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For half-a-dozen tides each month, three in the middle of each neap, unless there were heavy winds from the south-west, Isle Rathan became a tidal island, and the ridge could be crossed on foot by those who made haste. This was not, however, often attempted, for the tides and currents were exceedingly tricky in these parts. Eben pointed with his finger to a faint horizontal ridge on the mainland.
They looked behind them, expecting every moment to see a rush of men come at them over the crown of the island. Stair could stand it no longer. He must see what was going on, and he mounted the rough sides of the little heathery knoll called quaintly Ben Rathan. Patsy would not be left behind and he found her at his side. She could, in fact, have been there long before him.
Gradually he became conscious of Whitefoot moving, silent as a shadow, beside his master. Once, when Stair stood a long time on the craggy top of the Fell of Rathan, gazing out at the ranged lights on the English side of the firth, he was conscious of a cool, damp nose thrusting its way into his palm, causing him to open his hand by little calculated snout-pushes and burrowings.
As for the prison-breaking and the law, there will doubtless be great riding and running, but I do not believe that here on Isle Rathan you will be in any way disquieted." It was nine of the clock when Patsy and Stair stood on the shore of the Isle Rathan of many famous exploits, and watched the lugger with its cargo of three go dancing out on the full current of the Solway ebb.
If, however, he could lay his hand upon Stair and have him hanged in the teeth of all the lairds in Galloway, that would surely count for something with the Regent, and especially with the Boards of Revenue and Recruitment, which were naturally very sore upon the subject of the aforesaid Stair Garland. With the coming of Eben the Spy to Isle Rathan a new life began there.
Had we of the Wide Valley risen against constituted authority and filled all Balcary Bay between Isle Rathan and the Red Haven with floating tea-chests? Well, not exactly; but many a score of stealthy cargoes had been carried past our doors on horse-back, pony-back, shelty-back up by Bluehills and over the hip of Ben Tudor.
Still, she finished by liking to hear him say the words, and often left the real Stair idly tossing stones into the water, in order to go into the cool kitchen of Tower Rathan, to sit on one of the ancient oaken chests, a row of which ran round the walls, and hear tales of the dare-devil Stair, and especially to listen for the respectful repetition of her favourite phrase, "Your husband, madame!"
Rathat and not Rathan is the reading that I adopt. The Bengal reading 'narvarakshaye' seems to be better than 'Mahavirakshaye' of the Bombay text. Talaketu is lit. Palmyra-bannered. Without using such compounds, the 'brevity' of the sentences cannot be maintained. Karshni is Krishna's or Arjuna's son Abhimanyu. Arjuna was sometimes called Krishna.
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.
We are here on this Island of Rathan as caretakers for Mr. Kennedy McClure. These are his cows. His sheep are on the heuchs yonder, and we have liberty to kill them for mutton when we weary of fish. These are his hens I let out this morning, and he brought Jean here with selected stores to make everything cosy for us!" "And why does he do all this?" Stair inquired.
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