This eBook was produced by Tapio Riikonen
and David Widger
Hilyard was yet asleep in the chamber assigned to him as his prison,when a rough grasp shook off his slumbers, and he saw the earl beforehim, with a countenance so changed from its usual open majesty, sodark and sombre, that he said involuntarily, "You send me to thedoomsman,—I am ready!"
"Hist, man! Thou hatest Edward of York?"
"An it were my last word, yes!"
"Give me thy hand—we are friends! Stare not at me with those eyes ofwonder, ask not the why nor wherefore! This last night gave Edward arebel more in Richard Nevile! A steed waits thee at my gates; ridefast to young Sir Robert Welles with this letter. Bid him not bedismayed; bid him hold out, for ere many days are past, Lord Warwick,and it may be also the Duke of Clarence, will join their force withhis. Mark, I say not that I am for Henry of Lancaster,—I say onlythat I am against Edward of York. Farewell, and when we meet again,blessed be the arm that first cuts its way to a tyrant's heart!"
Without another word, Warwick left the chamber. Hilyard at firstcould not believe his senses; but as he dressed himself in haste, hepondered over all those causes of dissension which had longnotoriously subsisted between Edward and the earl, and rejoiced thatthe prophecy that he had long so shrewdly hazarded was at lastfulfilled. Descending the stairs he gained the gate, where Marmadukeawaited him, while a groom held a stout haquenee (as the commonriding-horse was then called), whose points and breeding promisedspeed and endurance.
"Mount, Master Robin," said Marmaduke; "I little thought we should
ever ride as friends together! Mount!—our way for some miles out of
London is the same. You go into Lincolnshire, I into the shire of
Hertford."
"And for the same purpose?" asked Hilyard, as he sprang upon hishorse, and the two men rode briskly on.
"Yes!"
"Lord Warwick is changed at last?"
"At last!"
"For long?"
"Till death!"
"Good, I ask no more!"
A sound of hoofs behind made the franklin turn his head, and he saw agoodly troop, armed to the teeth, emerge from the earl's house andfollow the lead of Marmaduke. Meanwhile Warwick was closeted withMontagu.
Worldly as the latter was, and personally attached to Edward, he wasstill keenly alive to all that touched the honour of his House; andhis indignation at the deadly insult offered to his niece was evenmore loudly expressed than that of the fiery earl.
"To deem," he exclaimed, "to deem Elizabeth Woodville worthy of histhrone, and to see in Anne Nevile the only worthy to be his leman!"
"Ay!" said the earl, with a calmness perfectly terrible, from itsunnatural contrast to his ordinary heat, when but slightly chafed,"ay! thou sayest it! But be tranquil; cold,—cold as iron, and ashard! We must scheme now, not storm and threaten—I never schemedbefore! You are right,—honesty is a fool's policy! Would I hadknown this but an hour before the news reached me! I have alreadydismissed our friends to their different districts, to support KingEdward's cause—he is still king,—a little while longer king! Lastnight, I dismissed them—last night, at the very hour when—O God,give me patience!" He pause