"Oh," he exclaimed in a fiercer tone, grinding his teeth, and shaking
his clenched fist towards Adam Warner's melancholy house, "I say
again, if the king did not protect the vile sorcerer, I would free the
land from his devilries ere his black master could come to his help."

"The king cares not a straw for Master Warner or his inventions, my
son," said a rough, loud voice. All turned, and saw the friar
standing in the midst of the circle. "Know ye not, my children, that
the king sent the wretch neck and crop out of the palace for having
bewitched the Earl of Warwick and his grace the Lord Clarence, so that
they turned unnaturally against their own kinsman, his highness? But
'Manus malorum suos bonos breaket,'--that is to say, the fists of
wicked men only whack their own bones. Ye have all heard tell of
Friar Bungey, my children?"

"Ay, ay!" answered two or three in a breath,--"a wizard, it's true,
and a mighty one; but he never did harm to the poor; though they do
say he made a quaint image of the earl, and--"

"Tut, tut!" interrupted the friar, "all Bungey did was to try to
disenchant the Lord Warwick, whom yon miscreant had spellbound. Poor
Bungey! he is a friend to the people: and when he found that Master
Adam was making a device for their ruin, he spared no toil, I assure
ye, to frustrate the iniquity. Oh, how he fasted and watched! Oh,
how many a time he fought, tooth and nail, with the devil in person,
to get at the infernal invention! for if he had that invention once in
his hands, he could turn it to good account, I can promise ye: and
give ye rain for the green blade and sun for the ripe sheaf. But the
fiend got the better at first; and King Edward, bewitched himself for