But of course Patsy was eager and impatient. She was hard to be held.
"If it is of your cargo you are thinking, why not go straight in and land us? Then you can take your tea and lace and brandy further on."
Captain Penman looked at the girl beside him, and was sorry for her disappointment.
"I would if I could, Mistress Patsy, but they would only grip the whole of you the moment you stepped on shore. Then that rough-haired rascal with the armoury in his belt would loose off half-a-dozen shots before they got him mastered, that would send you all straight to prison. And that's no place for them that want to help their friends in trouble. Besides, there are King's ships about, and who knows whether the wind may hold? If it dropped, we should be taken--all the lot of us, and the _Good Intent_ with her fine winter's cargo would be made a gauger's prize! No, bairn, we are better biding here till the dark of the night comes and then--we shall see where we can set you ashore!"
"Weel, Captain," interrupted Kennedy McClure, who had come up from below, "what think ye of the landing? Can we make the auld place within the bight of the Mays Water? That would be the nearest to the Bothy on the Wild o' Blairmore!"
"Maybe," said the Captain, grimly, "but being the nearest is not to say the safest. They will have a cordon o' marines and, what is far worse, maybe blue-jackets on the lookout. Sodjers and Preventives do not matter so muckle. For at night the sodjers canna see onything, and the Preventives are apt to be lookin' the ither road."
"Ye think, then, that we had better try the Burnfoot?"
"I think nothing," said Captain Penman, irritably. "I am here to sail my ship according to your orders. But I will take nothing to do with what may happen after you set your foot on shore."
"Na, then, wha was thinkin' itherwise?" said Kennedy McClure, soothingly, "but surely a word o' advice is worth having from siccan an auld hand as you!"
"If I were you, then," said the Captain, instantly mollified, "I should e'en keep the lower side o' the Abbey Water, away from the Wild. Even if the red-coats have caged the mice, they are sure to have reset the trap--and great fools would ye be to walk straight into it!"