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the wind was rising again, but the rain had stopped. Angry watery clouds
scurried across the heavens.
Dickson made a pillow of his waterproof, stretched himself on one of the
bedsteads, and, so quiet was his conscience and so weary his body from the
buffetings of the past days, was almost instantly asleep. It seemed to him
that he had scarcely closed his eyes when he was awakened by
Dougal's hand pinching his shoulder. He gathered that the moon was setting,
for the room was pitchy dark.
"The three o' them is approachin' the kitchen door," whispered the Chieftain.
"I seen them from a spy-hole I made out o' a ventilator."
"Is it barricaded?" asked Heritage, who had apparently not been asleep.
"Aye, but I've thought o' a far better plan. Why should we keep them out?
They'll be safer inside. Listen! We might manage to get them in one at a time.
If they can't get in at the kitchen door, they'll send one o' them round to
get in by another door and open to them. That gives us a chance to get them
separated, and lock them up. There's walth o' closets and hidy-holes all over
the place, each with good doors and good keys to them. Supposin' we get the
three o' them shut up--
the others, when they come, will have nobody to guide them. Of course some
time or other the three will break out, but it may be ower late for them. At
present we're besieged and they're roamin'
the country. Would it no' be far better if they were the ones lockit up and we
were goin' loose?"
"Supposing they don't come in one at a time?" Dickson objected.
"We'll make them," said Dougal firmly. "There's no time to waste. Are ye for
it?"
"Yes," said Heritage. "Who's at the kitchen door?"
"Peter Paterson. I told him no' to whistle, but to wait on me.. ..Keep your
boots off. Ye're better in your stockin' feet. Wait you in the hall and see
ye're well hidden, for likely whoever comes in will have a lantern. Just you
keep quiet unless I give ye a cry. I've planned it a' out, and we're ready for
them."
Dougal disappeared, and Dickson and Heritage, with their boots tied round
their necks by their laces, crept out to the upper landing. The hall was
impenetrably dark, but full of voices, for the wind was talking in the ceiling
beams, and murmuring through the long passages. The walls creaked and muttered
and little bits of plaster fluttered down. The noise was an advantage for the
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game of hide-and-seek they proposed to play, but it made it hard to detect the
enemy's approach.
Dickson, in order to get properly wakened, adventured as far as the
smoking-room. It was black with night, but below the door of the adjacent room
a faint line of light showed where the
Princess's lamp was burning. He advanced to the window, and heard distinctly a
foot on the grovel path that led to the verandah. This sent him back to the
hall in search of Dougal, whom he encountered in the passage. That boy could
certainly see in the dark, for he caught Dickson's wrist without hesitation.
"We've got Spittal in the wine-cellar," he whispered triumphantly. "The
kitchen door was barricaded, and when they tried it, it wouldn't open. 'Bide
here,' says Dobson to Spittal, 'and we'll go round by another door and come
back and open to ye.' So off they wet, and by that time
Peter Paterson and me had the barricade down. As we expected, Spittal tries
the key again and it opens quite easy. He comes in and locks it behind him,
and, Dobson having took away the lantern, he gropes his way very carefu'
towards the kitchen. There's a point where the wine-cellar door and the
scullery door are aside each other. He should have taken the second, but I had
it shut so he takes the first. Peter Paterson gave him a wee shove and he fell
down the two-three steps into the cellar, and we turned the key on him. Yon
cellar has a grand door and no windies."
"And Dobson and Leon are at the verandah door? With a light?"
"Thomas Yownie's on duty there. Ye can trust him. Ye'll no fickle Thomas
Yownie."
The next minutes were for Dickson a delirium of excitement not unpleasantly
shot with flashes of doubt and fear. As a child he had played hide-and-seek,
and his memory had always cherished the delights of the game. But how
marvellous to play it thus in a great empty house, at dark of night,
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t with the heaven filled with tempest, and with death or wounds as the stakes!
He took refuge in a corner where a tapestry curtain and the side of a Dutch
awmry gave him shelter, and from where he stood he could see the garden-room
and the beginning of the tiled passage which led to the verandah door. That is
to say, he could have seen these things if there had been any light, which
there was not. He heard the soft flitting of bare feet, for a delicate sound
is often audible in a din when a loud noise is obscured. Then a gale of wind
blew towards him, as from an open door, and far away gleamed the flickering
light of a lantern.
Suddenly the light disappeared and there was a clatter on the floor and a
breaking of glass.
Either the wind or Thomas Yownie.
The verandah door was shut, a match spluttered and the lantern was relit.
Dobson and Leon came into the hall, both clad in long mackintoshes which
glistened from the weather. Dobson halted and listened to the wind howling in
the upper spaces. He cursed it bitterly, looked at his watch, and then made an
observation which woke the liveliest interest in Dickson lurking beside the
awmry and Heritage ensconced in the shadow of a window-seat.
"He's late. He should have been here five minutes syne. It would be a dirty
road for his car."
So the Unknown was coming that night. The news made Dickson the more resolved
to get the watchers under lock and key before reinforcements arrived, and so
put grit in their wheels. Then his party must escape--flee anywhere so long as
it was far from Dalquharter.
"You stop here," said Dobson, "I'll go down and let Spidel in. We want another
lamp. Get the one that the women use, and for God's sake get a move on."
The sound of his feet died in the kitchen passage and then rung again on the
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stone stairs.
Dickson's ear of faith heard also the soft patter of naked feet as the
Die-Hards preceded and followed him. He was delivering himself blind and bound
into their hands.
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