Death was the only thing of which I ever saw the Duchess afraid
and, when I referred to the carriage incident and chaffed her
about it, she said:
"My dear child, do you mean to tell me you would not mind dying?
What do you feel about it?"
I answered her, in all sincerity, that I would mind more than
anything in the world, but not because I was afraid, and that
hearses did not affect me in the least.
She asked me what I was most interested in after hunting and I
said politics. I told her I had always prophesied I would marry a
Prime Minister and live in high political circles. This amused her
and we had many discussions about politics and people. She was
interested in my youth and upbringing and made me tell her about
it.
As I have said before, we were not popular in Peeblesshire. My
papa and his vital family disturbed the country conventions; and
all Liberals were looked upon as aliens by the Scottish
aristocracy of those days. At election times the mill-hands of
both sexes were locked up for fear of rows, but in spite of this
the locks were broken and the rows were perpetual. When my father
turned out the sitting Tory, Sir Graham Montgomery, in 1880, there
were high jinks in Peebles. I pinned the Liberal colours, with the
deftness of a pick-pocket, to the coat-tails of several of the
unsuspecting Tory landlords, who had come from great distances to
vote. This delighted the electors, most of whom were feather-
stitching up and down the High Street, more familiar with drink
than jokes.
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