How Herne The Hunter Appeared To Henry On The Terrace
Henry again sat down to his despatches, and employed himself upon them
to a late hour. At length, feeling heated and oppressed, he arose, and
opened a window. As he did so, he was almost blinded by a vivid flash
of forked lightning. Ever ready to court danger, and convinced, from
the intense gloom without, that a fearful storm was coming on, Henry
resolved to go forth to witness it. With this view he quitted the
closet
The castle clock tolled the hour of midnight as he issued forth, and the
darkness was so profound that he could scarcely see a foot before him.
But he went on.
"Who goes there?" cried a voice, as he advanced, and a partisan was
placed at his breast.
"The king!" replied Henry, in tones that would have left no doubt of
the truth of the assertion, even if a gleam of lightning had not at the
moment revealed his figure and countenance to the sentinel.
"I did not look for your majesty at such a time," replied the man,
lowering his pike. "Has your majesty no apprehension of the storm? I
have watched it gathering in the valley, and it will be a dreadful one.
If I might make bold to counsel you, I would advise you to seek instant
shelter in the castle."
"I have no fear, good fellow," laughed the king. "Get thee in yon porch,
and leave the terrace to me. I will warn thee when I leave it."
As he spoke a tremendous peal of thunder broke overhead, and seemed to
shake the strong pile to its foundations. Again the lightning rent
the black canopy of heaven in various places, and shot down in forked
flashes of the most dazzling brightness. A rack of clouds, heavily
charged with electric fluid, hung right over the castle, and poured down
all their fires upon it.
Henry paced slowly to and fro, utterly indifferent to the peril he
ran--now watching the lightning as it shivered some oak in the home
park, or lighted up the wide expanse of country around him--now
listening to the roar of heaven's artillery; and he had just quitted the
western extremity of the terrace, when the most terrific crash he had
yet heard burst over him. The next instant a dozen forked flashes shot
from the sky, while fiery coruscations blazed athwart it; and at the
same moment a bolt struck the Wykeham Tower, beside which he had been
recently standing. Startled by the appalling sound, he turned and beheld
upon the battlemented parapet on his left a tall ghostly figure, whose
antlered helm told him it was Herne the Hunter. Dilated against the
flaming sky, the proportions of the demon seemed gigantic. His right
hand was stretched forth towards the king, and in his left he held a
rusty chain. Henry grasped the handle of his sword, and partly drew it,
keeping his gaze fixed upon the figure.
"You thought you had got rid of me, Harry of England," cried Herne, "but
were you to lay the weight of this vast fabric upon me, I would break
from under it--ho! ho!"
"What wouldst thou, infernal spirit?" cried Henry.
"I am come to keep company with you, Harry," replied the demon; "this is
a night when only you and I should be abroad. We know how to enjoy
it. We like the music of the loud thunder, and the dance of the blithe
lightning."
"Avaunt, fiend!" cried Henry. "I will hold no converse with thee. Back
to thy native hell!"
"You have no power over me, Harry," rejoined the demon, his words
mingling with the rolling of the thunder, "for your thoughts are evil,
and you are about to do an accursed deed. You cannot dismiss me. Before
the commission of every great crime--and many great crimes you will
commit--I will always appear to you. And my last appearance shall he
three days before your end--ha! ha!"
"Darest thou say this to me!" cried Henry furiously.
"I laugh at thy menaces," rejoined Herne, amid another peal of
thunder--"but I have not yet done. Harry of England! your career shall
be stained in blood. Your wrath shall descend upon the heads of those
who love you, and your love shall be fatal. Better Anne Boleyn fled
this castle, and sought shelter in the lowliest hovel in the land, than
become your spouse. For you will slay her--and not her alone. Another
shall fall by your hand; and so, if you had your own will, would all!"
"What meanest thou by all?" demanded the king.
"You will learn in due season," laughed the fiend. "But now mark me,
Harry of England, thou fierce and bloody kin--thou shalt be drunken with
the blood of thy wives; and thy end shall be a fearful one. Thou shalt
linger out a living death--a mass of breathing corruption shalt thou
become--and when dead the very hounds with which thou huntedst me shall
lick thy blood!"
These awful words, involving a fearful prophecy, which was afterwards,
as will be shown, strangely fulfilled, were so mixed up with the rolling
of the thunder that Henry could scarcely distinguish one sound from the
other. At the close of the latter speech a flash of lightning of such
dazzling brilliancy shot down past him, that he remained for some
moments almost blinded; and when he recovered his powers of vision the
demon had vanished.
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