AN UNCROWNED KING

“After question-time, the First Lord of the Treasury rose to make a statement with regard to the course of public business, the salient feature of which was the announcement that the Government found themselves compelled to appropriate all the time of private members during the remainder of the session. We understand that this action on the part of the Ministry has aroused strong feeling on both sides of the House, particularly among those members who have charge of private bills. One of the supporters of the Government who has been very hardly treated is Viscount Usk, whose bill for permitting peers to become candidates for seats in the Lower House, on relinquishing their right to a seat in the House of Lords, had obtained the first place in the ballot for Tuesday next.”

Thus far the ‘Fleet Street Gazette,’ but “strong feeling” was a mild term to apply to the sentiment evoked in the minds of honourable members by the Government statement. That a portion of their time would be confiscated they had guessed only too well, but such a drastic measure as this was quite unexpected. Rage, disappointment, and disgust were depicted on face after face along the back benches, and the popular Minister to whose task it fell to make the announcement was allowed to resume his seat without a single expression of approval. Among the most wrathful of the malcontents was Lord Usk, whose cup had been dashed from his lips in the peculiarly cruel manner noticed sympathetically by the ‘Fleet Street,’ and who sat moodily in his place, gnawing the end of his moustache, his forehead drawn into a heavy frown. Mr Forfar, the First Lord, lounging delicately from the House after hurling his thunderbolt, with his short-sighted eyes fixed on space, on the paper in his hand, on anything but the scowling faces of his supporters, encountered his gaze without intending to do so, and leaned over the benches to speak to him.

“Rather rough on you, Usk. Better luck next time!”

“It’s all very well for you to laugh——” began Lord Usk, savagely, and then stopped short, finding that he was making rather a weak remark, whereas he had meant to say something cutting. Mr Forfar waved his hand soothingly, and passed on with a smile.

“If it had been any one but Usk,” he said to his colleague, Sir James Morrell, when they were outside the House, “I should have thought he meant ratting, but he is quite safe. He gets excited now and then, but he will sulk to-night and be all right to-morrow.”

After a time Lord Usk also quitted the House, and went to the library to see whether there were any letters for him. There were none of any interest, and he was toying somewhat aimlessly with the magazines on one of the tables, when he descried looming in the distance the form of the party Whip, intent on beating up recruits for the dinner-hour. The sight roused him again to fierce resentment. On ordinary occasions Usk was the mildest of men, and one of the Whip’s pattern members, not only voting safely with the party in important divisions (with the exception of occasional outbursts on the question of Temperance and kindred subjects, which were dealt with tenderly as the eccentricities of youth), but proving himself almost always ready to dine in the precincts, in case of a call during the dinner-hour. But now his forbearance had been strained too far, and he rebelled. He was not going to help to keep a house for a Government which valued his services as little as did this one, and he evaded the Whip with some difficulty, for his height rendered him conspicuous among the other members, and slipped out into Palace Yard.

“I’ll take a night off, and drop in at Mrs Sadleir’s,” he thought, his resentment already beginning to give way under the soothing recollection of his revenge on the Whip.

Mrs Sadleir’s was one of the few houses at which Usk was at all a constant guest, for he hated society with an almost anarchist hatred quite at variance with his political opinions generally. Very quickly, on his first introduction into the world of London, he had learnt by bitter experience to divide the women he met into two categories. There were those who were anxious to marry him, either personally, or vicariously to some relation, and those who were not. It was in vain that he tried by turns to gain the reputation of a student, a cynic, and a misogynist; the young ladies and their mothers still thought that a man in his present position, to say nothing of his prospect of succeeding to the Marquisate of Caerleon at no very distant date, ought not to be judged too harshly, even for such unamiable peculiarities as these. This led him to forswear almost entirely the company of the fair sex, for the young ladies who did not want to marry him made the fact so conspicuous, and were so anxious to force it upon his notice, that he resented their aggressive prudery as strongly as he did their sisters’ too evident wiles. Hence he was wont, now that his experience was gained, sternly to resist all attempts to allure him into general society, and he had become known to the party leaders as a young man who devoted himself to the study of sociological and political problems, and affected the company of his elders. But he was content to visit at Mrs Sadleir’s house, and under her wing to confront the hordes of society girls who thirsted for his prospective coronet, since he knew that she had neither daughter nor niece to recommend him as a wife, and that she had a most unfeminine aversion to match-making. Mrs Sadleir had been a dear friend of his mother’s, and on Lady Caerleon’s death had done much to supply her place to Usk and his brother Cyril. Ill-natured persons said that she was trying to achieve a social success by becoming the second Lady Caerleon, but better-informed people scouted the idea, knowing well that she had refused Lord Caerleon very decidedly two years after his wife’s death, although without any diminution of the friendship which had always existed between them.

For a rising young politician of pronounced imperialist views, like Usk, Mrs Sadleir’s house was emphatically one to visit. Her husband, who had held an important permanent post in the Foreign Office, had gathered around him in his leisure hours men of all nations with whom he came in contact in the course of his duties, and after his death his widow found herself unable to dispense with the excitement of the brilliant society to which she had grown accustomed. It was a commonplace among her friends that, in most cases, she could, if she liked, announce forthcoming diplomatic changes before the ministers who arranged them, and some said that a good deal of the political history of Europe had been made at different times in her drawing-room. Yet she was not an intriguer, far less a conspirator, but simply a cultivated, tactful woman, with a talent for bringing together at the right time the right people, or, at any rate, the people who it was desirable should meet one another. She came forward now to greet Lord Usk, as he mounted her staircase, and made him a sign to wait until she had got rid of a voluble Italian secretary of embassy, who was impressing some fact upon her with a good deal of gesticulation. Mrs Sadleir’s gracious and striking personality was reflected in her dress. Her gown was black, made in a severe yet fanciful style that was unlike any one else’s. On her head she wore an arrangement of black lace, which was no more to be called a cap than a veil, and was the despair of her maid, but which, taken in conjunction with her bright dark eyes and the silver hair rolled smoothly back from her forehead, gave her the look of a great lady of the old régime. Having disposed of the Italian, she turned to Usk.

“I am very glad indeed that you have come in to-night, Usk, for I have some one here whom you will enjoy meeting. I was almost inclined to send a message to you at the House by Dr Egerton, who was going on there; but I thought you might come, and therefore I waited. It is M. Drakovics to whom I want to introduce you.”

“What! the Kossuth of the Balkans—the Thracian premier?” asked Usk, much interested.

“Yes, the great history-maker of to-day. It is a liberal education (pray don’t think I intend a pun) to hear him talk. Come and I will take you to him.”

She did not lead him into the crowded drawing-room, full of light and laughter, but into a smaller room near at hand, where a solitary gentleman in evening dress was dimly visible by the rays of a Moorish lamp hanging in a window-recess. He was a small shrunken man, with a large bald head and a massive brow; and as Usk’s eyes grew accustomed to the dim light, he saw in the bronzed face and heavy grey moustache the hint of a likeness to another and a more successful statesman than the Hungarian patriot, a likeness which was, moreover, not altogether distasteful to M. Drakovics himself.

“Lord Usk—M. Drakovics,” said Mrs Sadleir, briskly. “Now I am going to leave you to have a good talk, for I want you to know one another. If you will sit here in the recess, the curtains will hide you, and you will not be seized upon by any troublesome acquaintances.”

“Milord,” said M. Drakovics, bowing formally, but scanning Usk from head to foot in a way which made the younger man feel that he was being reckoned up and his measure taken, “I am much honoured in meeting you. Your name, and your father’s name also, are very well known to us in Thracia.”

“You are very kind,” said Usk, in the embarrassed way in which the average Englishman receives a compliment. “I’m sure I am delighted to have the chance of meeting you here. I never expected to be able to hear about the Thracian revolution from one who was in it.”

“From one who may be said to have been at the head of it,” corrected M. Drakovics, gravely. “You are interested in Eastern Europe, milord?”

“Naturally, since no one who takes any interest whatever in international politics can well avoid keeping his eye on the Balkan States,” said Usk; “and Thracia has always seemed to me the most promising of them all, if only she got a chance. Your long struggle against Roum, and the way in which you won your freedom, have shown what your people are made of.”

