The Woodman: A Romance of the Times of Richard III

by G. P. R. James

CHAPTER XIX.

Clouds roll over the sky; the large rain drops descend; the lightning flashes; the thunder rolls along the verge of heaven; darkness and tempests rage above; and ruin and desolation seem to reign below. They have their hour, and pass away. Often the clouds roll on to some distant bourn, leaving the sky clear, the sun smiling brighter than ever, the blades of grass gemmed with the diamond drops, the earth all fresh, and the birds all singing. But there are other times, when, although the fierceness of the tempest is over, the streaming deluge suspended, the torch of the lightning quenched, and the angry voice of the thunder hushed, a heavy boding cloud remains behind, hiding the brightness of the face of heaven, and threatening fresh storms to come.

Thus it is too with the human heart. In the spring-tide of our life--in those gay early years, when the merry rays of the sunshiny heart dance gleam-like with the storms and clouds of life, the tempest of passion or of sorrow is soon swept away, and the universe of the heart resumes its brightness. But there comes a time when the storm falling upon life's decline--I speak not of mere years, but at the epoch of each man's destined change--the spirit cannot cast off the shadow of the cloud, even when the eyes are dried, and the lightning pang of anguish or the terror speaking thunder of retribution are staid for the hour.

Thus was it with Richard. His son, his only son, his beloved, was gone. The fountain of hope and expectation was dried up. For him, and for his future, destiny, he had laboured, and thought, and striven, and calculated, and sinned, and offended God and man, and won a dark and fearful renown, tainted a mother's fame, violated trust and friendship, usurped the patrimony of the orphan, spurned every tie of nature and affection, trampled upon gratitude, and imbrued his hands in blood. Strange that the brightest and the purest of human affections, when mingled in our nature with the darker and the more violent passions, instead of mitigating their influence, should prompt to deeper crimes, and plunge us into more overwhelming guiltiness--as the most precious medicines, mingled chemically with some foreign matter, will, is a moment, become the most dangerous poisons. He was gone; the object of all his fond imaginings, his daily labours and his nightly thoughts. The hopes that had been built up upon his life were all thrown down. The line between the present and the future was snapped asunder. The pang had been suffered--the terrible pang of the rending of a strong manly heart from its closest ties and its dearest expectations. The effect had been awful, terrible. It had for a time unseated reason from a throne where she had ruled with sway almost despotic. But that pang had been conquered. Reason had regained her rule. The tempest of the heart had passed away, and had left the sky calm--but not bright. No! Dull, dull, heavy, leaden, threatening, was the aspect of all around. The pure light of day was extinguished, never to dawn for him again; and all the light that was left came from the dull torch of ambition.

Richard sat in the room of the royal lodging at Leicester, where we have before seen him. There was a gentleman by his side, with head slightly bent, reading, from a long slip of paper, some notes of all the different pieces of intelligence which had been received during the day.

"What next?" demanded the king, in a dull and almost inattentive, tone.

"The letter which your grace proposed to write to your royal sister-in-law," replied the gentleman.

Richard started, "Ay," he said, thoughtfully; "ay, it must be done;" and, rubbing his temple gently with the fingers of his right hand, he seemed to give himself up to meditation. After a short space of time, it would appear, he partly forgot, if I may use such a term, the presence of another; and he murmured words to himself, which he might not have done had he been acutely conscious that they were overheard, "Shall the son of Clarence succeed?" he asked himself, in a long gloomy tone; "for him have I done all these things?--To make him King of England? That fair inheritance, for which I have toiled and laboured, and thought, and desired, and watched by night, and acted by day, shall it be his?--No, no! And yet there is a fate that overrules man's policy, and thwarts his best-devised schemes.--No child for me, if Ann lives; and it all goes to another race.--What then?" And he paused, and thought once more very deeply.

The busy movements of his mind during that reverie who shall scrutinize? But at length he said: "No, no! She was the love of my youth, the partner of my early cares and joys.--No! Grief will soon do its work on her. She is of that soft and fragile-hearted nature, which crumbles at the first rude touch, like the brittle sandstone. I am of granite, which the chisel may mark, but which no saw will touch--hard and perdurable. We must bide the event. The canker is on the frail flower, and it will fall soon enough! In the mean time, 'tis well to be prepared;" and, turning to the man beside him, he added, "I will write that letter with my own hand. Have a post ready by six this evening. What next?"

"The young Lord Chartley waits your grace's will, in ward," replied the secretary; and, seeing that Richard seemed plunged in thought again, he added, "suspected of aiding the escape of Morton, bishop of Ely."