuls of rough lime and small bits of stone, mingled no doubt with the ricocheted bullets themselves. At any rate our tarry Galligaskins soon had enough of it. He turned and made good his retreat towards the stairs up which he had forced his way.

Then Agnes Anne, who had no chivalrous ideas of sparing anybody who came assaulting the house of her friends, pulled the trigger of "King George," and in a moment all lesser sounds were drowned in a roar loud as of a piece of ordnance.

The blunderbuss had been trained on the opening with some care, and it was lucky for the men that they happened to be in retreat, and so presenting their backs at the time—lucky, also, that only buckshot had been used instead of the bullets and slugs with which the other guns were loaded. But even so it was enough. She was always careless and scattery, our old "King George." And from the marks on the lintels afterwards she had sprinkled her charge pretty freely. Also there were tokens, besides the yells and imprecations of the assailants and the threats of Galligaskins to come back and do for us, that both of them (as Constable Jacky would have said) "carried off concealed about their persons an indictable quantity of my father's good lead drops."

So far, good. Better than good, indeed—better than we had the least reason to expect, all owing to my presence of mind, and the fortunate nervousness of Agnes Anne—which, however, in the case under review, Providence directed to a wise and good end. I was for running immediately back up the stairs to put the mind of Miss Irma at rest, but Agnes Anne, with that stubbornness which she will often manifest throughout this history, withstood me.

"What is it now?" I asked her, somewhat impatiently, I am bound to admit. For I was all in a sweat to tell Irma about my victory, and how I fought—and also, of course, about Agnes Anne pulling the trigger of "King George" at random in the dark.

"This is the matter," said she, "Irma can wait. But if we do not improve our victory, they will be back again with a whole army of men before we can wink."

"Well," I answered, "I will load the guns first and then go up!"

"Loading the guns is good," said Agnes Anne. "But before that we must blind up this hole by which they climbed in. We will give them something more difficult to break through in this narrow passage than a stone door which they can make holes in with a crowbar!"

And I caught at the idea in a moment, wondering how I had not thought of it myself. But of course, though I did not actually suggest it, Agnes Anne could never have carried it through without me.

We set about the work immediately. I took the big stone they had loosened with their tools and tumbled it down the well of the stairway, where, after rebounding once, it stuck at the turn and made a good foundation for the barrels, boxes and packages we threw down till the whole space was choke full, and then I danced on the top and defied the lantern-man and Dick to get through in a week.

"Now go and tell your Irma!" said Agnes Anne, and I went, while she stopped behind with the lantern and a gun to watch if anything should be attempted against the cellar.

But I knew right well that no such thing was possible. Nothing short of such a charge of gunpowder as would rive the whole house of Marnhoul asunder would suffice to clear the staircase of the packing I had given it. So Agnes Anne might just as well have come her ways up-stairs with me. Still, I do not deny that it was thoughtful of her; Agnes Anne meant well.

Irma had heard the firing, and I found her with her little brother in her arms, sitting by the window of the parlour overlooking the pilasters of the front door. She held little Louis wrapped in a blanket, and kept both herself and him out of sight as much as possible behind the curtain. But she had the horse pistol I had given her on the ledge of the sill close at her hand.

She listened to my tale with a white intensity which was very pitiful. Her eyes seemed so big that they almost overran her face, and there were little sparks of light like fairy candles lit at the bottom of each.

"Lalor Maitland—it was no other man!" she said in an awed voice. "And now he is wounded he will be furious. He has many men always in his power. For he can make or mar a man in the Low Countries, and even bad men will do much for his favour. He will gather to him all who are waiting. They will be here immediately and burst in the doors. Oh, what shall we do? My poor, poor Louis!"

"There is the woman whom Agnes Anne saw," I said. "Can you guess what she has to do with it? They said they would try her if they did not succeed."

"Why not light the beacon now?" said a voice from the door. It was Agnes Anne, who, being left to herself, the thought had come to her in the dark of the cellar, and had run up to propose it. For me, I was too much occupied with Irma, and I am sure that Irma was far too troubled concerning her brother to think about the beacon. Yet it was the obvious thing to do, and if I had had a moment to spare I would have thought of it myself. So Agnes Anne had no great credit, after all, when you come to look at it rightly.

