Read "The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck" by Mary Shelley online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Art thou he, traitor! that with treason vile Hast slain my men in this unmanly manner. And now triumphest in the piteous spoil Of these poor folk; whose souls with black dishonour And foul defame do deck thy bloody banner? The meed whereof shall shortly be thy shame. And wretched end which still attendeth on her. With that himself to battle he did frame; So did his forty yeomen which there with him came. --SPENSER.
Some miles to the east of Yeovil there was a deep stream, whose precipitous banks were covered by a thick underwood that almost concealed the turbid waters, which undermined and bared the twisted and gnarled roots of the various overhanging trees or shrubs. The left side of the stream was bounded by an abrupt hill, at the foot of which was a narrow pathway; on the green acclivity flourished a beech grove, whose roots were spread in many directions to catch the soil, while their trunks, some almost horizontal, were all fantastically grown, and the fairy tracery of the foliage shed such soft, mellowed, chequered light as must incline the heart of the wanderer beneath the leafy bower, to delicious musings.