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?"