The Caged Lion, Charlotte M. Yonge [top 10 most read books in the world TXT] 📗

Henry required to know from his physicians how long his time might yet be. There was hesitation in answering, plainly as they saw that mortification had set in.

'What,' he said, 'do ye think I have faced death so many times to fear it now?'

Then came the reply given by the weeping, kneeling physician: 'Sir, think of your soul, for, without a miracle, you cannot live two hours.'

The King beckoned his confessor, and his friends retired, to return again to take their part in the last rites, the Viaticum and Unction.

Henry was collected, and alive to all that was passing, responding duly, and evidently entering deeply into the devotions that were to aid his spirit in that awful passage; his face gravely set, but firm and fearless as ever. The ceremonial ended, he was still sensible, though with little power of voice or motion left; but the tone, though low, was steady as ever, when he asked for the Penitential Psalms. Still they doubted whether he were following them, for his eyes closed, and his lips ceased to move, until, as they chanted the revival note of David's mournful penance--'O be favourable and gracious unto Sion; build Thou the walls of Jerusalem;'--at that much-loved word, the light of the blue eyes once more beamed out, and he spoke again. 'Jerusalem! On the faith of a dying king, it was my earnest purpose to have composed matters here into peace and union, and so to have delivered Jerusalem. But the will of God be done, since He saw me unworthy.'

Then his eyes closed again; he slept, or seemed to sleep; and then a strange quivering came over the face, the lips moved again, and the words broke from them, 'Thou liest, foul spirit! thou liest!' but, as though the parting soul had gained the victory in that conflict, peace came down on the wasted features; and with the very words of his Redeemer Himself, 'Into Thy hands I commend my spirit,' he did indeed fall asleep; the mighty soul passed from the worn-out frame.


CHAPTER XIII: THE RING AND THE EMPTY THRONE

No one knows how great a tree has been till it has fallen; nor how large a space a mighty man has occupied till he is removed.

King Henry V. left his friends and foes alike almost dizzy, as in place of his grand figure they found a blank; instead of the hand whose force they had constantly felt, mere emptiness.

Malcolm of Glenuskie, who had been asserting constantly that King Henry was no master of his, and had no rights over him, had nevertheless, for the last year or more, been among those to whom the King's will was the moving spring, fixing the disposal of almost every hour, and making everything dependent thereon.

When the death-hush was broken by the 'Depart, O Christian soul,' and Bedford, with a face white and set like a statue, stood up from his knees, and crossed and kissed the still white brow, it was to Malcolm as if the whole universe had become as nothing. To him there remained only the great God, the heavenly Jerusalem into which the King had entered, and himself far off from the straight way, wandering from his promise and his purpose into what seemed to him a mere hollow painted scene, such as came and went in the midst of a banquet. Or, again, it was the grisly Dance of Death that was the only reality; Death had clutched the mightiest in the ring. Whom would he clutch next?

He stood motionless, as one in a dream, or rather as if not knowing which was reality, and which phantom; gazing, gazing on at the bed where the King lay, round which the ecclesiastics were busying themselves, unperceiving that James, Bedford, and the nobles had quitted the apartment, till Percy first spoke to him in a whisper, then almost shook him, and led him out of the room. 'I am sent for you,' he said, in a much shaken voice; 'your king says you can be of use.' Then tightening his grasp with the force of intense grief, 'Oh, what a day! what a day! My father! my father! I never knew mine own father! But he has been all to Harry and to me! Oh, woe worth the day!' And dropping into a window- seat, he covered his face with his hands, and gave way to his grief: pointing, however, to the council-room, where Malcolm found Bedford writing at the table, King James, and a few others, engaged in the same manner.

A few words from James informed him (or would have done so if he could have understood) that the Duke of Bedford, on whom at that terrible moment the weight of two kingdoms and of the war had descended, could not pause to rest, or to grieve, till letters and orders had been sent to the council in England, and to every garrison, every ally in France, to guard against any sudden panic, or faltering in friendship to England and her infant heir. Warwick and Salisbury were already riding post haste to take charge of the army; Robsart was gone to the Queen, Exeter to the Duke of Burgundy; and as the clergy were all engaged with the tendance of the royal corpse, there was scarcely any one to lessen the Duke's toil. James, knowing Malcolm's pen to be ready, had sent for him to assist in copying the brief scrolls, addressed to each captain of a fortress or town, announcing the father's death, and commanding him to do his duty to the son--King Harry VI. Each was then to be signed by the Duke, and despatched by men-at-arms, who waited for the purpose.

