Then Stair put a question he had been thirsting to have answered all night. "Whose is this island, and who has given us the right to use all the larder and live-stock?" Patsy clapped her hands gleefully. "Guess!" she cried--"three guesses!" "_One_, wrong--no, not my father! _Two_, wrong, not Uncle Ju! THREE, WRONG--not Miss Aline! You made me gasp that time. I thought you could not miss it. We are here on this Island of Rathan as caretakers for Mr. Kennedy McClure. These are his cows. His sheep are on the heuchs yonder, and we have liberty to kill them for mutton when we weary of fish. These are his hens I let out this morning, and he brought Jean here with selected stores to make everything cosy for us!" "And why does he do all this?" Stair inquired. Patsy flung up her head and smiled dazzlingly. "Who knows?" she said. "He was great friends with me in London. He made the _Good Intent_ hurry up when I was ready--otherwise you might have stayed a long time in prison. And this is better, eh, Stair?" "And your Uncle Julian--Mr. Wemyss? Will they not be harder on him because I have escaped?" "You have not escaped--you have been carried off," Patsy corrected. "So was Uncle Ju. He walked off the step of his verandah into the arms of Captain Penman and half-a-dozen of the crew of the _Good Intent_. They seized him and carried him on the _Billy Goat_, which sailed immediately for parts unknown. But Joseph managed so well and the orders from headquarters were so strict, that the garrison did not even loot the house as they did at Cairn Ferris, that night when you disgraced us all by drawing royal blood at the White Loch. Here are some books which he sent for you--some from the Bothy, and some for me to read. I am not so learned as you, and Joseph chose accordingly. If we have wet days, Stair, we can read all day with our toes to the fire!" "And why did not we also go on the _Good Intent_ and so get away from all this trouble?" Stair inquired. "If you wanted Uncle Ju all day telling us what his Princess would have thought, said and done--I did not. I wanted to be by our own two selves. Besides, if we were to get married, there is no country in the world where it can be done with such willingness and alacrity as at home. Also I have been brought up a good Presbyterian, and a parish minister and his session clerk--well, where in foreign parts will you find the like of Mr. Duff and honest James Fraser? The _Good Intent_, indeed! I think you are hard to please if you are not content with your present quarters, young man!" CHAPTER XXXVIII THE LAND OF ALWAYS AFTERNOON