"I understand you, Ella," replied Richard of Woodville; "and his acts are like his looks. He has made more than one unhappy heart in many a cottage that once was blithe. I grieve the King sent him to you."
"Oh, 'twill do no harm," cried the girl. "I shall not long be here; and I know him well. Would that I were not a woman!"
"What! would you avenge the wrong he did on that sad evening?" asked Woodville, with a smile, to think how feeble that small hand would prove in strife.
"No, not for that," she replied; "for I would try to forgive; but if I were not what I am you would take me with you in your train, and then I should be safe and happy."
"I trust you may be so still, even as a woman, poor girl," answered Richard of Woodville; and, after a few more words of kindness and comfort, he bade her adieu. Ella Brune's bright eyes glistened; and, perhaps, she found it difficult to speak the parting words, for she said no more, but, catching her young protector's hand, she pressed her lips upon it, and drew back to let him pass.
It was impossible for Richard of Woodville not to feel touched and interested; but he was not one to mistake her. He knew--not indeed by the hard teaching of experience, but by the intuitive perception of a feeling heart--how the unfortunate cling to those who show them kindness, and could distinguish between the love of gratitude and that of passion. He had purposely spoken gently and tenderly to her; and, in proportion as he could do little to afford her substantial aid, had tried to make his words and manner consoling and strengthening; and he thought, "If any one had acted so to me, I should feel towards him as this poor girl now feels in my case. Heaven guard her, poor thing, for hers is a sad fate!"
In such meditations he rode on; but we will not at present follow him on his way, turning rather to poor Ella Brune, who stood by the cross gazing after him, till his horse taking a road to the right, about two hundred yards before it reached the palace gate, was soon hidden by the trees, just at the entrance of the town of Westminster.
With a deep sigh, she then bent her steps along the road leading by the bank of the river towards the gate of the Temple, which was still in a somewhat ruinous state from the attack made upon it in 1381. As she went she looked not at the houses and gardens on either side--she marked not the procession which came forth, with cross and banner, from the convent on the right, nor the gay train that issued out of the gates of a large embattled house on the left; but separating herself from the people, who turned to gaze or hastened to follow, she made her way on, seeking the little inn where she dwelt.
There were two other persons, however, who followed the same course--men with swords by their side, and bucklers on their shoulder, and a snake embroidered on the mourning habits that they wore. But Ella saw them not--she was too deeply occupied with her own dark thoughts. She seemed alone in the wide world--more alone than ever, since Richard of Woodville had left the capital; and to be so is both sad and perilous. How strange, how lamentable it is, that society, that great wonderful confused institution, springing from man's necessity for mutual aid and support, provides no prop, no stay for those who are left alone in the midst of it; none to counsel, none to help, none to defend against the worst of all evils--temptation to vice. Of the body it takes some care; we must not cut, we must not strike the flesh; we must not enthral it; we must not kill. But we may wound, injure, destroy the spirit if we can, even at our pleasure. For substantial things, we multiply regulations, safe-guards, penalties; for the mind, on which all the rest so much depends, we provide none. The philosophy of legislation has yet a great step to advance--a step, perhaps, that may never--perhaps that can never--be taken; though of one thing we may be sure--that, till the great Eutopian dream is realized, and either by education, or some other means, a safeguard is provided for the minds of men as well as their bodies and their property, all the iron laws that can be enacted, will prove insufficient for the protection of those more tangible things which we think most easily defended. To regulate and guard the mind, especially in youth, is to turn the river near its source, and to ensure that it shall flow on in peace and bounty to the end; but to leave it unguided, and yet by law to strive to restrain man's actions, is to put weak floodgates against a torrent that we have suffered to accumulate. But no more of this. Perhaps what has been already said is too much, and out of place.
Yet, to return. It is strange and sad that society does afford no stay, no support, to those who are left alone in the wide world; nay, more, that to be so left, seems in a great degree to sever the bond between us and society. "He must have some friends. Let him apply to them," we are apt to say, whenever one of these solitary ones comes before us, and whether it is advice, assistance, or defence, that is needed. "He must have some friends!"--It is a phrase in constant use; and, in our own hearts, we go on to say, "if he have not, he must have lost them by his own fault;" and yet how many events may deprive man, and much more frequently woman, of the only friends possessed!