n my way;
And wheresoe'er this foot of mine doth tread,
He lies before me.--Dost thou understand me?
--King John

There was brave feasting in the Castle of York, to which Prince John
had invited those nobles, prelates, and leaders, by whose assistance he
hoped to carry through his ambitious projects upon his brother's throne.
Waldemar Fitzurse, his able and politic agent, was at secret work among
them, tempering all to that pitch of courage which was necessary in
making an open declaration of their purpose. But their enterprise was
delayed by the absence of more than one main limb of the confederacy.
The stubborn and daring, though brutal courage of Front-de-Boeuf; the
buoyant spirits and bold bearing of De Bracy; the sagacity, martial
experience, and renowned valour of Brian de Bois-Guilbert, were
important to the success of their conspiracy; and, while cursing in
secret their unnecessary and unmeaning absence, neither John nor his
adviser dared to proceed without them. Isaac the Jew also seemed to have
vanished, and with him the hope of certain sums of money, making up the
subsidy for which Prince John had contracted with that Israelite and his
brethren. This deficiency was likely to prove perilous in an emergency
so critical.

It was on the morning after the fall of Torquilstone, that a confused
report began to spread abroad in the city of York, that De Bracy and
Bois-Guilbert, with their confederate Front-de-Boeuf, had been taken or
slain. Waldemar brought the rumour to Prince John, announcing, that he
feared its truth the more that they had set out with a small attendance,
for the purpose of committing an assault on the Saxon Cedric and his
attendants. At another time the Prince would have treated this deed of
violence as a good jest; but now, that it interfered with and impeded
his own plans, he exclaimed against the perpetrators, and spoke of
the broken laws, and the infringement of public order and of private
property, in a tone which might have become King Alfred.

"The unprincipled marauders," he said--"were I ever to become monarch of
England, I would hang such transgressors over the drawbridges of their
own castles."

"But to become monarch of England," said his Ahithophel coolly, "it is
necessary not only that your Grace should endure the transgressions
of these unprincipled marauders, but that you should afford them your
protection, notwithstanding your laudable zeal for the laws they a