sojourned a short time in this hamlet, and was a kind neighbour, and
mighty glib of the tongue. Don't ye mind, neighbours," he added
rapidly, eager to change the conversation, "how he made us leave off
when we were just about burning Adam Warner, the old nigromancer, in
his den yonder? Who else could have done that? But an' we had known
Robin had been a rebel to sweet King Edward, we'd have roasted him
along with the wizard!"

One of the timbrel-girls, the leader of the choir, her arm round a
soldier's neck, looked up at the last speech, and her eye followed the
gesture of the butcher, as he pointed through the open lattice to the
sombre, ruinous abode of Adam Warner.

"Was that the house ye would have burned?" she asked abruptly.

"Yes; but Robin told us the king would hang those who took on them the
king's blessed privilege of burning nigromancers; and, sure enough,
old Adam Warner was advanced to be wizard-in-chief to the king's own
highness a week or two afterwards."

The friar had made a slight movement at the name of Warner; he now
pushed his stool nearer to the principal group, and drew his hood
completely over his countenance.

"Yea!" exclaimed the mechanic, whose son had been the innocent cause
of the memorable siege to poor Adam's dilapidated fortress, related in
the first book of this narrative"--yea; and what did he when there?
Did he not devise a horrible engine for the destruction of the poor,--
an engine that was to do all the work in England by the devil's help?
--so that if a gentleman wanted a coat of mail, or a cloth tunic; if