With a long, even glide the boat's keel touched soft sand.
"Steady now, men,--back her a little!" said the mate, who was afraid of being caught on an ebbing tide, "overboard with you, Lambert, and you McVane, and help the ladies ashore."
But a pair of strong arms came over the side and grasped Patsy.
"No need," said the Poor Scholar, "I know exactly where to land and--"
"Take Miss Aline first!" commanded Patsy; "think of the pious Æneas you used to preach to me about."
And she got herself carried ashore by the hirsute giant McVane.
"'Seniores priores' would have been a better quotation," said the Scholar, as he took up Miss Aline; "take hold of the lapels of my coat, Miss Aline--your arms not so close about my neck, if you please!"
"I doubt if you would have objected to the arms about your neck if they had been Patsy's, you and your 'Seniores'!" Miss Aline observed rather tartly as she was borne off. They were soon all safe in a tiny cove, their feet on the pleasant wet sand, and the dark undefined shapes of the crags overhanging them on every side. A moment more and the boat disappeared into the darkness. A lantern flashed and was answered. They were free to proceed on their quest. Francis the Scholar led them carefully above tide-mark, turned at right-angles into a still deeper darkness, bade them keep their heads low, and with Patsy's hand in his passed into a cave-shelter, in one corner of which the embers of his watch-fire still smouldered red. Francis threw a handful of pine-cones upon the fire. It blazed up instantly with a clear light and a fragrant odour, and the four night-voyagers looked at each other, wondering at the wild eyes and haggard faces which they saw.
One corner of the cavern had been roughly screened off with sacking, and within was a comfortable couch of broom and heather twigs, upon which Miss Aline was advised to lie down. But this she refused emphatically to do.
"And me as near to my ain decent house at Ladykirk," she said, "what for should I do such a thing?"
"Because," said the Poor Scholar, "I have much to tell you, much you must hear, and you will not see Ladykirk this night. In fact you could not, without betraying the secrets of those who have been depending upon your aid."