"The chamber above the chapel!" gasped the priest.

"That same," replied the knight.  "So if ye desire to save him, save him;
and if ye desire not, prithee, go to, and let me be at peace!  For an I
had been a hasty man, I would already have put my sword through you, for
your intolerable cowardice and folly.  Have ye chosen?  Say!"

"I have chosen," said the priest.  "Heaven pardon me, I will do evil for
good.  I will swear for the lad's sake."

"So is it best!" said Sir Daniel.  "Send for him, then, speedily.  Ye
shall see him alone.  Yet I shall have an eye on you.  I shall be here in
the panel room."

The knight raised the arras and let it fall again behind him.  There was
the sound of a spring opening; then followed the creaking of trod stairs.

Sir Oliver, left alone, cast a timorous glance upward at the
arras-covered wall, and crossed himself with every appearance of terror
and contrition.

"Nay, if he is in the chapel room," the priest murmured, "were it at my
soul's cost, I must save him."

Three minutes later, Dick, who had been summoned by another messenger,
found Sir Oliver standing by the hall table, resolute and pale.

"Richard Shelton," he said, "ye have required an oath from me.  I might
complain, I might deny you; but my heart is moved toward you for the
past, and I will even content you as ye choose.  By the true cross of
Holywood, I did not slay your father."

"Sir Oliver," returned Dick, "when first we read John Amend-All's paper,
I was convinced of so much.  But suffer me to put two questions.  Ye did
not slay him; granted.  But had ye no hand in it?"

"None," said Sir Oliver.  And at the same time he began to contort his
face, and signal with his mouth and eyebrows, like one who desired to
convey a warning, yet dared not utter a sound.

Dick regarded him in wonder; then he turned and looked all about him at
the empty hall.

"What make ye?" he inquired.

"Why, naught," returned the priest, hastily smoothing his countenance.
"I make naught; I do but suffer; I am sick.  I--I--prithee, Dick, I must
begone.  On the true cross of Holywood, I am clean innocent alike of
violence or treachery.  Content ye, good lad.  Farewell!"

And he made his escape from the apartment with unusual alacrity.

Dick remained rooted to the spot, his eyes wandering about the room, his
face a changing picture of various emotions, wonder, doubt, suspicion,
and amusement.  Gradually, as his mind grew clearer, suspicion took the
upper hand, and was succeeded by certainty of the worst.  He raised his
head, and, as he did so, violently started.  High upon the wall there was
the figure of a savage hunter woven in the tapestry.  With one hand he
held a horn to his mouth; in the other he brandished a stout spear.  His
face was dark, for he was meant to represent an African.

Now, here was what had startled Richard Shelton.  The sun had moved away
from the hall windows, and at the same time the fire had blazed up high
on the wide hearth, and shed a changeful glow upon the roof and hangings.
In this light the figure of the black hunter had winked at him with a
white eyelid.

He continued staring at the eye.  The light shone upon it like a gem; it
was liquid, it was alive.  Again the white eyelid closed upon it for a
fraction of a second, and the next moment it was gone.

There could be no mistake.  The live eye that had been watching him
through a hole in the tapestry was gone.  The firelight no longer shone
on a reflecting surface.

And instantly Dick awoke to the terrors of his position.  Hatch's
warning, the mute signals of the priest, this eye that had observed him
from the wall, ran together in his mind.  He saw he had been put upon his
trial, that he had once more betrayed his suspicions, and that, short of
some miracle, he was lost.

"If I cannot get me forth out of this house," he thought, "I am a dead
man!  And this poor Matcham, too--to what a cockatrice's nest have I not
led him!"

He was still so thinking, when there came one in haste, to bid him help
in changing his arms, his clothing, and his two or three books, to a new
chamber.

"A new chamber?" he repeated.  "Wherefore so?  What chamber?"

"'Tis one above the chapel," answered the messenger.

"It hath stood long empty," said Dick, musing.  "What manner of room is
it?"

"Nay, a brave room," returned the man.  "But yet"--lowering his
voice--"they call it haunted."

"Haunted?" repeated Dick, with a chill.  "I have not heard of it.  Nay,
then, and by whom?"

The messenger looked about him; and then, in a low whisper, "By the
sacrist of St. John's," he said.  "They had him there to sleep one night,
and in the morning--whew!--he was gone.  The devil had taken him, they
said; the more betoken, he had drunk late the night before."

Dick followed the man with black forebodings.



CHAPTER III--THE ROOM OVER THE CHAPEL


From the battlements nothing further was observed.  The sun journeyed
westward, and at last went down; but, to the eyes of all these eager
sentinels, no living thing appeared in the neighbourhood of Tunstall
House.

When the night was at length fairly come, Throgmorton was led to a room
overlooking an angle of the moat.  Thence he was lowered with every
precaution; the ripple of his swimming was audible for a brief period;
then a black figure was observed to land by the branches of a willow and
crawl away among the grass.  For some half hour Sir Daniel and Hatch
stood eagerly giving ear; but all remained quiet.  The messenger had got
away in safety.

Sir Daniel's brow grew clearer.  He turned to Hatch.

"Bennet," he said, "this John Amend-All is no more than a man, ye see.
He sleepeth.  We will make a good end of him, go to!"

All the afternoon and evening, Dick had been ordered hither and thither,
one command following another, till he was bewildered with the number and
the hurry of commissions.  All that time he had seen no more of Sir
Oliver, and nothing of Matcham; and yet both the priest and the young lad
ran continually in his mind.  It was now his chief purpose to escape from
Tunstall Moat House as speedily as might be; and yet, before he went, he
desired a word with both of these.

