"Stair moves about getting ready the next meal, and as like as not he calls on Uncle Ju to take his turn at scouring the pans or peeling the potatoes."
At this flight of imagination the Princess suppressed a cry of indignation.
"Oh, that is nothing," Patsy went on, unsympathetically, "of course he is glad to do it. It is good wholesome exercise and helps to pass the time, though digging themselves out in the morning when the drift is over the chimney top is better, besides the making of little paths to the outside peatstack and--"
"But your uncle--an ambassador--a favourite at courts--not a court like our dear Sleepy Hollow there at Windsor or the Rout of Circe at Carlton House, but the Court of the Hapsburgs, the Court of Austria--to think of Julian Wemyss there for your sake!--Why, Patsy, though I love you dearly, I declare that you are hardly worth it!"
"Well, Stair Garland is there also," Patsy retorted, instantly, "and just as much for my sake as Uncle Ju. And now the Duke has got his debts paid, in far greater danger, for Uncle Ju would get off with a year in prison, but Stair they would hang for those slugs in the Prince's thigh, which, thank Heaven, they can't dig out!"
"But your Stair Garland is accustomed to such a life, while my poor Julian--"
"Princess," said Patsy seriously, "take my word for it, Uncle Julian has not had the manhood all taken out of him by his life at courts. Even now who can cross swords with him? Besides, I have heard him say that if he were a year or two younger he would be out on the bleak Pyrenees with the other gallant gentlemen, his friends, driving Soult and his Frenchmen back out of Spain. And compared to what our army has to suffer lying out on these frozen rocks--why, the Bothy of Blairmore is a palace!"
The Princess was silent but not convinced. She knew that of course Julian Wemyss was brave, but she felt that it was one thing to stand up to your enemy and kill him like a gentleman, and another to hide among frozen hags and sleep under a roof of snow.
Nevertheless she brought away a certain sense of physical warmth and well-being from the description which Patsy had given her, which comforted her. It was pleasant in the Bothy of Blairmore. Men had a strain in their blood, something primitive and savage, which made them like such things, at least for a time and as a change. She remembered her father saying that he was never happier than in the corner of a forest clearing waiting for the wild boar to charge, a flask of white brandy in his pocket and a forest-guard with a couple of spare rifles at his back.