“The tree is not planted,” said Robin, carelessly, “that will serve for my gibbet. But were there no words uttered by me that thou couldst not disapprove? I spoke of lawless disorders, of shameful malfaisance throughout the land, which the Woodvilles govern under a lewd tyrant—”
“Traitor, hold!”
“A tyrant,” continued Robin, heeding not the interruption nor the angry gesture of Montagu, “a tyrant who at this moment meditates the destruction of the House of Nevile. And not contented with this world’s weapons, palters with the Evil One for the snares and devilries of witchcraft.”
“Hush, man! Not so loud,” said Montagu, in an altered voice. “Approach nearer,—nearer yet. They who talk of a crowned king, whose right hand raises armies, and whose left hand reposes on the block, should beware how they speak above their breath. Witchcraft, sayest thou? Make thy meaning clear.”
Here Robin detailed, with but little exaggeration, the scene he had witnessed in Friar Bungey’s chamber,—the waxen image, the menaces against the Earl of Warwick, and the words of the friar, naming the Duchess of Bedford as his employer. Montagu listened in attentive silence. Though not perfectly free from the credulities of the time, shared even by the courageous heart of Edward and the piercing intellect of Gloucester, he was yet more alarmed by such proofs of determined earthly hostility in one so plotting and so near to the throne as the Duchess of Bedford, than by all the pins and needles that could be planted into the earl’s waxen counterpart.
“A devilish malice, indeed,” said he, when Hilyard had concluded; “and yet this story, if thou wilt adhere to it, may serve us well at need. I thank thee, trusty friend, for thy confidence, and beseech thee to come at once with me to the king. There will I denounce our foe, and, with thine evidence, we will demand her banishment.”
“By your leave, not a step will I budge, my Lord Montagu,” quoth Robin, bluntly,—“I know how these matters are managed at court. The king will patch up a peace between the duchess and you, and chop off my ears and nose as a liar and common scandal-maker. No, no; denounce the duchess and all the Woodvilles I will; but it shall not be in the halls of the Tower, but on the broad plains of Yorkshire, with twenty thousand men at my back.”
“Ha! thou a leader of armies,—and for what end,—to dethrone the king?”
“That as it may be,—but first for justice to the people; it is the people’s rising that I will head, and not a faction’s. Neither White Rose nor Red shall be on my banner; but our standard shall be the gory head of the first oppressor we can place upon a pole.”
“What is it the people, as you word it, would demand?”