When Edward VII was a boy of ten, he was with his mother, Queen
Victoria, at Balmoral Castle in the Highlands of Scotland. At
that time the Queen was quite a skilful painter in water-colors
and spent many days by the waterfalls and in the glens making
pictures.
One day she was sitting at her easel on a sandy beach of the
river beneath a waterfall. Young Edward was playing around her.
The little Prince suddenly caught sight of a Highland lad in
kilts. The lad was making a sand castle and adorning it with
sprigs of heather and “chucky-stones.”
The Prince advanced to him with royal hauteur and asked for whom
the sand castle was being built.
“For bonnie Prince Charlie,” was the playful reply of the
boy, who stood with his hands on his hips to see the effect
of a thistle on the top story. The lad had no idea that his
interlocutor was any different from any other boy.
The young Prince, however, determined to make it clear that
he--and not Prince Charlie--was to be King some day. He kicked
over the sand castle.
The Highland boy glared at him and said:
“Ye’ll no dae that again!”
It was a challenge. The lad rebuilt his sand castle very
deliberately. The Prince waited until the thistle was stuck on
the top story, then kicked it over as deliberately as it had
been built.
“Ye’ll no dae that a third time!” challenged the little Scot,
beginning to rebuild with even more deliberation.
The Queen had been noticing the affair. She set aside her
brush and palette, but said nothing; only watched with a firm,
studious expression on her maternal face.
A third time Prince Edward kicked over the Highland lad’s sand
castle. No sooner was it done than its kilted builder closed his
fists and lowered his head. In another moment the two boys were
hammering one another.
The Queen sat there and never interfered by word or act.
The little Prince presently returned, weeping, bruised, and
bloody-nosed, while the rebel Gael stood apart, himself
considerably frayed, waiting to see if any further service were
needed in the training of royal children.
To the little Prince’s plea for speedy justice and vengeance,
the motherly Queen merely replied, as she wiped the blood from
the future King’s nose with a pocket handkerchief:
“It served you right!”--New York _Times_.
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