“Yes, indeed,” responded M. Drakovics, his eyes lighting up, “Thracia is the nation of the future in Eastern Europe. We are the only truly European race south of the Carpathians. The Mœsians are Slavs, the Dardanians half Roumis. Our blood is chiefly Latin, with a large Teutonic admixture. Our very language is far more nearly akin to the Italian than to the Slavonic.”

“And yet your own name is Slavonic?” suggested Usk.

“Most of our names are, just as in religion we belong to the Orthodox Church. It is the result of our isolation, hemmed in as we are by Slav races. But our aspirations are wholly Western, and the national hatred of Scythia, our great Slav neighbour, is a perfect passion.”

“That was the cause of your revolution, wasn’t it?” asked Usk. “We are generally rather misty about your politics here, I’m afraid, but that seems to have penetrated into most people’s minds.”

“It was the cause,” returned M. Drakovics. “You are aware, milord, that when we threw off the Roumi yoke, many years ago, we did so with the assistance—the moral support—of Scythia. For this assistance we have been paying dearly ever since, while our country has groaned under the rule of the House of Franza. No doubt the simplest plan would have been to place a Scythian grand-duke at once upon the throne, but it was more politic to allow us to elect a national sovereign, and then to make him a Scythian tributary. Our first king, Alexander Franza, the patriot who had conducted the struggle for freedom to a successful issue, saw the danger, and tried to avert it, straining every nerve to pay off the loans advanced by Scythia for various purposes; but he died before he could effect this object, and his successors, instead of following his example, borrowed more largely still, thus placing the kingdom completely in the hands of Scythia. You know what our history has been since our independence was guaranteed; how, with one of the finest countries in Europe, the resources of which are as yet scarcely touched, we have been constantly on the verge of bankruptcy. So it was when the late king, Peter II., ascended the throne, and our masters appeared to think that the time had come to complete their conquest. Of course he was a pensioner of Scythia, like his predecessors, but he was also a man of pleasure. When the country had been drained of money to supply his whims, he was forced to turn to Scythia once more. Money was granted him, but only for a consideration. One by one the highest posts in the army and Court were filled with Scythians, and it was of no use for the Thracians to complain. The Sertchaieff Ministry was in power, and as matters grew worse, its members clung the more closely to their places, fearing the result of any change for themselves. Then a chance incident caused an explosion——”

“It was connected with your own election to the Legislative Assembly, was it not?” asked Usk.

“It was, milord. I had been absent from my country for many years, owing to my having once taken part in a meeting of those who wished to bring about a reform by means of constitutional agitation. I was a young man when I threw in my lot with the reformers, and had just begun to practise at the bar, but I was obliged to leave Thracia, and sacrifice all my prospects. My years of exile were not wasted. I travelled, I worked, I associated with earnest men—and I found my country a byword everywhere. At last I could endure it no longer, and I made up my mind to set on foot one more effort to stir up my compatriots to a sense of their degradation. I returned to Thracia, and found myself received with joy, yet with fear, by my old friends and by the younger generation of patriots that had sprung up. Once more we set ourselves to form a constitutional party, and to educate public opinion. Our objects were simple,—the dismissal of the Scythians who had been thrust into public offices, the reform of the whole corrupt administration, the discontinuance of the system of borrowing, and the gradual repayment of our debt to Scythia out of the money saved by reducing expenses and gained by the proper development of the country. We were quite ignorant of the extent to which our views found favour among the people, but we determined upon a bold stroke—in order both to advertise our programme and to show us how we were supported. The Elections were approaching, and we resolved to contest every seat for which we could find a candidate. The Administration was utterly taken by surprise, but its members perceived that their salvation lay in striking at once, and they chose to begin with me. I was elected by a large majority for the constituency to which I offered myself, but my election was declared void by a Government decree, and a fresh poll was announced. Troops were drafted into the town, nominally to preserve the peace, in reality to force my constituents to vote for the Government candidate, and vast numbers of persons crowded in from the country districts, drawn by the prospect of a tumult. I was passing through the market-place when a band of my supporters called upon me for a speech. Then, milord, I felt a strange fire seize me. I remembered the effect, long before, of my speech to the meeting for taking part in which I was exiled. I remembered that in my days as barrister I had often moved the court to tears and to indignation. It was merely a flash of memory, but with it came the impulse to act. I sought a place from which to speak—I climbed upon a country cart—I spoke—I heard the people shouting—the Government agent ordered the soldiers to arrest me—I saw them pushing their way through the crowd—they closed round me, dragged me down—I appealed to the bystanders—I was rescued—I spoke again, and raised the cry of Reform. Before I knew what had happened I was at the head of a revolution, the people had put themselves under my guidance, the troops had joined us, the Government agent was seeking the means for flight. By my orders he was captured and lodged in prison—I seemed to perceive at once what was to be done. The telegraph-office was seized, no message allowed to be sent but by my authority. To each of our candidates for the Assembly I telegraphed what had happened, and his orders. A brief pause to concert my plans with my chief supporters, and we were in motion again. The news spread through the country like wildfire; in a short time the whole army was with us, and the people were thronging to us in enormous numbers. We marched to Bellaviste, and entered the city without striking a blow. When we laid before the king our demands for a change of Ministry and a new constitution, he preferred to abdicate rather than grant them. We were nothing loath, and he has retired to the south of France on a suitable income. A provisional government was formed, and has remained in power, supported by the whole force of the national sentiment, for nearly a year. The success of our movement was due to its spontaneity. If we had prepared for it, Scythia would have gained some inkling of our plan, and might have out-plotted us, but she could not without any excuse interfere with the accomplished fact. In the very first moment of our freedom we ranged Pannonia on our side by making overtures to her for the conclusion of a commercial treaty which had hitherto been hindered by the intrigues of Scythia. To Scythia we were able to guarantee, through the good offices, secretly exercised, of Pannonia, the regular payment of her interest, and the gradual extinction of the debt itself, while the dismissed officials received honourable terms. It was not easy to arrange all this, for at first we found it difficult to obtain money, and the Thracians are hot-blooded and had much to avenge, but I would not remain at their head except with their promise to acquiesce in my decisions. Balancing Pannonia against Scythia in this way, we have passed through a year of national life, although Scythia refuses to recognise us, and has worked upon our suzerain, Roum, to withhold from us up to the present time the right we claim of choosing our own form of government.”

“Then, if that right were conceded, you would proclaim a republic?”

“Certainly not, milord. I myself might approve of such a step theoretically, but our people are not ripe for it, and not only Scythia, but Pannonia and the other friendly or neutral Powers, would be alienated by the idea. I look around me on the present chaotic state of the country, at the new Thracia which is rising out of the ruins of the old, and I see that it would be impossible for any man popularly elected to introduce the necessary reforms unless he were guaranteed dictatorial powers for a term of years; and for this we cannot hope. In spite of our marvellous success hitherto, we are not perfect, nor even unanimous, and there are many divisions and jealousies among us.”

“It shows great self-abnegation on your part to give up the idea of a republic,” said Usk, “for you yourself would be the only possible President.”

“I fear you rate my moral qualities too highly, milord. The presidency would not be a bed of roses. Even as matters now stand, my life has already been attempted three times, and if I were President, Scythia would never rest until she had—well, brought about my removal, and had plunged Thracia into such a state of anarchy as might seem to justify her in the sight of Europe in interfering to restore order. Besides, I am a Thracian, one of the people, and they need some one who is above them and outside them to rule them at present. This is the reason why we are seeking to re-establish the monarchy on a constitutional basis. This is the reason why I have come to England to offer the crown of Thracia to you, Milord Usk.”

“Come to offer the crown to me!” repeated Usk, stupidly.

“I will not disguise from you, milord,” said M. Drakovics, bringing his head very close to his hearer’s, and speaking low and earnestly, “that we have made many attempts to obtain a king from the different reigning families of Europe. It was at first our great hope that we might secure one of the younger members of the English royal house, but this honour has been absolutely refused to us, and it was the same with several German princely families. We offered the crown to Prince Otto Georg of Schwarzwald-Molzau, the King of Mœsia’s cousin, whose family were willing that he should accept it, but he considered that the kingdom was likely to be too troublesome to be agreeable. We had even thought of a French prince, but there is the religious difficulty——”

“But I do not belong to the Greek Church, and I have no intention of joining it,” interrupted Usk.

“We could accept a Protestant, milord, but a Roman Catholic would be impossible.”

“But I am not even remotely connected with royalty,” objected Usk again.