At length, with a lamp in one hand, he mounted to his new apartment.  It
was large, low, and somewhat dark.  The window looked upon the moat, and
although it was so high up, it was heavily barred.  The bed was
luxurious, with one pillow of down and one of lavender, and a red
coverlet worked in a pattern of roses.  All about the walls were
cupboards, locked and padlocked, and concealed from view by hangings of
dark-coloured arras.  Dick made the round, lifting the arras, sounding
the panels, seeking vainly to open the cupboards.  He assured himself
that the door was strong and the bolt solid; then he set down his lamp
upon a bracket, and once more looked all around.

For what reason had he been given this chamber?  It was larger and finer
than his own.  Could it conceal a snare?  Was there a secret entrance?
Was it, indeed, haunted?  His blood ran a little chilly in his veins.

Immediately over him the heavy foot of a sentry trod the leads.  Below
him, he knew, was the arched roof of the chapel; and next to the chapel
was the hall.  Certainly there was a secret passage in the hall; the eye
that had watched him from the arras gave him proof of that.  Was it not
more than probable that the passage extended to the chapel, and, if so,
that it had an opening in his room?

To sleep in such a place, he felt, would be foolhardy.  He made his
weapons ready, and took his position in a corner of the room behind the
door.  If ill was intended, he would sell his life dear.

The sound of many feet, the challenge, and the password, sounded overhead
along the battlements; the watch was being changed.

And just then there came a scratching at the door of the chamber; it grew
a little louder; then a whisper:

"Dick, Dick, it is I!"

Dick ran to the door, drew the bolt, and admitted Matcham.  He was very
pale, and carried a lamp in one hand and a drawn dagger in the other.

"Shut me the door," he whispered.  "Swift, Dick!  This house is full of
spies; I hear their feet follow me in the corridors; I hear them breathe
behind the arras."

"Well, content you," returned Dick, "it is closed.  We are safe for this
while, if there be safety anywhere within these walls.  But my heart is
glad to see you.  By the mass, lad, I thought ye were sped!  Where hid
ye?"

"It matters not," returned Matcham.  "Since we be met, it matters not.
But, Dick, are your eyes open?  Have they told you of to-morrow's
doings?"

"Not they," replied Dick.  "What make they to-morrow?"

"To-morrow, or to-night, I know not," said the other, "but one time or
other, Dick, they do intend upon your life.  I had the proof of it; I
have heard them whisper; nay, they as good as told me."

"Ay," returned Dick, "is it so?  I had thought as much."

And he told him the day's occurrences at length.

When it was done, Matcham arose and began, in turn, to examine the
apartment.

"No," he said, "there is no entrance visible.  Yet 'tis a pure certainty
there is one.  Dick, I will stay by you.  An y' are to die, I will die
with you.  And I can help--look!  I have stolen a dagger--I will do my
best!  And meanwhile, an ye know of any issue, any sally-port we could
get opened, or any window that we might descend by, I will most joyfully
face any jeopardy to flee with you."

"Jack," said Dick, "by the mass, Jack, y' are the best soul, and the
truest, and the bravest in all England!  Give me your hand, Jack."

And he grasped the other's hand in silence.

"I will tell you," he resumed.  "There is a window, out of which the
messenger descended; the rope should still be in the chamber.  'Tis a
hope."

"Hist!" said Matcham.

Both gave ear.  There was a sound below the floor; then it paused, and
then began again.

"Some one walketh in the room below," whispered Matcham.

"Nay," returned Dick, "there is no room below; we are above the chapel.
It is my murderer in the secret passage.  Well, let him come; it shall go
hard with him;" and he ground his teeth.

"Blow me the lights out," said the other.  "Perchance he will betray
himself."

They blew out both the lamps and lay still as death.  The footfalls
underneath were very soft, but they were clearly audible.  Several times
they came and went; and then there was a loud jar of a key turning in a
lock, followed by a considerable silence.

Presently the steps began again, and then, all of a sudden, a chink of
light appeared in the planking of the room in a far corner.  It widened;
a trap-door was being opened, letting in a gush of light.  They could see
the strong hand pushing it up; and Dick raised his cross-bow, waiting for
the head to follow.

But now there came an interruption.  From a distant corner of the Moat
House shouts began to be heard, and first one voice, and then several,
crying aloud upon a name.  This noise had plainly disconcerted the
murderer, for the trap-door was silently lowered to its place, and the
steps hurriedly returned, passed once more close below the lads, and died
away in the distance.

Here was a moment's respite.  Dick breathed deep, and then, and not till
then, he gave ear to the disturbance which had interrupted the attack,
and which was now rather increasing than diminishing.  All about the Moat
House feet were running, doors were opening and slamming, and still the
voice of Sir Daniel towered above all this bustle, shouting for "Joanna."

"Joanna!" repeated Dick.  "Why, who the murrain should this be?  Here is
no Joanna, nor ever hath been.  What meaneth it?"

Matcham was silent.  He seemed to have drawn further away.  But only a
little faint starlight entered by the window, and at the far end of the
apartment, where the pair were, the darkness was complete.

"Jack," said Dick, "I wot not where ye were all day.  Saw ye this
Joanna?"

"Nay," returned Matcham, "I saw her not."

"Nor heard tell of her?" he pursued.

The steps drew nearer.  Sir Daniel was still roaring the name of Joanna
from the courtyard.

