FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70  
71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   >>   >|  
ly below in case of children to be baptized. Patsy stood on the stone, all trodden smooth by the restless feet of the hill lambs which in spring came from the most distant parts of the moor to gambol there. She could look both up and down the water, but for a while she saw nothing of Stair. But the five minutes were not up, when, from a thick tuft of broom, she heard the call of the whin-chat, like a tiny hammer ringing on hard stone. The sound came from up the water and Patsy moved towards it, stepping deftly from stone to stone in the bed of the stream. "Stair," she said softly, "where are you, Stair?" A full swathe of broom moved itself aside, and she could see Stair Garland lying in a rocky niche which he had prepared long before, in case of such a very probable emergency as the officers of the excise coming after him. The barrel of his long gun looked over his shoulder. "Go on, Patsy," he said, "walk on up the burn as if you had seen nothing and I shall be with you in a moment." She had reached a little knoll, crowned with alder bushes, when she found him entering from the opposite side. Sitting down, she told him of the Duke's coming to Abbey Burnfoot, and of the two gentlemen who were with him, Captain Laurence and Lord Wargrove. "Ah," said Stair, "so it is for that we have a full squadron of dragoons camped in our barns at Glenanmays, the stable emptied of our own horses to make room for those of the dragoons, and the whole house turned upside down. I thought it was too big a force to be sent after the three of us." "Fergus and Agnew are still away, then?" queried Patsy, sure that they were. Stair grinned. "They are in the heather, like myself," he chuckled, "but neither of them has such a choice of hidie-holes as I have. I can hide better and lie closer, besides keeping a watch on the farm and on you, Miss Patsy, with the soldiers all about within the shot of a gun." "Can you bring Jean to me, Stair?" said Patsy, "it will be hard, I know, with all those men on the watch at Glenanmays." Stair flushed a little with the joy of a difficult commission. He whistled shrilly three times, and then sat quite still listening. Then he whistled thrice more and the echoes had hardly died away before the wise, towsy head of a rough collie with the big, brown eyes of the genuine Galloway sheep-dog peered out of the bracken and long grass of the burnside. He came silently and expectantly to his master,
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70  
71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

whistled

 
dragoons
 

coming

 
Glenanmays
 

stable

 

emptied

 
chuckled
 

choice

 

queried

 

upside


thought

 
Fergus
 

horses

 

grinned

 

heather

 

turned

 

collie

 
thrice
 

echoes

 

genuine


burnside

 

silently

 

expectantly

 

master

 

bracken

 
Galloway
 
peered
 

listening

 
soldiers
 

keeping


closer
 

commission

 

difficult

 

shrilly

 
flushed
 

hammer

 

ringing

 

minutes

 
swathe
 

softly


stepping

 
deftly
 

stream

 

smooth

 

restless

 
trodden
 

children

 
baptized
 

spring

 

gambol