seriously
increasing in depth and loudness, Marmaduke felt his chivalry called
forth, and with some difficulty opening the rusty wicket in the
casement, he exclaimed: "Shame on you, my countrymen, for thus
disturbing in broad day a peaceful habitation! Ye call mine host a
wizard. Thus much say I on his behalf: I was robbed and wounded a few
nights since in your neighbourhood, and in this house alone I found
shelter and healing."

The unexpected sight of the fair young face of Marmaduke Nevile, and the
healthful sound of his clear ringing voice, produced a momentary effect
on the besiegers, when one of them, a sturdy baker, cried out, "Heed him
not,--he is a goblin. Those devil-mongers can bake ye a dozen such every
moment, as deftly as I can draw loaves from the oven!"

This speech turned the tide, and at that instant a savage-looking man,
the father of the aggrieved boy, followed by his wife, gesticulating and
weeping, ran from his house, waving a torch in his right hand, his arm
bare to the shoulder; and the cry of "Fire the door!" was universal.

In fact, the danger now grew imminent: several of the party were already
piling straw and fagots against the threshold, and Marmaduke began to
think the only chance of life to his host and Sibyll was in flight by
some back way, when he beheld a man, clad somewhat in the fashion of a
country yeoman, a formidable knotted club in his hand, pushing his way,
with Herculean shoulders, through the crowd; and stationing himself
before the threshold and brandishing aloft his formidable weapon, he
exclaimed, "What! In the devil's name, do you mean to get yourselves all
hanged for riot? Do you think that King Edward is as soft a man as King
Henry was, and that he will suffer any one but himself to set fire to
people's houses in this way? I dare say you are all right enough in the
main, but by the blood of Saint Thomas, I will brain the first man who
advances a step,--by way of preserving the necks of the rest!"

"A Robin! a Robin!" cried several of the mob. "It is our good friend
Robin. Harken to Robin. He is always right."

"Ay, that I am!" quoth the defender; "you know that well enough. If I
had my way, the world should be turned upside down, but what the poor
folk should get nearer to the sun! But what I say is this, never go
against law, while the law is too strong. And it were a sad thing to see
fifty fine fellows trussed up for burning an old wizard. So, be off
with you, an