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 nobody? 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 gods 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 shine, 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 sturdy arm, and certainly
Kennedy's bachelor heart beat the kindlier, if not the faster, for the
pressure. He was a most reassuring 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--God
made a' thing for something--even lasses!"
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
sunshine, 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 Shore, 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 spaces of broom and gorse, the windflower
and hyacinth in the woods and sheltered spaces 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, balls 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, lass," 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 anticipating 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? Lassie, 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 Hellfire
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 God-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, lass, 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 assured her that if any one
could possibly raise the country and save the situation, that person was
Patsy and no other.
Old Silent Wolf took with him a couple of great jaeger "ruk-sacks" full
of sausages, together with much ammunition for rifle and pistol. These
he nursed as he waited in the hall with a grim expression on his
countenance, but as composedly as if he had only come in to report on
the possible game for the day's shooting.