"
"And I don't know that they are altogether to be blamed," Malcolm said.
"I am not so young as I was, Ronald, and I see now that I was wrong in
teaching you to be a Jacobite. It is all very well for men like
Tullibardine, who knew the Stuarts on the throne, to fight to put them
back again; but to your generation, Ronald, the Stuarts are after all
only a tradition, and it is a sort of generous madness for you to risk
your life to set them again on the throne of England. It cannot matter a
brass pin to you whether James or George rules at St. James's. It is not,
as in the case of the Royalists in England in Charles's time or of the
Covenanters of Scotland, that a great principle is involved -- a
principle for which men may well risk their lives and all they hold dear.
It is a question of persons only, and although I may hold that by right
of descent Charles Edward is Prince of Wales and rightful heir to the
throne of England, that is no reason why I should risk my life to place
him there; and after all it seems to me that if the majority in these
islands determine that they will be ruled by the house of Hanover instead
of the house of Stuart they have some right to make their own choice."
"You argue like a philosopher, Malcolm," Ronald said laughing, "and do
not remind me in the slightest degree of the Malcolm who used to chat
with me in Glasgow."
"You are right there, lad.
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