This year her Majesty made her first stay at Alt-na-guithasach, the hut or bothie of "old John Gordon," the situation of which had taken her fancy and that of the Prince. They had another hut built for themselves in the immediate vicinity, so that they could at any time spend a day or a couple of days in the wilds, with a single lady-in- waiting and the most limited of suites. On the 30th of August the Queen, the Prince, and the Honourable Caroline Dawson, maid of honour, set out on their ponies, attended only by Macdonald, Grant, another Highlander, and an English footman. The rough road had been improved, and riding was so easy that Prince Albert could practise his Gaelic by the way.
The Queen was much pleased with her new possession, which meant "a charming little dining-room, sitting-room, bedroom, and dressing-room all en suite; a little bedroom for Miss Dawson and one for her maid, and a pantry." In the other hut were the kitchen where the Gordon family sat, a room where the servants dined, a storeroom, and a loft where the men slept. All the people in attendance on the small party were the Queen's maid, Miss Dawson's maid, Prince Albert's German valet, a footman, and Macdonald, together with the old couple, John Gordon and his wife. After luncheon the visitors went to Loch Muich—a name which has been interpreted "darkness" or "sorrow"—and got into a large boat with four rowers, while a smaller boat followed, having a net. The excursion was to the head of the loch, which joins the Dhu or Black Loch. "Real severe Highland scenery," her Majesty calls it, and to those who know the stern sublimity of such places, the words say a great deal. "The boat, the net, and the people in their kilts in the water and on the shore," called for an artist's pencil. Seventy trouts were caught, and several hawks were seen. The sailing was diversified by scrambling on shore. The return in the evening was still more beautiful. At dinner the German valet and Macdonald, the Highland forester, helped the footman to wait on the company. Whist, played with a dummy, and a walk round the little garden, "where the silence and solitude, only interrupted by the waving of the fir-trees, were very striking," ended the day.
The Queen and her family left Balmoral on the 27th. Travelling by
Edinburgh and Berwick, they visited Earl Grey at Howick. Derby was the
next halting-place. At Reading the travellers turned aside for
Gosport, and soon arrived at Osborne.
Already, on the 16th of September, a special prayer had been read in every church in England, petitioning Almighty God to stay the plague of cholera which had sprung up in the East, travelled across the seas, and broken out among the people. But the dreaded epidemic had nothing to do with the sad news which burst upon the Queen and Prince Albert within, a few days of their return to the south. Both were much distressed by receiving the unexpected intelligence of the sudden death of Mr. Anson, who had been the Prince's private secretary, and latterly the keeper of the Queen's privy purse.
The offices which Mr. Anson filled in succession were afterwards worthily held by Colonel Phipps and General Grey.
CHAPTER XIII.
OPENING OF THE NEW COAL EXCHANGE—THE DEATH OF QUEEN ADELAIDE.
On the 30th of October the new Coal Exchange, opposite Billingsgate, was to have been opened by the Queen in person. A slight illness—an attack of chicken-pox—compelled her Majesty to give up her intention, and forego the motherly pleasure of seeing her two elder children, the Prince of Wales and the Princess Royal, make their first appearance in public. Prince Albert, with his son and daughter, accompanied by the Duke of Norfolk as Master of the Horse, drove from Buckingham Palace at twelve o'clock, and embarked on the Thames in the royal barge, "a gorgeous structure of antique design, built for Frederic, Prince of Wales, the great-great-grandfather of the Prince and Princess who now trod its deck." It was rowed by twenty-seven of the ancient craft of watermen, restored for a day to the royal service, clad in rich livery for the occasion, and commanded by Lord Adolphus Fitzclarence. Commander Eden, superintendent of Woolwich Dockyard, led the van in his barge. Then came Vice-Admiral Elliot, Commander-in-chief at the Nore; next the Lord Mayor's bailiff in his craft, preceding the Lord Mayor in the City barge, "rearing its quaint gilded poop high in the air, and decked with richly emblazoned devices and floating ensigns…. Two royal gigs and two royal barges escorted the State barge, posted respectively on its port and starboard bow, and its port and starboard quarter. The Queen's shallop followed; the barges of the Admiralty and the Trinity Corporation barge brought up the rear." [Footnote: Annual Register.] According to ancient custom one barge bore a graceful freight of living swans to do honour to the water procession. Such a grand and gay pageant on the river had not been seen for a century back. It only wanted some of the "water music," which Handel composed for George II., to render the gala complete.
It would be difficult to devise a scene more captivating for children of nine and ten, such as the pair who figured in it. Happily the day, though it was nearly the last of October, was beautiful and bright, and from the position which the royal party occupied in their barge when it was in the middle of the river, "not only the other barges and the platformed steamers and lighters with their living loads, but the densely-crowded banks, must have formed a memorable spectacle. The very streets running down from the Strand were so packed with spectators as to present each one a moving mass. Half a million of persons were gathered together to witness the unwonted sight; the bridges were hung over with them like swarms of flies, and from the throng at intervals shouts of welcome sounded long and loud." Between Southwark and London Bridge the rowers lay on their oars for a moment, in compliment to the ardent loyalty of the scholars of Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School. The most picturesque point was "at the moment the vessels emerged from London Bridge and caught sight of the amphitheatre of shipping in the Upper Pool—a literal forest of masts, with a foliage of flags more variously and brilliantly coloured than the American woods after the first autumn frost. Here, too, the ear was first saluted by the boom of guns, the Tower artillery firing as the procession swept by."
The landing-place on the Custom House Quay was so arranged, by means of coloured canvas, as to form a covered corridor the whole length of the quay, to and across Thames Street, to the principal entrance to the Coal Exchange.