unconscious and mechanical action. It wanted the ease, the lightness,
the life of her former riding. She seemed screwed up to a task which she
must execute. There was no flogging, no gory heel; but the heart was
throbbing, tugging at the sides within. Her spirit spurred her onwards.
Her eye was glazing; her chest heaving; her flank quivering; her crest
again fallen. Yet she held on. "She is dying!" said Dick. "I feel
it----" No, she held on.

Fulford is past. The towers and pinnacles of York burst upon him in all
the freshness, the beauty, and the glory of a bright, clear, autumnal
morn. The ancient city seemed to smile a welcome--a greeting. The noble
Minster and its serene and massive pinnacles, crocketed, lantern-like,
and beautiful; St. Mary's lofty spire, All-Hallows Tower, the massive
mouldering walls of the adjacent postern, the grim castle, and
Clifford's neighboring keep--all beamed upon him, like a bright-eyed
face, that laughs out openly.

"It is done--it is won," cried Dick. "Hurrah! hurrah!" And the sunny air
was cleft with his shouts.

Bess was not insensible to her master's exultation. She neighed feebly
in answer to his call, and reeled forwards. It was a piteous sight to
see her,--to mark her staring, protruding eyeball,--her shaking flanks;
but, while life and limb held together, she held on.

Another mile is past. York is near.

"Hurrah!" shouted Dick; but his voice was hushed. Bess tottered--fell.
There was a dreadful gasp--a parting moan--a snort; her eye gazed, for
an instant, upon her master, with a dying glare; then grew glassy,
rayless, fixed. A shiver ran through her frame. Her heart had burst.

Dick's eyes were blinded, as with rain. His triumph, though achieved,
was forgotten--his own safety was disregarded. He stood weeping and
swearing, like one beside himself.

"And art thou gone, Bess?" cried he, in a voice of agony, lifting up his
courser's head, and kissing her lips, covered with blood-flecked foam.
"Gone, gone! and I have killed the best steed that was ever crossed! And
for what?" added Dick, beating his brow with his clenched hand--"for
what? for what?"

At this moment the deep bell of the Minster clock tolled out the hour of
six.

"I am answered," gasped Dick; "_it was to hear those strokes_."

Turpin was roused from the state of stupefaction into which he had
fallen by a smart slap on the shoulder. Recalled to himself by the blow,
he started at once to his feet, while