e may no more
benefit his country and his kin, he may serve them in his death," calmly
and proudly she answered. "It is well; perchance, when my turn cometh, I
may thank thy master for the lesson now rudely forced upon me. The hour
will come when the blood that he now so unjustly sheds shall shriek
aloud for vengeance. On me let him work his will--I fear him not."

"Be silent, minion! I listen not to thy foul treason," said the earl,
hoarse with suppressed passion at the little effect his sovereign's
mandate produced, when he had hoped to have enforced it midst sobs and
tears; and she was silent, for her eye had caught one face amidst the
crowd that fascinated its gaze, and sent back the blood, which had
seemed to stagnate when the idea that it was indeed Nigel now about to
suffer had been thus rudely thrust upon her--sent it with such sudden
revulsion through its varied channels, that it was only with a desperate
struggle she retained her outward calmness, and then she stood, to the
eye of Berwick, proud, dignified, collected, seemingly so cold, that he
doubted whether aught of feeling could remain, or marvelled if the
mandate of Edward had indeed power to inflict aught of pain. But
within--oh, the veriest tyrant must have shuddered, could he have known
the torture there; she saw, she recognized her child; she read naught
but madness in that chiselled gaze; she saw at a glance there was no
escaping from beholding, to the dreadful end, the fate of her beloved;
before, behind, on every side, the crowds pressed round, yet from the
slightly elevated position of the scaffold, failing to conceal it from
her gaze. The Earl of Gloucester she perceived close at her side, as if
protecting her; but if indeed she was under his care, how came she on
such a spot, at such a time?--did he know her sex, or only looked on her
as a favored page of Nigel's, and as such protected? Yet would not the
anguish of that hour betray her not alone to him, but to that dark and
cruel man whom she also marked beside her, and who, did he once know
her, would demand the right of a father, to give her to his care? and
oh, how would that right be exercised! would the murderer of his son,
his heir, have pity on a daughter? But it would be a vain effort to
picture the deep anguish of that mother's heart, as in that dread moment
she looked upon her child, knowing, feeling _her_ might of grief, as if
it had been her own; well-nigh suffocated with the wild yea