reception of the king; and but for the fact that the editor, who was
also the sole reporter, of the Aberdumble _Warder_ was at the time
confined to his house from indisposition, the whole matter would no
doubt have found its way into the papers. The Princess spared neither
trouble nor expense. Two Aberdumble carpenters arrived, and erected
opposite the porter’s lodge a wooden triumphal arch. An Aberdumble
painter followed after them, and inscribed upon the arch, in large red
letters on a blue ground, a legend welcoming His Majesty to his own
again. And when the painter had departed, the Princess, accompanied by
Tom Checkstone and Father M‘Fillan, drove into Aberdumble and hired
all the flags in the town. She also subsidised the local brass band,
the members of which she instructed to be at the castle at a given
hour, prepared to play at her behest the stirring strains of _Who’ll
be King but Charlie_, and as many other Jacobite tunes as they knew or
could learn meanwhile; and she further engaged four pipers, who were to
stand just within the castle gate and salute her royal nephew in their
most tremendous style. It must be confessed that the Princess was a
trifle indiscreet. She undoubtedly laid herself open to a prosecution
for treason-felony, if not indeed for treason of the highest and most
deadly type; but fortunately for her, the Aberdumble people had grown
accustomed to her eccentricities, and not a soul dreamt of gainsaying
her will and pleasure in the matter. She therefore returned with a
carriage-load of flags, which she caused to be festooned from the
battlements. In her own boudoir and with her own fingers, she had
long since worked in silk a faithful copy of the old royal standard
of Scotland, and this she ordered to be run up on the flagstaff that
surmounted the keep, whenever the king should set foot within the
castle walls. Furthermore, she directed that at that auspicious moment
her head-butler, assisted by one of her stable-boys, should begin
the firing of a royal salute from an old brass gun that stood upon
the western wall; and in order to provide for this, she purchased
in Aberdumble, Archie M‘Pherson the ironmonger’s entire stock of
sporting-powder.
Betimes there came a telegram for the Princess. ‘Shall be with you,’ it
ran, ‘at noon to-morrow;’ and it had been despatched by Charlie from
the telegraph office in Fleet Street, London.
The Princess passed the night in a state of the utmost excitement.
Instead of retiring to rest, she paced to and fro until daylight
began to dawn; and it was only at Tom’s urgent entreaty that she then
consented to repair to her boudoir and lie down for a few hours. She
had talked of attempting to raise the country side, and of going to
the railway station at the head of her kilted and armed retainers,
to welcome her nephew; but Father M‘Fillan’s more sensible counsel
prevailed. He pointed out that nothing could be gained by undue haste,
and that any ill-advised display of force would probably end in the
speedy collapse of the movement long ere it could ripen and bear good
fruit. The fact is that, but for the common-sense of the chaplain, the
Princess would have done a thousand rash deeds. Fortunately, he had
constituted himself her temporal as well as spiritual adviser; and
being a man of extraordinary kindness and goodness, he had easily won
the Princess’s confidence. He regarded her as a harmless maniac, and
believed that there would be no danger in humouring her within due
bounds; nor did he conceal his opinions from Tom Checkstone, who, while
professing to coincide with them, fully made up his mind to carry on
the game until it should bring some decided advantage to himself and
his friend Charles Stuart.
The Princess, accompanied by Father M‘Fillan, and by Tom, who rode,
drove to Aberdumble Station without the retinue of armed tenants; and,
punctual to the appointed hour, the king’s train arrived. The Princess
would have respectfully kissed His Majesty’s hand; but Charlie, with
right royal condescension, embraced his aunt and kissed her upon both
cheeks. Then, having graciously shaken hands with Tom and the priest,
he entered the carriage, which was driven rapidly back to Balquhalloch.
A few children followed it for a short distance, but they were soon
left behind, and it was not until the castle was well in sight that any
further signs of excitement and expectation became visible.
The first loyal greeting came from Daft Andy M‘Gregor, an old fellow
of eighty-seven. He had heard from his grandfather of the great doings
of the ’45; and fully believing that patriotism required it of him,
he stood at his cottage door waving a rusty claymore, and flang his
bonnet into the air as the carriage rolled quickly by. A more formal
welcome awaited the king at the gateway of the castle. The porter’s
eldest son, in his Sunday clothes, walked gravely forward, bearing on
a cushion the castle keys, and, with profound obeisance, presented
them to Charlie, who as gravely received them and gave them into Tom’s
custody. At that moment the four pipers struck up; and the carriage, as
it passed through the gateway, was saluted by a boom from the old brass
gun. Tears stood in the Princess’s eyes, as, giving her hand to Father
M‘Fillan, she alighted. ‘Thank heaven for this day!’ she exclaimed
devoutly; while in a louder voice she added: ‘God save the king!’
