he had given below, all the officers
left in the fortress stood crowded together in the small anteroom,
bareheaded, with tapers in their hands, to conduct the monarch to the
halls of his conquered foe.

At the sudden sight of the earl, these men, struck involuntarily and at
once by the grandeur of his person and his animated aspect, burst forth
with the rude retainer's cry, "A Warwick! a Warwick!"

"Silence!" thundered the earl's deep voice. "Who names the subject in
the sovereign's presence? Behold your king!" The men, abashed by the
reproof, bowed their heads and sank on their knees, as Warwick took a
taper from the table, to lead the way from the prison.

Then Henry turned slowly, and gazed with a lingering eye upon the walls
which even sorrow and solitude had endeared. The little oratory, the
crucifix, the relics, the embers burning low on the hearth, the rude
time-piece,--all took to his thoughtful eye an almost human aspect of
melancholy and omen; and the bird, roused, whether by the glare of the
lights, or the recent shout of the men, opened its bright eyes, and
fluttering restlessly to and fro, shrilled out its favourite sentence,
"Poor Henry! poor Henry!--wicked men!--who would be a king?"

"Thou hearest it, Warwick?" said Henry, shaking his head.

"Could an eagle speak, it would have another cry than the starling,"
returned the earl, with a proud smile.

"Why, look you," said the king, once more releasing the bird, which
settled on his wrist, "the eagle had broken his heart in the narrow
cage, the eagle had been no comforter for a captive; it is these gentler
ones that love and soothe us best in our adversities. Tray, Tray, fawn
not now, sirrah, or I shall think thou hast been false in thy fondness
heretofore! Cousin, I attend you."

And with his bird on his wrist, his dog at his heels, Henry VI. followed
the earl to the illuminated hall of Edward, where the table was spread
for the royal repast, and where his old friends, Manning, Bedle, and
Allerton, stood weeping for joy; while from the gallery raised aloft,
the musicians gave forth the rough and stirring melody which had
gradually fallen out of usage, but which was once the Norman's
national air, and which the warlike Margaret of Anjou had retaught her
minstrels,--"THE BATTLE HYMN OF ROLLO."

BOOK XI. THE NEW POSITION OF THE KING-MAKER

CHAPTER I. WHEREIN MASTER ADAM WARNER IS NOTABLY COMMENDED AND
ADVANCED--AND GREATNESS SAYS TO WISD