But the effect of the suggestion on Irma was very remarkable. It was as if the voice of my sister actually raised her from the place where she had been listlessly sitting with her brother in her arms. She snatched the lantern from the hands of Agnes Anne and put little Louis back on his pillow, bidding him stay there till the time should come for him to get up.

"Are the bad men all killed, Irma?" he asked.

"We are going to bring the good people to help us!" she cried. And with that she ran up-stairs, and I after her, in a great pother of haste. For the candle in her hand was the only bit of fire we had, and I did not want it blown out if I could help it.



CHAPTER XIII

A WORLD OF INK AND FIRE

The idea of Irma's danger on the open house-top and in the full glare of the beacon acted on me like a charm—yet people will say that there is nothing at all in such a relationship as ours. Why, I would not have been half as much concerned for Agnes Anne! And as a matter of fact, I had not been so anxious down there behind the barrels and packages in the cellar, when Lalor Maitland and Galligaskins were coming at us.

Besides which, I knew that Irma, being unused to fire-building, would only waste the excellent provision of kindling, and perhaps do us out of our beacon altogether.

So having joined her, it was not long till we had the tarred cloth off, and, through the interstices of the iron bucket, the little blue and yellow flames began chirping and chattering. But as I pulled the basket up to the height of its iron crane, the wind of the night sent the fire off with a mighty roar. The tops of the nearer trees stood out, every leaf hard and distinct, but the main body of the woods all about Marnhoul remained dark and solid, as if you could have walked upon them without once breaking through.

I stood there watching, with the chain still in my hand, though I had run the ring into the hoop on the wall. We had been very clever so far, and I was full of admiration for ourselves. But a bullet whizzing very near my head, struck the basket with a vicious "scat," doing no harm, of course, but extending to us an urgent invitation to get out of range, that was not to be disregarded.

Irma was close beside me, following with her eyes the mounting crackle of the beacon, the sudden jetting of the tall pale flames that ran upward into the velvet sky of night. For from a pale and haunting grey the firmament had all of a sudden turned black and solid. Middle shades had been ruled out instantly. It was a world of ink and fire.

But that sharp dash of danger cooled admiration in my heart. I caught Irma by the shoulders and, roughly enough, pulled her down beside me on the platform behind the stone ramparts. For a moment I think she was indignant, but the next thankful. For half-a-dozen balls clicked and whizzed about, passing through the square gaps that went all round the tower, as if the wall had had a couple of teeth knocked out at regular distances every here and there.

Very cautiously we crawled to the stair-head, leaving our invisible enemies cracking away at the fire basket, knocking little cascades of sparks out of it, indeed, but doing no harm. For the beacon was thoroughly well alight, and the chain good and strong.

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 assailants 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 assailants 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 cocked 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 assailants 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 passed 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 apron 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 Shore!"

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 Shore. 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 Shore 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 Shore, "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 Principality 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 pass 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 Coke, 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,

"My Lords and Hon. Commissioners of H. M. Excise, "Your obedient, humble servant, "Henry Baskett (Supervisor)."

The other view of this transaction I find more concisely expressed in a memorandum written in an old note-book belonging to my Uncle Tom.

"Baskett held out for forty best French, but we fobbed him off with twenty-five low-grade Rotterdam—the casks being leaky, and some packs of goods too long left at Rathan Cave, which is at the back of the isle, and counted scarce worth the carrying farther. The night fine and business most successful—thanks to an ever-watchful Providence."

The reader of these family memoirs will perhaps agree with me that, if any one could do without an ever-watchful Providence troubling itself about him, that man was my Uncle Tom.

While, therefore, we in the House of Marnhoul were in the wildest alarm—at least Agnes Anne was—forces which could not possibly be withstood were mustering to hasten to our assistance. The tarry jackets of the Golden Hind would doubtless have rushed the front door with a hurrah, as readily as they would have boarded a prize, but Lalor Maitland ordered them to bring wood and other inflammable material. At least, so I judge, for presently I could see them running to and fro about the edges of the wood. They had now learned the knack of keeping in shelter most of the way. But I did not feel really afraid till I saw some of them with kegs of liquor making towards the porch. There they stove them in, and proceeded to empty the contents on the dry branches and fuel they had collected. The matter was now beginning to look really serious. To make things worse, they were evidently digging out the bottom of our cellar-stair barricade, and if they succeeded in that they would turn our position and take us in the rear.