The cry was taken up by all the servants and tenants who had collected
in the courtyard, and was accentuated by a second boom from the brass
gun. Thus acclaimed, the king, supported by Tom, walked into the great
hall, and was thence conducted by the Princess herself to his private
apartments.
‘The first thing,’ she whispered to him, ‘will be to hold a council.’
‘Of course!’ assented Charlie. ‘We must hold a council at once. Let me
see. May Tom—I mean Mr Checkstone—act as my private secretary until I
can appoint some one else to the post?’
‘Most certainly! Your Majesty’s wishes are commands. I will send Mr
Checkstone to you.’ And the amiable Princess respectfully kissed her
nephew and retired.
A minute later, Tom peeped in at Charlie’s door and entered his room.
The two young men at once burst into fits of suppressed laughter.
‘It is really too bad!’ exclaimed Charlie. ‘You can’t imagine how
difficult it has been for me to keep my countenance.’
‘Never mind; you have done very well so far,’ returned Tom. ‘I am to
be your private secretary _pro tem._, and you are to hold a council.
I must therefore beg your Majesty to graciously nominate your
councillors.’
‘Whom shall I nominate? There is Father M‘Fillan.’
‘And Alexander Gordon, the factor; he is a presentable sort of fellow.’
‘And my aunt, the Princess.’
‘Ah, the constitution doesn’t permit you to nominate women.’
‘Well, then, we four can hold the council, if the council must be
held,’ said Charlie.—‘Now, how am I to comport myself?’
‘Father M‘Fillan understands, of course, that we are only masquerading;
but you mustn’t let him know that you have even the most distant
designs on your aunt’s money-bags, for he would spoil the game in an
instant if he did know it. As for Sandy Gordon—to him you must be the
king, the whole king, and nothing but the king. If I were you, I should
knight him. It would consolidate his loyalty.’
‘I’ll make him a baronet, if you like,’ assented Charlie. ‘It won’t
cost any more.—But what are we to do in council?’
‘To decide upon your plan of action,’ said Tom. ‘And we may as well
settle that here. The decision must be that no public steps are to be
taken at present.’
‘Quite so.—But don’t, Tom, push matters too far. I only want to be able
to marry Kate, you know; and really five hundred a year from my aunt
would satisfy me.’
‘All right, old fellow; you shall have a thousand.—But now to business.
I will go and announce the nomination of councillors. The council
will meet in the drawing-room in half an hour. Shave yourself, and
make yourself look as royal as possible. There was to be a valet to
wait upon you, but he hasn’t yet arrived from Edinburgh.—How they are
pounding away with that absurd brass gun! Fortunately, the powder has
almost run out, so you won’t be troubled with your full salute.’ And
Tom disappeared.
The first sitting of King Charles III.’s council was not a long one.
The decision at which Charlie and Tom had already arrived was, of
course, adopted. Sandy Gordon was offered, but modestly declined, the
honour of knighthood; and Father M‘Fillan was commissioned to inform
the Princess that the king did not deem it expedient for the present
to take any public steps to assert his authority beyond the loyal
precincts of Balquhalloch.
The Princess, who for nights had been dreaming of rebellion, was
grievously disappointed, and sought to bend her nephew’s determination.
After dinner, when for a short time she was alone with him, she talked
the matter over.
‘Well, my dear aunt,’ said the king at last, ‘I need not tell you
that if we organise a rising, I must put myself at the head of it.
And if I put myself at the head of it, I must of necessity risk my
life. At present, as you know, I am not married. I am the last male
of our house. Ought I not, before facing the danger, to look to the
interests of my race, and indeed of the country? If I had a son, or
even a daughter, I could go forth with a lighter heart to battle; for
in that case my death would not mean the inevitable extinction of all
our hopes. You, it is true, would succeed me, but only for a few short
burdensome years; and with you the line would pass out of existence.’
