s, or rather booths, were carefully closed,
streamers of silk, cloth of arras and gold, were hung from the upper
casements; the balconies were crowded with holiday gazers; the fickle
populace (the same herd that had hooted the meek Henry when led to the
Tower) were now shouting, "A Warwick!" "A Clarence!" and pouring throng
after throng, to gaze upon the army, which, with the mayor and aldermen,
had already entered the city. Having seen to the security of his costly
goods, and praised his apprentices duly for their care of his interests,
and their abstinence from joining the crowd, Nicholas then repaired
to the upper story of his house, and set forth from his casements and
balcony the richest stuffs he possessed. However, there was his own
shrewd, sarcastic smile on his firm lips, as he said to his apprentices,
"When these are done with, lay them carefully by against Edward of
York's re-entry."

Meanwhile, preceded by trumpets, drums, and heralds, the Earl of Warwick
and his royal son-in-law rode into the shouting city. Behind came the
litter of the Duchess of Clarence, attended by the Earl of Oxford, Lord
Fitzhugh, the Lords Stanley and Shrewsbury, Sir Robert de Lytton, and a
princely cortege of knights, squires, and nobles; while, file upon file,
rank upon rank, followed the long march of the unresisted armament.

Warwick, clad in complete armour of Milan steel,--save the helmet, which
was borne behind him by his squire,--mounted on his own noble Saladin,
preserved upon a countenance so well suited to command the admiration of
a populace the same character as heretofore of manly majesty and lofty
frankness. But to a nearer and more searching gaze than was likely to be
bent upon him in such an hour, the dark, deep traces of care, anxiety,
and passion might have been detected in the lines which now thickly
intersected the forehead, once so smooth and furrowless; and his kingly
eye, not looking, as of old, right forward as he moved, cast unquiet,
searching glances about him and around, as he bowed his bare head from
side to side of the welcoming thousands.

A far greater change, to outward appearance, was visible in the fair
young face of the Duke of Clarence. His complexion, usually sanguine and
blooming, like his elder brother's, was now little less pale than that
of Richard. A sullen, moody, discontented expression, which not all
the heartiness of the greetings he received could dispel, contrasted
forcibly with the