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 tendants, "fetch me the right Cedric hither, and I pardon your error for once; the rather that you but mistook a fool for a Saxon Franklin."

"Aye, but," said Wamba, "your chivalrous excellency will find there are more fools than Franklins amongst us."

"What means the knave?" said Front-de-Bœuf, looking towards his followers, who, lingering and loath, faultered forth their belief, that if this were not Cedric who was there in presence, they knew not what was become of him.

"Saints of Heaven," exclaimed De Bracy, "he must have escaped in the monk's garments!"

"Fiends of hell," echoed Front-de-Bœuf, "it was then the boar of Rotherwood whom I ushered to the postern, and dismissed with my own hands! And thou," he said to Wamba, "whose folly could over-reach the wisdom of ideots yet more gross than thyself—I will give thee holy orders—I will shave thy crown for thee!—Here, let them tear the scalp from his head, and then pitch him headlong from the battlements—Thy trade is to jest, canst thou jest now?"

"You deal with me better than your word,