THE GIBBET RING
Ghastly behind the High Stile, just as you cross over into Raincy property, rose the three tall trees of the Gibbet Ring. Once the Raincys had jurisdiction to hang men and drown women, and it was on this "moot-hill" that they dispensed their feudal laws as seemed to them good. There was something grim about the place even now, and as Julian approached, the High Stile stood up against the last flare of red in the evening sky not yet blotted out by the mist, gaunt and sinister as a guillotine.
And the dark silhouette of Adam Ferris, waiting for them, might well have been that of the executioner himself. Stair saluted Adam Ferris, who held out his hand frankly enough to his tenant's son.
"So, Stair," he said, "you have been missing for a long time from your father's table. I had the honour of dining with Diarmid Garland yesterday, and heard nothing of you. Ah, Julian! So this Captain of the Coast has been taking care of you."
He turned to his brother-in-law, who had come more slowly up out of the darkness of the glen, following Stair as closely as might be in the uncertain dusk, for the eyes of the ex-ambassador were not habituated to night duty like those of his guide.
Stair Garland drew back a little after he had seen that the two men were safe in the shelter of the great Raincy ash trees. He would let them talk the matter out. But his mind followed their argument, such as it would doubtless be. He knew the end—that Julian would persuade Adam Ferris to go to London to arrange the future of his daughter. Adam would not be so easy to persuade. Not only would he dislike returning all the way to London, but he would be far more doubtful than his kinsman as to the power he could exercise over Patsy's choice.
Julian Wemyss naturally thought that no position could be better or more fortunate for any girl than that which the Prince Eitel was offering his niece. But Adam was constitutionally unable to imagine that any dignity could add to the position she already held as heiress of four hundred years of Ferrises of Cairn Ferris.
Stair wandered away up the slope towards the Gibbet Knoll, Whitefoot stealing along at his heels, walking almost in his tracks, but with his ears cocked to catch the slightest unexplained noise. As he arrived under the scant foliage of the few remaining gaunt trees, tall branchless trunks with a mere plume at the top of each, bent permanently away from the south-west by the sea-winds, he walked to the small stone platform on which the Baron had issued his decree. From that point of outlook it was possible to see the towers of Castle Raincy looming over the grey sea of vapour, which filled all the lower ground and now and then flung out an arm that momentarily snatched at and submerged the Gibbet Knoll.
Stair had not gone far when something large and dark darted across the path between the trees where the snow had been blown a little bare. Stair was instantly in pursuit. It was not a time when he could afford to overlook anything. A man it was, certainly, for the moment the thicker underbrush was reached he rose half erect and went plunging head foremost into it.
But Whitefoot was before him, and had him by the throat before he could run ten yards. Stair, immediately behind, saw the man's hand go to his belt, and comprehended that Whitefoot's life was in danger.