e for Balcary or that narrow shingly cur's hole
of a Portowarren, where a ship can't turn between the Boreland heuchs
and the reefs of Port Ling. Then there are never enough boats there, and
three tides will not serve to clear her. Why could not Kennedy McClure
mind his business, which is also my business? He has been witched, as if
he were only twenty, by this lass of Adam Ferris's. And the more shame
to him that has passed sixty without ever a chick or a child to hamper
him, or a petticoat to drag him to church o' Sundays!"

Yet for all his abuse this close-lipped captain of the _Good Intent_
allowed Patsy many favours. She was often beside him on the bridge, and
the Captain would explain to her quite patiently why they were hanging
off and on, when the cliffs of the Back Shore were clearly visible, and
for a little while even she could make out through the glass the twin
rifts of the Valleys of Abbey Burnfoot and the Mays Water.

"Ye see, bairn," Captain Penman would say, "we can see nothing at all of
what is going on ashore, while to a Preventive man up on the heuchs
yonder with a spy-glass, we are as plain to be seen as a fly on white
paper. I changed her rigging about a bit in the winter months, but for
all that there is something about the auld _Good Intent_ that makes her
as easy to be told as the well-weathered brick-red of a sea-going face
on shore!"

But of course Patsy was eager and impatient. She was hard to be held.

"If it is of your cargo you are thinking, why not go straight in and
land us? Then you can take your tea and lace and brandy further on."

Captain Penman looked at the girl beside him, and was sorry for her
disappointment.

"I would if I could, Mistress Patsy, but they would only grip the whole
of you the moment you stepped on shore. Then that rough-haired rascal
with the armoury in his belt would loose off half-a-dozen shots before
they got him mastered, that would send you all straight to prison. And
that's no place for them that want to help their friends in trouble.
Besides, there are King's ships about, and who knows whether the wind
may hold? If it dropped, we should be taken--all the lot of us, and the
_Good Intent_ with her fine winter's cargo would be made a gauger's
prize! No, bairn, we are better biding here till the dark of the night
comes and then--we shall see where we can set you ashore!"

"Weel, Captain," interrupted Kennedy McClure, who had come up from
below, "what thi