n England, exhilarated the
Duchess of Bedford, and gave new fame to Bungey, who arrogated all
the merit, and whose weather wisdom, indeed, had here borne out his
predictions. Many besought Margaret not to tempt Providence, not to
trust the sea; but the queen was firm to her purpose, and her son
laughed at omens,--yet still the vessels could only leave the harbour to
be driven back upon the land.

Day after day the first question of Warwick, when the sun rose, was,
"How sets the wind?" Night after night, ere he retired to rest, "Ill
sets the wind!" sighed the earl. The gales that forbade the coming of
the royal party sped to the unwilling lingerers courier after courier,
envoy after envoy; and at length Warwick, unable to bear the sickening
suspense at distance, went himself to Dover [Hall], and from its white
cliffs looked, hour by hour, for the sails which were to bear "Lancaster
and its fortunes." The actual watch grew more intolerable than the
distant expectation, and the earl sorrowfully departed to his castle
of Warwick, at which Isabel and Clarence then were. Alas! where the old
smile of home?

CHAPTER IV. THE RETURN OF EDWARD OF YORK.

And the winds still blew, and the storm was on the tide, and Margaret
came not when, in the gusty month of March, the fishermen of the Humber
beheld a single ship, without flag or pennon, and sorely stripped and
rivelled by adverse blasts, gallantly struggling towards the shore. The
vessel was not of English build, and resembled in its bulk and fashion
those employed by the Easterlings in their trade, half merchantman, half
war-ship.

The villagers of Ravenspur,--the creek of which the vessel now rapidly
made to,--imagining that it was some trading craft in distress, grouped
round the banks, and some put out their boats: But the vessel held on
its way, and, as the water was swelled by the tide, and unusually deep,
silently cast anchor close ashore, a quarter of a mile from the crowd.

The first who leaped on land was a knight of lofty stature, and in
complete armour richly inlaid with gold arabesques. To him succeeded
another, also in mail, and, though well guilt and fair proportioned, of
less imposing presence. And then, one by one, the womb of the dark ship
gave forth a number of armed soldiers, infinitely larger than it could
have been supposed to contain, till the knight who first landed stood
the centre of a group of five hundred men. Then were lowered from the
ves