‘True,’ assented the Princess; ‘you certainly ought to marry, and to
marry quickly. But whom can you marry? Who is worthy of you? Your
royal grandmother was a Tudor, a worthy spouse for my father of sacred
memory. But there are no Tudors now; and besides, you ought not to
marry a cousin. I fear that you must seek an alliance on the continent,
among the Bourbons or the Hapsburgs.’
‘Why not among the English Plantagenets?’ asked the king.
‘Would that some remained,’ ejaculated the Princess.
‘But one does remain,’ said Charlie. ‘The fact is that I have had the
good fortune to make the acquaintance of one whom I have determined to
wed; and, my dear aunt, she is a Plantagenet. Mr Checkstone, who has
the honour of her acquaintance, will tell you about her.’
‘Indeed!’ exclaimed the Princess. ‘This news greatly rejoices me. Let
Mr Checkstone write to her at once in my name and ask her to come and
visit me. I will judge of her worthiness.’
‘You had better write,’ suggested the king. ‘Why not write informally,
as my aunt. You must remember that we cannot yet afford to risk
anything by publicly hinting at my pretensions, much less by boldly
proclaiming to the country and the powers that be that I intend to
seize the crown.’
The Princess reflected; but she gave way, and, for once in her life,
signed herself simply Henrietta Maria Stuart.
In due course Kate received the invitation. It was accompanied
by a private letter from Charlie; and when she had read the two
communications, she forfeited a month’s salary and quitted her
situation. A few days had to be spent in preparing for the visit to so
large and grand an establishment as she knew Balquhalloch to be; but in
less than a week after hearing from Miss Stuart, Catharine Plantagenet
left London for Scotland.
IV.—THE COLLAPSE.
The Princess was charmed with Catharine Plantagenet, who, in truth, was
as gentle and true-hearted a girl as could be met with anywhere; but
when she became fully aware of the deception to which she was a party,
it was with the greatest difficulty that Charlie persuaded her to
refrain from telling her proud hostess the secret of her birth.
‘Well,’ said Catharine, ‘under any circumstances I won’t consent to
take advantage of your aunt’s weakness. I hate false pretences. Your
aunt ought to do something for you, I confess, but let her do it with
her eyes open.’
Ere long, however, the Princess, upon her own initiative, made a
proposition to which even Catharine saw no objection.
‘My dear,’ she said one morning, ‘I am getting old, and since you have
been here with me, I have begun to feel that I should not like to be
without you. Now I know perfectly well that Charles will be glad to
stay here for the present; so, why don’t you make up your minds to
marry and stay here together? When I die, the castle and everything
belonging to it will be his. You need never regard yourselves,
therefore, as trespassers upon my hospitality.’
‘And you really like to have me with you?’ asked Catharine.
‘Certainly, my dear.’
‘For my own sake, I mean?’ added Catharine.
‘Yes, for your own sake, and quite apart even from the fact that
Charles loves you. I shall speak to him about it.’ And speak to him she
did.
‘You will be quieter and better off here than in London,’ she said;
‘and you will be able to mature your plans for the future. You and
Catharine shall have a separate establishment for yourselves; there is
plenty of room for all of us. And if you have any hesitation on the
score of money matters—which, after all, trouble the highest as well as
the lowest—I may set your mind at ease, my dear Charles, by telling you
that I have determined to give Catharine on her wedding-day a hundred
thousand pounds by way of jointure. When I die, the rest will be yours.’
‘You are very good, aunt,’ exclaimed the king, who was fairly overcome
by his relative’s liberality. ‘Yes; nowhere can we be happier than
here. But let us be married quietly.’
‘By all means! Father M‘Fillan shall perform the ceremony in the
chapel. Get Catharine to name a day—the sooner the better.’
Charlie talked over the matter that very evening with his sweetheart,
and an arrangement was soon come to between them. The wedding was
fixed for an early date; a few favoured guests were invited; and in
due course Charlie and Catharine became man and wife, Tom acting as
best-man, and Sandy Gordon, who, on account of his age and patriarchal
beard, seemed to be peculiarly fitted for the part, giving away the
bride. There was, of course, a feast for the tenantry; and the brass
gun on the wall was again fired—this time until it burst; but, as the
Princess regretfully said, the ceremony was not worthy of the event. It
ought to have taken place at Holyrood or Westminster Abbey.
Charlie and Catharine went to Edinburgh for their honeymoon; and when
they returned to Balquhalloch, the castle settled down once more into
its normal condition of peace and quietness. Tom and the Princess spent
much of their time in the library, working hard at the family history;
and the young couple, with nothing to worry them, and only themselves
to think about, passed a delightful existence, which seemed as if it
could never become wearisome.
