"Ha!" cried Richard, with an angry start; "he shall--" But he paused suddenly, laid his hand upon his brow for a moment or two, and then added in a calmer tone, "No. He is a foolish boy. This man was his tutor. We love those who were the guides and conductors of our youth. But I will make sure of him. Give me those letters--No, not those, the packet on the left;" and, having received what he demanded, he examined the despatches carefully, and then said, "What next?"
The secretary looked at the paper in his hand, and then replied:
"Arnold Lord Calverly craves your highness's gracious sanction, to complete the marriage already contracted between his niece, the Lady Lola St. Leger, and the Lord Fulmer. He craves audience on this score, and is, I believe, even now in the great hall below."
Richard meditated for a moment or two.
"He is a stanch and steady friend," he said at length; "yet, this Lord Fulmer--I love him not. I doubt him. He is a man of high-toned fantasies, and grave imaginations--moveable with the wind of passion, and notions of what he believes fine thoughts. I love not your men of emotions. Give me the man of firm calm deeds, who sets a mighty object before him, and cleaves a way to it through all impediments. The inheritance is large; his own power great; united, they may be dangerous. But we must temporise and see. 'Tis wise to keep expectation on the wing. When we have given all, we have no more to give; and, by St. Paul, gratitude is a poor bond, compared with desire.--But I must see the Lord Calverly. Go, give him admission. We will hear the rest afterwards."
The secretary departed; and Richard remained with his brow resting on his hand, till a door again opened, and a stout elderly gentleman was admitted, with an expression of countenance indicating no slight opinion of his own importance, but no very great profundity of intellect. The king instantly rose, and took him by the hand.
"Welcome, welcome, my noble lord," he said. "You have come to me at a moment of deep grief and pain; but your presence is none the less acceptable, as, indeed, what can afford greater consolation than the society of a true friend?"
The cordiality with which he was received might have surprised any other person than Arnold Lord Calverly; for Richard was not a man of a cordial nature, and displayed little warmth of manner to any but his mere familiar tools, or to those whom he intended to deceive or to destroy. The worthy lord, how, ever, was quite satisfied that he deserved the utmost kindness and consideration; and taking it for granted that the monarch really received him joyfully, he proceeded to comfort him with such common places as men of inferior intellect mistake for the dicta of wisdom.
"Alack, my lord the king," he said, "you have indeed suffered a great deprivation. But, you know, this is merely to share the common fate of all men, from which the king is no more exempt than the peasant. Death respects not the young or the old, the high or the low. We are all subject to his power; and, perhaps, those he takes soonest are the happiest. I would have your highness consider what a troublous life it is that man leads here below; and how many sorrows the young prince, God rest his soul, may have escaped; and, in your own knowledge of life, you will find consolation for his having lost it."
"True, very true," replied Richard, with a grave and thoughtful look. "That is sound philosophy, my dear lord, as indeed is all that you say on all occasions. Yet one cannot help regretting, if not the poor boy's release from earthly suffering, at least the extinction of one's own succession, and especially where a crown is a part of the heritage."