"Did ye hear of her?" repeated Dick.

"I heard of her," said Matcham.

"How your voice twitters!  What aileth you?" said Dick.  "'Tis a most
excellent good fortune, this Joanna; it will take their minds from us."

"Dick," cried Matcham, "I am lost; we are both lost.  Let us flee if
there be yet time.  They will not rest till they have found me.  Or, see!
let me go forth; when they have found me, ye may flee.  Let me forth,
Dick--good Dick, let me away!"

She was groping for the bolt, when Dick at last comprehended.

"By the mass!" he cried, "y' are no Jack; y' are Joanna Sedley; y' are
the maid that would not marry me!"

The girl paused, and stood silent and motionless.  Dick, too, was silent
for a little; then he spoke again.

"Joanna," he said, "y' 'ave saved my life, and I have saved yours; and we
have seen blood flow, and been friends and enemies--ay, and I took my
belt to thrash you; and all that time I thought ye were a boy.  But now
death has me, and my time's out, and before I die I must say this: Y' are
the best maid and the bravest under heaven, and, if only I could live, I
would marry you blithely; and, live or die, I love you."

She answered nothing.

"Come," he said, "speak up, Jack.  Come, be a good maid, and say ye love
me!"

"Why, Dick," she cried, "would I be here?"

"Well, see ye here," continued Dick, "an we but escape whole we'll marry;
and an we're to die, we die, and there's an end on't.  But now that I
think, how found ye my chamber?"

"I asked it of Dame Hatch," she answered.

"Well, the dame's staunch," he answered; "she'll not tell upon you.  We
have time before us."

And just then, as if to contradict his words, feet came down the
corridor, and a fist beat roughly on the door.

"Here!" cried a voice.  "Open, Master Dick; open!"  Dick neither moved
nor answered.

"It is all over," said the girl; and she put her arms about Dick's neck.

One after another, men came trooping to the door.  Then Sir Daniel
arrived himself, and there was a sudden cessation of the noise.

"Dick," cried the knight, "be not an ass.  The Seven Sleepers had been
awake ere now.  We know she is within there.  Open, then, the door, man."

Dick was again silent.

"Down with it," said Sir Daniel.  And immediately his followers fell
savagely upon the door with foot and fist.  Solid as it was, and strongly
bolted, it would soon have given way; but once more fortune interfered.
Over the thunderstorm of blows the cry of a sentinel was heard; it was
followed by another; shouts ran along the battlements, shouts answered
out of the wood.  In the first moment of alarm it sounded as if the
foresters were carrying the Moat House by assault.  And Sir Daniel and
his men, desisting instantly from their attack upon Dick's chamber,
hurried to defend the walls.

"Now," cried Dick, "we are saved."

He seized the great old bedstead with both hands, and bent himself in
vain to move it.

"Help me, Jack.  For your life's sake, help me stoutly!" he cried.

Between them, with a huge effort, they dragged the big frame of oak
across the room, and thrust it endwise to the chamber door.

"Ye do but make things worse," said Joanna, sadly.  "He will then enter
by the trap."

"Not so," replied Dick.  "He durst not tell his secret to so many.  It is
by the trap that we shall flee.  Hark!  The attack is over.  Nay, it was
none!"

It had, indeed, been no attack; it was the arrival of another party of
stragglers from the defeat of Risingham that had disturbed Sir Daniel.
They had run the gauntlet under cover of the darkness; they had been
admitted by the great gate; and now, with a great stamping of hoofs and
jingle of accoutrements and arms, they were dismounting in the court.

"He will return anon," said Dick.  "To the trap!"

He lighted a lamp, and they went together into the corner of the room.
The open chink through which some light still glittered was easily
discovered, and, taking a stout sword from his small armoury, Dick thrust
it deep into the seam, and weighed strenuously on the hilt.  The trap
moved, gaped a little, and at length came widely open.  Seizing it with
their hands, the two young folk threw it back.  It disclosed a few steps
descending, and at the foot of them, where the would-be murderer had left
it, a burning lamp.

"Now," said Dick, "go first and take the lamp.  I will follow to close
the trap."

So they descended one after the other, and as Dick lowered the trap, the
blows began once again to thunder on the panels of the door.



CHAPTER IV--THE PASSAGE


The passage in which Dick and Joanna now found themselves was narrow,
dirty, and short.  At the other end of it, a door stood partly open; the
same door, without doubt, that they had heard the man unlocking.  Heavy
cobwebs hung from the roof; and the paved flooring echoed hollow under
the lightest tread.

Beyond the door there were two branches, at right angles.  Dick chose one
of them at random, and the pair hurried, with echoing footsteps, along
the hollow of the chapel roof.  The top of the arched ceiling rose like a
whale's back in the dim glimmer of the lamp.  Here and there were
spyholes, concealed, on the other side, by the carving of the cornice;
and looking down through one of these, Dick saw the paved floor of the
chapel--the altar, with its burning tapers--and stretched before it on
the steps, the figure of Sir Oliver praying with uplifted hands.

At the other end, they descended a few steps.  The passage grew narrower;
the wall upon one hand was now of wood; the noise of people talking, and
a faint flickering of lights, came through the interstices; and presently
they came to a round hole about the size of a man's eye, and Dick,
looking down through it, beheld the interior of the hall, and some half a
dozen men sitting, in their jacks, about the table, drinking deep and
demolishing a venison pie.  These were certainly some of the late
arrivals.

"Here is no help," said Dick.  "Let us try back."

