SIR THOMAS MORE.
A HISTORICAL ROMANCE
FROM THE FRENCH OF THE PRINCESSE DE CRAON.
XVII.
When the great city lay buried in that obscurity which the mantle of night had thrown over all, and while she seemed to sleep, resting on her bed of earth, by the banks of the river that flowed for ever with a measured sound—when she seemed to sleep at last, although neither the scholar, nor the afflicted, nor the criminal whom she enclosed in her bosom could have extinguished in the depths of their being the fire of intelligence which consumed them—there was to be seen a silent and fugitive figure gliding along by the walls of the Tower, upon which a noble and slender form was reflected. The light footfall made no sound, the sighs of her heart were stifled, and the folds of her veil hung motionless. She seated herself on the stone threshold of the awful gate, and for a long time wept in silence.
“Naught!” she said. “Not a sound to be heard. These walls are like the hearts of the judges. Children weep,” she said again. “What are tears but weakness and water? Not a gleam! It seems they have here neither fire nor life. What is this that consumes my heart? Weep, women! weep in your silken robes, under your downy coverings! As for me, it is the night wind dries my tears, and the damp earth drinks them up! When wilt thou cease to weep, and when will the heart of Margaret feel revived?… But why be astonished to feel it tremble? Has it not been broken like a precious
vase which can never more be mended?
“‘Come, Margaret, white Margaret!’ they used to say when you trod on the grass of the fields, Come, death, or yet a moment of life.”
And the young girl, standing on tiptoe, with strong arm and powerful effort, raised the heavy bronze griffin, which fell resounding upon the brass of the doors, and then she started, for at times she was a woman.