But matters could not go on for ever in this way. The Princess in time
began to ask Charlie about his plans. ‘Will arms be required?’ she
wanted to know. ‘Will there be uniforms for the troops? What hope is
there of foreign assistance? Can the officers and men throughout the
country be bribed?’ And above all, ‘When are you going to rise and
strike for your rights?’ In short, the situation threatened to become
critical. And when, nearly a year after his wedding, Charlie found
himself the proud father of a boy, he realised that he must either act,
or permit his good aunt to scorn him as a weak-kneed, cowardly shadow
of a king.
The auspicious event caused the Princess to be unusually active. She
desired, ere the grand stroke should be dealt, to be in a position to
publish abroad a full and complete pedigree, tracing the descent of the
Stuarts of Balquhalloch from the royal Stuarts of Scotland; and hearing
that a number of old records bearing upon the question were for sale in
London, she despatched Tom Checkstone thither with _carte blanche_ to
buy whatever he could lay his hands upon. Tom was absent for ten days;
and when he reappeared, he had with him a large chest full of dusty,
mouldy, discoloured documents. These treasures were conveyed to the
library, and for a week the Princess almost lived among them.
One day Charlie and Catharine, who was now convalescent, were sitting
at luncheon, when, without warning, the Princess burst into the room.
She was very violently excited. Her gray hair had fallen loose, her
cheeks were pallid, and her hands were clenched convulsively.
‘What is the matter?’ exclaimed Charlie and Catharine, both rising
together and rushing to support their aunt.
‘Matter!’ she cried—‘matter?’ and she began to weep hysterically.
‘Tell me,’ implored Catharine. ‘What can we do?’
But Tom, who had followed the Princess, and who now appeared in the
open doorway, soon explained the cause of the outbreak.
‘Look here!’ he said, as he held out a yellow parchment. ‘It is a
terrible blow to your aunt, Charlie. There has been some mistake. You
are not descended from the royal Stuarts at all. A similarity of names
and some careless copying are responsible for the error.’
Charlie seized the manuscript, and having hastily glanced at it, threw
it aside, and went to his aunt, who was already being attended to by
Catharine.
The Princess had fainted; but ere long she recovered, and was able to
tell her version of the story. She had been completing the pedigree;
she had almost arrived at the last link, when the whole chain had been
snapped by this hideous discovery. She would never get over the shock.
To think that after all she was a nobody! It was too dreadful!
They led her to her own room, and in time succeeded in calming her.
Then, in order to convince himself, Charlie carefully examined the
parchment. Its statements could not be gainsaid. The Stuarts of
Balquhalloch had no connection with royalty; and he would not now be
required to seize the throne of Great Britain. To him the revelation
came, it must be remarked, as a welcome relief; but for days and weeks
it made his poor aunt miserable; and when she finally reconciled
herself to her lot, it seemed as if her energy and pleasure in life had
departed for ever. Indeed, she never entirely got over the blow, and at
the beginning of this year she died.
Charlie and Catharine were with her to the last, and she bequeathed
everything to them. Balquhalloch, therefore, is now theirs; and Tom
Checkstone, who, rightly or wrongly, regarded himself as Charlie’s good
genius, holds sway as his friend’s secretary, man of business, chum,
and general factotum.
THE MONTH:
SCIENCE AND ARTS.
On the 27th of August, the British Association commenced its
fifty-fourth annual meeting—not this year, however, on British soil,
but at Montreal in Canada. Some hundreds of members travelled from this
country to be present at the meeting. Both on the part of the city and
of the Dominion, the reception of the Association has been everything
that could be desired by its members. Montreal itself raised forty
thousand dollars towards defraying the expenses of the visit, and three
hundred of the members were, besides, received as guests into private
houses. The new President, Lord Rayleigh, Professor of Experimental
Physics in the University of Cambridge, delivered the opening address,
in which he sketched the progress that had been made in certain
important branches of science. The final meeting of the Association was
held on the afternoon of September 3, and was largely attended, about
two thousand persons being present. Lord Rayleigh in addressing the
assembly, said that no meeting had been held in which the Association
had been provided with such spacious rooms. Resolutions in favour of
the erection of a free public library in Montreal, as a memorial of the
visit, were then passed, and a large amount of money was immediately
promised in aid of this object, among the donations being one of
ten thousand pounds. The total money grants in favour of scientific
investigations made at the Montreal meeting were fifteen hundred and
fifty pounds. The tickets issued for members of the Association for
this session numbered seventeen hundred and thirty, and the money
received amounted to eighteen hundred pounds.
