Patsy Part 32

And so departed with the honours of war, leaving Eitel and Mrs.

Arlington to console each other as best they might.

CHAPTER x.x.x

A CREDIT TO THE "GREEN DRAGON"

The average riverine loafer about the Kew Waterfront, really a potential cheat, robber, and occasional murderer, looked upon the recent arrival at the "Green Dragon" as a prey specially destined by Providence for his necessities. He was never more completely mistaken. Kennedy McClure was, in the loafer's own language, "fly to the tricks of all wrong coves."

Had he not held his own (and more) for thirty years in a hundred markets with horse-fakers and cattle-drovers? He did not "go after the lush"--still less "follow the molls." He never walked by the waterside by night, and on the one occasion when a rush had been tried as he strolled back in the twilight from Hanover Lodge, he had cracked Jem Simcoe's head so thoroughly, that there was little likelihood of its ever being much good to him in this world--a pretty thing for a man living by his wits and with a family of three or four young wives intermittently depending upon his efforts.

It was soon known that Mr. Kennedy McClure did not carry his money about with him. He had deposited his pocket book with the city correspondents of Sir Willliam Forbes's bank, and now walked about with a light step, his blackthorn cudgel in his hand, and a glad light of battle in his eye.

"Tell me the day before your bill is due and I shall have the money," he said to the landlord of the "Green Dragon." And on the appointed morning a messenger from the city brought the amount, which Kennedy would open in the presence of Mr. Wormit himself, pay him, and send back the receipt to his correspondents in the city, thus gaining the reputation of being a man who knew his way about, and making a devoted slave of the landlord, who liked all ready-money men as much as he hated all fools.

In this way, by the free speech of the admiring landlord of the "Green Dragon," whose words admitted of no reply, Kennedy McClure grew daily in honour and stature. To Mr. Wormit, himself no mean man, he had at first appeared as a mere pensioner on the bounty of the inhabitant of the royal Lodge. But he soon grew into the Superintendent of her Estates. He became "her confidential man"--"him as looks after her business." He ended by being the Princess's adviser on all her affairs, and in addition a mint of power and wisdom on his own account.

Had he not got the landlord's second son James Wormit into the Lodge gardens, where he had been appointed auxiliary to Miss Aline? Had he not, though declaring himself wholly ignorant of English law, furnished the hint which led to the favourable settlement of the long-disputed case of H. M. Excise Board _versus_ Wormit? Altogether a wonderful man, the landlord declared Kennedy to be, and a credit to the house any way you looked at it.

He knew a thing or two, he did. Would he have all these sailor-men from the docks sent to take their orders from him every day or two if he were an ordinary country gull? Would the young lady from the Lodge--she who went to the Court at Windsor, and drove out with the Princess--be walking all the way back with him if he were a n.o.body? And no fool either--carried just enough money to get him a bit to eat and a pint, when he wanted them--while there was that great oaf Jem Simcoe lying with his broken head which he was fool enough to trust within reach of such a man's cudgel. "Sarve him right," said Mr. Wormit. If Jem had known what Mr. Wormit knew, or a tenth part of it, he would have made sure that he had not the ghost of a chance with such a man.

So Kennedy and his dangling cowries, his corded kersey-mere shorts, his blue knitted hose and silver buckles, had honour in Loafer Land, and every hulking rascal who carried the pattern of the ornamental wrought-iron posts at the gates of the "Green Dragon" yard permanently imprinted in the small of his back, swore by him just as much as did Wormit the landlord. They saluted him as he went to and fro. They pulled forelocks and touched caps, feeling elated when the great man growled at them and ordered them by his G.o.ds to get out of his way. They knew how a gentleman ought to speak, and (though the accent was a little peculiar) Kennedy McClure's way was that way.

And during these spring weeks there is no doubt that the landlord had a great deal of reason for his opinion of his guest. Kennedy went every day to the Lodge. He arrived there early and Patsy met him, equipped for a walk, rain or s.h.i.+ne, sleet or brooding river-fog--it made no matter to Patsy.