"Nay," said Joanna; "maybe the passage goeth farther."

And she pushed on.  But a few yards farther the passage ended at the top
of a short flight of steps; and it became plain that, as long as the
soldiers occupied the hall, escape was impossible upon that side.

They retraced their steps with all imaginable speed, and set forward to
explore the other branch.  It was exceedingly narrow, scarce wide enough
for a large man; and it led them continually up and down by little
break-neck stairs, until even Dick had lost all notion of his
whereabouts.

At length it grew both narrower and lower; the stairs continued to
descend; the walls on either hand became damp and slimy to the touch; and
far in front of them they heard the squeaking and scuttling of the rats.

"We must be in the dungeons," Dick remarked.

"And still there is no outlet," added Joanna.

"Nay, but an outlet there must be!" Dick answered.  Presently, sure
enough, they came to a sharp angle, and then the passage ended in a
flight of steps.  On the top of that there was a solid flag of stone by
way of trap, and to this they both set their backs.  It was immovable.
"Some one holdeth it," suggested Joanna.

"Not so," said Dick; "for were a man strong as ten, he must still yield a
little.  But this resisteth like dead rock.  There is a weight upon the
trap.  Here is no issue; and, by my sooth, good Jack, we are here as
fairly prisoners as though the gyves were on our ankle bones.  Sit ye
then down, and let us talk.  After a while we shall return, when
perchance they shall be less carefully upon their guard; and, who
knoweth? we may break out and stand a chance.  But, in my poor opinion,
we are as good as shent."

"Dick!" she cried, "alas the day that ever ye should have seen me!  For
like a most unhappy and unthankful maid, it is I have led you hither."

"What cheer!" returned Dick.  "It was all written, and that which is
written, willy nilly, cometh still to pass.  But tell me a little what
manner of a maid ye are, and how ye came into Sir Daniel's hands; that
will do better than to bemoan yourself, whether for your sake or mine."

"I am an orphan, like yourself, of father and mother," said Joanna; "and
for my great misfortune, Dick, and hitherto for yours, I am a rich
marriage.  My Lord Foxham had me to ward; yet it appears Sir Daniel
bought the marriage of me from the king, and a right dear price he paid
for it.  So here was I, poor babe, with two great and rich men fighting
which should marry me, and I still at nurse!  Well, then the world
changed, and there was a new chancellor, and Sir Daniel bought the
warding of me over the Lord Foxham's head.  And then the world changed
again, and Lord Foxham bought my marriage over Sir Daniel's; and from
then to now it went on ill betwixt the two of them.  But still Lord
Foxham kept me in his hands, and was a good lord to me.  And at last I
was to be married--or sold, if ye like it better.  Five hundred pounds
Lord Foxham was to get for me.  Hamley was the groom's name, and
to-morrow, Dick, of all days in the year, was I to be betrothed.  Had it
not come to Sir Daniel, I had been wedded, sure--and never seen thee,
Dick--dear Dick!"

And here she took his hand, and kissed it, with the prettiest grace; and
Dick drew her hand to him and did the like.

"Well," she went on, "Sir Daniel took me unawares in the garden, and made
me dress in these men's clothes, which is a deadly sin for a woman; and,
besides, they fit me not.  He rode with me to Kettley, as ye saw, telling
me I was to marry you; but I, in my heart, made sure I would marry Hamley
in his teeth."

"Ay!" cried Dick, "and so ye loved this Hamley!"

"Nay," replied Joanna, "not I.  I did but hate Sir Daniel.  And then,
Dick, ye helped me, and ye were right kind, and very bold, and my heart
turned towards you in mine own despite; and now, if we can in any way
compass it, I would marry you with right goodwill.  And if, by cruel
destiny, it may not be, still ye'll be dear to me.  While my heart beats,
it'll be true to you."

"And I," said Dick, "that never cared a straw for any manner of woman
until now, I took to you when I thought ye were a boy.  I had a pity to
you, and knew not why.  When I would have belted you, the hand failed me.
But when ye owned ye were a maid, Jack--for still I will call you Jack--I
made sure ye were the maid for me.  Hark!" he said, breaking off--"one
cometh."

And indeed a heavy tread was now audible in the echoing passage, and the
rats again fled in armies.

Dick reconnoitred his position.  The sudden turn gave him a post of
vantage.  He could thus shoot in safety from the cover of the wall.  But
it was plain the light was too near him, and, running some way forward,
he set down the lamp in the middle of the passage, and then returned to
watch.

Presently, at the far end of the passage, Bennet hove in sight.  He
seemed to be alone, and he carried in his hand a burning torch, which
made him the better mark.

"Stand, Bennet!" cried Dick.  "Another step, and y' are dead."

"So here ye are," returned Hatch, peering forward into the darkness.  "I
see you not.  Aha! y' 'ave done wisely, Dick; y' 'ave put your lamp
before you.  By my sooth, but, though it was done to shoot my own knave
body, I do rejoice to see ye profit of my lessons!  And now, what make
ye? what seek ye here?  Why would ye shoot upon an old, kind friend?  And
have ye the young gentlewoman there?"

"Nay, Bennet, it is I should question and you answer," replied Dick.
"Why am I in this jeopardy of my life?  Why do men come privily to slay
me in my bed?  Why am I now fleeing in mine own guardian's strong house,
and from the friends that I have lived among and never injured?"

"Master Dick, Master Dick," said Bennet, "what told I you?  Y' are brave,
but the most uncrafty lad that I can think upon!"

