A dead silence for a few minutes followed, broken only by some faint cries of "God save King Edward, and down with all traitors!" which seemed raised more to drown the groans which involuntarily burst forth, than as the echo of the heart.

They dared not evince the faintest sign of disapproval, for they stood on precarious ground; a groan even might be punished by their irritable king as treachery; but there was one present who cared little for this charge.

Scarcely had the words passed the herald's lips, before a young man, whose bare head and lack of all weapons would have proclaimed him one of the Earl of Hereford's prisoners, had not the attention of all been turned from him by the one engrossing object, now snatching a sword from a soldier near him, sprung from his horse, and violently attacking the herald, exclaimed, in a voice of thunder-- "Liar and slave! thinkest thou there is none near to give the lie to thy foul slanders--none to defend the fair fame, the stainless honor of this much-abused lady?
Dastard and coward, fit mouthpiece of a dishonored and blasphemous tyrant! go tell him, his prisoner--aye, Nigel Bruce--thrusts back his foul lies into his very teeth.

Ha! coward and slave, wouldst thou shun me ?" A scene of indescribable confusion now ensued.

The herald, a man not much in love with war, stood cowering and trembling before his adversary, seeking to cover himself with his weapon, but, from his trembling hold, ineffectually.