d.
Then Jean would send on the note to your uncle by Agnew--he is the
youngest and fleetest!"

"He and I shall start to-night," said Eben the Spy. "I shall be back
before the morning. I shall see him safe across Tongland Bridge and be
home before daybreak. The nights are lengthening."

"If you think it is necessary," said Stair, stepping out.

"It _is_ necessary," said Eben, emphatically. "It is so important that I
would run all the way myself, if I could do the journey as fast and as
surely."

Stair and Patsy spent the day in the usual way out on the cliffs, coming
in for their meals as leisurely as to an hotel and as certain that they
would find everything in order.

Stair said nothing to Patsy about his talk with Eben. He did not mention
the curious ridges so carefully turfed with green which were gradually
penning in the end of the shore passage. But in spite of this, he
thought a good deal. Who could be at the back of this steady pursuit?
Surely not Louis Raincy. No, Raincy was a Galloway man, and even if
Patsy were not there to be considered, he would not hunt Stair Garland.
He might have his own quarrel with him, but he would not take this way
of avenging himself.

That night, as soon as Patsy said good-night and went upstairs, Eben
made a parcel of his clothes, and at a sign from his master Whitefoot
stood ready to plunge in and swim across along with Eben. His collar,
duly charged with Jean's letter, was tied in the bundle along with the
ex-spy's clothes, and would be put upon him after the moorland winds had
dried the mane of hair about his neck.

"_To Jean_--you hear, Whitefoot--_to Jean!_"

And Whitefoot leaped up to lick Stair's face in token of complete
understanding.

It was not a long swim, and the pair took the water at the very height
of the tide. They would hardly lose any way as they pushed towards the
strand beneath the farmhouse of Craigdarroch, which was the nearest
point on their road to the old Bridge of Tongland, beyond which
Whitefoot knew his trail.

Stair watched them out of sight. They swam silently and evenly into the
darkness, and in a quarter of an hour he heard the signal agreed
upon--Whitefoot's singing yelp with which he assisted the precentor in
starting such minor tunes as Martyrs and Coleshill. Then he turned and
went slowly back to the old Tower of Rathan. Patsy's light was not out,
and he stood a long while in the courtyard looking up at it.

Many were making sacri