“It is the boast of you English nobles that you are on a level with any of the princely houses of the Continent that are not absolutely royal,” said M. Drakovics, “and you are far richer.”

“Not our family, at any rate,” said Usk, with a shrug. “But I have had no experience in governing. Why don’t you ask some one who has been Viceroy of India or Lord Lieutenant of Ireland?”

“Because they are old, milord, and you are young: our young nation needs a young man at its head. But you are not a novice in the affairs of State. Who is so fit to introduce constitutional principles into Thracia as a member of the British House of Commons—one, moreover, who has shown himself friendly to any reasonable reform judiciously and fairly carried out? Nor would you find the actual work of governing a very difficult matter. I, who have been said to be the Revolution, am now the Government. I make the laws, and then commend them to the people, and this would continue to be the case as long as I was so happy as to retain your confidence, while you acted as the visible head of the Government and the sign of the unity of the nation.”

“As the figurehead, in fact?” said Usk.

“Precisely, milord.”

“But you ought to have a soldier, and I am not one.”

“You are an officer of Volunteer cavalry, and that is sufficient.”

“You seem to know a good deal about me.”

“It is natural to study deeply the history of one’s future king, milord, and you appear to be better fitted for the high post I offer you than any of the other noblemen to whom my thoughts have turned.”

“But this is absurd!” cried Usk. “You must know that I should not be allowed to entertain such an idea for a moment. Our Government would put a stop to it instantly. It would be high treason, treaty-breaking—I don’t know what.”

“The matter is a secret, milord. Once in Thracia, and crowned, your Government could scarcely bring you back.”

“Do you expect me to give up my own country—make myself an outlaw, in fact—for the sake of your precious Thracia?”

“Yes, milord,” said M. Drakovics, steadily, “that is what I do expect. You are the very man for us—by reason of your personal advantages especially. Our people worship tall fair men, for they recall to them the heroes of their legends. Then you are descended from a great house of warriors. Milord your father fought in the Crimea, your grandfather at Waterloo, and your great-uncle was killed fighting in the cause of Greek Independence. Again, you are unmarried, but yet you do not share the tastes of our late lamented sovereign, King Peter Franza, and you would thus be able to consolidate your dynasty and strengthen your kingdom by an advantageous matrimonial alliance.”

“That is not the way in which English people are accustomed to look at marriage,” said Usk, coldly.

“It is the way in which a patriotic king looks at the subject, milord. I am making no effort to disguise from you the drawbacks of the great position I offer you. We do not want a pleasure-seeker, but one who will be a martyr, if need be. We require a man who will give up his country, his friends, his own happiness—who will be ready either to live or to die for this Thracia of ours, which we have saved from Scythia and the Franzas.”

M. Drakovics saw that his words had at last produced something of the effect he desired. Usk’s head was lifted proudly, and the light of battle shone in his eyes, but his response was disappointing.

“I will consider the question,” he said.

“Give me your promise, milord. Why should you hesitate? You are not thinking of palaces and the probable length of your Civil List, I know, so why not let me feel happy in the certainty that my country’s future is assured?”

“I must consult my father. He has a right to be told.”

“Come back to Thracia with me, and be crowned, and then tell him. He will be glad to be spared the trouble of advising you.”

“No, it would not be fair to him. I will let you know some time to-morrow. Good night,” and he left the room before M. Drakovics could stop him or even say anything further. His impulse was to get out of the house at once, and cool his heated brain by walking back to his lodgings, but he did not like to leave without bidding farewell to Mrs Sadleir. Entering the drawing-room in search of her, he was accosted by a man whom he knew slightly as connected in some way with the ‘Daily Chronograph.’

“Nasty sell for you, wasn’t it?” he remarked. Usk stared at him blankly.

“I don’t know what you mean,” he said.

“Why, this afternoon—about that Bill of yours. Have you forgotten it already?”

“Oh—my Bill,” repeated Usk, vaguely. “I have been thinking of—of other things since then. Excuse me, I can’t stay.”

“He looks perfectly dazed,” said the other man to himself. “What can it be? Has some girl chucked him? No! who’s that talking to Mrs Sadleir? Drakovics, no less!”

He made his way towards his hostess, arriving just in time to hear her farewell to Usk.

“Perhaps you will have something to tell me to-morrow, Usk. If so, look in about three o’clock. I shall be quite alone.”

“Nuts!” muttered the journalist. Then aloud to Mrs Sadleir he added, “Surely I saw our old friend Drakovics here just now?”

“Yes, he is here to-night,” said the hostess. “We don’t make a fuss about our foreign guests nowadays, and have receptions at Trentham House and public festivities for them, you see. They come and go quietly.”

“Still looking for a king, eh? He has come to England to try and get hold of the latest royal infant as a ruler for his one-horse State, hasn’t he?”

Clever woman though she was, Mrs Sadleir could occasionally be “drawn,” and this the ‘Chronograph’ man knew well. She smiled now significantly as she answered—

“No, I really don’t think he has designs on the Princess’s baby this time. What, must you go?”

Indeed he must, post-haste to the ‘Chronograph’ office, bearing news which set editor, foreign editor, sub-editor, and printer frantically to work altering and cutting and curtailing the copy already set up in such a way as to provide room for a column with startling headlines:—

“THE BALKAN QUESTION.
RECONSTRUCTION OF THE THRACIAN MONARCHY.
ROMANTIC CHOICE OF A KING.
CROWN OFFERED TO AN ENGLISH NOBLEMAN.
INTERVIEW WITH VISCOUNT USK, M.P.”

In justice to the journalist, it must be said that the account of the “interview” was very short, consisting chiefly of the true statement that Lord Usk had kept his own counsel and declined to discuss the subject; but the foreign editor and his subordinates supplied a concise account of Thracia and its history and revolution to fill up the space, and to gratify the interest and curiosity of the British public, which developed both these qualities very largely on the morrow.

Usk was not a subscriber to the ‘Daily Chronograph,’ and his man-servant, who was, knew his duty far too well to put any questions to his master in the morning, although there was a flutter of pleased excitement diversifying his usual sober demeanour, which Usk noticed with a feeling of miserable surprise.

“Very likely I talked in my sleep,” he said to himself, conscious of having spent a troubled night, and then he mapped out his plan of operations for the day. The morning must be spent at the House of Commons, where he was serving on an important Committee, but in the afternoon he would run down into Kent, to the country-house at which his father was staying, and tell Lord Caerleon all about M. Drakovics and his offer. Having arrived at this decision, he drove to the House without meeting any of his acquaintances, and did his best to concentrate his mind on the work of the Committee, although he could not help glancing furtively at Mr Forfar, who was stretching his long length a few seats from him, and wondering what he would say if he knew the honour which the Thracian Government was desirous of conferring upon his supporter. As it chanced, Mr Forfar had happened to glance at the ‘Chronograph’ before coming down to the House, and was now asking himself languidly whether it was Usk or the editor who had suddenly gone mad, but this Usk did not know. That the secret of his proposed elevation was not confined to himself, however, he discovered as he left the committee-room, when one of his friends rushed past him in a hurry.

“Been reading a lot of lies in the ‘Chronograph’ about you, Usk,” he cried cheerfully. “What rot those newspaper fellows will put in sometimes!”

Then it had got about already! Usk was literally unable to muster up the necessary courage to go and look at the paper, and as he quitted the House he felt guiltily that the members he met turned to look at him, and that the policemen who had the advantage of knowing him by sight were reaping a golden harvest for pointing him out to eager and ignorant questioners. He wanted to see what the ‘Chronograph’ said about him, and to know how it had gained its information, but it seemed much too barefaced a proceeding to walk into a shop and buy a copy. He would go home, and send his servant out to get one. But when he reached his lodgings he found that this was unnecessary. In the arm-chair in his sitting-room sat his father, with a copy of the delinquent journal in his hand.

“Well, Usk,” said Lord Caerleon, “good morning. May I ask whether this is true?” and he held out the paper, which was folded in such a way as to exhibit the headlines to the best advantage.

“I don’t know what they say there,” returned Usk, “but it’s true that Drakovics invited me last night to become King of Thracia. He said he came to England on purpose.”

“Ah!” said Lord Caerleon, meditatively. “Seen Cyril this morning?”

“No,” said Usk, surprised by the sudden question.

“Well, I have, and I can tell you what he is doing now. He is going about with my authority contradicting this report, and talking big about libel actions against the ‘Daily Chronograph.’”

