s, thrust them into the
friar's hands, and, pushing him to the door, called to the servants to
see his visitor to the gates. The friar turned round with a scowl. He
did not dare to utter a threat, but he vowed a vow in his soul, and went
his way.

It chanced, some days after this, that Adam, in one of his musing
rambles about the precincts of the Tower, which (since it was not
then inhabited as a palace) was all free to his rare and desultory
wanderings, came by some workmen employed in repairing a bombard; and as
whatever was of mechanical art always woke his interest, he paused, and
pointed out to them a very simple improvement which would necessarily
tend to make the balls go farther and more direct to their object. The
principal workman, struck with his remarks, ran to one of the officers
of the Tower; the officer came to listen to the learned man, and then
went to the earl of Warwick to declare that Master Warner had the most
wonderful comprehension of military mechanism. The earl sent for Warner,
seized at once upon the very simple truth he suggested as to the proper
width of the bore, and holding him in higher esteem than he had ever
done before, placed some new cannon he was constructing under his
superintendence. As this care occupied but little of his time, Warner
was glad to show gratitude to the earl, looking upon the destructive
engines as mechanical contrivances, and wholly unconscious of the new
terror he gave to his name.

Soon did the indignant and conscience-stricken Duchess of Bedford hear,
in the Sanctuary, that the fell wizard she had saved from the clutches
of Bungey was preparing the most dreadful, infallible, and murtherous
instruments of war against the possible return of her son-in-law!

Leaving Adam to his dreams, and his toils, and his horrible reputation,
we return to the world upon the surface,--the Life of Action.

CHAPTER II. THE PROSPERITY OF THE OUTER SHOW--THE CARES OF THE INNER
MAN.

The position of the king-maker was, to a superficial observer, such as
might gratify to the utmost the ambition and the pride of man. He had
driven from the land one of the most gorgeous princes and one of the
boldest warriors that ever sat upon a throne. He had changed a dynasty
without a blow. In the alliances of his daughters, whatever chanced, it
seemed certain that by one or the other his posterity would be the kings
of England.

The easiness of his victory appeared to prove of itself th