his bonny young leddy, and speerited me awa' in a coach, me
swearin' ootragious and maist unwillin'--just like a fool tyke that
hasna had eneuch o' a fecht. Syne she brushes me and cossets me, and so
here I am, madam, at your service, and no fit for the company of my
betters, being but a landward man with little education and by nature a
man of wrath far beyond ithers."

CHAPTER XXVIII

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