After three days they drew near their journey's end: curiosity as to the cause of their visit, anxiety concerning his reception, all faded in Richard's heart; dimmed by the glad expectation of seeing her again, who had dawned the glowing orient of his darkened heart. They had departed from their rude shelter before the sun rose: the mountain peaks were awake with day, while night still slumbered in the plain below: some natural sights speak to the heart more than others, wherefore we know not: the most eloquent is that of the birth of day on the untrodden hill-tops, while we, who behold it, are encompassed by shadows. York paused: the scene appeared to close in on him, and to fill him, even to overflowing, with its imagery. They were toiling up the mountain's side: below, above, the dark pines, in many a tortuous shape, clung to the rifted rocks; the fern clustered round some solitary old oak; while, beetling over, were dark frowning crags, or the foldings of the mountains, softened into upland, painted by the many coloured heather. With the steady pace of a mountaineer, King James breasted the hill-side; nor did York bely his rugged Spanish home. As a bravado, the king, in the very sheer ascent, trolled a ballad, a wild Scottish song, and Richard answered by a few notes of a Moorish air. A voice seemed to answer him, not an echo, for it was not his own, but taking the thrilling sweetness of Monina's tones. Ah! ungentle waves, and untaught winds, whither bear ye now the soft nursling of Andalusia? Such a thought darkened York's brow; when the king, pausing in his toil, leaned against a jutting crag—both young, both gallant, both so noble and so beautiful; of what could they think—of what speak? Not of the well-governed realm of the one, nor the yet unconquered kingdom of the other; of such they might have spoken among statesmen and warriors, in palaces or on the battle plain; but here, in this wild solitude, the vast theatre whose shifting scenes and splendid decorations were the clouds, the mountain, the forest, and the wave, where man stood, not as one of the links of society, forced by his relative position to consider his station and his rank, but as a human being, animated only by such emotions as were the growth of his own nature—of what should they speak—the young, the beautiful—but love!
"Tell me, gentle cavalier," cried James, suddenly; "hast thou ever been in love? Now would I give my jewel-hilted dagger to tear thy secret from thee," continued the king, laughing; for York's eyes had flashed with sudden light, and then fell downcast. Where were his thoughts? at his journey's goal, or on the ocean sea? If he smiled, it was for Kate; but the tear that glittered on his long eyelashes, spoke of his Spanish maid. Yet it was not the passion of love that he now felt for his childhood companion; it was tenderness, a brother's care, a friend's watchfulness, all that man can feel for woman, unblended with the desire of making her his; but gratitude and distance had so blended and mingled his emotions, that, thus addressed, he almost felt as if he had been detected in a crime.
"Now, by the Holy Rood, thou blushest," said James, much amused; "not more deeply was fair Katherine's cheek bedyed, when I put the self-same question to her. Does your grace guess, wherefore we journey northwards?"
Richard turned an inquiring and unquiet look upon his royal companion. A kind of doubt was communicated to James's mind; he knew little of his friend's former life: was it not possible that engagements were already formed, incompatible with his plans? With some haughtiness, for his impetuous spirit ill brooked the slightest check, he disclosed the object of their visit to Castle Gordon, and the proposal he had made to the earl to unite him in marriage to the Scottish princess.
"When I shall possess my kingdom—when I may name my wife, that which she is, or nothing—queen!" Richard exclaimed.
"Nay, I speak of no millenium, but of the present hour," said James.
The enthusiastic king, bent upon his purpose, went on to speak of all the advantages that would result from this union. York's silence nettled him: the prince's thoughts were, indeed, opposed to the exultation and delight which his friend had expected to see painted on his face. The first glad thought of a lover is to protect and exalt her he loves. Katherine was a princess in her native land;—and what was he?—an outcast and a beggar—a vagabond upon the earth—a man allied to all that was magnificent in hope—to all that imagination could paint of gallant and true in himself, and devoted and noble in his friends. But these were idealities to the vulgar eye; and he had only a title as unreal as these, and a mere shadowy right, to bestow. It had been sinful even to ally Monina to his broken fortunes; but this high offspring of a palace—the very offer, generous as it was, humbled him. A few minutes' silence intervened; and, in a colder tone James was about to address him, when York gave words to all the conflicting emotions in his breast—speaking such gratitude, love, hope, and despair, as reassured his friend, and made him the more resolved to conquer the difficulties unexpectedly given birth to by the disinterestedness of his guest.
A contest ensued; Richard deprecating the rich gift offered to him—the king warmly asserting that he must accept it. The words vagabond and outcast were treason to his friendship: if, which was impossible, they did not succeed in enforcing the rights to his ancestral kingdom, was not Scotland his home—for ever his home—if he married Katherine? And the monarch went on to describe the happiness of their future lives—a trio bound by the ties of kindred—by affection—by the virtues, nay, even by the faults of each. He spoke also of the disturbances that so often had wrecked the fortunes of the proudest Scottish nobles, and said, that a princess of that land, united, it might be, to one of its chiefs, trimmed her bark for no summer sea. "Like these wild Highlands are our storm-nursed lives," continued James. "By our ruder thanes the beautiful and weak are not respected; and tempest and ruin visit ever the topmost places. Kate is familiar to such fears, or rather to the resignation and courage such prospects may inspire. Look around on these crags! listen! the storm is rising on the hills—howling among the pines. Such has been my cousin's nursery—such the school which has made her no slave of luxury; no frail floweret, to be scared when the rough wind visits her cheek."
In such discussions the travellers beguiled the time. The day was stormy; but, eager to arrive, they did not heed its pelting. York had a sun in his own heart, that beamed on him in spite of the clouds overhead. Notwithstanding his first keen emotion of pain at the idea of linking one so lovely to his dark fate, the entrancing thought of possessing Katherine—that she had already consented to be his—animated him with delight, vague indeed; for yet he struggled against the flattering illusion.
After battling the whole day against a succession of steep acclivities, as evening drew near, the friends gained the last hill-top, and stood on its brow, overlooking a fertile plain or strath—an island of verdure amidst the black, precipitous mountains that girded it. The sun was hidden by the western mountains, which cast their shadow into the valley; but the clouds were dispersed, and the round full silvery moon was pacing up the eastern heaven. The plain at their feet was studded by villages, adorned by groves, and threaded by two rivers, whose high, romantic banks varied the scene. An extensive, strongly-built castle stood on the hill that overhung one of the streams, looking proudly down on this strath, which contained nearly thirty-six square miles of fertile ground. "Behold," said James, "the kingdom of Lord Huntley, where he is far more absolute than I in my bonny Edinburgh. The Gordon fought for the Bruce; and the monarch bestowed on him this fair, wide plain as his reward. Bruce flying before his enemies, on foot, almost alone, among these savage Grampians, then looked upon it as now we do."