In Honours Cause | Page 3

wouldn't do that sort of
thing; it makes you seem so girlish."
There was another angry gesture.
"I can't help my looks."
"There, now, you're put out again."
"No, not a bit," said the youth hastily. "I say, though, you don't think
much of the King, do you?"
"Oh yes," said Frank thoughtfully; "of course."
"Why?"
"Why? Well, because he's the King, of course. Don't you?"
"No! I don't think anything of him. He's only a poor German prince,
brought over by the Whigs. I always feel ready to laugh in his face."
"I say," cried Frank, looking at his companion in horror, "do you know
what you are saying?"
"Oh yes; and I don't think a great deal of the Prince. My father got me

here; but I don't feel in my place, and I'm not going to sacrifice myself,
even if I am one of the pages. I believe in the Stuarts, and I always
shall."
"This is more treasonable than what you said before."
"Well, it's the truth."
"Perhaps it is. I say, you're a head taller than I am."
"Yes, I know that."
"But you don't seem to know that if you talk like that you'll soon be the
same height."
"What, you think my principles will keep me standing still, while yours
make you grow tall?"
"No. I think if it gets known you'll grow short all in a moment."
"They'll chop my head off? Pooh! I'm not afraid. You won't blab."
"But you've no business to be here."
"Oh yes, I have. Plenty think as I do. You will one of these days."
"Never! What, go against the King!"
"This German usurper you mean. Oh, you'll come over to our side."
"What, with my father in the King's Guards, and my mother one of the
Princess's ladies of the bed-chamber! Nice thing for a man to have a
son who turned traitor."
"What a red-hot Whig you are, Frank! You're too young and too fresh
to London and the court to understand these things. He's King because
a few Whigs brought him over here. If you were to go about London,
you'd find every one nearly on the other side."

"I don't believe it."
"Come for a few walks with me, and I'll take you where you can hear
people talking about it."
"I don't want to hear people talk treason, and I can't get away."
"Oh yes, you can; I'll manage it. Don't you want to go out?"
"Yes; but not to hear people talk as you say. They must be only the
scum who say such things."
"Better be the scum which rises than the dregs which sink to the bottom.
Come, I know you'd like a run."
"I'll go with you in the evening, and try and catch some of the fish in
that lake."
"What, the King's carp! Ha--ha! You want old Bigwig to give you five
pounds."
"Old Bigwig--who's he?"
"You know; the King."
"Sh!"
"Pooh! no one can hear."
"But what do you mean about the five pounds?"
"Didn't you hear? They say he wrote to some one in Hanover saying
that he could not understand the English, for when he came to the
Palace they told him it was his, and when he looked out of the window
he saw a park with a long canal in it, and they told him that was his too.
Then next day the ranger sent him a big brace of carp out of it, and
when they told him he was to behave like a prince and give the
messenger five guineas, he was astonished. Oh, he isn't a bit like a
king."

"I say, do be quiet. I don't want you to get into trouble."
"Of course you don't," said the lad merrily. "But you mustn't think of
going fishing now. Hark! there are the Guards."
He hurried to the window, through which the trampling of horses and
jingling of spurs could be heard, and directly after the leaders of a long
line of horse came along between the rows of trees, the men gay in
their scarlet and gold, their accoutrements glittering in the sunshine.
"Look well, don't they?" said Andrew Forbes. "They ought to have
given my father a command like that. If he had a few regiments of horse,
and as many of foot, he'd soon make things different for old England."
"I say, do be quiet, Drew. You'll be getting in trouble, I know you will.
Why can't you let things rest."
"Because I'm a Royalist."
"No, you're not; you're a Jacobite. I say, why do they call them
Jacobites? What Jacob is it who leads them?"
"And you just fresh from Winchester! Where's your Latin?"
"Oh, I see," cried the boy: "Jacobus--James."
"That's right; you may go