On such occasions, Stair, being in furious haste, took the bundle of clean clothes Jean had brought him, and strode away over the rough fells in the direction of the Wild. Half-way, however, he changed his course. And many a night wanderer on land and many a benighted fisherman bearing up Loch Ryan-ward on the northward set of the tide, was awed by a strange light in the Corpse Yard above the Elrich Strand, where the Blackshore folk bury the drowned who come to them from the sea. Here among the wooden head-boards (bearing dates only) of the unknown dead, Stair Garland read his first letter from Patsy in London.
"Stair" (it began without qualitative either formal or affectionate), "I did not promise to write to you, so I am doing it. London is very full of gay things which are not so gay as they look. I would rather see you and Whitefoot (give him a kiss from me!) than the procession of the Regent to open Parliament.
"The Princess would spoil me were I spoilable. But you know I am made of the guinea gold that does not need gilding. However, she does her best. I have a maid to wait on me, but I think I do very much more for her. Still, she mends the holes that I dance in the heels of my stockings—all of silk, Stair, and smuggled from France! For they 'run' things here, just as they do in Galloway—in Sussex and Cornwall mainly. They have only luggers, however—at least so one of my partners told me last night. He had seen John Carter himself down at Prussia Cove! Think of that, Stair! And the old man had preached him a sermon!
"I have dresses in Valenceens lace over pale-blue silk, and all sorts of lovely things; don't you wish you could see me? I see Louis often, but not so often as I used to. They say he is in love with Mrs. Arlington, a great beauty at the Regent's court. You know that Louis is now aide-de-camp to the Duke of York, who is Commander-in-Chief, so his chief duty is to draw up ball programmes and write dinner invitations, which I have no doubt he does in a very warlike manner.
"When he remembers he comes round to tell me that he loves me still. But, alas! he mostly forgets. Whitefoot is more faithful than that, eh, Stair? I could wager that at the moment you are reading this nonsense, he is sitting with his head on your knees, looking up in your face."
(Stair put down his hand from the edge of the paper and touched the rough head, and at the caress Whitefoot whined joyously, as he did in church when the congregation sang "Coleshill.")
"Stair" (the letter went on), "I hold the Princess and you responsible for Uncle Julian. I hear from him sometimes and he tells me that you are getting to be a wonderful scholar. Well, playing with your books will pass the time for both of you, and keep you from thinking too much about me. As to my welfare, do not pine away with worrying about that. I, Patricia Wemyss Ferris, swear on the old oath, that I am fat and fair to see. I find that I can answer the fool according to his folly, and leave wherewithal to talk on terms of some quality with the few poor lost and forwandered wise men whom one meets in these parts. The dear old king with his David-and-Solomon beard, is really the most sensible person I have yet talked with. So they shut him up, take his crown from him, and say that he is mad.
"The Wise Young People who bear rule drink each other under the table, race to Brighthelmstone, killing half-a-dozen children by the way, and ruin themselves at play during the night. Altogether it is a fine place, this London, and if you were here you might very well say, with the witty Frenchman, 'The more I see of human beings, the more I love my dog!'
"But you must not tell all this to Uncle Julian. I am learning fast—though perhaps not quite what he expected me to learn. His Princess is most kind to me, and, indeed, so is everybody. There is a Prince, a rosy young man who walks delicately like a cat on wet grass, and they say that he would like to lay his Princedom at my feet. Which do you think I would rather be, Stair, a Princess with her chin in the air (Ho! Menial, fetch me my crown. No, the one in the left-hand drawer, most ignorant of varlets! Now I pose it on my princessly locks! So!), or just Patsy Ferris, in blue gown and yellow sandals, very much out of breath, washing the dishes in the Bothy of the Wild of Blairmore?
"Tell me which you think I should like best. I deliver this subject to your meditations. You are not to show my letter to Jean nor allow her to read a single word of hers to you. If you do, I shall hold you for ever faithless and mansworn!