effort was made. Yet, strange to say, the object
of all this vigilance and solicitude continued to
be unsatisfactory—appeared, in fact, to
be positively growing worse. It was certainly
very odd: the more lessons that Bertie had to
do, the less he did them; and the more carefully he
was guarded against excitements and frivolities, the
more desirous of mere amusement he seemed to become.
Albert was deeply grieved and Victoria was sometimes
very angry; but grief and anger produced no more effect
than supervision and time-tables. The Prince of
Wales, in spite of everything, grew up into manhood
without the faintest sign of “adherence to and
perseverance in the plan both of studies and life—”
as one of the Royal memoranda put it—which
had been laid down with such extraordinary forethought
by his father.
Against the insidious worries of politics, the boredom
of society functions, and the pompous publicity of
state ceremonies, Osborne had afforded a welcome refuge;
but it soon appeared that even Osborne was too little
removed from the world. After all, the Solent
was a feeble barrier. Oh, for some distant, some
almost inaccessible sanctuary, where, in true domestic
privacy, one could make happy holiday, just as if—or
at least very, very, nearly—one were anybody
else! Victoria, ever since, together with Albert,
she had visited Scotland in the early years of her
marriage, had felt that her heart was in the Highlands.
She had returned to them a few years later, and her
passion had grown. How romantic they were!
And how Albert enjoyed them too! His spirits rose
quite wonderfully as soon as he found himself among
the hills and the conifers. “It is a happiness
to see him,” she wrote. “Oh!
What can equal the beauties of nature!” she
exclaimed in her journal, during one of these visits.
“What enjoyment there is in them! Albert
enjoys it so much; he is in ecstasies here.”
“Albert said,” she noted next day, “that
the chief beauty of mountain scenery consists in its
frequent changes. We came home at six o’clock.”
Then she went on a longer expedition—up
to the very top of a high hill. “It was
quite romantic. Here we were with only this Highlander
behind us holding the ponies (for we got off twice
and walked about). . . . We came home at half-past
eleven,—the most delightful, most romantic
ride and walk I ever had. I had never been up
such a mountain, and then the day was so fine.”
The Highlanders, too, were such astonishing people.
They “never make difficulties,” she noted,
“but are cheerful, and happy, and merry, and
ready to walk, and run, and do anything.”
As for Albert he “highly appreciated the good-breeding,
simplicity, and intelligence, which make it so pleasant
and even instructive to talk to them.” “We
were always in the habit,” wrote Her Majesty,
“of conversing with the Highlanders—with
whom one comes so much in contact in the Highlands.”
She loved everything about them—their customs,
their dress, their dances, even their musical instruments.
“There were nine pipers at the castle,”
she wrote after staying with Lord Breadalbane; “sometimes
one and sometimes three played. They always played
about breakfast-time, again during the morning, at
luncheon, and also whenever we went in and out; again
before dinner, and during most of dinner-time.
We both have become quite fond of the bag-pipes.”
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