relentless when his blood was up, never descended into the cool and
continuous cruelty of detail.

The chamber may yet be seen,--its shape a spacious octagon; but the
walls now rude and bare were then painted and blazoned with scenes
from the Old Testament. The door opened beneath the pointed arch in
the central side (not where it now does), giving entrance from a small
anteroom, in which the visitor now beholds the receptacle for old
rolls and papers. At the right, on entering, where now, if our memory
mistake not, is placed a press, stood the bed, quaintly carved, and
with hangings of damascene. At the farther end the deep recess which
faced the ancient door was fitted up as a kind of oratory. And there
were to be seen, besides the crucifix and the Mass-book, a profusion
of small vessels of gold and crystal, containing the relics, supposed
or real, of saint and martyr, treasures which the deposed king had
collected in his palmier days at a sum that, in the minds of his
followers, had been better bestowed on arms and war-steeds. A young
man named Allerton--one of the three gentlemen personally attached to
Henry, to whom Edward had permitted general access, and who, in fact,
lodged in other apartments of the Wakefield Tower, and might be said
to share his captivity--was seated before a table, and following the
steps of his musing master, with earnest and watchful eyes.

One of the small spaniels employed in springing game--for Henry,
despite his mildness, had been fond of all the sports of the field--
lay curled round on the floor, but started up, with a shrill bark, at
the entrance of the bearer of the model, while a starling in a cage by
the window, seemingly delighted at the disturbance, flapped his wings,
and screamed out, "Bad men! Bad world! Poor Henry!"