“Didn’t you hear? They say he wrote to some one in Hanover saying that he could not understand the English, for when he came to the Palace they told him it was his, and when he looked out of the window he saw a park with a long canal in it, and they told him that was his too. Then next day the ranger sent him a big brace of carp out of it, and when they told him he was to behave like a prince and give the messenger five guineas, he was astonished. Oh, he isn’t a bit like a king.”
“I say, do be quiet. I don’t want you to get into trouble.”
“Of course you don’t,” said the lad merrily. “But you mustn’t think of going fishing now. Hark! there are the Guards.”
He hurried to the window, through which the trampling of horses and jingling of spurs could be heard, and directly after the leaders of a long line of horse came along between the rows of trees, the men gay in their scarlet and gold, their accoutrements glittering in the sunshine.
“Look well, don’t they?” said Andrew Forbes. “They ought to have given my father a command like that. If he had a few regiments of horse, and as many of foot, he’d soon make things different for old England.”
“I say, do be quiet, Drew. You’ll be getting in trouble, I know you will. Why can’t you let things rest.”
“Because I’m a Royalist.”
“No, you’re not; you’re a Jacobite. I say, why do they call them Jacobites? What Jacob is it who leads them?”
“And you just fresh from Winchester! Where’s your Latin?”
“Oh, I see,” cried the boy: “Jacobus—James.”