"Well," returned Dick, "I see ye know all, and that I am doomed indeed.
It is well.  Here, where I am, I stay.  Let Sir Daniel get me out if he
be able!"

Hatch was silent for a space.

"Hark ye," he began, "return to Sir Daniel, to tell him where ye are, and
how posted; for, in truth, it was to that end he sent me.  But you, if ye
are no fool, had best be gone ere I return."

"Begone!" repeated Dick.  "I would be gone already, an' I wist how.  I
cannot move the trap."

"Put me your hand into the corner, and see what ye find there," replied
Bennet.  "Throgmorton's rope is still in the brown chamber.  Fare ye
well."

And Hatch, turning upon his heel, disappeared again into the windings of
the passage.

Dick instantly returned for his lamp, and proceeded to act upon the hint.
At one corner of the trap there was a deep cavity in the wall.  Pushing
his arm into the aperture, Dick found an iron bar, which he thrust
vigorously upwards.  There followed a snapping noise, and the slab of
stone instantly started in its bed.

They were free of the passage.  A little exercise of strength easily
raised the trap; and they came forth into a vaulted chamber, opening on
one hand upon the court, where one or two fellows, with bare arms, were
rubbing down the horses of the last arrivals.  A torch or two, each stuck
in an iron ring against the wall, changefully lit up the scene.



CHAPTER V--HOW DICK CHANGED SIDES


Dick, blowing out his lamp lest it should attract attention, led the way
up-stairs and along the corridor.  In the brown chamber the rope had been
made fast to the frame of an exceeding heavy and ancient bed.  It had not
been detached, and Dick, taking the coil to the window, began to lower it
slowly and cautiously into the darkness of the night.  Joan stood by; but
as the rope lengthened, and still Dick continued to pay it out, extreme
fear began to conquer her resolution.

"Dick," she said, "is it so deep?  I may not essay it. I should
infallibly fall, good Dick."

It was just at the delicate moment of the operations that she spoke.
Dick started; the remainder of the coil slipped from his grasp, and the
end fell with a splash into the moat.  Instantly, from the battlement
above, the voice of a sentinel cried, "Who goes?"

"A murrain!" cried Dick.  "We are paid now!  Down with you--take the
rope."

"I cannot," she cried, recoiling.

"An ye cannot, no more can I," said Shelton.  "How can I swim the moat
without you?  Do you desert me, then?"

"Dick," she gasped, "I cannot.  The strength is gone from me."

"By the mass, then, we are all shent!" he shouted, stamping with his
foot; and then, hearing steps, he ran to the room door and sought to
close it.

Before he could shoot the bolt, strong arms were thrusting it back upon
him from the other side.  He struggled for a second; then, feeling
himself overpowered, ran back to the window.  The girl had fallen against
the wall in the embrasure of the window; she was more than half
insensible; and when he tried to raise her in his arms, her body was limp
and unresponsive.

At the same moment the men who had forced the door against him laid hold
upon him.  The first he poinarded at a blow, and the others falling back
for a second in some disorder, he profited by the chance, bestrode the
window-sill, seized the cord in both hands, and let his body slip.

The cord was knotted, which made it the easier to descend; but so furious
was Dick's hurry, and so small his experience of such gymnastics, that he
span round and round in mid-air like a criminal upon a gibbet, and now
beat his head, and now bruised his hands, against the rugged stonework of
the wall.  The air roared in his ears; he saw the stars overhead, and the
reflected stars below him in the moat, whirling like dead leaves before
the tempest.  And then he lost hold, and fell, and soused head over ears
into the icy water.

When he came to the surface his hand encountered the rope, which, newly
lightened of his weight, was swinging wildly to and fro.  There was a red
glow overhead, and looking up, he saw, by the light of several torches
and a cresset full of burning coals, the battlements lined with faces.
He saw the men's eyes turning hither and thither in quest of him; but he
was too far below, the light reached him not, and they looked in vain.

And now he perceived that the rope was considerably too long, and he
began to struggle as well as he could towards the other side of the moat,
still keeping his head above water.  In this way he got much more than
halfway over; indeed the bank was almost within reach, before the rope
began to draw him back by its own weight.  Taking his courage in both
hands, he left go and made a leap for the trailing sprays of willow that
had already, that same evening, helped Sir Daniel's messenger to land.
He went down, rose again, sank a second time, and then his hand caught a
branch, and with the speed of thought he had dragged himself into the
thick of the tree and clung there, dripping and panting, and still half
uncertain of his escape.

But all this had not been done without a considerable splashing, which
had so far indicated his position to the men along the battlements.
Arrows and quarrels fell thick around him in the darkness, thick like
driving hail; and suddenly a torch was thrown down--flared through the
air in its swift passage--stuck for a moment on the edge of the bank,
where it burned high and lit up its whole surroundings like a
bonfire--and then, in a good hour for Dick, slipped off, plumped into the
moat, and was instantly extinguished.

It had served its purpose.  The marksmen had had time to see the willow,
and Dick ensconced among its boughs; and though the lad instantly sprang
higher up the bank, and ran for his life, he was yet not quick enough to
escape a shot.  An arrow struck him in the shoulder, another grazed his
head.

The pain of his wounds lent him wings; and he had no sooner got upon the
level than he took to his heels and ran straight before him in the dark,
without a thought for the direction of his flight.

For a few steps missiles followed him, but these soon ceased; and when at
length he came to a halt and looked behind, he was already a good way
from the Moat House, though he could still see the torches moving to and
fro along its battlements.

