Patsy

Patsy, by S. R. Crockett

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Title: Patsy
Author: S. R. Crockett
Release Date: June 21, 2007 [EBook #21893]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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PATSY
BY S. R. CROCKETT
AUTHOR OF "THE RAIDERS," "THE STICKIT MINISTER," "LOVE'S YOUNG DREAM," "ANNE OF THE BARRICADES," ETC.

SYNDICATE PUBLISHING COMPANY NEW YORK LONDON
All rights reserved
COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up and electrotyped. Published February, 1913. Reprinted February, 1913; April, December, 1913.

[Illustration: "Yes, I," said Patsy.]

CONTENTS
CHAPTER I.
HEIRESS AND HEIR
CHAPTER II.
THE MAIDENS' COVE
CHAPTER III.
THE BOTHY
CHAPTER IV.
BY FORCE OF ARMS
CHAPTER V.
PATSY'S CONFESSIONS
CHAPTER VI.
HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS
CHAPTER VII.
THE LADS IN THE HEATHER
CHAPTER VIII.
THE BLACK PEARL OF CAIRN FERRIS
CHAPTER IX.
HIS LIFE IN HIS HAND
CHAPTER X.
THE WICKED LAYETH A SNARE
CHAPTER XI.
THE TRAMPLING OF HORSE IN THE NIGHT
CHAPTER XII.
PATSY'S RESCUE
CHAPTER XIII.
PLOTS AND PRINCES
CHAPTER XIV.
THE END OF AN OLD FEUD
CHAPTER XV.
THE FECHTIN' FOOL
CHAPTER XVI.
A RIDER COMES TO CASTLE RAINCY
CHAPTER XVII.
PATSY HELD IN HONOUR
CHAPTER XVIII.
UNCLE JULIAN'S PRINCESS
CHAPTER XIX.
MISS ALINE TAKES COMMAND
CHAPTER XX.
LOUIS RAINCY ENDURES HARDNESS
CHAPTER XXI.
THE CAVE OF ADULLAM
CHAPTER XXII.
WINTER AFTERNOON
CHAPTER XXIII.
PATSY HAS GREATNESS THRUST UPON HER
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE LOST FOLK'S ACRE
CHAPTER XXV.
THE HIGH STILE
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE GIBBET RING
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE DUKES ... AND SUPSORROW
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE "GREEN DRAGON"
CHAPTER XXIX.
ENEMY'S COUNTRY
CHAPTER XXX.
A CREDIT
TO THE "GREEN DRAGON"
CHAPTER XXXI.
THE NIGHT LANDING
CHAPTER XXXII.
ORDEAL BY FIRE
CHAPTER XXXIII.
PATSY RAISES THE COUNTRY
CHAPTER XXXIV.
THE PRISON-BREAKERS
CHAPTER XXXV.
THE PICTS' WAY IS THE WOMAN'S WAY
CHAPTER XXXVI.
STIFF-NECKED AND REBELLIOUS
CHAPTER XXXVII.
A PICTISH HONEYMOON
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
THE LAND OF ALWAYS AFTERNOON
CHAPTER XXXIX.
REBEL GALLOWAY
CHAPTER XL.
"WHY DO THEY LOVE YOU?"
CHAPTER XLI.
THE BATTLE OF THE CAUSEWAY
CHAPTER I
HEIRESS AND HEIR
They stood high on the Abbey cliff-edge--an old man, eagle-profiled, hawk-beaked, cockatoo-crested, with angry grey eyebrows running peakily upwards towards his temples at either side ... and a boy.
They were the Earl Raincy and his grandson Louis--all the world knew them in that country of the Southern Albanach. For Leo Raincy was a great man, and the lad the heir of all he possessed.
For all--or almost all--they looked upon belonged to the Earl of Raincy. Even those blue hills bounding the meadow valleys to the north hid a fair half of his property, and he was sorry for that. Because he was a land miser, hoarding parishes and townships. He grudged the sea its fringe of foam, the three-mile fishing limit, the very high-and-low mark between the tides which was not his, but belonged to the crown--along which the common people had a right to pass, and where fisherfolk from the neighbouring villages might fish and dry their nets, when all ought to have been his.
The earl's dark eyes passed with carelessness over hundreds of farm-towns, snug sheltered villages, mills with little threads of white wimpling away from the unheard constant clack of the wheel, barns, byres and stackyards--all were his, but of these he took no heed.
Behind them Castle Raincy itself stood up finely from the plain of corn-land and green park, an artificial lake in front, deep trees all about, patterned gardens, the fiery flash of hot-house glass where the sun struck, and pinnacles high in air, above all the tall tower from which Margaret de Raincy had defied the English invader during the minority of James the Fifth. The earl's eyes passed all these over. He did not see them as aught to take pride in.
What he lingered upon was the wide pleasant valley beneath him, with a burn running and lurking among twinkling birches, interspersed with alders, many finely drained fields with the cows feeding belly-deep with twitching tails, and the sweep of the ripening crops which ran off to either side over knolls carefully planed down--and so back and back to the shelter of dark fir woods. Twelve hundred acres--and not his! Not a Raincy stone upon it, nor had been for four hundred years.
There were two houses on this twelve hundred acres of good land. First came Cairn Ferris, at the head of the glen of the Abbey Water. Close to the road that, under the lee of the big pines, a plain, douce, much-ivied house; and down in a nook by the sea, Abbey Burnfoot, called "The Abbey," a newer and brighter place, set like a jewel on the very edge of the sea, the white sand in front and the blue sweep of the bay widening out on either hand. Horrible--oh, most horrible! Not his--nor ever would be!
This was the blot which blackened all the rest--the property of the Ferrises of Cairn Ferris, of Adam, chief of the name at the top of the Glen, and of his brother Julian--he who had cursed