re. Alarmed by their long absence, the widow, who at first received
the message from the stranger, went herself to the cottage, and found
that the story was a fable. Every search had since been made for Adam
and his daughter, but in vain. The widow, confirmed in her previous
belief that her lodgers had been attainted Lancastrians, could but
suppose that they had been thus betrayed to their enemies. Hastings
heard this with a dismay and remorse impossible to express. His only
conjecture was that the king had discovered their retreat, and taken
this measure to break off the intercourse he had so sternly denounced.
Full of these ideas, he hastily remounted, and stopped not till once
more at the gates of the Tower. Hastening to Edward's closet, the moment
he saw the king, he exclaimed, in great emotion, "My liege, my liege, do
not at this hour, when I have need of my whole energy to serve thee,
do not madden my brain, and palsy my arm. This old man--the poor
maid--Sibyll--Warner,--speak, my liege--only tell me they are safe;
promise me they shall go free, and I swear to obey thee in all else! I
will thank thee in the battlefield!"

"Thou art mad, Hastings!" said the king, in great astonishment. "Hush!"
and he glanced significantly at a person who stood before several
heaps of gold, ranged upon a table in the recess of the room. "See,"
he whispered, "yonder is the goldsmith, who hath brought me a loan from
himself and his fellows! Pretty tales for the city thy folly will send
abroad!"

But before Hastings could vent his impatient answer, this person,
to Edward's still greater surprise, had advanced from his place, and
forgetting all ceremony, had seized Hastings by the hem of his surcoat,
exclaiming,--

"My lord, my lord, what new horror is this? Sibyll!--methought she was
worthless, and had fled to thee!"

"Ten thousand devils!" shouted the king, "am I ever to be tormented by
that damnable wizard and his witch child? And is it, Sir Peer and Sir
Goldsmith, in your king's closet that ye come, the very eve before he
marches to battle, to speer and glower at each other like two madmen as
ye are?"

Neither peer nor goldsmith gave way, till the courtier, naturally
recovering himself the first, fell on his knee; and said, with firm
though profound respect: "Sire, if poor William Hastings has ever
merited from the king one kindly thought, one generous word, forgive
now whatever may displease thee in his passion or his suit, a