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The young lord's information was simply this. On nearing the hunting-lodge, which was his first object, he found it very nearly deserted, but a few stragglers, amounting perhaps to fifty in number of the followers of Buchan, remaining behind, with orders to follow their master to Dunkeld without delay.
Upon a day in August, the Red King, now reconciled to his brother, Fine- Scholar, came with a great train to hunt in the New Forest. Fine-Scholar was of the party. They were a merry party, and had lain all night at Malwood-Keep, a hunting-lodge in the forest, where they had made good cheer, both at supper and breakfast, and had drunk a deal of wine.
This hunting-lodge of the King would have been grimly ugly, were it not for its rocky throne, high above the river bed, and its background of glistening white mountains. The huge pile looked like a sleeping dragon with its hundreds of window-eyes close-lidded, and I could not imagine it an amusing place for a house party.
"Is there no hut or house, or hunting-lodge to which we could convey your lady," he asked, "where she might find quieter shelter and greater rest than hitherto? An ye knew of such, it would be the wiser plan to seek it at break of day." A hunting-lodge, belonging to the Earls of Buchan, there was, or ought to be, the old men said, near the head of the Tay, just at the entrance of Athol Forest.
This manor-house was originally a royal palace, built by Henry VIII., doubtless as a kind of hunting-lodge for the adjacent Marylebone Park, as Regent's Park was then called. It is said to have been visited by Mary and Elizabeth, and as there are authentic records of the latter Queen's entertainment of the Russian Ambassador here, the statement is probably true.
Truly there had been little sleep that night in the old hunting-lodge of Maria Theresa. Peter, still not quite at ease, that evening kept out of the kitchen while supper was preparing. Anna, radical theories forgotten and wearing a knitted shawl against drafts, was making a salad, and Harmony, all anxiety and flushed with heat, was broiling a steak.
It was not a State visit, but "God save the Queen" was sung, and her Majesty had to show herself in front of the Emperor's private box. On Saturday the royal party went to the forest of St. Germain's, and a halt was made at the hunting-lodge of La Muette.
I kissed her hand also; then we mounted, and we started, and we rode, as if the devil were behind us, for the hunting-lodge. But I turned once to watch her standing on the terrace, with young Bernenstein's tall figure beside her. "Can we be in time?" said I. It was what I had meant to say before. "I think not, but, by God, we'll try," said Colonel Sapt. And I knew why he had not let me speak.
Every detail of the scene was interwoven with the fibres of early association, from the far off years when, as a lonely child on the farm at Pontesordo, he had gazed across the marsh at the mysterious woodlands of the chase, to the later day when, in the deserted hunting-lodge, the Duchess had flung her whip at the face in the Venice mirror.
My companion informed me, as we drove along through the park to the hunting-lodge, that I should make the acquaintance of a very charming young lady. "Take care," added the aunt, "that you do not lose your heart."
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