“That strikes one as rather premature, doesn’t it?” said Usk, and his father knew by his tone that he was not pleased.

“It has got that appearance,” he said quickly, “but these things spread so fast, and it had to be stopped before it brought you into trouble. Look here, Usk, I want you to give this thing up, and I’ll tell you my reasons.”

“Yes, sir?” and Usk prepared himself to listen.

“Well, the first is that I’m an old man, and I can’t do without you. My father’s elder brother, your great-uncle, went off to fight for Greece, as you know, and never came back. I can’t give you up for that sort of thing at my age. Is that enough for you, Usk?”

“Certainly, if you put it in that way.”

Lord Caerleon’s eyes glistened, but he went on gruffly enough.

“My second reason is that you are not the man for it. Oh, I know that you would look the part all right, and do your utmost to make the thing a success, but there’s more worldly wisdom in Cyril’s little finger than in your whole body. If the fools had only thought of offering the crown to him, he would be at the head of a Balkan Confederacy in a month, but you—— The fact is, Usk, you are too English—you don’t know when you’re beaten. Instead of taking a licking quietly, you are up again as soon as you come to, and fighting with all the breath knocked out of you. As for Cyril, he will have made it up with the other chap after the first round, and started ahead to choose his own ground, ready for another fight when it’s necessary, and that time Cyril will win.”

“Shall I advise Drakovics to transfer his offer to Cyril, then?”

“Certainly not. I don’t intend to subsidise a bankrupt Balkan State out of my rents, and I have no wish that you should be obliged to do it either. Cyril will come to smash quite soon enough without a crown to drag him down. He is so sharp that he is bound to go too far some day. No, Usk, you are the man for it if there was a fair field, but there isn’t, and I can’t stand your going off and being shot or dynamited by Scythian agents.”

“But Mrs Sadleir must have known what Drakovics wanted, and yet she said nothing to dissuade me from accepting the crown.”

“I daresay not. Women are always ready to send out sons and lovers on forlorn hopes—especially other people’s sons and lovers. It requires a practical, unromantic man to look into the thing first, and decide whether the game is worth the candle. Mrs Sadleir is as sensible a woman generally as any I know, but she has not outlived her enthusiasms yet, and she is quite ready to give Thracia a king at my expense, and I don’t see it. When I’m gone, it will be a different thing. You will have only yourself to please then, but the Thracians will probably have killed or banished two or three kings, and run through a few republics, by that time. In any case, I ask you, as a favour to me, to refuse this offer now.”

“I will write to Drakovics at once,” said Usk, and he did.

CHAPTER II.
FRESH WOODS AND PASTURES NEW.

A year had passed, and the situation in Thracia remained unchanged. The search for a king initiated by M. Drakovics had not yet proved successful, but the Provisional Government was still in office, and the Thracians lived and throve under a regimen of what their enemies called autocracy washed down by draughts of rhetoric. M. Drakovics alone, against whose life two further attempts had been made, looked out ahead with troubled eyes, and yearned for the tall Englishman who had seemed likely to prove such an efficient coadjutor in his task of governing.

In England, however, the year had not been barren of changes. General Lord Caerleon slept with his fathers in the family burying-place in Llandiarmid Abbey, and Viscount Usk’s place in the House of Commons knew him no more. Misfortune seemed to dog this young man’s footsteps. Once again he had obtained leave to bring in his Bill, but it had been deliberately talked out by the Labour members in revenge for his voting against them on one of their pet questions. There was thus no help for him, and on his father’s death he was compelled to vacate his seat, and seek the serene retirement of the Upper House. Moreover, the constituents whom he was so sorry to leave did not display on this occasion the fixity of purpose with which he had always credited them, for they rejected with ignominy the candidate who inherited his principles, and chose as their representative an agitator who promised to bring in a Bill to divide the Llandiarmid domain among them in the shape of allotments.

Nor was this all, for before very long he found that even the possession of a historic house and innumerable heirlooms was not an unmixed privilege. The marquisate was by no means a rich one, for its inheritors had all indulged a reprehensible taste for investing their spare cash in works of art instead of more easily convertible securities, and the succession duty on these bade fair to ruin their unfortunate possessor. The owner of land which would not let, and of pictures which he could not sell, he found himself forced to raise the necessary money by means of mortgages on his unmanageable property, when all other means had failed. The interest on these mortgages was another important consideration, and when, after settling matters as far as possible, the new Marquis and his brother met one evening in the great hall at Llandiarmid to talk things over, the outlook was far from cheerful.

“It’s quite evident that we can’t keep up this place, Cyril,” said Caerleon. “If I could let it for a year or so, and get the house in town off my hands, I think we might just tide over the present difficulty.”

“Surely it would be enough to sell Caerleon House,” said Cyril, lazily, but with some surprise in his tone, as he sat with his arms behind his head and looked at his brother. “No one will expect you to entertain much here while you are in mourning, so you can lie low for a year or two and keep down expenses.”

“It’s not only of the actual expenses of the place this year that I am thinking,” said Caerleon, “but of the future. I want to put things right for you, Cyril, and to do that I must save.”

“Oh, don’t trouble yourself about me,” said Cyril, lightly. “I have always fallen on my feet hitherto, and I suppose you’ll find me a crust and a shake-down in your diggings, wherever they are.”

It had been a shock to Caerleon to discover, from some words his father had let fall on his deathbed, that he had made no special provision for Cyril, leaving him almost entirely dependent on his elder brother, and that this omission was due to design, and not to forgetfulness.

“I want you two to stick together,” said the old Marquis to his elder son, “and therefore I have not left Cyril anything of his own. He has your mother’s money, which will keep him from starvation, but for anything more he must come to you. He may have some consideration for your money, but he would be sure to speculate with anything that was in his own power.”

Caerleon found this utterance hard to reconcile with the high opinion his father had once expressed of Cyril’s shrewdness and worldly wisdom, and he also resented the arrangement as unfair to Cyril. What if he should desire to marry? Hence his eagerness to put matters on a more satisfactory footing.

“I am afraid that things will have to remain as they are just now,” he said; “but you may be sure that as soon as possible I shall do what I can for you.”

“Thanks, awfully,” yawned Cyril. “But what about the present? When you have succeeded in leaving yourself without any rest for the sole of your foot except your London lodgings, what do you mean to do?”

“What is there to do?” asked Caerleon. “I can do no good in the Lords, and I can’t stay in the Commons. They even take away from me the means of living on my own place——”

“And cultivating the higher faculties of your tenants, and making Llandiarmid a social centre for all the art and learning and enlightenment of the county,” said Cyril. “Well, granted all this, what then?”

“Let us go abroad,” said Caerleon, suddenly. “We haven’t had a prowl together for years, and we can sink our titles and live on the cheap.”

“By all means,” said Cyril. “Let us leave our ungrateful country, which presents our ancestors with dinner-services and swords of honour and statues and plate, which we don’t want and mustn’t sell, and makes us pay duty on them. The wide world is before us. Where shall we turn? I say, let us go to Kashmir and shoot mountain sheep, or Polar bears, or my lord the elephant, or anything we may come across.”

“Won’t do,” said Caerleon. “I should have you knocking up again, right away from all medical help. It must be somewhere nearer home.”

“Oh, let’s go to Bournemouth or Torquay, then. So cheerful, and so novel, and plenty of doctors.”

“No, I know. We will go to Hungary and look up Gyula Temeszy. He promised us some wolf-hunting if ever we came to see him.”

“Very well. I haven’t met him since he came down to Eton to see his old tutor again, and tipped me a sov. because I was your brother; but I suppose he’ll know you all right, and accept your references for my respectability. Going to write to him now?”

“Rather not. We will drop in on him and take him by surprise, and then we can loiter on the way if we like, and not rush across Europe by express. We will go quietly, and look out for adventures.”

“All right; then you intend to walk, I suppose? That means no servants, of course.”

“We won’t make any cut-and-dried plan, but go as we choose, and I don’t see why we shouldn’t tramp it occasionally, when you feel up to it. I won’t take Jameson, certainly, and I don’t think you’ll want your man. Let us take Harry Wright between us. He can turn his hand to most things, and he’ll be useful if we are obliged to get horses. We may have to ride to Temeszy’s place. I fancy there’s no railway near it.”