He leaned against a tree, streaming with blood and water, bruised,
wounded, alone, and unarmed.  For all that, he had saved his life for
that bout; and though Joanna remained behind in the power of Sir Daniel,
he neither blamed himself for an accident that it had been beyond his
power to prevent, nor did he augur any fatal consequences to the girl
herself.  Sir Daniel was cruel, but he was not likely to be cruel to a
young gentlewoman who had other protectors, willing and able to bring him
to account.  It was more probable he would make haste to marry her to
some friend of his own.

"Well," thought Dick, "between then and now I will find me the means to
bring that traitor under; for I think, by the mass, that I be now
absolved from any gratitude or obligation; and when war is open, there is
a fair chance for all."

In the meanwhile, here he was in a sore plight.

For some little way farther he struggled forward through the forest; but
what with the pain of his wounds, the darkness of the night, and the
extreme uneasiness and confusion of his mind, he soon became equally
unable to guide himself or to continue to push through the close
undergrowth, and he was fain at length to sit down and lean his back
against a tree.

When he awoke from something betwixt sleep and swooning, the grey of the
morning had begun to take the place of night.  A little chilly breeze was
bustling among the trees, and as he still sat staring before him, only
half awake, he became aware of something dark that swung to and fro among
the branches, some hundred yards in front of him.  The progressive
brightening of the day and the return of his own senses at last enabled
him to recognise the object.  It was a man hanging from the bough of a
tall oak.  His head had fallen forward on his breast; but at every
stronger puff of wind his body span round and round, and his legs and
arms tossed, like some ridiculous plaything.

Dick clambered to his feet, and, staggering and leaning on the
tree-trunks as he went, drew near to this grim object.

The bough was perhaps twenty feet above the ground, and the poor fellow
had been drawn up so high by his executioners that his boots swung clear
above Dick's reach; and as his hood had been drawn over his face, it was
impossible to recognise the man.

Dick looked about him right and left; and at last he perceived that the
other end of the cord had been made fast to the trunk of a little
hawthorn which grew, thick with blossom, under the lofty arcade of the
oak.  With his dagger, which alone remained to him of all his arms, young
Shelton severed the rope, and instantly, with a dead thump, the corpse
fell in a heap upon the ground.

Dick raised the hood; it was Throgmorton, Sir Daniel's messenger.  He had
not gone far upon his errand.  A paper, which had apparently escaped the
notice of the men of the Black Arrow, stuck from the bosom of his
doublet, and Dick, pulling it forth, found it was Sir Daniel's letter to
Lord Wensleydale.

"Come," thought he, "if the world changes yet again, I may have here the
wherewithal to shame Sir Daniel--nay, and perchance to bring him to the
block."

And he put the paper in his own bosom, said a prayer over the dead man,
and set forth again through the woods.

His fatigue and weakness increased; his ears sang, his steps faltered,
his mind at intervals failed him, so low had he been brought by loss of
blood.  Doubtless he made many deviations from his true path, but at last
he came out upon the high-road, not very far from Tunstall hamlet.

A rough voice bid him stand.

"Stand?" repeated Dick.  "By the mass, but I am nearer falling."

And he suited the action to the word, and fell all his length upon the
road.

Two men came forth out of the thicket, each in green forest jerkin, each
with long-bow and quiver and short sword.

"Why, Lawless," said the younger of the two, "it is young Shelton."

"Ay, this will be as good as bread to John Amend-All," returned the
other.  "Though, faith, he hath been to the wars.  Here is a tear in his
scalp that must 'a' cost him many a good ounce of blood."

"And here," added Greensheve, "is a hole in his shoulder that must have
pricked him well.  Who hath done this, think ye?  If it be one of ours,
he may all to prayer; Ellis will give him a short shrift and a long
rope."

"Up with the cub," said Lawless.  "Clap him on my back."

And then, when Dick had been hoisted to his shoulders, and he had taken
the lad's arms about his neck, and got a firm hold of him, the ex-Grey
Friar added:

"Keep ye the post, brother Greensheve.  I will on with him by myself."

So Greensheve returned to his ambush on the wayside, and Lawless trudged
down the hill, whistling as he went, with Dick, still in a dead faint,
comfortably settled on his shoulders.

The sun rose as he came out of the skirts of the wood and saw Tunstall
hamlet straggling up the opposite hill.  All seemed quiet, but a strong
post of some half a score of archers lay close by the bridge on either
side of the road, and, as soon as they perceived Lawless with his
burthen, began to bestir themselves and set arrow to string like vigilant
sentries.

"Who goes?" cried the man in command.

"Will Lawless, by the rood--ye know me as well as your own hand,"
returned the outlaw, contemptuously.

"Give the word, Lawless," returned the other.

"Now, Heaven lighten thee, thou great fool," replied Lawless.  "Did I not
tell it thee myself?  But ye are all mad for this playing at soldiers.
When I am in the greenwood, give me greenwood ways; and my word for this
tide is: 'A fig for all mock soldiery!'"

"Lawless, ye but show an ill example; give us the word, fool jester,"
said the commander of the post.

"And if I had forgotten it?" asked the other.

"An ye had forgotten it--as I know y' 'ave not--by the mass, I would clap
an arrow into your big body," returned the first.

"Nay, an y' are so ill a jester," said Lawless, "ye shall have your word
for me.  'Duckworth and Shelton' is the word; and here, to the
illustration, is Shelton on my shoulders, and to Duckworth do I carry
him."

