tymbesteres gleamed and sparkled. It was a scene the she-fiends
revelled in,--dear are outrage and malice, and the excitement of
turbulent passions, and the savage voices of frantic men, and the
thirst of blood to those everlasting furies of a mob, under whatever
name we know them, in whatever time they taint with their presence,--
women in whom womanhood is blasted!

Door after door was burst open with cries of disappointed rage; at
last they ascended the turret-stairs, they found a small door barred
and locked. Tim's father, a huge axe in his brawny arm, shivered the
panels; the crowd rushed in, and there, seated amongst a strange and
motley litter, they found the devoted Madge. The poor old woman had
collected into this place, as the stronghold of the mansion, whatever
portable articles seemed to her most precious, either from value or
association. Sibyll's gittern (Marmaduke's gift) lay amidst a lumber
of tools and implements; a faded robe of her dead mother's, treasured
by Madge and Sibyll both, as a relic of holy love; a few platters and
cups of pewter, the pride of old Madge's heart to keep bright and
clean; odds and ends of old hangings; a battered silver brooch (a
love-gift to Madge herself when she was young),--these, and suchlike
scraps of finery, hoards inestimable to the household memory and
affection, lay confusedly heaped around the huge grim model, before
which, mute and tranquil, sat the brave old woman.

The crowd halted, and stared round in superstitious terror and dumb
marvel.

The leader of the tymbesteres sprang forward.

"Where is thy master, old hag, and where the bonny maid who glamours