‘Yea, truly! But thenceforth I have learnt that the road to Jerusalem is not so straight and plain as I deemed it when I stood victorious at Agincourt. The Church one again—the Holy Sepulchre redeemed! It seemed then before my eyes, and that I was the man called to do it.’
‘So it may be yet,’ said James. ‘Sickness alters everything, and raises mountains before us.’
‘It may be so,’ said Henry; ‘and yet—Jerusalem! Jerusalem! It was my father’s cry; it was King Edward’s cry; it was St. Louis’ cry; and yet they never got there.’
‘St. Louis was far on his way,’ said James.
‘Ay! he never turned aside!’ said Henry, sighing, and moving restlessly and wearily with something of returning fever.
“‘O bona patria, lumina sobria te speculantur—”
Boy, are you there?’ as, in turning, his eye fell on Malcolm. ‘Take warning: the straight road is the best. You see, I have never come to Jerusalem.’ Then again he murmured:
“‘Hic breve vivitur, hic breve plangitur, hic breve fletur;
Non breve vivere, non breve plangere, retribuetur.”
And James, seeing that nothing lulled him like song, offered to sing that mysteriously beautiful rhythm of Bernard of Morlaix.
‘Ay, prithee do so,’ said Henry. ‘There’s a rest there, when the Agincourt lay rings hollow. Well, there is a Jerusalem where our shortcomings are made up; only the straight way—the straight way.’