" said Miss Aline; "but our maid
is afraid, and her father's house and her uncle's are both as full of
soldiers and ribaldry as ever in the times of the Covenant. So where
should she come if not to me? It was more wisely done than I could have
expected from that 'fechtin' fule' of a Stair Garland."

Louis Raincy saw Patsy. She was sitting in Miss Aline's own room among
the simple daintiness of many white linen "spreads" with raised
broidery, the work of Miss Aline's own hands. Here she told him her
determination to keep out of the way till the Prince and his train had
left the country. The reasons for her instinctive dislike of her uncle's
guest were not clear to any except herself, but on these Louis did not
insist. It was enough that Patsy was so minded. In any case he wished
her to know that he would follow the movements of the enemy with care,
and warn her of their intentions. Captain Laurence, especially, was a
free talker, and might let slip useful information. He, Louis, would
ride over to headquarters that very afternoon, and, if Laurence was
still absent, he would get an orderly to find him.

Thus was Patsy equipped with two cavaliers of courage and address, one
of whom had his entries everywhere, while the other possessed the
supreme skill of sea, shore, morass, hill, and heather, which comes only
after generations of practice. But against them they had a man
infinitely subtle and wholly without scruple. Eben McClure was of that
breed of Galloway Scot, which, having been kicked and humiliated in
youth for lack of strength and courage, pays back his own people by
treachery with interest thereto.

The like of Eben McClure had tracked with Lag when he made his tours
among his neighbours, with confiscation and fine for a main object, and
the murder of this or that man of prayer, covenant-keeper or
Bible-carrier, as only a wayside accident. Now Galloway is half Celtic,
and the other half, at least till the Ayrshire invasion, was mostly
Norse. So McClure was hated with all the Celtic vehemence which does not
stop short of blood. He was the salaried betrayer of his own, and in
time, unless he could make enough money and remove himself to some far
hiding-place, would assuredly die the death which such men die.

Of this, of course, he was perfectly aware, and had arranged his life
accordingly.

In the meantime he watched and pondered. He disguised himself and made
night journeys that he might learn what would suit