Eben knew too well the conditions of his life's tenure, to refuse to do anything Stair Garland bade him. He believed that while in the company of any of the band, he existed only by sufferance and had reason to be grateful for each hour of life vouchsafed to him.
So he made the porridge without demur, just as he had gone to bed fully dressed so as to be ready for any demand that the night might bring.
The meal being properly stirred, the porridge was poured into three wooden platters. Then Stair took a lump of fine Glenanmays salt butter from the firkin and dabbed it into the centre of each dish, the same amount for each. After which he went and knocked on the thin partition of Julian Wemyss's cubicle. Mr. Wemyss was already on foot, and had, in fact, almost finished the elaborate toilette which was habitual to him.
He saluted Stair and the spy with his usual calm civility, and with one glance at the stained, "up-all-night" look of Stair's dress, he gathered the truth. Stair Garland had been watching while he slept. He blushed a little at the thought, and resolved that for the future he would do his full share of night duty. Nay, even to-day he would see to it that Stair got his proper hours of repose. In the meantime, however, Stair's mind was full of quite another matter.
The loyalty of Eben McClure must be tested, and Stair was only waiting for the end of the meal in order to instruct the victim how he was to prove it. The door was open and Eben sat on the inner side of the table facing it. Between him and the light were Stair Garland and Stair Garland's gun. As usual Mr. Wemyss sat at the end of the table nearest to the fire.
"Eben," said Stair Garland, setting his elbows squarely on the table and leaning forward, "you are an intelligent man and you will understand that since the Bothy has been surrounded by an armed force and we may expect an assault any hour, your position has very much changed. We took you, to a very great extent, on your own statement. Now I do not think that you have sold us, or that you have brought these people down upon us. But we need to be sure. It will be obvious to you that if we are to depend on a third man in our midst, that third man must have all our confidence. Now, this is what I intend that you shall do. You and I shall follow the path as far as the big peat knoll. There we shall be in full view of the posts of the Preventive men. Having arrived there, you will appear to break from me after a struggle, and run as hard as you can towards the north in the direction of the excisemen. They will know you very well, having been your old cronies. You will have a white handkerchief in your hand which you will wave to them. If they take that signal to mean that you are escaping, we on our side will understand that you have been at your old tricks. If they fire—then you are cleared and can turn and come back to us. I will protect your retreat. Now do you quite understand?"
Frequently in the exercise of his profession, Eben had need of indomitable courage, but now perhaps more than ever. Yet he was steadfast.
"I see no reason why you should trust me," he said. "I am willing to take the risk. When shall we start?"
"Now," said Stair, and in a minute more he was marching his man along the narrowing pathway between the dark pools of peat water. "There is only one thing I have to say. Do not pass the dwarf thorn-tree at the big elbow. If you run past that, I shall know you have it in your mind to desert, and it will be my duty to shoot. You know I do not miss."
It was a grey day with a gentle wind, the sky of a teased pearl woolliness with curious warm tints in it here and there. The face of the moorland was generally black, sometimes broken by borders of vivid green about the pools, and along the path edges by the little rosy rootlets of the plant called Venus's Flytrap.