dy your wife above all others in the world. I had thought Kennedy
McClure a hard, selfish old man, and so he might have been but for her.
But he is never tired of telling how she saved him in London, and how
she was not ashamed of him even in the company of Princes and all the
great folk of the town. Ah, she was counted a world's wonder, sir--our
Miss Patsy, if I may make so bold as to call her so--when she was in
London. There was no one like her--and it's not coronets she could have
married, my uncle says, but crowns!"

"I know--I know," said Stair, somewhat impatiently, "but what is it you
are afraid of?"

"The sappers, sir--the little burrowing men. They have far more sense
than whole regiments of soldiers, and it is as likely as not that some
one of them, anxious for promotion, followed me across country, and
watched me down to the point of Orraland. I wish I had been more careful
of my footprints, but the woods were soft and I kept under shelter till
the last moment!"

"Well, what of it--get on, Eben!"

"Sir, these are sappers' trenches, or I am no judge! And what's more,
they are made to command the approach by the ridge to the tail of the
island."

"But we are almost at the height of the flood tides, and there can be
nothing to fear from that direction till the neaps come, and not then if
the south-west wind blows as it has done ever since we came here. Why,
we have hardly ever seen the back of the ridge black for half-an-hour."

"I know," said Eben, shaking his head, "but they are long-patienced
fellows, these sappers--not like cavalrymen or lazy Preventives, who
want nothing better than to lie up with a pipe and a mutchkin!"

"Some night we shall row over and see, Eben," said Stair, preparing to
depart. "If they are lying in their rabbit-hutches we might give them a
rare fright!"

"No," said Eben, "I don't mind going myself, but what would that child
do without you? Answer me that, sir! No, what I want you to do is to
send Whitefoot with a message to my uncle and get the _Good Intent_ here
by the next neaps. Could the dog do that, sir? They say he is wise."

"Well," said Stair, considering, "I don't think that Whitefoot could go
directly to Supsorrow and find out your uncle. But he could take a
message to Jean, if he were put a little bit on the road--say through
the Blue Hills glen and over the old bridge of Dee. I daresay he could
make it even from here, but he has never been past Dee Bridge by lan