The Last Of The Barons, Volume 4.

on, Robert Hilyard (still in the reverend disguise in which he had accosted Hastings) bent his wa

on the very marge of the river, which belonged to one of the many religious orders then existing; but from its site and aspect denoted the poverty seldom their characteristic. Here he knocked; the door was opened by a lay-brother; a sign and a smile were interchanged, and the visitor was ushered into a room belonging to the superior, but given up for the last few days to a foreign priest, to whom the whole community appeared to consider the reverence of a saint was due. And yet this priest, who, seated alone, by a casement which commanded a partial view of the d

al friend, speak! speak!" exclaimed the priest, i

brought before the usurper; he escaped, indeed, the torture, and was faithful to

he it was, under that reverend disguise, "how lon

nd terrible emotion, wore that aspect in which many a sentenced man had read his doom,-an aspect the more fearful, inasmuch as the pa

e had been open to the gifts of Charolois, I spoke to him plainly of the guerdon that should await his silence. 'Friar,' he answered, 'if in this court and this world I have found it were a fool's virtue to be more pure than others, and if I know that I should but provoke the wrath of those who profit by Burgundian gold, were I alone to disdain its glitter, I have still eno' of my younger conscience left me not to make barter of human flesh. Did I give these papers to King Edward, the heads of fifty gallant men, whose error is but loy

er city of London. Let him send his hirelings to seize her. Not in this dress shall she be found. In robes of

s spared to your royal spouse. Between your prison and your grave, but one secret and bloody step! Be ruled; no time to lose! My trusty Hugh even now waits with his boat below. Relays of horses are ready, night and day, to

l the warrior-queen merged in the remembrance of the fond mother. "Ah, faithful f

raise this people!" said the demagogue

us spur to the north; rather let us hasten the hour of action,

, all that we have gained is lost; and instead of war, you can scarcely provoke a riot. But for this accursed alliance of Edward's daughter with the brother of icy-hearted Louis, our triumph had been secure. T

exclaimed Margaret, in a voice in which the anguish pi

ady the great lords desert his court; already, in the rural provinces, peasant and franklin complain of the exactions of his minions; already the mighty House of Nevile frowns sullen on the throne it built. Another year, and who knows but the Ear

irit of a queen lies in me so low and crushed, that I, the descendant of Charlemagne, could forgive the wrongs endured from Warwick and his

over the bold face of Robin

much as I love thy cause, much as thou hast with thy sorrows and thy princely beauty glamoured and spelled my heart and my hand,-ay, so that I, the son of a Lollard, forget the wrongs the Lollards sustained from the House of Lancaster; so that I, who have seen the glorious fruitage of a R

eafen and blind her judgment, instantly returned to her. Few women equalled this once idol of knight and minstrel, in the subduing fascination that she could exert in her happier moments. Her affabi

, in what a world of strife and falsehood her very womanhood hath grown unsexed?" She paused a moment, and her uplifted eyes shed tears fast and large. Then, with a sigh, she turned to Hilyard, and resumed more calmly, "Yes, thou art right, -adversity hath taught me much. And though adversity will too often

d held to his lips, and his rough voice trembled as he a

lf, I yield to thy counsels. Once more the fugitive, I abandon the city that contains He

ook the way through a narrow passage, to a small door communicating with the river

s, passed them, noisy with mirth or music, on their way. These the fallen sovereign heeded not; but, with all her faults, the woman's heart beating in her bosom-she who in prosperity had so often wrought ruin, and shame, and woe to her gentle lord; she who had been reckless of her trust as queen; and incurred grave-but, l