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"MacJannet MacJannet the keys, MacJannet!" The gaoler's quarters were swiftly invaded. One blow of Andrew Sproat's massy hammer did that business, and thereafter the gaoler did not lack for coercion. Godfrey McCulloch had a pistol to his head, and the bell mouth of a huge blunderbuss lay chill between his shoulder-blades, thrusting him forward.
A pistol at his head and a demand for the keys well, that would be coercion, and when a man is compelled and put in fear of his life, what can he do? But for the present MacJannet lay safe and quiet behind his six-foot-thick walls and waited for that to happen which should happen. Torches began to flare smokily in the courtyard and ladders were hooked to roof cornices.
The brows of the seekers grew black. "If ye have sent him away secretly with the soldier men, 'ware yourself, MacJannet," said Godfrey, "we will roast you in your own black keep. We will gar your accursed Castle of the Press flame like a chimbly on fire, as sure as we came out of Rerrick!" "He is here I tell you there is one of them, at any rate!"
It had been their duty to provide these things, and by Patsy's orders they were taking no chances beyond the ordinary personal ones common to all prison-breakers. "MacJannet, MacJannet open there, you lurking dog!" But just then MacJannet was more than usually deaf. He knew that he would have to answer for that night's work and it did not suit him to do anything of his own accord.
There were also religious quarrels, in which the true "Protestants" of the two countries broke the heads of the true "Kyatholics," and had their heads broken in turn, all to the greater glory of God. All these things were normal, and the participants seldom ended their shillelah practice within the walls of "MacJannet's Hotel" MacJannet being the name of the chief gaoler of the town prison.
"You are sure there is no prisoner left within your old tourock?" he demanded of MacJannet. The gaoler turned to his register and proved it. "Very well!" said Godfrey, "off with you sleep under some decent man's roof if ye can find any to shelter ye!"
"And now, MacJannet," it was Patsy's clear voice that rang out, "open your old gates or we will have them down without your permission!" But MacJannet, keeper of his Majesty's strong house of Stranryan, knew that there was a time to be silent as well as a time to speak.
But, one and all, they were insufficient, out of repair, drippy, smelling of stale bad tobacco and wet wood ashes. Tony MacJannet, chief keeper of the prison of Stranryan, installed Stair Garland on the second story, immediately over the gate where the guard was on duty.
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