CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.
EDWARD OF LANCASTER, THE BOY WHOSE LIFE A ROBBER SAVED.
A terrible scene might have been witnessed near the small town of Hexham, in Northumberland, one May afternoon in the year 1464.

A great battle had just been fought and won.

Civil war, with all its hideous accompaniments, had laid desolate those fair fields where once cattle were wont to browse and peasants to follow their peaceful toil.

But now all was confusion and tumult.

On the ground in heaps lay men and horses, dead and dying--the vanquished were crying for mercy, the victors were shouting for vengeance.