"You have not escaped—you have been carried off," Patsy corrected. "So was Uncle Ju. He walked off the step of his verandah into the arms of Captain Penman and half-a-dozen of the crew of the Good Intent. They seized him and carried him on the Billy Goat, which sailed immediately for parts unknown. But Joseph managed so well and the orders from headquarters were so strict, that the garrison did not even loot the house as they did at Cairn Ferris, that night when you disgraced us all by drawing royal blood at the White Loch. Here are some books which he sent for you—some from the Bothy, and some for me to read. I am not so learned as you, and Joseph chose accordingly. If we have wet days, Stair, we can read all day with our toes to the fire!"
"And why did not we also go on the Good Intent and so get away from all this trouble?" Stair inquired.
"If you wanted Uncle Ju all day telling us what his Princess would have thought, said and done—I did not. I wanted to be by our own two selves. Besides, if we were to get married, there is no country in the world where it can be done with such willingness and alacrity as at home. Also I have been brought up a good Presbyterian, and a parish minister and his session clerk—well, where in foreign parts will you find the like of Mr. Duff and honest James Fraser? The Good Intent, indeed! I think you are hard to please if you are not content with your present quarters, young man!"
CHAPTER XXXVIII
THE LAND OF ALWAYS AFTERNOON
By the afternoon of the second day Stair was finding himself unfit for human society, because he had not been able to shave since he left the prison. Of course he had brought nothing with him. There was no time. His hand went unconsciously every other minute to his scrubby chin. In truth, his Norse blondness did not allow it to show as much as he supposed. But that did not detract from the pervading sensation of disgustful grubbiness.
Patsy's eyes missed nothing, and very soon she surprised him by opening the door of a little tower chamber on the ground floor, sparsely but quite sufficiently furnished.
"I should feel very much safer," she said, "if you were to sleep within the house. You will find shaving materials in the corner!"
Stair could not thank her, but then neither did his accursed pride rise up in rebellion. She closed the door and left him alone. The water in the jug was hot. In a case marked "A. F." were razors and other necessities. Evidently Patsy had done some plundering, and had not come to him altogether without a dowry, though she had managed to do without the paternal benediction.