“I’m agreeable,” said Cyril; “and we’ll stay away until we yearn for home again, and feel able to say, ‘England, with all thy faults (and you’ve a beastly lot of them), I love thee still.’ We don’t at present.”

In this way the matter was settled, and a few days later the two brothers left Llandiarmid for London, where Caerleon did his best to make a satisfactory disposition of his rather complicated affairs, and Cyril went round to say good-bye to his lady friends. Cyril was a very popular young man in London society, where he had found a footing as soon as he left Eton. He had slipped out of sight for a short time as unpaid attaché in the British Embassy at Pavelsburg, but the Scythian winter proved too severe for him, and he was invalided home, to take up a pleasant existence about town, while assuring every one that he was only waiting until a suitable post should offer itself for his acceptance in some more genial clime. As a poverty-stricken younger son, he was free from the pursuit of the match-making mothers and daughters who had made Caerleon’s life such a burden to him. No one wanted to marry him, and, fortunately for himself, he felt no particular desire to marry any one. The part he had chosen in the Human Comedy was that of the Laughing Philosopher, and he played it with complete satisfaction to himself and to his world. He was a universal favourite among the ladies, helping the elder ones to arrange their cotillons and organise their charity bazaars, while for the younger he designed costumes for fancy balls, and was always ready to suggest new ideas for any scheme of pleasure. With men he was not quite so popular. Those who did not know him well regarded him as entirely a ladies’ man, while some few who had penetrated more deeply into his character were a little afraid of him, and half suspected him of hiding deep designs under a mask of frivolity. This was not the case, however. Cyril was fully conscious of his own powers of mind, but he had no scruple as to using them to smooth his path in society until some more important object should come in his way.

Among the many houses at which he felt compelled to declare his plans was Mrs Sadleir’s, and he breathed a sigh of relief when he found himself approaching it at the end of an afternoon of polite lamentation and playful scolding on the subject of his madness in burying his social talents among unappreciative foreigners. Mrs Sadleir was too much at home with him to waste time in unnecessary badinage. If she had anything to say, she was wont to come to the point at once, and this particular occasion proved to be no exception to the rule.

“And so you are going to Hungary, Cyril?” she said, as he came into the room, without offering him any conventional greeting. “Oh, don’t accuse me of witchcraft. I have had Caerleon here already. He dropped in between visits to his lawyer and his tailor, I believe, and he struck me as not looking at all well, poor fellow! Now, I have only one remark to make. Has it occurred to you that Hungary and Thracia are not at all far apart?”

“No, indeed,” said Cyril, with a start. “I never thought of it. And I’m certain it hasn’t struck Caerleon either—that is, unless you have put it into his head.”

“My dear Cyril,” said Mrs Sadleir, severely, “I was not born yesterday. Your poor dear father called and gave me such a scolding last year for tempting Caerleon to throw his life away in Thracia that I vowed I would never speak to either of you on the subject again, and I haven’t mentioned it to Caerleon. I merely wish to know whether you think there is any possibility that M. Drakovics’s scheme may be carried out after all?”

“Well, I don’t know,” said Cyril, reflectively. “Caerleon is in rather an ugly temper just now, for him, and I shouldn’t much wonder if he did anything foolish. The Governor is gone, you see, and it was only his expressed wish that kept him at home before.”

“Yes, I see,” returned Mrs Sadleir. “And what do you think of the matter, Cyril? On which side would your influence be thrown?”

“Well,” said Cyril, “it seems to me that it wouldn’t be bad fun to try the thing. I’m not up to larks much generally, but there’s a good deal that’s new in this one. I wouldn’t go in for it myself on any account, but I shouldn’t so much mind seeing Caerleon through. It would certainly be a new sensation, one of the few still possible for most ordinary mortals in this worn-out old world, to find oneself a king’s brother—a royalty, in fact. One hears of a few fellows who have been made kings in the Cannibal Islands, or Central Africa; but it’s not often that one gets the chance of a properly organised European kingdom. It’s not half a bad idea.”

“Then I am to understand,” said Mrs Sadleir, “that in case M. Drakovics should under any circumstances renew his offer of the crown (mind, I don’t in the least say he will, for his patriotic feelings were very much wounded by Caerleon’s refusal), your valuable advice and assistance would be cast on the side of the angels—that is, of the luckless Thracians?”

“Well,” said Cyril again, “I think the angels would get it that time. I should never think of letting Caerleon go into a job of the kind by himself; but really and truly I don’t believe he would come to such awful smash if I was there to back him up. I should make it my business to play him off against Drakovics. It isn’t healthy for that old man to get his own way to the extent he does. I am morally certain that he would very soon begin to presume if he had only Caerleon to deal with.”

“M. Drakovics ought to be very much obliged to you. I almost think it is my duty to warn him of your intentions. You know that I correspond with him occasionally? But really, Cyril, I scarcely think that it would be possible for you and Caerleon to reign together in the affectionate way you suggest, like the two kings of Barataria.”

“Or the Heavenly Twins,” said Cyril. “No, of course I mean the Siamese Twins. I’m afraid the kingdom would hardly support the double honour. No, Mrs Sadleir, my ambition is a much higher one. I mean to be the power behind the throne.”

“But that is M. Drakovics’s destined place,” objected Mrs Sadleir.

“Then I shall be the man behind Drakovics,” said Cyril, calmly.

“I don’t know that I am justified in letting a firebrand like you loose upon Thracia,” said Mrs Sadleir; “but M. Drakovics knows something about your family, and if he chooses to take Caerleon with such an encumbrance, it will be his own doing. You don’t know M. Drakovics, do you, Cyril? Well, I will give you a letter of introduction to him if you like—only to be delivered if you visit Thracia, of course. When you have had a little time in Hungary, you will be able to judge better of Caerleon’s state of mind, and to see whether he is inclined to give the kingdom a trial. If so, extend your travels into Thracia, and deliver the letter. Here it is. I have been writing it this afternoon.”

“Rather previous, surely?” asked Cyril, with uplifted eyebrows; but he took the letter readily enough, putting it into his safest pocket, and it was packed carefully among his most treasured possessions when he and his brother started on their journey, an event which was announced to the world in the stereotyped terms by the ‘Morning Post’:—

“The Marquis of Caerleon and Lord Cyril Mortimer left England yesterday afternoon for the Continent, with the intention of undertaking an extended tour in Eastern Europe.”

Thanks to Caerleon’s foresight in not sending word to his friend of their intended visit to Hungary, the tour was carried on in a very leisurely fashion indeed, and the brothers lounged through Europe, to use Cyril’s phrase, by unfrequented routes, spending now a day and now a week in old half-deserted towns, left high and dry by the stream of modern progress. There was nothing very inspiriting in such travelling to men who were neither antiquarians nor photographic maniacs; but Caerleon had a vague idea that he was improving his mind by visiting the scenes made famous by old German history, while Cyril was as well content to put in his time on the Continent in this way as in another. The person who suffered most was Wright, the groom, who found himself debarred in most places from communion with his kind owing to his ignorance of the language, and he rejoiced unfeignedly when the course of his masters’ wanderings brought them at last to Janoszwar, the town that lay nearest to Count Gyula Temeszy’s castle.

Janoszwar was reached late one evening, and the travellers looked about them in some dismay as they drove to the hotel which had been recommended to them by some tourists they had met at Szegedin as the only one at which it was possible for English people to stay. The town was very small, and almost incredibly dirty, while, to put the finishing touch to their discomfiture, they found on arriving that they could not be received at the hotel. Its accommodation was extremely limited at the best of times, and at present all the rooms were in the occupation of the family of a Scythian officer of high rank, who was visiting the town for the sake of the mineral springs in its neighbourhood. This the landlord, a Hungarian who had spent several years in America, explained volubly and sorrowfully, and invited his intending guests to depart at once. But Cyril was very tired, and Caerleon, fearing that he might be going to fall ill again, tried to parley, pointing out that it was impossible for them to drive on eighteen miles farther to the Château Temeszy that night, and offering double the usual prices for the necessary accommodation. Still the landlord remained firm (though with deepening regret, as recognising that he had to deal with wealthy English milords), declaring that the Herr Oberst had assured him he would leave instantly if any other guests were admitted into the hotel. There seemed to be nothing to do but to seek some other resting-place, and Caerleon was just returning to the carriage in despair, when a white-haired man came slowly down the outer staircase of the inn, leaning heavily on a stick.

