nd a
sincere man; but he loves his king, and his ends are juster than his
means. Master Hilyard, enough of the past evil. Some months after the
field of Hexham, I chanced to fall, when alone, amongst a band of roving
and fierce Lancastrian outlaws. Thou, their leader, recognizing the
crest on my helm, and mindful of some slight indulgence once shown to
thy strange notions of republican liberty, didst save me from the swords
of thy followers: from that time I have sought in vain to mend thy
fortunes. Thou hast rejected all mine offers, and I know well that thou
hast lent thy service to the fatal cause of Lancaster. Many a time
I might have given thee to the law; but gratitude for thy aid in the
needful strait, and to speak sooth, my disdain of all individual efforts
to restore a fallen House, made me turn my eyes from transgressions
which, once made known to the king, had placed thee beyond pardon. I
see now that thou art a man of head and arm to bring great danger upon
nations; and though this time Warwick bids thee escape and live, if once
more thou offend, know me only as the king's minister. The debt between
us is now cancelled. Yonder lies the path that conducts to the forest.
Farewell. Yet stay!--poverty may have led thee into treason?"

"Poverty," interrupted Hilyard,--"poverty, Lord Warwick, leads men to
sympathize with the poor, and therefore I have done with riches." He
paused, and his breast heaved. "Yet," he added sadly, "now that I have
seen the cowardice and ingratitude of men, my calling seems over, and my
spirit crushed."

"Alas!" said Warwick, "whether man be rich or poor, ingratitude is the
vice of men; and you, who have felt it from the mob, menace me with it
from the king. But each must carve out his own way through this earth,
without over care for applause or blame; and the tomb is the sole judge
of mortal memory."

Robin looked hard at the earl's face, which was dark and gloomy, as he
thus spoke, and approaching nearer, he said, "Lord Warwick, I take
from you liberty and life the more willingly, because a voice I cannot
mistake tells me, and hath long told, that, sooner or later, time will
bind us to each other. Unlike other nobles, you have owed your power not
so much to lordship, land, and birth, and a king's smile, as to the love
you have nobly won; you alone, true knight and princely Christian,--you
alone, in war, have spared the humble; you alone, stalwart and
resistless champion, have dire