Like men stunned, the half-dozen who sat at the council-table worked on, never daring to glance at the empty chair at the upper end. The only words that passed were occasional inquiries of, and orders from, Bedford; and these he spoke with a strange alertness and metallic ring in his voice, as though the words were uttered by mechanism; yet in themselves they were as clear and judicious as possible, as if coming from a mind wound up exclusively to the one necessary object; and the face--though flushed at first, and gradually growing paler, with knitted brows and compressed lips--betrayed no sign of emotion.

Hours passed: he wrote, he ordered, he signed, he sealed; he mentioned name after name, of place and officer, never moving or looking up. And James, who knew from Salisbury that he had neither slept nor eaten since sixty miles off he had met a worse report of his brother, watched him anxiously till, when evening began to fall, he murmured, 'There is the captain of--of--at--but--'--the pen slipped from his fingers, and he said, 'I can no more!'

The overtaxed powers, strained so long--mind, memory, and all--were giving way under the mere force of excessive fatigue. He rose from his seat, but stumbled, like one blind, as James upheld him, and led him away to the nearest bed-chamber, where, almost while the attendants divested him of the heavy boots and cuirass he had never paused all these hours to remove, he dropped into a sleep of sheer exhaustion.

James, who was likewise wearied out with watching, turned towards his own quarters; but, in so doing, he could not but turn aside to the chapel, where before the altar had been laid all that was left of King Henry. There he lay, his hands clasped over a crucifix, clad in the same rich green and crimson robes in which he had ridden to meet his Queen at Vincennes but three short months before; the golden circlet from his helmet was on his head, but it could not give additional majesty to the still and severe sweetness of his grand and pure countenance, so youthful in the lofty power that high aspirations had imprinted on it, yet so intensely calm in its marble rest, more than ever with the look of the avenging unpitying angel. To James, it was chiefly the face of the man whom he had best loved and admired, in spite of their strange connection; but to Malcolm, who had as usual followed him closely, it was verily a look from the invisible world--a look of awful warning and reproof, almost as if the pale set lips were unclosing to demand of him where he was in the valley of shadows, through which the way lay to Jerusalem. If Henry had turned back, and warned him at the gate of the heavenly Sion, surely such would have been his countenance; and Malcolm, when, like James, he had sprinkled the holy water on the white brow, and crossed himself while the low chant of Psalms from kneeling priests went up around him--clasped his two hands close together, and breathed forth the words, 'Oh, I have wandered far! O great King, I will never leave the straight way again! I will cast aside all worldly aims! O God, and the Saints, help me not to lose my way again!'

He would have tarried on still, in the fascination of that wonderful unearthly countenance, and in the inertness of faculties stunned by fatigue and excitement, but James summoned him by a touch, and he again followed him.

'O Sir!' he began, when they had turned away, 'I repent me of my falling away to the world! I give all up. Let me back to my vows of old.'

'We will talk of that another time,' said James, gravely. 'Neither you nor I, Malcolm, can think reasonably under such a blow as this; and I forbid you rashly to bind yourself.'

'Sir, Sir!' cried Malcolm, petulantly. 'You took me from the straight way. You shall not hinder my return!'

'I hinder no true purpose,' said King James. 'I only hinder another rash and hasty pledge, to be felt as a fetter, or left broken on your conscience. Silence now. When men are sad and spent they cannot speak as befits them, and had best hold their peace.'

These words were spoken on the way up the stair that led to the apartments of the King of Scots. On opening the door of the larger room, the first thing they saw was the tall figure of a distinguished-looking knight, who, as they entered, flung himself at King James's feet, fervently exclaiming, 'O my liege! accept my homage! Never was vassal so bound to his lord by thankfulness for his life, and for far more than his life!'

'Sir Patrick Drummond, I am glad to see you better at ease,' said James. 'Nay, suffer me,' he added, giving his hand to raise the knight, but finding it grasped and kissed with passionate devotion, almost overpowering the only half-recovered knight, so that James was forced to use strength to support him, and would at once have lifted him up, but the warm-hearted Patrick resisted, almost sobbing out--'Nay, Sir! king of my heart indeed! let me first thank you. I knew not how much more I owed you than the poor life you saved--my father's rescue, and that of all that was most dear.'

'Speak of such things seated, my good friend,' said James, trying to raise him; but Drummond still did not second his efforts.

'I have not given my parole of honour as the captive whose life is again due to you.'

'You must give that to the Duke of Bedford, Sir Patrick,' said James. 'I know not if I am to