In June a serious accident, which might have been fatal, occurred to the Princess Royal while her promised bridegroom was on a visit to this country. Indeed he was much in England in those days, appearing frequently in public along with the royal family, to the gratification of romantic hearts that delighted to watch young royal lovers. She was sealing a letter at a table when the sleeve of her light muslin dress caught fire and blazed up in a moment. Happily she was not alone. The Princess's governess, Miss Hildyard, was at the same table, and Princess Alice was receiving a lesson from her music-mistress in the room. By their presence of mind in wrapping the hearthrug round the Princess Royal, who herself showed great self possession under the shock and pain of the accident, her life was probably saved. The arm was burnt from below the elbow to the shoulder, though not so as to be permanently disfigured. Lady Bloomfield has a pretty story about this accident. She has been describing the Princess as "quite charming. Her manners were so perfectly unaffected and unconstrained, and she was full of fun." The writer goes on to say, "When she, the Princess, burnt her arm, she never uttered a cry; she said 'Don't frighten mamma—send for papa first.'" She wrote afterwards to her music- mistress, dictating the letter and signing it with her left hand, to tell how she was, because she knew the lady, who had been present when the accident happened, would be anxious.
King Leopold, his younger son, and his lovely young daughter, Princess Charlotte, were among the Queen's visitors this summer, and a little later came the Prince and Princess of Prussia to improve their acquaintance with their future daughter-in-law.
In July the Queen and the Prince were again at Aldershott to review the troops returned from the Crimea. But the weather, persistently wet, spoilt what would otherwise have been a joyous as well as a glorious scene. During a short break in the rain, the Crimean regiments formed three sides of a square round the carriage in which the Queen sat. The officers and four men of each of the troops that had been under fire "stepped out," and the Queen, standing up in the carriage, addressed them. "Officers, non-commissioned officers, and soldiers, I wish personally to convey through you to the regiments assembled here this day my hearty welcome on their return to England in health and full efficiency. Say to them that I have watched anxiously over the difficulties and hardships which they have so nobly borne, that I have mourned with deep sorrow for the brave men who have fallen in their country's cause, and that I have felt proud of that valour which, with their gallant allies, they have displayed on every field. I thank God that your dangers are over, while the glory of your deeds remains; but I know that should your services be again required, you will be animated with the same devotion which in the Crimea has rendered you invincible."
When the clear, sweet voice was silent, a cry of "God save the Queen!" sprang to every lip. Helmets, bearskins, and shakos were thrown into the air; the dragoons waved their sabres, and a shout of loyal acclamation, caught up from line to line, rang through the ranks.
The next day, in summer sunshine, the Queen and her City of London welcomed home the Guards. In anticipation of a brilliant review in the park, she saw them march past from the central balcony of Buckingham Palace, as she had seen them depart on the chill February morning more than two years before: another season and another scene—not unchastened in its triumph, for many a once-familiar face was absent, and many a yearning thought wandered to Russian hill and plain and Turkish graveyard, where English sleepers rested till the great awakening.
An old soldier figured before the Queen and the Prince in circumstances which filled them with sorrow and pity. Lord Hardinge, the Commander-in-Chief, was having an audience with the Queen, when he was suddenly struck by paralysis. He resigned his post, to which the Duke of Cambridge was appointed. Lord Hardinge died a few months afterwards.
After several yachting excursions, marred by stormy weather, the Court went north, and reached Balmoral on the 30th of August. The tower and the offices, with the terraces and pleasure-grounds, were finished, and every trace of the old house had disappeared. The Balmoral of to- day, though it still lacked what has become some of its essential features, stood before the Queen. We are fain to make it stand before our readers as it is now.
The road to Balmoral may be said to begin with the Strath at Aberdeen. The farther west the railway runs, the higher grow the mountains and the narrower waxes the valley. Yet the Highlands proper are held to commence only at Ballater, the little northern town with its gray square, and its pleasant inn by the bridge over the rushing Dee. The whole is set between the wooded hills of Pannanich and Craigendarroch, the last-named from the oak wood which crowns its summit. The Prince of Wales's house, Birkhall, stands back from the road on a green eminence with the mountain rising behind, and in front the river Muich running down to join the Dee.
At Ballater the railway ends, and two picturesque roads follow the course of the river, one on each side, the first passing Crathie, the other going through the fir and birch woods of Abergeldie on the same side as Balmoral. Both command grand glimpses of the mountains, which belong to the three great ranges of the district—Cairngorm, Glengairn, and Loch-na-Gar.
Approaching on the Crathie side, the stranger is struck with the frequent tokens of a life that was once the presiding genius of this place, which passing away in its prime, has left the shadow of a great grief, softened by the merciful touch of time. The haunting presence, mild in its manliness and gentle in its strength, of a princely benefactor common to all, has displaced the grim phantoms of old chieftains and reigns in their stead. It hovers over the dearly loved Highland home with its fitting touch of stateliness in the middle of its simplicity, over the forest where a true sportsman stalked the deer, over the streams and lochs in which he fished, and the paths he trod by hill and glen. We are made to remember that Balmoral was the Prince Consort's property, that he bought it for his possession, as Osborne was the Queen's, and that it was by a bequest in his will that it came, with all its memories, to his widow. Three different monuments to the Prince, on as many elevations above the castle, at once attract the eye. The highest and most enduring, seen from many quarters and at considerable distances, is a gable-like cairn on the summit of a hill. It is here that such of the Prince's sons as are in the neighbourhood, and all the tenantry and dependents who can comply with the invitation, assemble on the Prince Consort's birthday and drink to his memory.