Page:The fortunes of Perkin Warbeck.djvu/242

234 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