heart of your majesty."

"Speak on, my brother--speak on."

"You know, sire, that being called in 1650 to Edinburgh, during
Cromwell's expedition into Ireland, I was crowned at Scone. A year
after, wounded in one of the provinces he had usurped, Cromwell returned
upon us. To meet him was my object; to leave Scotland was my wish."

"And yet," interrupted the young king, "Scotland is almost your native
country, is it not, my brother?"

"Yes, but the Scots were cruel compatriots for me, sire; they had forced
me to forsake the religion of my fathers; they had hung Lord Montrose,
the most devoted of my servants, because he was not a Covenanter; and as
the poor martyr, to whom they had offered a favor when dying, had asked
that his body might be cut into as many pieces as there are cities
in Scotland, in order that evidence of his fidelity might be met with
everywhere, I could not leave one city, or go into another, without
passing under some fragments of a body which had acted, fought, and
breathed for me.

"By a bold, almost desperate march, I passed through Cromwell's army,
and entered England. The Protector set out in pursuit of this strange
flight, which had a crown for its object. If I had been able to reach
London before him, without doubt the prize of the race would have been
mine; but he overtook me at Worcester.

"The genius of England was no longer with us, but with him. On the 3rd
of September, 1651, sire, the anniversary of the other battle of Dunbar,
so fatal to the Scots, I was conquered. Two thousand men fell around me
before I thought of retreating a step. At length I was obliged to fly.

"From that moment my history became a romance. Pursued with persistent
inveteracy, I cut off my hair, I disguised myself as a woodman. One day
spent amidst the branches of an oak gave to that tree the name of the
royal oak, which it bears to this day. My adventures in the county of
Stafford, whence I escaped with the daughter of my host on a pillion
behind me, still fill the tales of the country firesides, and would
furnish matter for ballads. I will some day write all this, sire, for
the instruction of my brother kings.

"I will first tell how, on arriving at the residence of Mr. Norton,
I met with a court chaplain, who was looking on at a party playing at
skittles, and an old servant who named me, bursting into tears, and who
was as near and as certainly killing me by his fidelity as another might
have been by tr