"What is this for, Shane? Is this yours?"
"Mine now, Claire-Anne; but it was—some one else's once. My Uncle Alan, Alan Donn, gave it to me."
"Yes?..."
"It belonged once to Charles Edward Stuart, the Young Pretender. He wore it at his knee in '45. Do you remember, Claire-Anne? He landed in Scotland and advanced on England, and got as far as Derby at the head of the Scottish clans and Jacobite gentlemen. 'Black Friday' they called it in London."
"But he never got to London."
"No, he never got to London. Crash and whir of battle, and when the smoke cleared, there were the gallant Highland clansmen scattered, and the sturdy English nobles, and the bonny Irish gentlemen. And a king on the run!"
"And, Shane, what happened to him after that?"
"I think—my history may not be right, but I think he spent the rest of his life a pensioner of the king of France, playing petty politics, drinking, and accepting love from romantic women, and loyalty from the beaten clans."
"What a pity, Shane! What a pity!"
"That he failed, dearest? I don't know."