shall soon be ready for the
push across the Pyrenees in the rear of Soult!"

Colonel Laurence took the paper and glanced at it. Then he grunted and
began to march out of barracks. He knew very well that, since the
British army was officered on much more aristocratic and family lines
than in later days, he could not hope to strike Louis Raincy with any
real penalty. But nevertheless he turned about for a parting shot.

"That paragon of yours, the daughter of Ferris of Cairn Ferris, ran off
with the chief criminal. She led the attack on the Castle here. They are
hidden somewhere. If I catch them within my jurisdiction, I shall put a
bullet through each of them."

"You can do as you like with Stair Garland," Louis Raincy called back,
"but remember if you touch Patsy Ferris I will put a bullet through you
if I have to hold the pistol to your ear! But I am not anxious--both of
them would be quickly avenged. I advise you, Laurence, to leave that
wasp's nest alone. You do not understand this people. I do!"

* * * * *

Now Colonel Laurence, though he got the worst of his colloquy with
Captain Louis Raincy, had a real grievance. It was true that throughout
the province, and especially in its westerly parts, the Government
hardly received the semblance of support. Some lairds and a few big
tenants were loud Governmental men, but at home each had his store of
"run" stuff ripening under some inconspicuous cellar, generally quite
unconnected with his mansion. In those days they built even cothouses
with more space below ground than could be seen above. The stones were
quarried in the laird's own quarries. They were carried in his tenant's
carts. They were laid by his own masons. The earth out of the cellarage
was tipped into the nearest burn or over the cliffs into the sea.

There was hardly a farm lad from the Braes of Glenap to the Brigend of
Dumfries who was not protected by his landlord from his Majesty's press.
The sentiment of a whole countryside soon tells on the spirits of a man
like Laurence, and especially since he had lost Eben McClure (who had
taken off from him the sharpest of the popular hatred) his soul had
become darkened and embittered. He was expected to make bricks in a
country where the straw did not grow--to fill regimental _cadres_ with
men, every one of whom was under the secret protection of the loyal
gentlemen with whom he dined and talked. At hospitable boards he
someti