"I presume, my lord, you have seen service?"
"None worth mentioning," he replied; and, after pausing a while, till Catanio had retired and the table was cleared, he thus continued:—"And you are a Scotsman? How I love to meet with one! Ah! capitano, the Scots were a loyal people once; but how changed since their rampant Presbyterian priesthood have moulded the nation to their purpose—the designing heretics! Oh, cunning clodpoles! I may live to mar you yet."
"You, eminenza?"
"I," he replied, his eyes sparkling again.
"You have been in Scotland, I presume?" I asked, with an air of pique.
"Never: but the name of that country finds an echo in my heart. Though born a Roman, the ideas of your people, their Lowland nobles and the chiefs of the loyal and illustrious clans, are all well known to me. Dear to me, indeed, is every inch of the isle of Great Britain: though truly I owe little to the land which set a price on the heads of my nearest and dearest relatives."
"Whom have I the honour of addressing?"
"Your king!" he replied, with a deep voice, which caused me to start, as he rose erect from his chair, and his tall and venerable figure seemed to dilate, and his faded cheek to glow. "Your king, sir," he added, in pure English: "one, at least, who should have been so; but the hands of time and fate are now laid heavily upon him. I am Henry the Second of Scotland and the Ninth of the sister kingdom—the Cardinal Duke of York: now, alas! known as the last of the House of Stuart. Fate—fate—yes, hardly hast thou dealt with me! Expelled from Rome by Napoleon, robbed of my estates, and driven to penury in my old age, I dwell here in forgotten obscurity, subsisting on that poor pittance which is yearly doled out by the Government of Britain. Yet let me not be ungrateful to George their king: even that he might have withheld from me. A time may come—God hath given, and God can take away. You know me now, sir: let your wonder cease."
As if exhausted by this outburst of his troubled spirit, the venerable cardinal sank back in his chair, while I arose from mine in a very unpleasant state of astonishment, pleasure, and doubt: astonishment at the discovery, a joyous pleasure at beholding the aged and illustrious prelate (even then the secret idol of many a heart which clung to memories of the past), and doubt how to address him; having heard that he exacted the title of "Majesty," which it was as much as my commission was worth to yield him. But a spell was upon me. I had looked on kings at the head of armies, surrounded by their staff and courtiers; and, though banners were lowered and cannon thundered in salute, to me they were just as other men: but in the air and aspect of the aged Henry Stuart, even in that humble apartment, and surrounded by no external grandeur save that with which the mind invested him—with no insignia of royalty save those with which inborn grace and majesty arrayed him—there was a nameless charm, a potent and mysterious influence which quite bewildered me; and all the romance, the misfortune, the ten thousand stirring memories of the past—so stirring, at least, to every thorough Scotsman—rushed upon my mind like a torrent. It was a sensation of happiness, a gush of chivalric sentiment and honest veneration which accompanied them. I bowed, with proper humility, before the old cardinal-duke; whose proud dark eyes sparkled again, as he extended his hands above my head, and, forgetting his imaginary majesty in the churchman, bestowed on me a solemn Latin benediction.
"Wear this in memory of me." He threw around my neck a ribbon to which a gold medal was attached; and, when the tumult of my spirits passed away, and I raised my head, he was gone. Catanio stood beside me.