Royal couple delighted in Scotland for other reasons, the chief of which was that they could enjoy there a degree of freedom to which they were strangers elsewhere. Highland loyalty is compatible with perfectly good manners, and the poor people round Balmoral did not demonstrate their affection for their Sovereign by staring at her as if she were a waxwork show, or dogging her carriage or her footsteps whenever she went beyond her own gates. The Highland servants combined perfect respect with independence of character. The Queen delighted in them, and found real friends in several of them. The Royal family could make little incognito expeditions in Scotland, and stay at small country inns as Lord and Lady Churchill and party, without any danger of being found out; or if they were found out, the people who made the discovery were too well bred to proclaim it, and showed their loyalty by respecting the wishes of their Sovereign to enjoy privacy. In the years before the Prince Consort's death the Queen's Ladies-in-Waiting, writing from Scotland, frequently speak of Her Majesty's high spirits, her love of dancing, and her enjoyment of rapid driving.
Lady Canning wrote in the autumn of 1848 from Balmoral:—
"The Queen has been up a really high mountain to-day, and has come down quite fresh after many hours. … The Queen is more and more delighted with Balmoral. She makes long expeditions alone with the Prince and gamekeepers, and has never been so independent before. … She went up Loch-na-gar, … and the same evening entertained all the neighbors at dinner, and was as fresh and merry as if she had done nothing."
Four years later, Lady Canning wrote again from Balmoral:—
"The Queen is fonder than ever of this place, and the prince's shooting imrpoves. The children are as merry as grigs, and I hear the Prince of Wales and Prince Alfred, who live under me, singing away out of lesson-time as loud as ever they can."
