“Ay, by my faith!” said Athelstane; “and my duty as a subject besides, for I here tender him my allegiance, heart and hand.”

“My son,” said Edith, “think on thy royal rights!”

“Think on the freedom of England , degenerate Prince!” said Cedric.

“Mother and friend,” said Athelstane, “a truce to your upbraidings⁠—bread and water and a dungeon are marvellous mortifiers of ambition, and I rise from the tomb a wiser man than I descended into it. One half of those vain follies were puffed into mine ear by that perfidious Abbot Wolfram, and you may now judge if he is a counsellor to be trusted. Since these plots were set in agitation, I have had nothing but hurried journeys, indigestions, blows and bruises, imprisonments and starvation; besides that they can only end in the murder of some thousands of quiet folk. I tell you, I will be king in my own domains, and nowhere else; and my first act of dominion shall be to hang the Abbot.”