Within the last twenty-five years, and more especially since the
Franco-German war, when the French made such good use of balloons,
there have been somewhat frequent rumours that the problem of aërial
navigation, comprised in the possibility of guiding and propelling a
balloon in a given direction, had been solved. The machine in each
case is carefully described, and generally it is represented as
having risen gracefully in the air, travelled about a little, and
then returned to its starting-point. Then, nothing more is heard of
it. Such an event is said to have occurred last month in France. The
gas-vessel—it can hardly be called a balloon, for it is cigar-shaped—is
nearly two hundred feet long. A platform is hung below, upon which is
a screw propeller, worked by a dynamo-machine and a large rudder. This
description tallies almost exactly with the form of so-called steerable
balloons which have been constructed, tried, and found useless by
M. Giffard, M. Tissandier, and others in previous years. The French
government have spent much money in experimental ballooning, and this
last achievement is the result. Perhaps the authorities were obliged
to show something for the money that was being spent, but we fear that
that something is not anything new or profitable. Until an aërial
machine be produced which shall make its way _against_ strong currents,
balloon navigation will remain as it has hitherto been.
Here is a clever American notion, and one which will probably have
a wide application. It consists of a noiseless door-closer. In the
ordinary metal or india-rubber spring, so commonly fixed to doors,
the greatest energy is exerted at first, and the door generally slams
with a noise which is very distressing to any one with nerves. In the
new arrangement, the spring is fixed to the piston attached to a small
air-cylinder, so that as the door closes, the resistance of the air
in the cylinder checks its motion before the terrible bang arrives. A
small opening in the cylinder then lets in the air, so that the spring
once more asserts its authority with sufficient persuasion to gently
close the door.
After the terrors excited by the alleged danger of using arsenical
wall-papers, it is rather a relief to read the opinion of Mr R.
Galloway, who has written an article upon the subject in the _Journal
of Science_. ‘Has it,’ he asks, ‘ever been proved that persons
who inhabit rooms the wall-paper of which is stained with emerald
green, suffer from arsenical poisoning?’ He then points out that the
injurious effects, if any, must be due to the mechanical detachment
of the pigment from the paper, and that such homœopathic doses of the
substance as could be carried by the air, would be totally different
from the effects which arise from larger doses of arsenic. Moreover,
he has made inquiry as to any cases of poisoning occurring during the
packing of this finely divided pigment—during which operation the
packers are surrounded by clouds of its dust—and could hear of none. Mr
Mattieu Williams, a well-known writer on Science, is also of opinion
that ‘arsenical wall-papers’ are practically harmless. We are glad to
record these opinions, for the tendency of the present time is to point
out lurking dangers in every direction, until one is apt to wonder how
our forefathers, in their happy ignorance of sanitation, ever contrived
to reach adult age.
At Reading, this autumn, a honey-fair is to be held, when prizes
will be distributed to beekeepers who work on humane and advanced
principles, and also to those who can show the greatest amount of
unadulterated honey raised in a Berkshire hive. Such a show as this is
worthy of every encouragement, for honey fetches a high price, and so
does wax, even in these days of cheap sugar and composite candles. It
thus becomes possible for the intelligent cottager to add considerably
to his scanty means; and if he can be taught that honey can be won
without periodical destruction of bees and comb, so much the better.
There is some complaint that the newfangled hives, efficient though
they be, are too expensive to supersede the old straw skep. The British
Beekeepers’ Association might well turn their attention to this aspect
of the matter.
Last year, Professor Huxley stated it as his opinion that no act of
man could possibly influence the increase or decrease in the number of
sea-fish. This was in answer to the gloomy anticipations of many that
the herring and other fisheries would be gradually annihilated unless
our fishermen were compelled by law to observe certain conditions. So
far as herrings are concerned, the recent enormous catches have shown
that there are fish as good and plentiful in the sea as ever yet came
out. Last month, we saw these fish in splendid condition being sold at
the Farringdon Fish Market, London, at one penny per dozen. By the way,
can any one explain why, in these days of refrigerators and cheap ice,
eighty-six tons of fish should be allowed in one month to become—at
Billingsgate—unfit for human food?