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III.
The opportunity occurred.
One day it was announced that several things had happened to the old
exile, Lord Clancharlie, the most important of which was that he was
dead. Death does just this much good to folks: it causes a little talk
about them. People related what they knew, or what they thought they
knew, of the last years of Lord Linnæus. What they said was probably
legend and conjecture. If these random tales were to be credited, Lord
Clancharlie must have had his republicanism intensified towards the end
of his life, to the extent of marrying (strange obstinacy of the exile!)
Ann Bradshaw, the daughter of a regicide; they were precise about the
name. She had also died, it was said, but in giving birth to a boy. If
these details should prove to be correct, his child would of course be
the legitimate and rightful heir of Lord Clancharlie. These reports,
however, were extremely vague in form, and were rumours rather than
facts. Circumstances which happened in Switzerland, in those days, were
as remote from the England of that period as those which take place in
China from the England of to-day. Lord Clancharlie must have been
fifty-nine at the time of his marriage, they said, and sixty at the
birth of his son, and must have died shortly after, leaving his infant
orphaned both of father and mother. This was possible, perhaps, but
improbable. They added that the child was beautiful as the day,--just as
we read in all the fairy tales. King James put an end to these rumours,
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