King James's thoughts were full of that wild exhilaration of spirit, which none, save the inhabitant of a mountainous country, knows, when desolation is around—a desolation which is to him the pledge of freedom and of power. But York had other ideas: he had been told that the Lady Katherine had yielded a willing consent to the proposal made; and she whom he had before conversed with only as a gentle friend—she, the lovely and the good—his young heart beat thick,—it had no imagery, far less words, expressive of the rapture of love, tortured by the belief that such a prize he ought to—he must—resign.
The petty tyranny of trivial circumstance often has more power over our best-judged designs, than our pride permits us to confess. From the moment York entered Castle Gordon, he found an almost invisible, but all-conquering net thrown over him. The Gordon, for thus the earl of Huntley preferred being called, when surrounded by his clan in his northern fastness, received the princes with barbaric, but extreme magnificence: his dress was resplendent; his followers numerous, and richly clad according to Highland ideas of pomp. But no Lady Katherine was there, and it soon became apparent that Richard was first to see her at the altar. Sounds of nuptial festivity rang through the castle; instead of grace or generosity attending his meditated declining of the honour, it would have borne the guise of an arrogant refusal. There was also something in the savage look of the clansmen, in the rude uncivilization of her native halls, where defence and attack formed the creed and practice of all, that reconciled him to the idea of leading her from the wild north to softer, milder scenes; where every disaster wears a gentler shape; soothed, not exasperated by the ministrations of nature.
At midnight, but a very few hours after his arrival, he stood, beside her in the chapel to interchange their vows. The earl had decorated the holy place with every emblem that spoke of his own greatness, and that of his son-in-law. The style of royalty was applied to him, and the ambitious noble, "overleaping" himself, grasped with childish or savage impetuosity at the shadowy sceptre, and obscure cloud-wrapt crown of the royal exile. York, when he saw the princess, summoned all his discernment to read content or dissatisfaction in her eyes; if any of the latter should appear, even there he would renounce his hopes. All was calm, celestially serene. Nay, something almost of exultation struggled through the placid expression of her features, as she cast her eyes up to heaven, till modest gentleness veiled them again, and they were bent to earth.
The generosity and pride of woman had kindled these sentiments. The Lady Katherine, a princess by birth, would scarcely have dreamed of resisting her father's behests, even if they had been in opposition to her desires; but here she was to sacrifice no inclination, nothing but prosperity; that must depart for ever, she felt she knew, when she became the bride of England's outcast prince. Yet should aught of good and great cling to him, it was her gift; and to bestow was the passion of her guileless heart. It was not reason; it was feeling, perhaps superstition, that inspired these ideas. The seer who foretold her fortunes, had been her tutor and her poet; she believed in him, and believed that all would be accomplished; even to the death of the beautiful and beloved being who stood in the pride and strength of youth at her side. All must be endured; for it was the will of Heaven. Meanwhile, that he should be happy during his mortal career was to be her study, her gift, the aim of her life. In consenting to be his, she also had made a condition, that, if defeat awaited his arms, and that again a wanderer he was obliged to fly before his enemies, she was not to be divided from him; if no longer here, she was to be permitted to join him; if he departed, she should accompany him.
As the priest bestowed his benediction on the illustrious and beauteous pair, a silent vow was formed in the heart of either. Doomed by his ill-fate to hardship and dependence, he would find in her a medicine for all his woes, a wife, even the better, purer part of himself, who would never suffer him to despair; but who would take the bitterer portion of his sorrow on herself, giving in return the heroism, the piety, the serene content which was the essence of her being. His vow, it depended not on himself, poor fellow! "Never through me shall she suffer," was the fervent resolve. Alas! as if weak mortal hands could hold back giant Calamity, when he seizes the heart, and rends it at his pleasure.
CHAPTER XXXII
THE MARCH TOWARDS ENGLAND
But these are chimes for funerals: my business
Attends on fortune of a sprightlier triumph;
For love and majesty are reconciled,
And vow to crown thee Empress of the West.
FORD.
The royal party returned to Edinburgh, where the nuptials of Richard of England and the Lady Katherine were celebrated with splendour. Festivities of all kinds, tournaments, hunting parties, balls, succeeded to each other; but far beyond every outward demonstration was the real happiness insured by this marriage. Graced by Katherine, the little English court became a paradise. The princess assumed her new character among the exiles with facility; yet the phrase is bad, for Katherine could assume nothing, not even a virtue, if she had it not. In every position she was not princess, queen, patroness, or mistress; but woman merely—a true-hearted, gentle, refined woman. She was too young for the maternal character to be appropriate to her, yet the watchfulness and care she had for all resembled it. Her new subjects felt as if before they had been a disconnected, vagabond troop, and that dignity and station were assigned to them through her; through her the charities and elegances of life hallowed and adorned them. The quality most peculiarly her own was the divine simplicity which animated her look, her manners, her acts. Taintless simplicity, that best of fascinations, whose power is not imperious and sudden, but gradual and changeless, where every word spoken is but the genuine interpreter of the feelings of the heart, to which not only falsehood, but even the slightest disguise or affectation, is wholly foreign; and which is the more delicate, winning and kind, from being spontaneous—so that, as in describing her, her royal cousin had said, "you almost questioned her authority from its want of pretension, yet yielded to it in all its extent."