He knew a thing or two, he did. Would he have all these sailor-men from the docks sent to take their orders from him every day or two if he were an ordinary country gull? Would the young lady from the Lodge—she who went to the Court at Windsor, and drove out with the Princess—be walking all the way back with him if he were a nobody? And no fool either—carried just enough money to get him a bit to eat and a pint, when he wanted them—while there was that great oaf Jem Simcoe lying with his broken head which he was fool enough to trust within reach of such a man's cudgel. "Sarve him right," said Mr. Wormit. If Jem had known what Mr. Wormit knew, or a tenth part of it, he would have made sure that he had not the ghost of a chance with such a man.
So Kennedy and his dangling cowries, his corded kersey-mere shorts, his blue knitted hose and silver buckles, had honour in Loafer Land, and every hulking rascal who carried the pattern of the ornamental wrought-iron posts at the gates of the "Green Dragon" yard permanently imprinted in the small of his back, swore by him just as much as did Wormit the landlord. They saluted him as he went to and fro. They pulled forelocks and touched caps, feeling elated when the great man growled at them and ordered them by his gods to get out of his way. They knew how a gentleman ought to speak, and (though the accent was a little peculiar) Kennedy McClure's way was that way.
And during these spring weeks there is no doubt that the landlord had a great deal of reason for his opinion of his guest. Kennedy went every day to the Lodge. He arrived there early and Patsy met him, equipped for a walk, rain or shine, sleet or brooding river-fog—it made no matter to Patsy.
The two set off into the park, where they talked for a couple of hours—indeed till the approach of the luncheon hour warned them that the Princess, having descended, might be expected to miss her young companion. Patsy clung to the old man's sturdy arm, and certainly Kennedy's bachelor heart beat the kindlier, if not the faster, for the pressure. He was a most reassuring confidant and never took a hopeless view of anything.
"There's more ways o' killing a cat than choking her wi' cream!" he was in the habit of saying. "The craw doesna bigg his nest wi' yae strae!" "It tak's mair than a score o' yowes to stock a muir!" "Bide a wile—God made a' thing for something—even lasses!"
Nevertheless these were hard days for Patsy. Life at the Lodge was becoming extremely complex. Prince Eitel in his pervading way took a great deal too much for granted. He had received a letter from her Uncle Julian giving him every encouragement, and as he had not heard from her father, he was meditating a ride to the North along with his cousin of Thurn-and-Taxis in order to present to the Laird of Cairn Ferris a demand for Patsy's hand in accordance with the due forms of protocol.
Then Louis had forsaken the Arlington even as his mother had hoped. But, just as Patsy had foreseen, he now followed her rather more closely than her shadow. It was only in the early mornings, in company with Kennedy McClure, that she could escape from her wooers. She had Louis in the afternoon, telling her by the hour the tale of his fidelity and of all he had done, was doing, and was going to do for her.
Then would come Prince Eitel, when at sight of Louis Raincy the blond hairs of his moustache would bristle like those of an angry cat, while Louis glowered a more sullen defiance. Only Miss Aline managed to stave off the storm, but even with her shepherding of the elements, it was bound to break one day or another.
Louis was never asked to dinner, so he had perforce to take himself ungraciously off, leaving his rival in possession of the field. Not that that did Eitel much good, for the Princess declined to accept of a man in love as a whist partner. She chose instead Miss Aline who had the gleg eye of the old maid, and a memory sharpened with forty years of "knowing jeely pots by head mark."
Prince Eitel and Patsy lost regularly, sometimes as much as one-and-sixpence on an evening's play, which sent the Princess to bed a happy woman.