“Here is the gracious Herr Oberst himself!” said the landlord; and Cyril, who had been acting as his brother’s interpreter for the worthy man’s Hungarian German and even less intelligible English, prepared to address the new-comer in Scythian, but this proved unnecessary.

“Sure I thought I heard English voices,” said the Herr Oberst, “and it struck me that the landlord might be following too rigorously the orders I gave um. The fact is, gentlemen, that most of the people rich enough to travel in these parts are Austrian Jews, and me wife has a great objection to Jews, so that the only way I could get her here was by engaging to keep out of their reach. But I can assure you that I had no desire to inconvenience English travellers—— You are English, gentlemen?”

“We are,” said Caerleon. “I am Lord Caerleon, and this is my brother.”

“I am much honoured, me lord,” said the Herr Oberst, bowing deeply. “Allow me to introjuce meself. Me name is O’Malachy—The O’Malachy, at your servus, the representatuv of the ancient kings of Leitrum,—and I will be much displeased if you go a step farther to-night. Sure me son has not yet arrived, and what does me daughter want with two rooms? We’ll just tell some of the landlord’s fellers to bundle our traps out of the rooms, and you will have them.”

“Pray don’t disturb Miss O’Malachy,” entreated Caerleon in consternation. “I could not think of turning a lady out of her room. If you would be so kind as to allow my brother to occupy the room your son is not using, my servant and I will find quarters elsewhere.”

“Not a bit of ut!” cried the O’Malachy. “Would I turn you away when there are empty rooms waiting for you? Come, young gentleman,” turning to Cyril, “just make your brother understand that if he won’t stay he’ll oblige us all to turn out and leave the place free for um. Is not a whole hotel big enough for two families?”

“You are very kind,” began Caerleon. But the O’Malachy was in full retreat up the stairs again. At the top he turned and paused for a moment, the lamplight shining on his bronzed face and white moustache and imperial.

“A good night to you!” he called out. “I’ll be pleased to resoom your acquaintance in the morning, me lord. Now, you don’t leave this hotel—at least, it’ll be the worse for ut if you do!”

After this hospitable intimation, the travellers held back no longer, and speedily found themselves established in most comfortable quarters, for the landlord was delighted not to be compelled to turn away such promising guests from his door. Nothing was too good for them, and they went to bed well content, after commissioning the host to procure horses in the morning for their intended ride to Château Temeszy.

In the morning, then, they started on this last stage of their journey, leaving Wright at the hotel with the luggage until it could be sent for, and bidding a grateful farewell to the O’Malachy, who was smoking a wonderful cigar on the balcony over the door. The ride was a long one, and the roads very bad, but Caerleon had brought a map of the district in his pocket, and with its aid they succeeded in finding their way. But when they reached the castle disappointment awaited them. Everything was shut up, and the only person in authority was an aged steward, who informed them that Count Temeszy Gyula (putting the surname first in true Hungarian fashion) was in Paris, and the rest of the family at Vienna. The English gentlemen might inspect the castle and the stables while a meal was being prepared for them, the best possible at such short notice, but the old man could not venture to invite them to take up their quarters in the house without instructions from his master. It was also possible that the Count’s foresters might organise a wolf-hunt one day for the strangers’ benefit, but it would still be best for them to return to Janoszwar until Count Gyula could be communicated with.

“I didn’t know that we were such suspicious-looking characters,” grumbled Cyril after lunch, as they mounted their horses to retrace their weary way.

“And we shall have to quarter ourselves upon the O’Malachy again,” responded Caerleon. “That’s what I hate. It looks such a shabby thing to do.”

But when they reached the hotel they found their rooms ready, and the landlord and Wright expecting them.

“The old gentleman up-stairs tell us to look out for you, my lord,” said the latter to his master. “’E said as you’d most likely be comin’ back about this time.”

“Did the O’Malachy know that Temeszy was away when we started?” asked Caerleon of Cyril as they sat at dinner.

“Don’t know,” said Cyril. “Perhaps he thought you looked as though a ride would do you good. He seems a decent enough old chap, anyhow. His wife is a Scythian lady, Wright tells me.”

“Oh, by the bye, that reminds me,” said Caerleon; “we must call to-morrow. I’ll tell Wright to hunt up our visiting-cards, and we’ll do the thing in style.”

But Caerleon and his brother were not destined to make the acquaintance of the O’Malachy’s family in the orthodox fashion they had contemplated, for in the morning, as they breakfasted, they heard excited voices outside their door. They had just decided that it would not do to pay their call until the afternoon, and that the morning might profitably be spent in climbing one of the mountains which surrounded the little town, and Cyril, who was not devoid of curiosity, thought that the present would be a good opportunity of consulting the landlord as to the best way to take. Opening the door, therefore, he stepped out casually, to find the landlord, his wife, and the servants engaged in an animated colloquy with a very handsome lady in an elaborate dressing-gown, who was standing on the outer stair and talking French and German alternately.

“You tell me that she is gone?” she was saying. “But no! I say it is impossible. She would be terrified.”

“There is no danger, madame,” suggested the landlord, soothingly; “and no doubt the gracious young lady knows this.”

“No danger!” cried madame, vivaciously. “When there may at this very moment be wolves, brigands, avalanches, menacing my child? What though she does think she is safe? Her very confidence may be her greatest danger. She must be followed—rescued—immediately.”

“I assure you, madame, that mademoiselle is perfectly safe,” repeated the landlord. Madame wrung her hands.

“My excellent man, how can you understand a mother’s feelings? I tell you my daughter must be rescued. If there is no one else, I will go myself, although I have never walked a mile in my life, and the Herr Oberst is quite helpless with his gout.”

“It is unnecessary for madame to incommode herself,” said the landlord, sulkily. “If she insists upon it, two of the men shall go, although it is absolutely impossible to spare them from the farm.”

“Naturally I insist upon it,” returned madame. “What is your farm to me? The men shall be paid. Send them off at once. If only there was some friend near who might help us!”

“Pardon me, madame,” said Caerleon, coming forward. He had been listening in bewilderment to the colloquy over Cyril’s shoulder, and picking up snatches of what was said. “I think I have the honour of addressing Madame O’Malachy? Can my brother and I be of any assistance to you?”

“My dear sir,” said madame, with a charming smile, “I am ashamed to trouble you, but you would confer the greatest possible favour on my husband and myself if you would be so good as to help us. My daughter is a headstrong child, and she has started off early this morning to visit the sick daughter of a huntsman in the mountains. To ask you to give up your own concerns on account of the whim of a foolish girl is too bad, and yet I have no one else to send.”

“We shall be delighted if we can be of any use,” said Caerleon. “Do I understand that you would like us to meet Mademoiselle O’Malachy and bring her home? We were intending to spend the morning in the mountains, so that we shall not even need to change our plans.”

“Monsieur is too good,” returned Madame O’Malachy. “I am desolated to be obliged to incommode him in this way, but my daughter has always lived in the country with her godmother, and knows nothing of the dangers which beset a young girl alone.”

“Still, madame,” put in Cyril, “one can have nothing but admiration for the philanthropic instinct which has prompted mademoiselle to set out by herself to relieve a sick girl.”

“You are too amiable, monsieur,” said madame. “My daughter is dévote, what you call ‘religious,’ and this characteristic makes a great deal of trouble for herself and for other people. But behold me only half-dressed!” and madame became suddenly aware that her abundant dark hair, scarcely yet tinged with grey, was coiled negligently in a loose knot on her neck; “pardon me, gentlemen, and remember my anxiety. Pray scold my daughter well when you find her. Au revoir!” and she retreated up-stairs.

“Pleasant woman, Madame O’Malachy,” Caerleon remarked to Cyril when they had obtained directions from the landlord as to the exact situation of the huntsman’s cottage, and had started on their walk, “but I can’t quite make her out.”

“Can’t you?” said Cyril. “I can. I’ve met too many of her before.”

“She seemed so very anxious and excited,” went on Caerleon, pursuing his own train of thought, “and yet she doesn’t appear to care much for her daughter.”

“Not a scrap!” said Cyril, emphatically. “Rather hates her than otherwise, I should say, from her tone. Fact is, either she particularly wants the hotel to herself to-day, or she wishes to throw one of us, presumably you, into the society of the young lady. Well, forewarned is forearmed.”

“But it couldn’t have been all humbug. She wouldn’t have shown up in that costume if she hadn’t been really anxious.”

