Yet, if London was excited, there was a tranquil London as well. Mr. George Augustus Sala, in that brilliant novel of his, "The Adventures of Captain Dangerous," draws a vivid picture of this London with the true artist touch. "Although from day to day we people in London knew not whether before the sunset the dreaded pibrochs of the Highland clans might not be heard at Charing Cross--although, for aught men knew, another month, nay, another week, might see King George the Second toppled from his throne--yet to those who lived quiet {220} lives and kept civil tongues in their heads all things went on pretty much as usual. . . . That there was consternation at St. James's, with the King meditating flight, and the royal family in tears and swooning, did not save the little school-boy a whipping if he knew not his lesson after morning call. . . . So, while all the public were talking about the rebellion, all the world went nevertheless to the playhouses, where they played loyal pieces, and sang 'God save great George, our King' every night; as also to balls, ridottos, clubs, masquerades, drums, routs, concerts, and Pharaoh parties. They read novels and flirted their fans, and powdered and patched themselves, and distended their petticoats with hoops, just as though there were no such persons in the world as the Duke of Cumberland and Charles Edward Stuart." Fiction, that most faithful and excellent handmaiden of history, here shows us no doubt very vividly what London as a whole thought and did in face of the rebellion. It is an old story. Were not the Romans in the theatre when the Goths came over the hills? Did not the theatres flourish, never better, during the Reign of Terror? Nor was London the only place which displayed a well-nigh stoical indifference to the progress of the rebellion. If Oxford had a good deal of Jacobitism hidden decorously away in its ancient colleges, if there were a good many disloyal toasts drunk in the seclusion of scholastic rooms, there was apparently only a feeling of curious indifference at the rival university, for Gray has put it on record that at Cambridge "they had no more sense of danger than if it were the battle of Cannae," and we learn that some grave Dons actually were thinking of driving to Camford to see the Scotch troops march past, "as though they were volunteers out for a sham-fight, or a circus procession." {221} CHAPTER XXXVI. CULLODEN--AND AFTER. [Sidenote: 1745--Had he but known]