"Pass, Lawless," said the sentry.

"And where is John?" asked the Grey Friar.

"He holdeth a court, by the mass, and taketh rents as to the manner
born!" cried another of the company.

So it proved.  When Lawless got as far up the village as the little inn,
he found Ellis Duckworth surrounded by Sir Daniel's tenants, and, by the
right of his good company of archers, coolly taking rents, and giving
written receipts in return for them.  By the faces of the tenants, it was
plain how little this proceeding pleased them; for they argued very
rightly that they would simply have to pay them twice.

As soon as he knew what had brought Lawless, Ellis dismissed the
remainder of the tenants, and, with every mark of interest and
apprehension, conducted Dick into an inner chamber of the inn.  There the
lad's hurts were looked to; and he was recalled, by simple remedies, to
consciousness.

"Dear lad," said Ellis, pressing his hand, "y' are in a friend's hands
that loved your father, and loves you for his sake.  Rest ye a little
quietly, for ye are somewhat out of case.  Then shall ye tell me your
story, and betwixt the two of us we shall find a remedy for all."

A little later in the day, and after Dick had awakened from a comfortable
slumber to find himself still very weak, but clearer in mind and easier
in body, Ellis returned, and sitting down by the bedside, begged him, in
the name of his father, to relate the circumstance of his escape from
Tunstall Moat House.  There was something in the strength of Duckworth's
frame, in the honesty of his brown face, in the clearness and shrewdness
of his eyes, that moved Dick to obey him; and from first to last the lad
told him the story of his two days' adventures.

"Well," said Ellis, when he had done, "see what the kind saints have done
for you, Dick Shelton, not alone to save your body in so numerous and
deadly perils, but to bring you into my hands that have no dearer wish
than to assist your father's son.  Be but true to me--and I see y' are
true--and betwixt you and me, we shall bring that false-heart traitor to
the death."

"Will ye assault the house?" asked Dick.

"I were mad, indeed, to think of it," returned Ellis.  "He hath too much
power; his men gather to him; those that gave me the slip last night, and
by the mass came in so handily for you--those have made him safe.  Nay,
Dick, to the contrary, thou and I and my brave bowmen, we must all slip
from this forest speedily, and leave Sir Daniel free."

"My mind misgiveth me for Jack," said the lad.

"For Jack!" repeated Duckworth.  "O, I see, for the wench!  Nay, Dick, I
promise you, if there come talk of any marriage we shall act at once;
till then, or till the time is ripe, we shall all disappear, even like
shadows at morning; Sir Daniel shall look east and west, and see none
enemies; he shall think, by the mass, that he hath dreamed awhile, and
hath now awakened in his bed.  But our four eyes, Dick, shall follow him
right close, and our four hands--so help us all the army of the
saints!--shall bring that traitor low!"

Two days later Sir Daniel's garrison had grown to such a strength that he
ventured on a sally, and at the head of some two score horsemen, pushed
without opposition as far as Tunstall hamlet.  Not an arrow flew, not a
man stirred in the thicket; the bridge was no longer guarded, but stood
open to all corners; and as Sir Daniel crossed it, he saw the villagers
looking timidly from their doors.

Presently one of them, taking heart of grace, came forward, and with the
lowliest salutations, presented a letter to the knight.

His face darkened as he read the contents.  It ran thus:

    _To the most untrue and cruel gentylman_, _Sir Daniel Brackley_,
    _Knyght_, _These_:

    I fynde ye were untrue and unkynd fro the first.  Ye have my father's
    blood upon your hands; let be, it will not wasshe.  Some day ye shall
    perish by my procurement, so much I let you to wytte; and I let you
    to wytte farther, that if ye seek to wed to any other the
    gentylwoman, Mistresse Joan Sedley, whom that I am bound upon a great
    oath to wed myself, the blow will be very swift.  The first step
    therinne will be thy first step to the grave.

                                                             RIC. SHELTON.




BOOK III--MY LORD FOXHAM


CHAPTER I--THE HOUSE BY THE SHORE


Months had passed away since Richard Shelton made his escape from the
hands of his guardian.  These months had been eventful for England.  The
party of Lancaster, which was then in the very article of death, had once
more raised its head.  The Yorkists defeated and dispersed, their leader
butchered on the field, it seemed,--for a very brief season in the winter
following upon the events already recorded, as if the House of Lancaster
had finally triumphed over its foes.

The small town of Shoreby-on-the-Till was full of the Lancastrian nobles
of the neighbourhood.  Earl Risingham was there, with three hundred
men-at-arms; Lord Shoreby, with two hundred; Sir Daniel himself, high in
favour and once more growing rich on confiscations, lay in a house of his
own, on the main street, with three-score men.  The world had changed
indeed.

It was a black, bitter cold evening in the first week of January, with a
hard frost, a high wind, and every likelihood of snow before the morning.

In an obscure alehouse in a by-street near the harbour, three or four men
sat drinking ale and eating a hasty mess of eggs.  They were all likely,
lusty, weather-beaten fellows, hard of hand, bold of eye; and though they
wore plain tabards, like country ploughmen, even a drunken soldier might
have looked twice before he sought a quarrel in such company.

A little apart before the huge fire sat a younger man, almost a boy,
dressed in much the same fashion, though it was easy to see by his looks
that he was better born, and might have worn a sword, had the time
suited.

"Nay," said one of the men at the table, "I like it not.  Ill will come
of it.  This is no place for jolly fellows.  A jolly fellow loveth open
country, good cover, and scarce foes; but here we are shut in a town,
girt about with enemies; and, for the bull's-eye of misfortune, see if it
snow not ere the morning."

