I watched him silently.
“She is from the Highlands, is she not?” he asked.
“Is she?”
“To be sure ’tis sufficient if Sir Robert Volney vouches for her.”
“Is it?”
“And of course the fact that she travels in his company——”
My answer was a yawn, half stifled behind my hand. The lad glared at me, in a rage at me for my insolence and at himself for his boyish inability to cope with it. Then he swung on his heel and stamped down-stairs. Five years later I met him at a dinner given by a neighbour of mine in the country, and I took occasion then to explain to him my intolerable conduct. Many a laugh we have since had over it.
We reached London on a dismal Wednesday when the rain was pouring down in sheets. Aileen I took at once to our town house that she might be with Cloe, though I expected to put up with my old nurse in another part of the city. I leave you to conceive the surprise of Charles and my sister when we dropped in on them.
The news they had for us was of the worst. Every week witnessed the execution of some poor Jacobites and the arrival of a fresh batch to take their place in the prisons. The Scotch Lords Balmerino, Cromartie and Kilmarnock were already on trial and their condemnation was a foregone conclusion. The thirst for blood was appalling and not at all glutted by the numerous executions that had already occurred. ’Twas indeed for me a most dismal home-coming.