The two set off into the park, where they talked for a couple of hours--indeed till the approach of the luncheon hour warned them that the Princess, having descended, might be expected to miss her young companion. Patsy clung to the old man's st.u.r.dy arm, and certainly Kennedy's bachelor heart beat the kindlier, if not the faster, for the pressure. He was a most rea.s.suring confidant and never took a hopeless view of anything.

"There's more ways o' killing a cat than choking her wi' cream!" he was in the habit of saying. "The craw doesna bigg his nest wi' yae strae!"

"It tak's mair than a score o' yowes to stock a muir!" "Bide a wile--G.o.d made a' thing for something--even la.s.ses!"

Nevertheless these were hard days for Patsy. Life at the Lodge was becoming extremely complex. Prince Eitel in his pervading way took a great deal too much for granted. He had received a letter from her Uncle Julian giving him every encouragement, and as he had not heard from her father, he was meditating a ride to the North along with his cousin of Thurn-and-Taxis in order to present to the Laird of Cairn Ferris a demand for Patsy's hand in accordance with the due forms of protocol.

Then Louis had forsaken the Arlington even as his mother had hoped. But, just as Patsy had foreseen, he now followed her rather more closely than her shadow. It was only in the early mornings, in company with Kennedy McClure, that she could escape from her wooers. She had Louis in the afternoon, telling her by the hour the tale of his fidelity and of all he had done, was doing, and was going to do for her.

Then would come Prince Eitel, when at sight of Louis Raincy the blond hairs of his moustache would bristle like those of an angry cat, while Louis glowered a more sullen defiance. Only Miss Aline managed to stave off the storm, but even with her shepherding of the elements, it was bound to break one day or another.

Louis was never asked to dinner, so he had perforce to take himself ungraciously off, leaving his rival in possession of the field. Not that that did Eitel much good, for the Princess declined to accept of a man in love as a whist partner. She chose instead Miss Aline who had the gleg eye of the old maid, and a memory sharpened with forty years of "knowing jeely pots by head mark."

Prince Eitel and Patsy lost regularly, sometimes as much as one-and-sixpence on an evening's play, which sent the Princess to bed a happy woman.

Besides, there began to be primroses on the Thames waterside, the sight of which made Patsy cry, and in the gardens a wealth of yellow and blue blossoms began to push up, the blue nestling under the shadows, and the yellow coming boldly out even in the filtered warmth of the spring suns.h.i.+ne, when the east winds blew the smoke of the city far up the river.

Then Patsy had visions. Patsy dreamed dreams--such dreams, visions glorious--thirty miles of Solway swept clean of mist, great over-riding white clouds, crenellated and victorious--the Atlantic thundering on the Back Sh.o.r.e, and all the tides of the North Channel tearing past. She saw the Twin Valleys awakening--a marvel she had never yet missed--the sheltered blooms and shy crozier-headed ferns deep in the trough of the Abbey Burn, the wilder, vaster s.p.a.ces of broom and gorse, the windflower and hyacinth in the woods and sheltered s.p.a.ces of the Glenanmays Water!

Ah, she knew where to look for every one.--And merely not to be there, made her heart turn to water within her.

And then all of them tearing at her--she must do this--she must promise that! If they would only let her alone. She did not want to marry Eitel.

She got tired of him after half-an-hour. She only really liked him when he was talking about the wars, and Louis--what a nuisance Be was becoming! She began to hate the innocent Princess, who for Julian's sake was doing everything for her, and she even grew silent with poor Miss Aline, shutting herself up more and more within herself. Oh, she was sick of everything. Was ever a girl so unhappy?

For which causes and reasons, seemingly quite insufficient to any one but Patsy, she was escaping every day to plot black treason with Kennedy McClure, whenever that worthy old gentleman was not either at Barnet Fair or Smithfield Market, the only two places in London which had any interest for him.

And of course, at this critical moment, there arrived the cataclysmic letter from Stair.

"The Bothy was attacked and surrounded last night. We can hold out for at least a week!

"STAIR."

