Page:The fortunes of Perkin Warbeck.djvu/70

62 And now, since that he bad found him whom he sought, Frion talked again of other matters, and, as before, his smooth and gay discourse gained him pleased auditors. At length, the peaceful cottagers retired to rest, and Frion sunk to sleep under their hospitable roof, after he had thought of various plans by which he might possess himself of the prince's person;—the readiest and safest way was to entice him to accompany him alone some little space, no matter how short: he trusted to his own skill to draw him still further and further on, till he should be put on board the boat that would ferry him to his own revolted England.

was a simple scheme, yet with the simple simplicity succeeds best. A new face and talk of distant lands had excited York beyond his wont. He could not rest during the long night, while the image of his disastrous fortunes haunted him like a ghost. "Were I the son of a falconer or hind," he thought, "I could don my breastplate, seize my good cross-bow, and away to the fight. Mewed up here with women, the very heart of a Plantagenet will fail, and I shall play the girl at the sight of blood. Wherefore tarries Sir Edmund, our gentle coz? If he be a true man, he shall lead me to danger and glory, and England, ere she own her king, shall be proud of her outcast child."

To a mind thus tempered—heated like iron in a smith's forge—Frion, on the morrow, played the crafty artisan, fashioning it to his will. He and the prince rose early, and the secretary prepared for immediate departure. As he hastily partook of a slight repast, he renewed the conversation of the preceding night, and like the Sultaness Scheherezade (perhaps he had heard of her device among the Moors), he got into the midst of