“That costume!” said Cyril. “I’m as sure as that I’m here that every hair of that coil was arranged with an eye to its effect on us.”

“But she came down in a dressing-gown.”

“Yes, but what kind of dressing-gown? When a Scythian lady, and still more a Sarmatian,—and there’s a good deal more of the Sarmatian than the Scythian about our fair friend,—shows up in a dressing-gown, you may be pretty sure that it’s a court-dress rather differently made. Madame knows how to dress her part to the letter.”

Caerleon only grunted in answer to this, and they went on in silence for some time. The path was steep, and Cyril found that climbing took all the breath he had to spare.

“How much farther now to the top?” he asked at last, when they reached a sheltered nook in the hillside where a few pine-trees nestled.

“A good two miles yet,” said Caerleon, looking back on the way they had come.

“Then I give in,” said Cyril, resolutely, sitting down on a rock. “I’m about done, and I shall leave the further chase of this young person to you. Ten to one but she’ll come down some other way when you are gone on to the hut, and I shall get hold of her first and give her a good lecture.”

“Lecture a strange girl?”

“Rather! I shall say, ‘My young friend, to try and thrust your schoolmistress’s views on papa and mamma is not religion, but self-will, and to emphasise them by running off like this is not heroic, but bad-tempered.’”

“All right; I wish you luck. If mademoiselle has a tongue anything like her mamma’s, you will be pretty well pulverised by the time I come back. Well, I’m off. See you again in an hour.”

CHAPTER III.
“IF THOU WERT KIND AS THOU ART FAIR——”

Leaving his brother to contemplate the beauties of nature under the shade of the pines, Caerleon walked on, finding his progress much more rapid than it had been when Cyril was his companion, and arrived before very long at a point from which he was able to descry the huntsman’s cottage, built under the shelter of a towering crag. Pausing for a moment to determine which of two paths now before him would be more likely to lead him directly towards it, he heard footsteps above him, and presently a lady came in sight round a turning in the right-hand path. Tall and slight, she wore a plain tweed dress and felt hat, and the trim neatness of her appearance struck Caerleon as most refreshing after the alternate dowdiness and magnificence of many of the Austrian belles he had come across. It did not occur to him at first that this stately lady could be the hoydenish little Scythian schoolgirl of whom he was in search, but presently it struck him as unlikely that two young ladies would be wandering alone in the mountains on the same day, and he advanced to meet the girl.

“Excuse me,” he said, taking off his cap, “but have I the honour of speaking to Mdlle. O’Malachy?”

“I am Nadia O’Malachy,” she replied, looking at him with an expression in which he read surprise not wholly unmixed with resentment. He noticed that her eyes were large and grey, and that her wavy dark hair grew low on her brow. She spoke English readily, but with a slight foreign accent.

“I must ask you to forgive me for stopping you in this way,” said Caerleon, wishing to disarm her evident suspicion, “but the fact is that Madame O’Malachy was very anxious about you, and I promised to see you safely back to the hotel.”

“My mother sent you after me?” she said quickly. “It was quite unnecessary. Pray continue your walk.”

“The object of my walk is achieved,” said Caerleon. “I have only to return.”

“I have told you,” said the girl, with angry dignity, “that I do not desire your company.”

Caerleon laughed inwardly. The walk seemed to promise some amusement. “And I regret, mademoiselle,” he said, “that having promised to see you home, I must do it. I will walk behind you, if you prefer it.”

“Oh no,” said Mdlle. O’Malachy, pointing to the path beside her with an imperious gesture, “I do not wish to insult you. You consider yourself a gentleman. I took you for one.”

She walked on by his side, apparently expecting a retort, but he maintained a resolute silence, although secretly convulsed by the contrast between the intention she expressed and the words which followed it. Suddenly, to his surprise, she turned to him.

“I beg your pardon. I ought not to have said that. I was wrong.”

“Pray don’t apologise,” said Caerleon. “I am here only as your mother’s messenger, and I quite understand that you find my presence disagreeable, and that I can’t expect you to consider my feelings.”

“I do not consider them,” she retorted. “I apologised because it was right to do it when I had been rude.”

“As a punishment to yourself?” asked Caerleon, much amused.

“Certainly not,” she answered. “As a means of self-discipline.”

“I see—and a punishment to me?”

“By no means. Why should I punish you? What you do has no interest for me. Oh, I beg your pardon. That was rude again.”

“Not at all. But I am interested in your self-disciplinary system. Do you mind explaining it a little more fully? I think I ought to hear something about it, you know, since I have to suffer from it.”

“Now she’s going to flare up again,” he thought, as his companion turned and glared at him, but the anger faded out of her eyes as he looked at her in calm expectancy.

“It is a just rebuke,” she said, in a low voice. “I will tell you, although I do not care to speak of myself, but it will be a good punishment for me, as you say. My godmother, with whom I have always lived until lately, used to encourage me to self-denial when I was a child, saying that one could never rise to the height of a great renunciation unless one trained oneself for it by means of constant smaller ones. As I grew older, the principle seemed to me so excellent that I have followed it in other things.—When you were little, did you never hold your hand in the flame of the candle to try and find out whether you could be a martyr?”

“No,” said Caerleon; “I have often done it, but I am afraid it was because I was told not to.”

“Well, I have done it—often. And so with other things. I discovered in myself a strong tendency to insincerity, and fearing to yield to it, I made it a duty never to let politeness or the desire to please keep me from saying what I thought. How dreadful it would be to fail in truthfulness at some great crisis on account of a long course of petty hypocrisies! But I found that this made me appear rude, and I am very proud, and did not like to confess myself in the wrong. So here was another opportunity for self-discipline, and I resolved to let nothing prevent me from instantly asking pardon of any one I had offended in this way.”

“I see—without regard to that person’s feelings. And may I ask whether Madame—your godmother—pursues the same system?”

“My godmother is Princess Soudaroff. No; she does not need it, she is too good. Her life is given up to working among the poor. Her house is an asylum for the wretched. She loves every one, is kind to every one.”

“And she has impressed her views upon you, has she? Did I understand you to say that she brought you up?”

“Yes; she pitied the life I led with my parents, and she adopted me as her own. She gave me everything I could need, and provided excellent teachers for me; but, best of all, she allowed me to help her in her work. Sometimes we lived at her country house, and worked among the peasants, and sometimes in Pavelsburg, and then our work lay among the poorest of the poor. Oh, what a life it was! She cares for body and soul alike. The hospitals and prisons are visited, Bible-classes, sewing-classes held; drunkards reached, young girls away from home befriended and taken care of. To be in trouble or in loneliness—that gives you claim enough upon my Princess.”

“I didn’t know that you went in for all this kind of thing in Scythia,” said Caerleon. “It’s not quite one’s idea of the Greek Church, somehow.”

“But we are Evangelicals; we are separated,” said the girl, eagerly. “They say we are heretics,—Non-conformists, I think you call it in England,—and they persecute us. My godmother has often been in danger of exile, but something has always happened to save her. She has no fear at all.”

“Only for you, perhaps. I suppose the reason you are here is that she sent you away when danger threatened. You didn’t leave her, I am sure.”

“Not of my own free will, never! My mother sent for me; but not on account of any danger. She gave me up willingly enough when I was of no use to her, but now she thinks that I am old enough to be of assistance. Assistance to her!”

“I daresay it is better for you, after all, than your life with Princess Soudaroff,” said Caerleon, judicially. “We can’t always have what we like, you know, and it doesn’t look well for a girl to be unable to get on with her mother.”

“How dare you say that?” she cried, turning upon him again. “What do you know of my circumstances? Do you think I have not tried, longed, agonised to honour my father and mother? but I will not help them in their work. Don’t talk to me of the look of things until you know something about them. Oh, I beg——”

“Excuse me,” said Caerleon, quickly, “but if you have to apologise to me again, do you mind turning your head away, and doing it in a whisper? The effect on yourself would be the same, and it would spare my feelings.”

“You are a scoffer!” said Mdlle. O’Malachy, sharply.

“I hope not; but I am afraid that your apologies will get on my nerves.”

“Your nerves?” she looked him up and down, and then laughed. “You don’t suffer from nerves?”

“You don’t know how wearing it is to be always looking out for apologies—and getting them.”

“But why should it affect your nerves? You are English, you do not drink absinthe?” She was still looking him over in the light of a curious medical problem, and her tone was full of interest.

