ps Anthony Woodville had collected were not yet marshalled
into order. Edward drew back.

"And the Lord Anthony of Scales and Rivers?" said he, hesitatingly.

"Choose, king, between the Lord Anthony of Scales and Rivers and Richard
Nevile!" answered Warwick, in a stern whisper.

Edward paused, and at that moment Anthony himself emerged from his tent
(which adjoined the king's) in company with the Archbishop of York, who
had rode thither in Warwick's train.

"My liege," said that gallant knight, putting his knee to the ground, "I
have heard from the archbishop the new perils that await your Highness,
and I grieve sorely that, in this strait, your councillors deem it meet
to forbid me the glory of fighting or falling by your side! I know too
well the unhappy odium attached to my House and name in the northern
parts, to dispute the policy which ordains my absence from your armies.
Till these feuds are over, I crave your royal leave to quit England, and
perform my pilgrimage to the sainted shrine of Compostella."

A burning flush passed over the king's face as he raised his
brother-in-law, and clasped him to his bosom.

"Go or stay, as you will, Anthony!" said he; "but let these proud men
know that neither time nor absence can tear you from your king's heart.
But envy must have its hour Lord Warwick, I attend you; but it seems
rather as your prisoner than your liege."

Warwick made no answer: the king mounted, and waved his hand to Anthony.
The torches tossed to and fro, the horns sounded, and in a silence moody
and resentful on either part Edward and his terrible subject rode on to
the towers of Warwick.

The next day the king beheld with astonishment the immense force that,
in a time so brief, the earl had collected round his standard.

From his casement, which commanded that lovely slope on which so many
a tourist now gazes with an eye that seeks to call back the stormy and
chivalric past, Edward beheld the earl on his renowned black charger,
reviewing the thousands that, file on file and rank on rank, lifted pike
and lance in the cloudless sun.

"After all," muttered the king, "I can never make a new noble a great
baron! And if in peace a great baron overshadows the throne, in time
of war a great baron is a throne's bulwark! Gramercy, I had been mad
to cast away such an army,--an army fit for a king to lead! They serve
Warwick now; but Warwick is less skilful in the martial art than I, and
soldiers, like houn