There were great preparations at Balquhalloch Castle for the worthy reception of the king; and but for the fact that the editor, who was also the sole reporter, of the Aberdumble _Warder_ was at the time confined to his house from indisposition, the whole matter would no doubt have found its way into the papers. The Princess spared neither trouble nor expense. Two Aberdumble carpenters arrived, and erected opposite the porter’s lodge a wooden triumphal arch. An Aberdumble painter followed after them, and inscribed upon the arch, in large red letters on a blue ground, a legend welcoming His Majesty to his own again. And when the painter had departed, the Princess, accompanied by Tom Checkstone and Father M‘Fillan, drove into Aberdumble and hired all the flags in the town. She also subsidised the local brass band, the members of which she instructed to be at the castle at a given hour, prepared to play at her behest the stirring strains of _Who’ll be King but Charlie_, and as many other Jacobite tunes as they knew or could learn meanwhile; and she further engaged four pipers, who were to stand just within the castle gate and salute her royal nephew in their most tremendous style. It must be confessed that the Princess was a trifle indiscreet. She undoubtedly laid herself open to a prosecution for treason-felony, if not indeed for treason of the highest and most deadly type; but fortunately for her, the Aberdumble people had grown accustomed to her eccentricities, and not a soul dreamt of gainsaying her will and pleasure in the matter. She therefore returned with a carriage-load of flags, which she caused to be festooned from the battlements. In her own boudoir and with her own fingers, she had long since worked in silk a faithful copy of the old royal standard of Scotland, and this she ordered to be run up on the flagstaff that surmounted the keep, whenever the king should set foot within the castle walls. Furthermore, she directed that at that auspicious moment her head-butler, assisted by one of her stable-boys, should begin the firing of a royal salute from an old brass gun that stood upon the western wall; and in order to provide for this, she purchased in Aberdumble, Archie M‘Pherson the ironmonger’s entire stock of sporting-powder. Betimes there came a telegram for the Princess. ‘Shall be with you,’ it ran, ‘at noon to-morrow;’ and it had been despatched by Charlie from the telegraph office in Fleet Street, London.