THE "GREEN DRAGON"
Kennedy McClure did not inhabit Hanover Lodge, though the Princess pressed her hospitality upon him. He knew his place, he said. He might be Laird of Supsorrow and all that. His cattle were upon a thousand hills, but for all that he was just a rough-spun Galloway farmer body and he would not disgrace the company of no great ladies by his ignorances.
The truth was that he had a horror of the whole genus "lackey," and he could not even pass the soberly clad "gentlemen" of the Princess without a quivering of the muscles and a clenching of the fists. He found himself much more comfortable at the adjoining Green Dragon Inn, which stands near the river just on the London side of the toll-bar.
All the same he went often to see Patsy, and upon occasion would stay for luncheon, where the originality of his language and the quaintness of his dress pleased the Princess and her guests. The Laird of Supsorrow in his coat of blue and silver, his buff waistcoat and corded moleskin small clothes, his silver buckles and broad silver thumb-ring, his gold snuff-mull and the cowries clashing at his fob, was considered the type of the real Scottish countryman. He was really infinitely like the later caricatures of John Bull than anything counted distinctively Scottish—that is, till you heard him speak.
To Patsy he grew increasingly necessary. His sonorous Doric brought her back to the land of wet west winds, of blue inrushing seas, of far-stretching heather and sudden-dipping valleys where the birch-leaves and pine-needles play tremulous games at hide-and-seek with speckled trout in light-sprinkled pools.
For during these days Patsy went about with a load on her heart. It was only partly her fault, but the fact was that she had let herself drift a little. She had in no way recognized or accepted the proposals of the Prince of Altschloss. But neither had she definitely refused them. The last course grew increasingly difficult, and, except Miss Aline, who was sympathetic but without marked initiative outside the matter of jam-making and house-wifery, there was no one in whom Patsy could confide.
In her heart she was firmly resolved not to marry the Prince. But the Princess had been so kind, even so affectionate after her manner, and Uncle Julian would be so disappointed—that against her better judgment Patsy let matters drift. Her father was so non-committal and far-off that no help could be got out of him. Even had he been in the next room, he would not have helped her to decide, though he might have been useful in other ways. But as it was she had to think and act for herself. The old Earl continued his visits, generally appearing on the Friday afternoon and frequently staying over to supper. At first he was not wholly pleased to find Kennedy McClure, his enemy and victor in many a hard-contested land-bargain, established as a friend of the Princess Elsa. But when he had seen how well the man carried himself, how simple and unobtrusive were his manners, he called to mind that the Supsorrow McClures were of good blood, and that, though they had taken the Orange and Hanoverian side, they had never grasped at Raincy property during the black days of the attainder, as the Bunny Bunnys and Dalrymples had done—on whom be the blackest of Raincy anathemas!
Now the Laird of Supsorrow was a severely regular man, and always took a daily walk through the park or along the river-bank to watch the craft, the bustle of the towpath, the wrangling of the sea-coal porters—all the sights and sounds of the waterside so strange to him. Patsy fell easily into the habit of accompanying him. There was a freshness and yet a friendliness in the sound of that deep voice, unmistakable and weighty, yet with curiously tender inflections in it when he addressed Patsy.
Patsy does not know herself how she first began to confide in this man. Perhaps she had a severe dose of home-sickness one day, and the Galloway voice, speaking broadly as they talked at Glenanmays, as Jean and Diarmid and Fergus and Agnew spoke, made her do it. For Miss Aline spoke dainty old lady Scots, but without the broad accent of the moors, which was not at all the same thing to Patsy.
The shrewd old man divined a good deal too. Patsy did not care to talk about anything but the Valleys. She rejected topic after topic and returned to the Free Trade, the "running" of cargoes, the lads who had beaten the press-gang, and their chief, Stair Garland.