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Updated: June 3, 2025
But Mrs Grove did not care to hear about Rosie's flowers just then, and rather perversely, as Graeme thought, reverted to the falling away of their old intimacy with the Ruthvens, and to wonder at its cause; and there was something in her tone that made Mrs Snow turn grave, astonished eyes upon her, and helped Graeme to answer very quietly and coldly to her remark: "I can easily see how marriage would do something towards estranging such warm friends, when only one of the parties are interested; but you were very intimate with Mr Ruthven, as well, were you not?"
Meanwhile the Ruthvens were living almost lavishly, and keeping four more horses; but Eileen Erroll's bank balance had now dwindled to three figures; and Gerald had not only acted offensively toward Selwyn, but had quarrelled so violently with Austin that the latter, thoroughly incensed and disgusted, threatened to forbid him the house.
That men so very young as the two Ruthvens should plan such a device, romantic and perilous, is no matter for marvel. The plot itself must be judged by its original idea, namely, to lure James to Perth, with only two or three servants, at an early hour in the day.
Bruce acquitted James of the infamous plot against the Ruthvens. What, then, was the position of the Ruthvens, if the King was not the conspirator? Obviously they were guilty, whether James, at a given moment, was carried away by passion or not. Calderwood has preserved for us the objections taken by sceptics to the King’s narrative.
Gowrie retreated, drew a pair of 'twin swords, and, accompanied by Cranstoun and others, made his way into the quadrangle of his house. At the foot of a small dark staircase they saw the body of a man lying wounded or dead. Cranstoun now rushed up the dark stairs, followed by Gowrie, two Ruthvens, Hew Moncrieff, Patrick Eviot, and perhaps others.
The week to follow the events recorded in the last chapter was a trying one for the inhabitants of Oldville, as the district around the Ruthvens' plantation was called. The army of the North had pressed the army of the South back steadily day after day, until the Confederates were encamped less than four miles away from Jack's home.
Why did the jolly hunt at Falkland, in the bright August morning, end in the sanguinary scuffle in the town house at Perth; the deaths of the Ruthvens; the tumult in the town; the King’s homeward ride through the dark and dripping twilight; the laying of the dead brothers side by side, while the old family servant weeps above their bodies; and the wailing of the Queen and her ladies in Falkland Palace, when the torches guide the cavalcade into the palace court, and the strange tale of slaughter is variously told, ‘the reports so fighting together that no man could have any certainty’? Where lay the actual truth?
That was Selwyn's first encounter with the Ruthvens. A short time afterward at the opera Gerald dragged him into a parterre to say something amiable to one of the débutante Craig girls and Selwyn found himself again facing Alixe. If there was any awkwardness it was not apparent, although they both knew that they were in full view of the house.
If Lady Carse had chosen to admit the idea of remaining after the arrival of the Ruthvens, she would have added a third room; but she had resolved that she would leave the island in the vessel which brought them, or in the next that their arrival would bring: and she would not dwell for an instant on any doubt of accomplishing her purpose.
This version of that strange affair, the slaughter of the Ruthvens, is taken entirely from the lips of sworn witnesses. We still know no more than we did as to what passed between the moment when James and the Master, alone, left the dining chamber, and the moment when the King cried ‘Treason!’ out of the turret window.
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