which the slightest breath of air was sufficient to call down in a laughing shower. Creeping vines, thickly laden with blossoms, crossed and recrossed the road, almost hidden by the thick verdure with which it was overgrown. The birds saluted the return of day with a thousand joyous songs; the deer and young fawns bounded beneath the heavy shade of the forest. All nature wore an air of majestic beauty, calm and tranquil; the heart of man is alone found to remain always in a state of agitation and unrest.
“Oh! what a beautiful shot,” cried a voice from the crowd, on seeing a large grouse, its wings dripping with the dew, flying slowly above their heads.
“Take it, then!” cried another.
“For what purpose?” exclaimed Northumberland.
Sir Walsh, hearing the voice of Lord Percy, took advantage of that moment to urge his horse beside him, and declare the pain it caused him to see his friend so deeply depressed.
“What could you expect?” replied Percy. “All is ended with me. I have renounced everything. I am detached from everything earthly. A single moment has dissipated all the illusions of my short and miserable life—illusions in which so many others remain for ever enveloped. I believed that henceforth a word would be sufficient to answer my every thought; to suffer alone,
while awaiting death, which is only the beginning of life. Might I not thus believe myself to be almost shielded by evils, since I was determined to endure them all? One evil only I had not foreseen—that of being made the cause of suffering to others; of becoming, in the hands of an unjust and barbarous ruler, an instrument destined to destroy my friends! Ah! it is this that makes me rebel, that bows me to the earth and surpasses everything that I have yet been made to suffer. I go at this moment to arrest the Archbishop of York—to conduct him, doubtless, on the road to execution; and the day will come when those who loved him will exclaim, while they point the finger of scorn at my abode: ‘There lives the man who arrested the great Wolsey, the venerable friend who had reared and educated him in his own house!’”
“The great Wolsey!” replied Walsh, astonished.
“Yes, great,” said Northumberland. “When he will be no more, then will they forget his faults and appreciate his great qualities. He has known how to keep the lion chained, so that you have only seen him lap; but you will know him better if he ever gets the chance to use his teeth.”
“Who is this lion?” asked Walsh.