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I ran to the point by the narrow square opening into the soft sandstone rock, and lying low on my face I could see a lugger close in under the heugh of Boreland, where she would never have dared to go, save that the wind was off shore and steady.
"I was from home most of the day, and when I came in, with a hunger sharp-set with half-a-dozen hours struggling with the wind, Bridget bade me be off at once to the Dutchman's Howff, which is in Colvend, just where the Boreland march dyke comes down to the edge of the cliff. I was to wait there on the edge of the heugh till one came and called me by name.
Her father and all her folk were smugglers, as, I understand, are the most of the farmers along the Solway side. Some of these she could doubtless have married, but Kate herself had always looked higher. The son of a farmer over the hill, from a place called the Boreland of Colvend, had wintered sheep on her father's lands. I suppose that was how it began, but in addition the lad had ambition.
In an hour Sholto followed them, having ridden fast and furious across the long broomy braes of Boreland, and wet the fringes of his charger's silken coverture by vaingloriously swimming the Dee at the castle pool instead of going round by the fords. This he did in the hope that Maud Lindesay might see him.
Now neither Sholto nor Laurence wished to wet their leg array before the work and pageant of the day began. This was the desire of Laurence, because of the maids who would assemble on the Boreland Braes, and of Sholto inasmuch as he hoped to win the prize for the best accoutrement and the most point-device attiring among all the archers of the Earl's guard.
"Sae there was my braw beau, Lieutenant Lichtbody, sittin' on his hunkers on the dyke tap girnin' at Carlaverock Jock an' the Boreland Hielantman on baith sides o' him, an' tryin' tae hit them ower the nose wi' the scabbard o' his sword, for the whinger itsel' had drappit oot in what ye micht ca' the forced retreat.
But Jerry, my oldest boy, had a word with me before I left for the march dyke. He told me that the man 'down-the-house' had gone that morning as soon as my back was turned, after paying his mother in gold sovereigns, which she had immediately hidden. "So I went and waited by the Boreland march dyke a wild place where even the heather is laid flat by the wind.
When we wanted a little play on the terrace or a sweetcake from the town, we tried at first to get Kate to ask for us. But afterwards she would not. And she grew determined to leave the Castle of Dinant as soon as might be, making her escape and taking us with her. Her Boreland lad, Tam Hislop, had told her all about the estates and the great house standing empty.
Only old Richard Clelland of the Boreland, grave and wise pillar of the kirk by law established, still transacted her market business and banked her siller being, as he often said, proud to act as "doer" for so fair a principal. So it happened that all the reins of government about this tiny lairdship of one farm were in the strong and capable hands of a girl of twenty.
I shall have to make for Balcary or that narrow shingly cur's hole of a Portowarren, where a ship can't turn between the Boreland heuchs and the reefs of Port Ling. Then there are never enough boats there, and three tides will not serve to clear her. Why could not Kennedy McClure mind his business, which is also my business?
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