Chapter 34

DISAPPOINTMENT

Methinks I see Death and the Furies waiting
What we will do, and all the Heaven at leisure
For the great spectacle. Draw then your swords!

BEN JONSON.

Faster than the airy slave quicksilver is influenced by the changes of the atmosphere, does the subtle essence of the mind of one, who from love or gratitude hangs upon the smile or frown of another, feel the sunshine or frost of that other’s countenance; and an independent disposition speedily revolts from servile obedience to such alteration. On the following day, and afterwards on the succeeding ones, Richard felt that the heart of James was no longer the same. He was courteous, kind—his friend’s interests formed the sole topic of their conversations—but York could neither say the thing he wished, nor do that which he desired; the same objects were before him, apparently the same colouring was upon them; yet a pale sickly hue was cast over the before glowing picture; a chill had penetrated the summer warmth in which he basked; the wave was yet calm, but it was clouded, and no longer showed in its limpid depths that sympathy and affection which made the White Rose’s fortunes seem truly and intrinsically Scotland’s own.

Friendship was now professed, service tendered; before words had seemed superfluous—the thing was there. James assured his guest that he would not turn back, nor give ear to Henry’s propositions; and York felt, with a start, that ear had been, given to them, or this conclusion had not been noted. The disunion and continued separation of the camps was another circumstance that spoke loudly of division of thought and counsel.

Frion believed that he should now resume his ancient position with his royal master: he bore his reproofs humbly, and strove to regain his favour by the importance of his services. The arcana of the Tudor party were, to a great degree, revealed to York; and it was easy to mark the ascendancy it was gaining. The presence of Lady Jane Kennedy might explain the ceremony and regulations observed in the intercourse between the king and his friend; but it was Frion’s part to disclose the enmity this lady entertained for the White Rose, and the influence she exerted to its detriment. Moray and Lord Buchan were her friends, and they were frequent visitors in the royal pavilion.

A short time somewhat changed this state of things. The army drew near the frontier; and the king separated himself from the fair mistress of his heart. On the third day they arrived on the banks of the Tweed. It was but crossing a little river—but stepping from one stone to another, and Richard would stand on English ground.

The troops had passed the day before; some had proceeded southward; others were even now to be seen defiling in long lines on the distant plain. The sun was up cheerily; the fresh pleasant green of spring had stolen, more like a tinted atmosphere, than in the guise of foliage, over tree and bush; field flowers and crocusses peeped from under the mossy turf. The scene was a wide moor, varied by broken ground; clumps of trees, where many a bird nestled; and here and there thick underwood, where the wild deer made his lair; this had been the scene of a thousand conflicts, and of mortal carnage between Scot and Englishman, but the skylark above sang of nature’s bounty and nature’s loveliness, an immemorial and perennial hymn, while nothing spoke of the butchery and wretchedness which once had made the landscape a tragic corpse-strewn stage.

Reining in his pawing courser, King James, in all the gay array of a high-born knight, paused on the Scottish bank—his lips, proud as the Apollo’s—spoke of struggle and victory,

“In his eye
And nostril, beautiful disdain and might
And majesty flashed their full lightnings by.”

Here was he who, in a later day, led the flower of Scotland to die on the English plains; who himself was doomed to lie with mangled limbs, and in blank, cold extinction, a trophy of victory to his enemy, on Flodden Field: he was alive now, and in his strength; he drank in with buoyant spirit every glorious anticipation, and laughed with fond delight; spurring on his horse, he crossed the ford, and entered England.

In a moment, as by impulse, York, who had lingered, dashed after him; allies they were; friends in seeming, nay, in truth; for the glance of proud enmity Richard cast on the Scot was perhaps the more factitious feeling: it sprang from patriotism, but its energy was borrowed from the deadly feuds of their ancestors, that natural hate which is said to exist now between the French and English, and which was far more envenomed between the near-rival people. Notwithstanding James’s change towards him, York felt in the core of his affectionate heart, all that was due to him who had raised him when he was fallen; given him state, power—Katherine; he saw in him his kinsman—his benefactor. But the pride of a son of England rose in his breast, when he beheld the haughty Scot caracol in arrogant triumph on her soil. What was he? What had he done? He was born king and father of this realm: because he was despoiled of his high rights, was he to abjure his natural duty to her, as her child? Yet here he was an invader; not arming one division of her sons against the other, but girt with foreigners, aided by the ancient ravagers of her smiling villages and plenteous harvests. He looked on each individual Scot, and on their gallant king, and felt his bosom swell with rage and hate. These were unwise, nay, ungrateful sentiments; but he could not repel them. His first commands were to his cousin, to hasten to Randal of Dacre, to learn what Yorkists had gathered together to receive him. “If there be any large company,” he said, “without more ado we will thank our kind cousin, invite him to recross the Tweed, and leave us to fight our battles by ourselves.”