Then everything grew dazed about her--Hanover Lodge and the Princess, the empty phantasmagoria of courts, b.a.l.l.s and routs, the disputes and reconciliations of royal Dukes, Louis and his half-cured amours with the Arlington. What did all these things matter? Perhaps at that very moment the Bothy had been taken by storm, and Patsy's quick mind saw Stair and her Uncle Julian lying dead out on the face of the moor, the soldiers who had done the work having no time for even a peat-hag burial.

But Kennedy McClure was a strong tower. If he were affected by the message he certainly did not show it.

"Hoots, la.s.s," he said, patting her shoulder, "greetin' does no good.

Come wi' me the morn in the _Good Intent_. That will be three tides before her regular sailing date, but I ken Captain Penman. He is under some obligations to me, and the _Good Intent_--weel, she's maistly my ain. But though ye canna speak to the Princess, ye had better tell Miss Aline. Being Gallowa-born and Gallowa-bred, she will understand and speak for ye to the Princess."

Patsy promised, though reluctantly, to do what was necessary in Miss Aline's case. It was monstrous and hateful to her that she should need to go back to Hanover Lodge at all. But she recognized that Kennedy McClure was likely to be right, and as she was only antic.i.p.ating by a few weeks what she meant to do ever since she had begun to talk with the Laird of Supsorrow, she resolved to interview Miss Aline instantly.

Miss Aline also had her own reasons for being wearied of Hanover Lodge.

It "wasna' her ain country" and the "fremit folk (especially the 'flonkies') vexed her sair!" Thus from the first there was no question of her letting Patsy go back alone.

"Fegs, no," she cried, "what do ye tak' me for? La.s.sie, do ye not ken that I am here for the purpose o' lookin' after you--little as I have been able to accomplish, with you as flichty as the Wemysses and as dour as the Ferrises. It is the Lord's ain peety that ye werena' born reasonable and wise like the Mintos--!"

"And your grandfather--" Patsy suggested, "him they call h.e.l.lfire Minto--what was it he did to the poor man at Falkirk Tryst?"

"He wasna' a poor man--he was the chief o' a neibour clan and the twa were at feud. It was that sent my granther doon to Galloway where there are no clans nor ony spites that last for twenty generations. But no matter for that. We are wasting time. Let us go and see the Princess.

What for should we steal away like a thief in the night--after all her kindness, when we can get her G.o.d-speed by the asking?"

"She will try to stop us--tell her nothing!" cried Patsy, instantly fearful lest she should be locked up, or by some machination prevented from joining the _Good Intent_.

"And if ye please, Patsy Ferris, wha may it be that is in danger at the Bothy o' Blairmore?"

"Why, Stair Garland, of course!"

"And wha else?"

"I suppose my Uncle Julian is," said Patsy, seeing Miss Aline's point, "but he is not in real danger like Stair."

"Not perhaps if it comes to a trial, but suppose that the sodjers have orders not to let it come to a trial--!"

"Oh, Miss Aline, do you mean that they would kill them on the spot?"

"Weel, la.s.s, Stair and Mr. Julian will doubtless be defending theirsel's, and what is to hinder a musket or so from going off behind their backs? There will be a reward oot and Brown Bess is tricky at the best of times. I am judgin' that the Princess will rather be for coming with us than for standing in our road!"

Miss Aline judged well. The Princess was anxious that they should take half-a-dozen of her retainers who had served in the wars, but Miss Aline pointed out that their ignorance of the country and language would make them only a danger. Finally, however, they agreed to take Heinrich Wolf, called the Silent, a lean, keen-profiled man of fifty, who had been a famous tracker of bear and boar in the Austrian Alps, and in his youth an expert in contraband of no mean fame, and of large experience both on mountain and on sea.

The thought of Julian's danger threw the Princess into a flurry of nervous fever, so that she could get no rest till she saw their boxes packed--each being allowed but one because of the difficulties of a secret landing. The others were to be sent to the care of Eelen Young at Ladykirk.

At first it was not clear to the Princess what they would do to help the besieged when they got there, but Miss Aline a.s.sured her that if any one could possibly raise the country and save the situation, that person was Patsy and no other.