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would be easier fulfilled, than she would be able to obtain pardon for her numerous sorceries, and all those devilish calamities with which this forest has too long groaned."

"Thanks to thine own injustice!" replied Elwerwolf, "Edwin Clifton yet lives, and to thy sorrow, is even now within the walls of this palace; although, but two days agone, you sent your own follower, Royston Gower, to dispatch him. Thou mayest knit thy brows, and grind thy teeth," added she, "I fear thee not; the time has come that shall see the heir of Clifton

justly dealt with. He, whom you made a page in his own household, will, in spite of all your machinations, now rule as rightful master. As for myself, and all that thy malice can bring against me, I tell thee again, that I despise and defy thee."

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Bravely said, my old hag of Endor!" exclaimed the king. "We will call in this page, and, by the splendour of our lady's brow! if he who has represented himself as the heir of Clifton, is none other than De Marchmont's page,

we will read him such a lesson, as shall cling to his memory whenever he lies on his back. Hey! without there," continued he, calling to the attendants in the gallery, "bring forth the youth and maiden who came hither with your master's followers? we will have good witnesses in this cause."

"And lest your majesty should lack true ones!" said Druth the dwarf, striding into the room, with the massy club in his hand, "I held it my duty to be in attendance."

"Ah! art thou come to bay with this shewolf!" exclaimed the baron, his lips quivering as he spoke; "but your majesty will be prepared for the music we may expect while hunting with such a couple."

"Whither should the cub wend, when it finds the lair empty?" replied Druth," but in search of the dam. Our old home you burnt to the ground; and since you have started her again from her resting-place, I but wait to know the next that your malice may provide."

"I would that it were the deepest donjon

in yonder castle," said De Marchmont to himself, without openly replying; for Edwin and Margaret had entered the apartment, "What! darest thou then to venture here, and raise thine eyes before me?" said he, looking sternly on his daughter." And this, I trow, is the presumptuous heir of Clifton?" continued he, glaring like a tiger on Edwin. " My own page, my liege, that has been playing the part of a knight of romance with my daughter! Ho! ho! Clement! to the donjon with this knave of a page! By the holy apostles! if he is in love, bread and water will soon allay his passion."

"Hands off, dog!" exclaimed Edwin, shaking the attendant from his hold into the centre of the apartment, with such force that he fell. "I am the heir of Clifton! You, Sir Geoffrey de Marchmont, can need no proof, well knowing, that while a child I was entrusted by my dying father, Sir Gurthric, to your care." Margaret spoke not a word.

"And would at this moment have still re

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mained an inmate of yonder castle," said Elwerwolf, "had you not dispatched Royston Gower to murder him!"

"To murder him! sayest thou, hag?" exclaimed King John, again repeating the question, in a tone, which, like the awful whisper of Macready in Macbeth, seemed to fill the apartment, and with a look as harrowing, as if the spirit of his own murdered nephew, Prince Arthur, had arisen in accusation before him,-"I will not, cannot believe thee, witch! He never could sanction such a crime," added he, after a long and thoughtful pause.

"Thou surely must have mistaken the message of Royston, good Elwerwolf," said Edwin, having caught a supplicating look from Margaret, who began to tremble for her father's fate. "It could but have been to have kept a stricter watch over me. Perchance Sir Geoffrey was an-angered at the words you let fall on the heath?"

"No more than I mistook the imploring glance of the maiden by thy side, Sir Edwin,"

replied the old woman firmly. "From the soldier's own lips did I hear the doom that he was sent to execute. In the dark valley within this forest did he confess it, as a deed, which, only to have named in the eye of day, would have brought a blush over the clear and open face of heaven, and made it ashamed to look down upon a world where such crimes are meditated. Mistake it! sayest thou? Did he not order his red-handed followers to waylay Hereward the Saxon, on his return from the palace? To murder him, and bear away the documents by which the worthy Thane holds the fief of Papplewick? Mistake him!" echoed she, with a look of withering hatred, "as soon mistake on what mission the wolf is speeding, when his howlings fill the forest. Or marvel why the tusks of the wild boar are gilded with blood, when his hoofs are still planted on the rent breast of his victim. God above is witness that I utter but the truth!"

It is impossible to describe the fierce tempest of passion which gathered upon the counten

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