"You see, dear lady," she said, "our Miss Aline knows of worse places than the Bothy of Blairmore, even in such weather."
"But I do not understand," said the Princess. "Julian never told me anything of this. Do the sheep in your country stay out in all weathers—even in the winter storms, and are men to be hired who will look after them?"
"'Deed there are," said Miss Aline, "and what for no'? A finer, buirdlier set o' lads than the herds of the Hills neither you nor me are likely to see. And as for storms and biding oot at nicht—there's Willie McKerlie that herded the Lagganmore for forty year, and in the Saxteen Drifty days he wasna hame for a week. And when he got all his sheep oot, they asked him how it came that he wasna dead. 'Deid! Deid!' says he, 'what for should I be deid? I juist hadna time, man. But I grant ye, I was mair nor a wee thocht hungry, and I never kenned afore what a heap o' crumbs a man carried in his pooches when they are a' turned oot!'"
CHAPTER XXIII
PATSY HAS GREATNESS THRUST UPON HER
At Hanover Lodge, in spite of the good will of the Princess, all did not go smoothly. Every day the ladies drove out in one of the royal carriages drawn by four beautiful bays, but with the servants and outriders in the black liveries of Saxe-Brunswick.
On such occasions the Princess dressed plainly, as befitting her position of exile, but it pleased her to array Patsy with a taste seldom seen in England. On days when they went to Windsor, where the Princesses made a pet of her, Patsy wore a dress of white muslin, simple enough, but trimmed with point lace, Vandyked at the edges, and on her head a most charming Leghorn gipsy hat, with wreaths of small roses round the edge of the brim and a second row wreathed about the crown. The effect was all Patsy's heart could desire.
It chanced that, just as the carriage drove into Staines, the party in it became aware of a brilliant cavalcade riding towards them. The Princess whispered to Patsy, "The Dukes—look through them, my dear, and do not let yourself be overcome!"
Patsy had no idea of being overcome. She held her head well up, and sat beside the Princess with a pale face but steadfast eyes. The six royal brothers were riding three and three, the Regent being in the middle of the first rank on a splendid iron-grey charger. He had come from a review in Windsor Park with which he had been able to combine the monthly perfunctory visit to his mother and sisters. He was in a hussar uniform, extremely fantastic, the same in which he afterwards asserted that he had commanded one of the cavalry divisions at Waterloo. He wore a diamond belt, which is not quite according to the regulations of the service. A diamond crown shone on his breast and the feather in his headgear was fixed with a diamond loop.