THREE:The vassals who were to perform homage then prepared to go through the customary form; and an old grey-headed man advanced first from the group to do fealty, and, standing before the baron, pronounced after him the following oath, holding his right hand on the gospels:
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THREE:There was a sternness in his tone that entirely awed Margaret. She continued to weep, but she took the strange infant and did as her husband desired her. The changing of its apparel made the little infant cry, but the change was soon effected, and then Margaret put it to her breast and hushed its cries. While this was doing, Holgrave had taken a spade and commenced digging up the earthen floor. The sight agonized the wretched Margaret, and when the task was finished and he approached the bed to consign the little corpse to its kindred earth, it was long ere even his stern remonstrance could prevail on the mother to relinquish her child. She kissed its white cheek and strained it to her convulsed bosom, and Holgrave had to struggle violently with his own feelings, that he too might not betray a similar emotion. But fortitude overcame the yearnings of a father; he forcibly took the babe from its mother's arms and laid it in the cavity he had prepared; and then, as the glittering mantle of the stolen child caught his eyes, he took a small iron box, in which Margaret kept the silks and the needles she had formerly used in her embroidery, and scattering the contents upon the ground, he forced in, in their stead, the different articles the little stranger had worn, and fastening down the lid, laid it beside his child; and then, as swiftly as apprehension could urge, filled up the grave, and trod down the earth to give it the appearance it had worn previous to the interment. A chest was then placed over it, and it seemed to defy the scrutiny of man to detect the deed.
THREE:
THREE:In the market-place, where the hustings stood, a dense throng was packing itself, jostling and shoving, andReuben saw to his dismay as he drove up to the London Tradershowing strong Radical tendencies. Several Conservative banners waved from the windows of the public-house"MacDonald the Farmer's Friend""MacDonald and Protection""Wheat at seventy shillings a quarter""Ratepayers! beware of Radical pickpockets." These had all been prepared at the beginning of the contest. The Radical banners bore but one device"The Scott's Float Toll-gate." It waved everywhere, and any other banner which appeared in the streets was immediately seized and broken, the bearer being made to suffer so horribly for his convictions, that soon nobody could be found to carry one."You surely do not intend leaving the Tower," asked the queen-mother apprehensively.