d certainly interest Louis Raincy, and
accordingly he posted to Raincy Castle to find him, as soon as he had
got Agnew and Fergus into position.

Louis Raincy needed no spur. In order to help he was willing to break
all rules and dare all angers. He did not even pause to ask himself why
Stair Garland was taking so deep a concern in the matter. Patsy was his
Patsy, and he flattered himself that the young man from Glenanmays was
only recognizing his rights by coming to ask for his assistance.

Louis Raincy was Galloway bred. He knew the farmers' sons of the whole
district. He had always met them, played with them, and, on fit
occasion, fought with them as equals. Only he did not trouble his
grandfather with the closeness of his acquaintance with his neighbours.
The old gentleman would neither have understood nor approved. He himself
had always stood aloof, and he desired no better than that his heir
should follow in his feudal footsteps.

More than this, Louis had made a trip or two with Stair Garland's Free
Traders--of course, in the strictest privacy and in a disguise which was
immediately penetrated by the whole convoy, though they pretended to
accept Stair's statement that the young fellow with the false beard was
an Isle of Man shipper who had come to see how his goods were disposed
of.

The band thought no worse of Stair for trying to throw dust in their
eyes, but an Isle of Man shipper in possession of two spirited Castle
Raincy horses was too much for them. They laughed as they rode and
wondered how the heir of Raincy would explain matters to the Earl if the
business culminated in a tussle.

But Louis had come out all safe, and though he openly flouted the Free
Trade with the young men of his own rank, there was no part of his past,
except only his talks with Patsy in the hollow of the old beech bole,
which returned to him with such a flavour of fresh, glad youth as the
"run" in which he had taken part.

So now that he was again to do something which would lead him out on the
hills of heather in the misty shining of the moon or under the
plush-spangled glitter of the midnight stars, he went off in high
spirits to take his groom into his confidence and have the horses ready.

Obscurely, however, he felt that he was about to take part in a struggle
for Patsy. It was to be a fight, not so much against danger from
unscrupulous dandies like the Duke of Lyonesse and his acolyte, my Lord
of Wargrove, as between S