The Last of the Barons — Complete by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton (reading an ebook .TXT) 📖

down, in slow and stately grace, licked its master’s hand. So perfect and so matchless a steed never had knight bestrode! Its hide without one white hair, and glossy as the sheenest satin; a lady’s tresses were scarcely finer than the hair of its noble mane; the exceeding smallness of its head, its broad frontal, the remarkable and almost human intelligence of its eye, seemed actually to elevate its conformation above that of its species. Though the race had increased, generation after generation, in size and strength, Prince Richard still marvelled (when, obedient to a sign from Warwick, the destrier rose, and leaned its head, with a sort of melancholy and quiet tenderness, upon the earl’s shoulder) that a horse, less in height and bulk than the ordinary battle-steed, could bear the vast weight of the giant earl in his ponderous mail. But his surprise ceased when the earl pointed out to him the immense strength of the steed’s ample loins, the sinewy cleanness, the iron muscle, of the stag-like legs, the bull-like breadth of chest, and the swelling power of the shining neck.

“And after all,” added the earl, “both in man and beast, the spirit and the race, not the stature and the bulk, bring the prize. Mort Dieu, Richard! it often shames me of mine own thews and broad breast,—I had been more vain of laurels had I been shorter by the head!”

“Nevertheless,” said young George of Montagu, with a page’s pertness, “I had rather have thine inches than Prince Richard’s, and thy broad breast than his grace’s short neck.”

The Duke of Gloucester turned as if a snake had stung him. He gave but one glance to the speaker, but that glance lived forever in the boy’s remembrance, and the young Montagu turned pale and trembled, even before he heard the earl’s stern rebuke.

“Young magpies chatter, boy,—young eagles in silence measure the space between the eyry and the sun!”

The boy hung his head, and would have slunk off, but Richard detained him with a gentle hand. “My fair young cousin,” said he, “thy words gall no sore, and if ever thou and I charge side by side into the foeman’s ranks, thou shalt comprehend what thy uncle designed to say,—how, in the hour of strait and need, we measure men’s stature not by the body but the soul!”

“A noble answer,” whispered Anne, with something like sisterly admiration.

“Too noble,” said the more ambitious Isabel, in the same voice, “for Clarence’s future wife not to fear Clarence’s dauntless brother.”

“And so,” said the prince, quitting the stall with Warwick, while the girls still lingered behind, “so Saladin hath no son! Wherefore? Can you mate him with no bride?”

“Faith,” answered the earl, “the females of his race sleep in yonder dell, their burial-place, and the proud beast disdains all meaner loves. Nay, were it not so, to continue the breed, if adulterated, were but to mar it.”

“You care little for the legend, meseems.”

“Pardieu! at times, yes, over much; but in sober moments I think that the brave man who does his duty lacks no wizard prophecy to fulfil his doom; and whether in prayer or in death, in fortune or defeat, his soul goes straight to God!”

“Umph,” said Richard, musingly; and there was a pause. “Warwick,” resumed the prince, “doubtless, even on your return to London, the queen’s enmity and her mother’s will not cease. Clarence loves Isabel, but Clarence knows not how to persuade the king and rule the king’s womankind. Thou knowest how I have stood aloof from all the factions of the court. Unhappily I go to the Borders, and can but slightly serve thee. But—” (he stopped short, and sighed heavily).

“Speak on, Prince.”

“In a word, then, if I were thy son, Anne’s husband, I see—I see—I see—” (thrice repeated the prince, with a vague dreaminess in his eye, and stretching forth his hand)—“a future that might defy all foes, opening to me and thee!”

Warwick hesitated in some embarrassment.

“My gracious and princely cousin,” he said at length, “this proffer is indeed sweet incense to a father’s pride. But pardon me, as yet, noble Richard, thou art so young that the king and the world would blame me did I suffer my ambition to listen to such temptation. Enough, at present, if all disputes between our House and the king can be smoothed and laid at rest without provoking new ones. Nay, pardon me, prince, let this matter cease—at least, till thy return from the Borders.”

“May I take with me hope?”

“Nay,” said Warwick, “thou knowest that I am a plain man; to bid thee hope were to plight my word. And,” he added seriously, “there be reasons grave and well to be considered why both the daughters of a subject should not wed with their king’s brothers. Let this cease now, I pray thee, sweet lord.”

Here the demoiselles joined their father, and the conference was over; but when Richard, an hour after, stood musing alone on the battlements, he muttered to himself, “Thou art a fool, stout earl, not to have welcomed the union between thy power and my wit. Thou goest to a court where without wit power is nought. Who may foresee the future? Marry, that was a wise ancient fable, that he who seized and bound Proteus could extract from the changeful god the prophecy of the days to come. Yea! the man who can seize Fate can hear its voice predict to him. And by my own heart and brain, which never yet relinquished what affection yearned for, or thought aspired to, I read, as in a book, Anne, that thou shalt be mine; and that where wave on yon battlements the ensigns of Beauchamp, Monthermer, and Nevile, the Boar of Gloucester shall liege it over their broad baronies and hardy vassals.”