Robin looked hard at the earl's face, which was dark and gloomy, as he
thus spoke, and approaching nearer, he said, "Lord Warwick, I take
from you liberty and life the more willingly, because a voice I cannot
mistake tells me, and hath long told, that, sooner or later, time will
bind us to each other. Unlike other nobles, you have owed your power
not so much to lordship, land, and birth, and a king's smile, as to
the love you have nobly won; you alone, true knight and princely
Christian,--you alone, in war, have spared the humble; you alone,
stalwart and resistless champion, have directed your lance against
your equals, and your order hath gone forth to the fierce of heart,
'Never smite the commons!' In peace, you alone have stood up in your
haughty parliament for just law or for gentle mercy; your castle hath
had a board for the hungry and a shelter for the houseless; your
pride, which hath bearded kings and humbled upstarts, hath never had a
taunt for the lowly; and therefore I--son of the people--in the
people's name, bless you living, and sigh to ask whether a people's
gratitude will mourn you dead! Beware Edward's false smile, beware
Clarence's fickle faith, beware Gloucester's inscrutable wile! Mark,
the sun sets!--and while we speak, yon dark cloud gathers over your
plumed head."

He pointed to the heavens as he ceased, and a low roll of gathering
thunder seemed to answer his ominous warning. Without tarrying for
the earl's answer, Hilyard shook the reins of his steed, and
disappeared in the winding of the lane through which be took his way.




CHAPTER V.