enish, who had
now sat down to her spinning wheel in the inglenook, whilst her
daughter still hovered about restlessly, and waited assiduously
upon their disabled guest. "And had King Edward but kept his
throne, I verily believe he would have put down with a strong hand
these same marauders who devastate the country more than war
itself. Things were beginning to improve after the long and
disastrous civil strife, and we fondly told ourselves that the
worst was over, and that the distracted country would taste
something of the blessings of peace again. But since that haughty
earl men call the King Maker has gone to France to make his peace
with the Lancastrian queen, and has returned to place her husband
(poor man, it is no fault of his that he cannot sway the sceptre,
but can only submit to the dictates of others) on England's throne,
we shall again be plunged, I know it well, in bloody and terrible
strife. The lion-hearted Edward will never resign his rights
without a struggle. He will return and collect an army, and the
cruel bloodshed will recommence. This bloodless victory will not
last. God alone knows how the struggle will end. We know but too
well that misery and desolation will be the fate of the country
until the matter is finally settled one way or the other; and when
will that be?"

Paul listened in grave silence to these words, so foreign to his
own hopes and the confident expressions he had heard from time to
time uttered by hot partisans of the Red Rose. He had hoped to find
the whole country rejoicing in the restoration of the gentle
monarch, whom he loved with the ardour of a generous and impetuous
temperament. But these simple folks, rustic and unlettered though
they were, managed somehow to throw a shadow over his spirit by
their grave and doubting words.

He realized that King Henry would have a hard struggle ere the
whole of England owned his sway. Edward was yet the king in many a
part of the realm. He was more respected and beloved than the
feeble, monk-ridden monarch he had deposed; and if it came to be a
question of abstract right, none could dispute the superiority of
the claim of the House of York. Edward was the descendant of the
elder branch of the family of Edward the Third. It was only the
politic reign of the fourth Henry, and the brilliant reign of the
fifth, which had given to the House of Lancaster its kingly title.
Men would probably never have thought of disputing the sixth
Henry