“I hope you don’t intend to catechise me upon my private vices,” said Caerleon, hastily. “What I said was only in joke. I don’t know what nerves are.”

“A joke?” Evidently it had not occurred to her that any one could take such a liberty on such short acquaintance. “But I do not even know your name, sir.”

“And is it necessary to know a man’s name before he may make a joke in conversation with you?” asked Caerleon, laughing, but she did not hear him.

“I know you must be one of the English noblemen who are staying in the hotel, and you cannot be the brother—he is small and delicate, my father said so. You are, then, the pretender?”

“The pretender?” asked Caerleon in astonishment.

“I beg your pardon—I should have remembered that the word has a worse meaning in English than in French. The aspirant, I should say—the aspirant to the throne of Thracia?”

“Well, I was, a year ago; or rather the throne of Thracia aspired to me. I refused it, you know.”

“I remember; I was sorry. But you are going to accept it now?”

“Now? I don’t know what you mean. I haven’t a thought of it.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Here? in Hungary? To visit my friend, Count Temeszy.”

“But you are on your way to Thracia?”

“I assure you I am not. What can have put it into your head?”

“Every one thinks so. My parents quite believe it—and so do others.”

“Then they are mistaken, that’s all.”

“But why do you stay here, since Count Temeszy is away? You leave soon?”

“Not that I know of. Why should we?”

“Sir,” her voice was very earnest, “will you be angry if I give you a warning? If there is no special reason to keep you here, do not remain. My father is not—is not a good friend for young men.”

“A card-sharper, of course!” was the thought that darted through Caerleon’s mind. “It’s good of her to tell me, poor girl!” Aloud he added, “Thank you for your warning, mademoiselle. Perhaps you would be so kind as to mention to your father that I don’t carry the revenues of Thracia about with me.”

“You won’t understand,” cried the girl, passionately; “it is nothing about money. Consider what political disturbances your acceptance of the crown might bring about, and that there are those who will suspect you of desiring to provoke them so long as you remain in this part of Europe, however innocent your motives may be. I remember that when the crown was offered to you last year, the affair was much discussed in our circle. I myself heard Count Wratisloff say in my godmother’s drawing-room, ‘Here is the peace of Europe hanging upon the caprice of a boy!’”

“I am much obliged to him,” said Caerleon, grimly.

“Now I have offended you again. I am sorry. Count Wratisloff is a man who speaks a little emphatically sometimes, but he had no intention of being unkind. He prayed for you himself at our prayer-meeting the next day.”

“Very kind of him, I’m sure. I suppose he prayed that I might refuse the crown?”

“Oh no. How could he pretend to regulate the course of public affairs? If the time is come for a great European war, who can prevent it? He prayed that all might happen for the best.”

“Then you and your circle are fatalists, mademoiselle?”

“Surely not. ‘What will be, will be’—that is what the fatalists say, is it not?” she looked at him inquiringly. “But what we say is, ‘What will be, must be for the best.’”

“But why pray about it, then?” asked Caerleon, interested by this frank confession of faith.

“That we may be brought to believe that it is so when we cannot see it,” she answered, in a low voice; and although Caerleon would willingly have pursued the subject, a turn in the path here brought them in sight of Cyril, and there was no further opportunity for private conversation. During the rest of the way home they spoke chiefly of temperance work, Mdlle. O’Malachy recounting incidents from her experience among Princess Soudaroff’s protégés, and Caerleon replying with reminiscences of the various abortive attempts at restrictive legislation which he had supported in his House of Commons days, while Cyril listened and smiled with lofty contempt.

“Here we are,” he said at last, with undisguised relief, “and here is your father coming to meet us, mademoiselle.”

“Naughty girl!” cried the O’Malachy, shaking his fist playfully at his daughter. “I hope you’ve given trouble enough to us and to these gentlemen? There’s your mother waiting for you on the balcony. Go and settle ut with her yourself. Me lord, I can’t tell you how grateful I am to you and to Lord Cyrul for your goodnuss to-day. Me wife is very nervous, but you have been most kind in relieving her anxiety. May I hope that you will give us the pleasure of your company at dinner this evening? Madame O’Malachy will like to thank you herself.”

“You are very kind,” said Caerleon. “We were hoping to call this afternoon——”

“Call!” cried the O’Malachy in high contempt. “Would you talk about calling in this wildernuss? Come to-night, and we’ll be delightud to see you.”

The invitation was accepted with suitable gratitude, and the O’Malachy returned to his wife and daughter, while Caerleon and Cyril sought their own quarters. Lunch was rather a silent ceremony, for Caerleon felt an unaccountable aversion to detailing to his brother his conversation with Nadia O’Malachy.

“Not going out again, surely?” said Cyril, when the meal was over, and Caerleon took up his cap from the window-seat.

“I want a smoke.”

“Well, there are no ladies here, thank goodness! Sit down and smoke like a reasonable human being.”

“No, I want a walk.”

“I should have thought you had had walking enough for one day,” grumbled Cyril, but Caerleon was already outside, and he was obliged to address the remainder of his complaint to his cigar. “He walks with her all morning, does he? and then goes out again to think about her? I ought to have foreseen this. That’s the drawback of the kind of life we’ve been leading for a man of Caerleon’s stamp. He’s scarcely spoken to a lady since the Governor died, and now the first decent-looking girl he meets bowls him over at once. What a blessing it is that I’m not susceptible!”

Caerleon’s walk lasted for over two hours, and Cyril, with a telegram in his hand, was awaiting him impatiently when he returned.

“Back at last!” he said. “Do see what this is. It may be to summon us home about something, or it may be from Temeszy.”

“It is from Temeszy,” said Caerleon, opening it. “The steward must have telegraphed to him yesterday as soon as we were gone. He has business in Paris which will keep him there for more than a month, but he wants us to take up our quarters at the castle, ride his horses, hunt his wolves, or whatever else in the way of game there may be about, and so on—in fact, use the house as if it was our own.”

“Well, what do you think?” asked Cyril.

“If you ask me,” said Caerleon, slowly, “I think that we might as well have stayed at Llandiarmid as bury ourselves out there without Temeszy or any one to speak to.”

“I see,” said Cyril. “You mean to stay on here for the present, then?”

“Yes, I think we might.”

“But you forget that Mr or M. O’Malachy is coming back. What is one to call a fellow who has an Irish father and a Sarmatian mother, and has been brought up abroad? But anyhow, he is coming, and we have got his room.”

“I forgot that,” said Caerleon, rather crestfallen. “We must find out to-night when he is expected. There’s no need to leave until he comes.”

Once more Cyril drew dark inferences from his brother’s words, but he made no remark, and at the appointed time they presented themselves in Madame O’Malachy’s salon, where a most cordial welcome awaited them. They were the only guests, and it fell naturally to Caerleon to escort his hostess to the table and to sit beside her, a privilege for which he was not as grateful as he ought to have been, for he could hear Cyril and Nadia wrangling busily throughout the meal. Guessing that his brother was treating Mdlle. O’Malachy to a little fin de siècle philosophy, he had no difficulty in imagining the light in which it would strike her, and his anxiety to hear what she was saying in reply distracted his attention a little from her mother, who conversed vivaciously in French, addressing him as “mon cher marquis” in a way that reminded him vaguely of the Molière he had read when at school.

“I am longing that you should know my son,” she observed at last. “He is of the same age as your brother, and I have a presentiment that they will be friends. Louis is a true enthusiast, and it is this trait in his character that has caused us no small anxiety. My husband has perhaps told you that until a short time ago the unfortunate boy was an officer in the Scythian army. Would you believe that he has resigned his post in order to join the Thracian revolutionists?”

“Indeed?” said Caerleon, much interested; “and has he joined them yet?”

An Uncrowned King: A Romance of High Politics

AN UNCROWNED KING

CONTENTS.

NOTE.

AN UNCROWNED KING.

CHAPTER I.A KINGDOM GOING BEGGING.

CHAPTER II.FRESH WOODS AND PASTURES NEW.

CHAPTER III.“IF THOU WERT KIND AS THOU ART FAIR——”

CHAPTER I.
A KINGDOM GOING BEGGING.

CHAPTER II.
FRESH WOODS AND PASTURES NEW.

CHAPTER III.
“IF THOU WERT KIND AS THOU ART FAIR——”