an unwise age!"

"Gramercy! thou hast a hero's calm aspect while thou speakest, and thy
words move me! Listen! Thou wert wont, when Henry of Windsor was King
of England, to visit and confer with him on learned matters. He is now
a captive in the Tower; but his jailers permit him still to receive the
visits of pious monks and harmless scholars. I ask thee to pay him such
a visit, and for this office I am empowered, by richer men than myself,
to award thee the guerdon of twenty broad pieces of gold."

"Twenty!--A mine! a Tmolus!" exclaimed Adam, in uncontrollable glee.
"Twenty! O true friend, then my work will be born at last!"

"But hear me further, Adam, for I will not deceive thee; the visit hath
its peril! Thou must first see if the mind of King Henry, for king he
is, though the usurper wear his holy crown, be clear and healthful. Thou
knowest he is subject to dark moods,--suspension of man's reason; and if
he be, as his friends hope, sane and right-judging, thou wilt give him
certain papers, which, after his hand has signed them, thou wilt bring
back to me. If in this thou succeedest, know that thou mayst restore the
royalty of Lancaster to the purple and the throne; that thou wilt have
princes and earls for favourers and protectors to thy learned life; that
thy fortunes and fame are made! Fail, be discovered,--and Edward of York
never spares!--thy guerdon will be the nearest tree and the strongest
rope!"

"Robert," said Adam, who had listened to this address with unusual
attention, "thou dealest with me plainly, and as man should deal with
man. I know little of stratagem and polity, wars and kings; and save
that King Henry, though passing ignorant in the mathematics, and more
given to alchemists than to solid seekers after truth, was once or twice
gracious to me, I could have no choice, in these four walls, between an
Edward and a Henry on the throne. But I have a king whose throne is
in mine own breast, and, alack, it taxeth me heavily, and with sore
burdens."

"I comprehend," said the visitor, glancing round the room,--"I
comprehend: thou wantest money for thy books and instruments, and thy
melancholic passion is thy sovereign. Thou wilt incur the risk?"

"I will," said Adam. "I would rather seek in the lion's den for what I
lack than do what I well-nigh did this day."

"What crime was that, poor scholar?" said Robin, smiling.

"My child worked for her bread and my luxuries--I would have robbed her,
old