These words were uttered with an animation and vehemence so unusual to her, that Walter stood for a moment transfixed with wonder; and before he recovered his self-possession, Isabel, with the velocity of lightning, had regained her skiff, and was sailing before the wind to Hereford.  “Curse on my amorous folly!” he exclaimed, “that, for a pair of pale cheeks and sparkling eyes, has perhaps ruined a better concerted stratagem than ever entered the brain of the Grecian Sinon.  I must away, or the false girl will wake the slumbering citizens to their defence before the deed is done; and yet, must I devote her to the foul grasp of ruffian violence?  No, no! my power is equal to save or to destroy.”  As he uttered these words he rapidly ascended the rocks which skirted that part of the banks of the river on which he stood, and was soon lost among the wild woods that crowned their summit.

We shall not enter into any detailed account of the events of that night.  The royalists, by means of an unexpected attack during the truce, and aided by internal treachery, hoped to make themselves masters of the city of Hereford.  The citizens, however, had by some unknown means obtained intelligence of the designs of the enemy, and were prepared to repel their attacks.  Every street was lined with soldiers, and a band of the bravest and most determined, under the command of Eustace Chandos, (Isabel’s father,) manned the city walls.  The struggle was short but sanguinary—­the invaders were beaten back at every point, their best troops were left dead in the trenches, and above two hundred prisoners (among whom was Sir Hugh Spenser himself) fell into the hands of the citizens.  The successful party set no bounds either to their exultation or their revenge.  The rejoicings were continued for three successive days; the neighbouring country was ravaged without cessation and without remorse; and all the prisoners were ordered, by a message to that effect received from queen Isabella, to be treated as felons, and hanged in the most public places in the city.  This decree was rigorously and unrelentingly executed.  The royalist soldiers, without any distinction as to rank or character, suffered the ignominious punishment to which they were condemned, and the streets of Hereford were blocked up by gibbets, which the most timid and merciful of its inhabitants gazed upon with satisfaction and triumph.

Sir Hugh Spenser, both on account of his rank and of the peculiar degree of hatred with which each bosom beat against him, was reserved to be the last victim.  On the day of his execution the streets were lined with spectators, and the principal families in the city occupied stations round the scaffold.  So great was the universal joy at having their enemy in their power, that even the wives and daughters of the most distinguished citizens were anxious to view the punishment inflicted upon him whom they considered the grand cause of all the national evils.  Isabel