ber a dream had
come of Agnes, and she had woke to think upon her child, and pray for
her; and as she prayed, she thought of her promise to the poor boy who
had so strangely moved her. She could not trace how one thought had
sprung from the other, nor why in the darkness his features so suddenly
flashed before her; but so it was. His face seemed to gleam upon her
with the same strange, indefinable expression which, even at the time,
had startled her; and then a sudden flash appeared to illumine that
darkness of bewilderment. She started up from her reclining posture; she
pressed both hands on her throbbing eyeballs; a wild, sickening yearning
took possession of her whole soul; and then she felt, in its full
bitterness, she was a chained and guarded prisoner and the deep anguish
of her spirit found vent in the convulsive cry--

"Fool, fool that I was--my child! my child!"

CHAPTER XXII.

Leaving the goodly town of Berwick and its busy citizens, its castle and
its prisoners, for a brief space, we must now transport our readers to
a pleasant chamber overlooking the Eden, in the castle of Carlisle, now
a royal residence; a fact which, from its numerous noble inmates, its
concourse of pages, esquires, guards, and various other retainers of a
royal establishment, the constant ingress and egress of richly-attired
courtiers, the somewhat bustling, yet deferential aspect of the scene, a
very cursory glance would have been all-sufficient to prove.

It had been with a full determination to set all obstacles, even disease
itself, at defiance, King Edward, some months before, had quitted
Winchester, and directed his march towards the North, vowing vengeance
on the rebellious and disaffected Scots, and swearing death alone should
prevent the complete and terrible extermination of the traitors. He had
proceeded in this spirit to Carlisle, disregarding the threatening
violence of disease, so sustained by the spirit of disappointed ambition
within as scarcely to be conscious of an almost prostrating increase of
weakness and exhaustion. He had determined to make a halt of some weeks
at Carlisle, to wait the effect of the large armies he had sent forward
to overrun Scotland, and to receive intelligence of the measures they
had already taken. Here, then, disease, as if enraged that he should
have borne up so long, that his spirit had mastered even her, convened
the whole powers of suffering, and compelled him not alone to
ackno