Besides, there began to be primroses on the Thames waterside, the sight of which made Patsy cry, and in the gardens a wealth of yellow and blue blossoms began to push up, the blue nestling under the shadows, and the yellow coming boldly out even in the filtered warmth of the spring sunshine, when the east winds blew the smoke of the city far up the river.
Then Patsy had visions. Patsy dreamed dreams—such dreams, visions glorious—thirty miles of Solway swept clean of mist, great over-riding white clouds, crenellated and victorious—the Atlantic thundering on the Back Shore, and all the tides of the North Channel tearing past. She saw the Twin Valleys awakening—a marvel she had never yet missed—the sheltered blooms and shy crozier-headed ferns deep in the trough of the Abbey Burn, the wilder, vaster spaces of broom and gorse, the windflower and hyacinth in the woods and sheltered spaces of the Glenanmays Water! Ah, she knew where to look for every one.—And merely not to be there, made her heart turn to water within her.
And then all of them tearing at her—she must do this—she must promise that! If they would only let her alone. She did not want to marry Eitel. She got tired of him after half-an-hour. She only really liked him when he was talking about the wars, and Louis—what a nuisance Be was becoming! She began to hate the innocent Princess, who for Julian's sake was doing everything for her, and she even grew silent with poor Miss Aline, shutting herself up more and more within herself. Oh, she was sick of everything. Was ever a girl so unhappy?
For which causes and reasons, seemingly quite insufficient to any one but Patsy, she was escaping every day to plot black treason with Kennedy McClure, whenever that worthy old gentleman was not either at Barnet Fair or Smithfield Market, the only two places in London which had any interest for him.
And of course, at this critical moment, there arrived the cataclysmic letter from Stair.
"The Bothy was attacked and surrounded last night. We can hold out for at least a week!
"Stair."
Then everything grew dazed about her—Hanover Lodge and the Princess, the empty phantasmagoria of courts, balls and routs, the disputes and reconciliations of royal Dukes, Louis and his half-cured amours with the Arlington. What did all these things matter? Perhaps at that very moment the Bothy had been taken by storm, and Patsy's quick mind saw Stair and her Uncle Julian lying dead out on the face of the moor, the soldiers who had done the work having no time for even a peat-hag burial.
But Kennedy McClure was a strong tower. If he were affected by the message he certainly did not show it.
"Hoots, lass," he said, patting her shoulder, "greetin' does no good. Come wi' me the morn in the Good Intent. That will be three tides before her regular sailing date, but I ken Captain Penman. He is under some obligations to me, and the Good Intent—weel, she's maistly my ain. But though ye canna speak to the Princess, ye had better tell Miss Aline. Being Gallowa-born and Gallowa-bred, she will understand and speak for ye to the Princess."