But somehow when Patsy did the same thing in London, and in the face of other men, Louis did not enjoy the process so much.
"Hech, my daisy," said Miss Aline, as she and Patsy went back to her parlour after the Prince of Altschloss had taken his leave, "that laddie, Louis, has ower muckle o' his mither in him. She's a McBride, and guid blood, but Dame Lucy is juist like some preserves. Ye put in good berries. Ye strain to perfection. The sugar and the spice and the correct time for boiling—skimming and stirring done with your own hand—yet after all the stuff will not jell. It will harden in no mould because it is unstable as water. That is the boy's mother, the Lady Lucy. As for the lad, God send him something that will harden him, so that when his grandfather dies, another De Raincy of the right breed may rule in his stead. At present he is overly much after the pattern of his mother!"
"Well," said Patsy, with her hands rolled in the fluffy ends of her muslin scarf, "don't blame me, Miss Aline. I do my best to toughen him, and then he goes and cries to you!"
"I wonder, dear," said the old lady, after a silence which lasted quite five minutes, "if you could not try giving him a good conceit of himself. My father used to say that if ye tell a dog all the time that he is a worthless puppy and will never be good for anything, he will herd the sheep but poorly on the hill."
CHAPTER XXI
THE CAVE OF ADULLAM
Night by night the mists came up from the sea. Morning by morning the gusts from the hills blew them back again. Winter began to settle on the rugged confines of the moors, and still Julian Wemyss stayed on with Stair Garland at the Bothy on the Wild of Blairmore. First, because it agreed with the mystery-loving side of his nature, and also because, so long as the weight of Napoleon's rule pressed upon Europe, he did not know where he could be safer. At Vienna, perhaps, but so long as the Princess Elsa remained at Hanover Lodge, he could not bring himself to make the long and circuitous journey by Gibraltar and Trieste.
And, indeed, he was in no great hurry to move. He had been outlawed for failing to appear, even as he had expected, to answer for the killing of Lord Wargrove. Also he knew that the wounding of the Duke of Lyonesse had been laid to his charge. The word which had gone forth that his capture would be grateful to the Regency and its camarilla of Dukes, would naturally sharpen the pursuit.
Fresh bodies of cavalry were still occasionally drafted from Glasgow and Carlisle to override the moors. But the lack of any local intelligencer of the calibre of Eben McClure, the natural secretiveness of the people as to "lads among the heather" and all folk in trouble, caused the search to be spun out so long, that the general opinion was that Julian Wemyss had escaped in an emigrant ship to America.