Philip. "This presence and your accusation might agitate any man. Speak, Mavot! How came this wound in your adversary's back ?"

"I cannot say how, your highness,” replied the accused, in a faltering voice, "but there are wounds on the face and breast as well.”

As he said this, some of his friends held up the dead man's visage, which was scarred in several places, and faint marks of the knife were also on his breast.

"I can speak to those scars, if so it please your highness," said an old woman who stood by.

"Speak, then, without fear or favour," said the duke, in an encouraging tone, and with a look of recognition.

"Well, then, under your highness' protection and God's mercy," said Spalatro's landlady, Dame Madeline, coming out from the crowd, "I saw from the river's side, where I was stooping low to gather cresses, Nicholas Mavot start from the copse close to St. Helen's well, and

stab young Pierre Plouvier behind; and while the poor youth lay bleeding and gasping on the ground, turn round the body, and gash it on the face and breast with his knife."

At these words a burst of execration ran through the crowd, and respect for the duke and his company, alone kept the people from tearing the culprit in pieces.

""Tis false, 'tis false !" cried Mavot, with a glance of despair. "She is his mother's sister, and would swear away my life. I killed him. fairly, and will stand by my act."

"Let

"Justice be done!" said the duke. the lists be prepared for noon to-morrow, in the market-place, the gibbet for the vanquished erected hard by, the weapons and other usual matters prepared, the accused and the accuser shaven and shriven; and, by God's grace, we will ourselves witness the combat, in which, may Heaven favour the right, and punish the wrong!"

Shouts of approval and delight ran through

the crowd. The check given to the exercise of a corporate privilege, was amply repaid by the near prospect of a scene of legal barbarism. The official attendants took the two champions into their keeping, to prepare them, in due course of custom, for the morrow's ordeal; and as soon as the throng dispersed, the duke led the way to the castle, to meet his more elevated visitors at breakfast, having first given orders to Joos Wooters to conduct Spalatro to the armoury, to exhibit the new forge, built on the duke's own plan, and under his inspection, and consult on the formation of a newly-constructed head-piece and hanberk, which had for some days past occupied Philip and his workmen, almost to the exclusion of all other matters.

CHAPTER VI.

PHILIP's attention was soon diverted from the scene just described, by the variety of objects, both of politics and pleasure, which at this time required and divided his cares. At the morning repast, which waited his return to the castle, were assembled the princely guests before enumerated, together with the Duchesses of Burgundy, Bedford, Guienne, and the celebrated Countess of Salisbury, whose beauty had totally captivated the good duke, by whom she was raised to the level of even his wife and

royal visitors. She shared in the honours of his court more like its mistress than his guest; and her influence was not only tolerated, but sought for and turned to account, by every one of those whose interests were more or less at stake, in every public measure adopted or abandoned by Philip.

The most anxious of all the high personages at that time assembled was the Duke of Bedford, who saw that, notwithstanding the treaty of Amiens, sworn between him and the Dukes of Burgundy and Britanny, two years before, Philip was evidently wavering in his constancy, instigated on the one hand by the unceasing intrigues of Arthur de Richemont, who was married to his sister, the Duchess of Guienne, and on the other by his personal enmity against the Duke of Glocester. Bedford consequently devoted all his efforts to secure Philip to his cause, by the influence of his wife, also Philip's sister, and of the Countess of Salisbury, his almost openly avowed mistress. Little cordiality