In the meantime, the embroidery frames were cast away. Her ladies gathered round her, and drew her gently to her chair of state, in which they placed her unresisting; but there she remained, precisely as they had seated her, with her eyes still bent down, and her lips still motionless. At the same time, Lovel raised the king, and called loudly for assistance. Attendants hurried in, and amongst them the messenger from Middleham, who had brought the tidings of the young prince's death, and had been left at the door by Lord Lovel, when he undertook to communicate the sad intelligence. But it was long ere Richard could be brought to himself; and then he sat where they had placed him, rubbing his brow with his hand, and muttering broken sentences to himself. At length he looked up, and gazed with a curious wild expression of countenance--still shrewd, still cunning, but hardly sane; and then he laughed aloud, and, rising from his chair, exclaimed: "Why, this is well. Why, this is mighty well! We'll march ten thousand men on York, to-morrow, and then to Middleham.--We'll have cannon too, ay, cannon too, lest the usurper should refuse to give up the boy. Why, he is the son of a king, a prince--a prince, I tell you, Lovel, the dog--Ha, ha, ha! That was a merry distich-- 'The cat, the rat, and Lovel, the dog, Rule all England under the hog.' But we paid the poet handsomely. Kings should be always bountiful to poets. Good Sir John Collingburn, he little thought that he should be hanged for the cat, drawn for the rat, and quartered for Lovel the dog--Ha, ha, ha! It is very good." At that moment, the queen's lips moved; and, raising her eyes towards heaven, she began to sing a sweet and plaintive air, in a very musical voice: "The castle stood on a hill side, Hey ho, hey ho, And there came frost in the summer tide, Hey ho, the wind and the snow. "A boy looked from the casement there, Hey ho, hey ho, And his face was like an angel's fair; Hey ho, how the violets grow. "The snow, it fell on his golden hair, Hey ho, hey ho, And the wind has blighted the flower so fair, Hey ho, the flower's laid low." "I think I'll go to bed, ladies. It is growing dark; but this night gear is somewhat stiff and cold, and I think it is dabbled with blood--Blood, blood, blood! Yes it is blood!" and she uttered a loud scream. [2] --------------- [Footnote 2: For an account of the terrible effect--approaching to madness--of the death of Edward, Prince of Wales, upon Richard III. and his queen, see the history of Croyland Abbey.] ---------------