"A British frigate often comes up the gulf as far as Canne."
"I will send you off to her by a boat: to pass the French picquets at Cassano is too dangerous a mode of escape. I wish to befriend you, signor; and would deplore—ah! I love the scarlet coat: for I, too, have worn it in my youth."
"A cardinal in a red coat! In our service, my lord?"
"No," he replied coldly, while his eyes sparkled and his cheek flushed. "No: but when I commanded fifteen thousand French infantry at Dunkirk, in the service of my father, whose portrait is behind you."
From the incomprehensible speaker, I turned to the portrait, which was that of a dark and oval-featured cavalier, in a long wig, which flowed over his steel breastplate and scarlet coat; his eyes possessed the same keen and proud expression which I beheld in those of the Italian.
"I presume, my lord, you have seen service?"
"None worth mentioning," he replied; and, after pausing a while, till Catanio had retired and the table was cleared, he thus continued:—"And you are a Scotsman? How I love to meet with one! Ah! capitano, the Scots were a loyal people once; but how changed since their rampant Presbyterian priesthood have moulded the nation to their purpose—the designing heretics! Oh, cunning clodpoles! I may live to mar you yet."
"I," he replied, his eyes sparkling again.
"You have been in Scotland, I presume?" I asked, with an air of pique.
"Never: but the name of that country finds an echo in my heart. Though born a Roman, the ideas of your people, their Lowland nobles and the chiefs of the loyal and illustrious clans, are all well known to me. Dear to me, indeed, is every inch of the isle of Great Britain: though truly I owe little to the land which set a price on the heads of my nearest and dearest relatives."
"_Your king!_" he replied, with a deep voice, which caused me to start, as he rose erect from his chair, and his tall and venerable figure seemed to dilate, and his faded cheek to glow. "Your king, sir," he added, in pure English: "one, at least, who should have been so; but the hands of time and fate are now laid heavily upon him. I am Henry the Second of Scotland and the Ninth of the sister kingdom—the Cardinal Duke of York: now, alas! known as the last of the House of Stuart. Fate—fate—yes, hardly hast thou dealt with me! Expelled from Rome by Napoleon, robbed of my estates, and driven to penury in my old age, I dwell here in forgotten obscurity, subsisting on that poor pittance which is yearly doled out by the Government of Britain. Yet let me not be ungrateful to George their king: even that he might have withheld from me. A time may come—God hath given, and God can take away. You know me now, sir: let your wonder cease."
