Patsy shut her eyes, visualized the Wild as she had often seen it when she made a short cut from her Uncle Julian's to the sheltered valley of the Mays Water. More than once when the lads were in hiding after some offence against the revenue laws, which had brought troops into the district, Jean and she had been guided by Stair to the fastness, where they had been royally entertained, before being convoyed each to her home by the genial outlaws.
She spoke of the wild white moor, cut with deep hags, the arms of the "scroggie" thorns blown away from the sea and clawing at the ground like spectral hands, black beneath, but every gnarled knuckle and digit outlined in purest white above. Sometimes the clean tablecloth of white which covered a little loch, was cut by a round black "well-eye" through which a spring oozed oilily, refusing to freeze.
These must be known and avoided, for the ice was always thin thereabouts and a heedless night-wanderer might very easily vanish, never to be heard of more.
Then there was the Bothy. Little could be seen of that. Gone the summer creepers which had made it a bower. It crouched low, almost level with the snowladen tops of the heather bushes, which grew high about, hidden and banked behind immense masses of sods, all now covered with the uniform mantle of the snow. Great wreaths formed in the first swirl of the storms had piled themselves up so as to overhang the low chimney. You might pass it a score of times, and if you missed the faint blue reek stealing up along the side of the precipitous Knock Hill, you would see nothing of it, nor so much as suspect that there was a habitation of living men within miles.
As Patsy talked, the Princess had gradually been leaning further and further forward, her lips parted, and shuddering a little as the wind lashed the snow against the great windows of Hanover Lodge.
"Oh," she said at length, as if to herself, "to think of him there in that terrible place and of us here. It makes me hate all this comfort. Are you not ashamed, Patsy?"
Patsy the frank had some difficulty in repressing the ungrateful speech which came to her lips but did not pass them. "I would rather be with them than with you!" But she refrained and entered into new explanations. The Princess had heard the most part before, but she never wearied of being reassured.
"Now, listen! Uncle Ju is with Stair Garland. No one will hurt him for that reason. In our country Stair Garland has more real power than the Lord Lieutenant, or even my father. No, he is no ignorant peasant. I do not think he could dance so well, but he could talk better than any of the partners who fall to my lot at the court balls. The Bothy on the Wild? Well, I will try and tell you. It is certainly dark inside, but on the side opposite to the wind a little window is always kept open, and on the table where they read, write, and take their meals a lamp will certainly be lit. Uncle Ju will be stretched on the long couch among the pillows, reading. That is where Stair sleeps at night. His feet are towards the fire and the light shines down on his book from the four little panes of glass. These are open to the sky but carefully masked from the sight of any passer-by (if such a thing could be thought of on the Wild of Blairmore) by a firmly packed wall of snow.
"Stair moves about getting ready the next meal, and as like as not he calls on Uncle Ju to take his turn at scouring the pans or peeling the potatoes."
At this flight of imagination the Princess suppressed a cry of indignation.