THE

OUTCAST S.

CHAPTER I.

IT was on a misty autumnal morning that the

inmates of a public house on the road from Leicester to London were summoned to the window by the tramp of many horses. Ralph Partridge, the host, immediately hurried out in the expectation of guests, and fixed his eyes constantly on their approach. A traveller, who had entered the inn a little before, now followed him, muffled up in a dark cloak, and shadowed by the broad brim of his hat; the former leant against the yard railings, while Ralph impatiently went out farther into the road, so that

VOL. I.

B

he could plainly distinguish through the thick atmosphere a glittering train of horsemen and ladies.

An out-rider, in the livery of the Duke of Northumberland, while yet at a distance, called to Partridge, in an imperious tone, to get out of the way. "Place there-Place !-The beautiful bride of Lord Guilford Dudley, and all the noble wedding-guests, will shortly pass by to Sion House, the future habitation of the youthful pair." But, irresistibly impelled by curiosity, Ralph ventured in spite of the prohibition to maintain his place long enough to offer some refreshments to the minacious speaker, at the same time hinting that he might soon fetch up his lost way by a shorter cut. The servant, in his splendid livery, looked somewhat contemptuously upon mine host and the sign before his door, but nevertheless consented that a cup of the best wine should be brought out to him, seeing that the winding of the long cavalcade over a bend of the road of itself allowed a stop.

The wine came, and the servant, to escape from the eyes of his masters, retreated behind a pile of wood, over which he could peep, at the same time that he satisfied the anxious curiosity of Partridge, who, looking up to him laughingly, said, "That is the bride, I suppose-that young thing there, in the cloth of gold trimmed with fur, and her veil down, from which her smiles glance like the sun-beams through a dropping mist; and that handsome man by her side in gold and purple, and the feathers in his hat, is no other than the young lord; I know him well; it is not long since he past this way with a prodigious hunting suite. But let me know who the others are, and above all that stern-looking man on the black horse. His yellow mantle falls down his back in rich folds, the white ermine of the collar lies right gracefully on his shoulders, and the black feathers stand loftily on his bonnet, that seems to sink too deep on his forehead and press together his shaggy eye-brows."

"That pale, withered man yonder?" whis

pered the servant, and drew his horse still more aside, to get entirely out of his sight" a little this way," he added, "that I may name to you my noble Duke of Northumberland, the father of the lord, whom he has just helped to a wife, and, if he have luck, to a crown."

"The crown of England?" exclaimed mine host, with a look of doubt.

"Even so," replied the other. "Look yonder at the new Duke of Suffolk, late Marquis of Dorset. The name and honours of his father-inlaw were not given to him for nothing. If the daughter is a queen, he cannot well be other than a duke."

"I understand, I understand," replied Ralph thoughtfully. "That then is the new duke? Well, the name is allied to the royal blood; and, perhaps,-"

"The man too! the man too," interrupted the servant, who seemed well informed in the business. "I can assure you, we can tell the pedigree at our fingers' ends; since the marriage with

the beautiful lady nothing else is talked off in our house, and every lad down to the kitchen and the stables knows the right of Lady Jane Gray to the succession."

"Much," said Ralph, "is spoken about it here in the country. Travellers from London, traders, soldiers of the army, all are occupied with the king's sickness, and with talk of who is to wear the crown after him.

"Who is to wear the crown after him?" exclaimed the man on horseback readily. "He, I should think, who is appointed to it by the king: Do you think a man like my master builds his house on sand?-What! don't you know that Maria, the late king's sister, in giving her hand to Charles Branden, made him Duke of Suffolk ?"

"Indeed! Indeed!" exclaimed Partridge; "I knew him well, that Charles Branden ;-a brisk man, who never had enough of marriage. He left the third wife a widow."

"But it is the first,-the first, that is now in