erwick, wherefore dost thou do
this?"

"Not because I am a craven, good my liege," replied the nobleman, still
on his knee, "for had I been so, King Edward's penetration would have
discovered it ere he intrusted me with so great a charge--nor because I
am a witless fool, unconscious of the high honor I thus tamely
resign--and not because I am a traitor, gracious sovereign, for 'tis
from insult and interruption in the arrest of a blasphemous traitor I am
here."

"Insult--interruption!" fiercely exclaimed the king, starting up. "Who
has dared--who loves his life so little as to do this? But speak on,
speak on, we listen."

"Pardon me, your highness, I came to tender my resignation, not an
accusation," resumed the wily earl, cautiously lashing his sovereign
into fury, aware that it was much easier to gain what he wished in such
moods than as he found him now. "I came but to beseech your highness to
resume that which your own royal hands had given me. My authority
trampled upon, my loyalty insulted, my zeal in your grace's service
derided, my very men compelled, perforce of arms, to disobey me, and
this by one high in your grace's estimation, nay, connected with your
royal self. Surely, my gracious liege, I do but right in resigning the
high honor your highness bestowed. I can have little merit to retain it,
and such things be."

"But they shall not be, sir. As there is a God above us, they shall not
be!" exclaimed the king, in towering wrath, and striking his hand on a
small table of crystal near him with such violence as to shiver it to
pieces. "By heaven and hell! they shall repent this, be it mine own son
who hath been thus insolent. Speak out, I tell thee, as thou lovest thy
life, speak out; drive me not mad by this cautiously-worded tale. Who
hath dared trample on authority mine own hand and seal hath given--who
is the traitor? Speak out, I charge thee!" and strengthened by his own
passion, the king sate upright on his couch, clenching his hand till the
blood sprung, and fixing his dark, fiery eyes on the earl. It was the
mood he had tried for, and now artfully and speciously, with many
additions, he narrated all that had passed the preceding day in the
castle-yard of Berwick. Fiercer and fiercer waxed the wrath of the king.

"Fling him in the lowest dungeon, load him with the heaviest fetters
hands can forge!" were the words first distinguished, when passion
permitted articulation. "The villain, the black-faced