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Updated: August 23, 2024
As the noise of its approach beat louder and louder on the air, a yell of disappointed rage and execration rose into the night from the fort, and a mass of soldiers swarmed upon the track, leaping up and down and shaking the rifles in their hands. "That sounds a little as though they thought we had something to do with it," said MacWilliams, grimly. "If they don't look out some one will get hurt."
"Oh, drop it, will you?" cried Langham, with a shrug of his damp shoulders. "I can't stand it. I'm parching." "Wait a minute," interrupted MacWilliams, leaning forward and looking into the night. "Some one's coming."
It was an interesting exercise, and had the three young men been less serious in their anxiety to welcome the coming guests they would have found themselves very amusing as when Langham would lean over the balcony in the court and shout back into the kitchen, in what was supposed to be an imitation of his sister's manner, "Bring my coffee and rolls and don't take all day about it either," while Clay and MacWilliams stood anxiously below to head off the servants when they carried in a can of hot water instead of bringing the horses round to the door, as they had been told to do.
The building on the extreme left is the round-house, in which Mr. MacWilliams stores his three locomotive engines, and in the far middle-distance is Mr. MacWilliams himself in the act of repairing a water-tank. He is the one in a suit of blue overalls, and as his language at such times is free, we will drive rapidly on and not embarrass him.
MacWilliams always ended the evening's entertainment with this chorus, no matter how many times it had been sung previously, and seemed to regard it with much the same veneration that the true Briton feels for his national anthem. The words of the chorus were: "He never cares to wander from his own fireside, He never cares to wander or to roam.
"Come out where I can shoot your black heads off." Clay had fired the last cartridge in his rifle, and throwing it away drew his revolver. "We must either swim or hide," he said. "Put your heads down and run." But as he spoke, they saw the carriage plunging out of the shadow of the woods and the horses galloping toward them down the beach. MacWilliams gave a cheer of welcome.
Clay jumped to his feet. "Come on," he said. "Wait till I get my boots on first," begged MacWilliams. "I wouldn't go over those cinders again in my bare feet for all the buried treasure in the Spanish Main. You can make all the noise you want; the waves will drown it."
"There are soldiers ahead of us," he cried. "Did you know it?" he demanded of the driver. "Did you lie to me? Turn back." "He can't turn back," MacWilliams answered. "They have seen us. They are only the custom officers at the city limits. They know nothing. Go on." He reached forward and catching the reins dragged the horses down into a walk.
"Nine o'clock is not so very late," said Clay. "It may mean nothing." "We had better make sure, though," MacWilliams answered, jumping to the ground. "Lend me your pony, Ted, and take my place. I'll run in there and dust around and see what's up. I'll join you on the other side of the town after you get back to the main road." "Wait a minute," said Clay. "What do you mean to do?"
When William was allowed to go home, it was to fight the Celts of Galloway, and subdue the pretensions, in Moray, of the MacWilliams, descendants of William, son of Duncan, son of Malcolm Canmore. During William's reign Pope Clement III. decided that the Scottish Church was subject, not to York or Canterbury, but to Rome.
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