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 Linnaeus.  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, evidently without foundation, by declaring, one fine morning, Lord David Dirry-Moir sole and positive heir in default of legitimate issue, and by his royal pleasure, of Lord Linnaeus Clancharlie, his natural father, the absence of all other issue and descent being established, patents of which grant were registered in the House of Lords.  By these patents the king instituted Lord David Dirry-Moir in the titles, rights, and prerogatives of the late Lord Linnaeus Clancharlie, on the sole condition that Lord David should wed, when she attained a marriageable age, a girl who was, at that time, a mere infant a few months old, and whom the king had, in her cradle, created a duchess, no one knew exactly why; or, rather, every one knew why.  This little infant was called the Duchess Josiana.

The English fashion then ran on Spanish names.  One of Charles II.’s bastards was called Carlos, Earl of Plymouth.  It is likely that Josiana was a contraction for Josefa-y-Ana.  Josiana, however, may have been a name—­the feminine of Josias.  One of Henry VIII.’s gentlemen was called Josias du Passage.

It was to this little duchess that the king granted the peerage of Clancharlie.  She was a peeress till there should be a peer; the peer should be her husband.  The peerage was founded on a double castleward, the barony of Clancharlie and the barony of Hunkerville; besides, the barons of Clancharlie were, in recompense of an ancient feat of arms, and by royal licence, Marquises of Corleone, in Sicily.