was not, at the first, unworthy of the high influence it had obtained.
The agitation and disorder of the hour had introduced into the
assembly several of the more active and accredited citizens not of
right belonging to it; but they sat, in silent discipline and order,
on long benches beyond the table crowded by the corporate officers.
Foremost among these, and remarkable by the firmness and intelligence
of his countenance, and the earnest self-possession with which he
listened to his seniors, was Nicholas Alwyn, summoned to the council
from his great influence with the apprentices and younger freemen of
the city.

As the last scout announced his news and was gravely dismissed, the
lord mayor rose; and being, perhaps, a better educated man than many
of the haughtiest barons, and having more at stake than most of them,
his manner and language had a dignity and earnestness which might have
reflected honour on the higher court of parliament.

"Brethren and citizens," he said, with the decided brevity of one who
felt it no time for many words, "in two hours we shall hear the
clarions of Lord Warwick at our gates; in two hours we shall be
summoned to give entrance to an army assembled in the name of King
Henry. I have done my duty,--I have manned the walls, I have
marshalled what soldiers we can command, I have sent to the deputy-
governor of the Tower--"

"And what answer gives he, my lord mayor?" interrupted Humfrey
Heyford.

"None to depend upon. He answers that Edward IV., in abdicating the
kingdom, has left him no power to resist; and that between force and