"'Tis for Master Shelton there," said another, nodding his head towards
the lad before the fire.

"I will do much for Master Shelton," returned the first; "but to come to
the gallows for any man--nay, brothers, not that!"

The door of the inn opened, and another man entered hastily and
approached the youth before the fire.

"Master Shelton," he said, "Sir Daniel goeth forth with a pair of links
and four archers."

Dick (for this was our young friend) rose instantly to his feet.

"Lawless," he said, "ye will take John Capper's watch.  Greensheve,
follow with me.  Capper, lead forward.  We will follow him this time, an
he go to York."

The next moment they were outside in the dark street, and Capper, the man
who had just come, pointed to where two torches flared in the wind at a
little distance.

The town was already sound asleep; no one moved upon the streets, and
there was nothing easier than to follow the party without observation.
The two link-bearers went first; next followed a single man, whose long
cloak blew about him in the wind; and the rear was brought up by the four
archers, each with his bow upon his arm.  They moved at a brisk walk,
threading the intricate lanes and drawing nearer to the shore.

"He hath gone each night in this direction?" asked Dick, in a whisper.

"This is the third night running, Master Shelton," returned Capper, "and
still at the same hour and with the same small following, as though his
end were secret."

Sir Daniel and his six men were now come to the outskirts of the country.
Shoreby was an open town, and though the Lancastrian lords who lay there
kept a strong guard on the main roads, it was still possible to enter or
depart unseen by any of the lesser streets or across the open country.

The lane which Sir Daniel had been following came to an abrupt end.
Before him there was a stretch of rough down, and the noise of the
sea-surf was audible upon one hand.  There were no guards in the
neighbourhood, nor any light in that quarter of the town.

Dick and his two outlaws drew a little closer to the object of their
chase, and presently, as they came forth from between the houses and
could see a little farther upon either hand, they were aware of another
torch drawing near from another direction.

"Hey," said Dick, "I smell treason."

Meanwhile, Sir Daniel had come to a full halt.  The torches were stuck
into the sand, and the men lay down, as if to await the arrival of the
other party.

This drew near at a good rate.  It consisted of four men only--a pair of
archers, a varlet with a link, and a cloaked gentleman walking in their
midst.

"Is it you, my lord?" cried Sir Daniel.

"It is I, indeed; and if ever true knight gave proof I am that man,"
replied the leader of the second troop; "for who would not rather face
giants, sorcerers, or pagans, than this pinching cold?"

"My lord," returned Sir Daniel, "beauty will be the more beholden,
misdoubt it not.  But shall we forth? for the sooner ye have seen my
merchandise, the sooner shall we both get home."

"But why keep ye her here, good knight?" inquired the other.  "An she be
so young, and so fair, and so wealthy, why do ye not bring her forth
among her mates?  Ye would soon make her a good marriage, and no need to
freeze your fingers and risk arrow-shots by going abroad at such untimely
seasons in the dark."

"I have told you, my lord," replied Sir Daniel, "the reason thereof
concerneth me only.  Neither do I purpose to explain it farther.  Suffice
it, that if ye be weary of your old gossip, Daniel Brackley, publish it
abroad that y' are to wed Joanna Sedley, and I give you my word ye will
be quit of him right soon.  Ye will find him with an arrow in his back."

Meantime the two gentlemen were walking briskly forward over the down;
the three torches going before them, stooping against the wind and
scattering clouds of smoke and tufts of flame, and the rear brought up by
the six archers.

Close upon the heels of these, Dick followed.  He had, of course, heard
no word of this conversation; but he had recognised in the second of the
speakers old Lord Shoreby himself, a man of an infamous reputation, whom
even Sir Daniel affected, in public, to condemn.

Presently they came close down upon the beach.  The air smelt salt; the
noise of the surf increased; and here, in a large walled garden, there
stood a small house of two storeys, with stables and other offices.

The foremost torch-bearer unlocked a door in the wall, and after the
whole party had passed into the garden, again closed and locked it on the
other side.

Dick and his men were thus excluded from any farther following, unless
they should scale the wall and thus put their necks in a trap.

They sat down in a tuft of furze and waited.  The red glow of the torches
moved up and down and to and fro within the enclosure, as if the link
bearers steadily patrolled the garden.

Twenty minutes passed, and then the whole party issued forth again upon
the down; and Sir Daniel and the baron, after an elaborate salutation,
separated and turned severally homeward, each with his own following of
men and lights.

As soon as the sound of their steps had been swallowed by the wind, Dick
got to his feet as briskly as he was able, for he was stiff and aching
with the cold.

"Capper, ye will give me a back up," he said.

They advanced, all three, to the wall; Capper stooped, and Dick, getting
upon his shoulders, clambered on to the cope-stone.

"Now, Greensheve," whispered Dick, "follow me up here; lie flat upon your
face, that ye may be the less seen; and be ever ready to give me a hand
if I fall foully on the other side."

And so saying he dropped into the garden.

It was all pitch dark; there was no light in the house.  The wind
whistled shrill among the poor shrubs, and the surf beat upon the beach;
there was no other sound.  Cautiously Dick footed it forth, stumbling
among bushes, and groping with his hands; and presently the crisp noise
of gravel underfoot told him that he had struck upon an alley.

Here he paused, and taking his crossbow from where he kept it concealed
under his long tabard, he prepared it for instant action, and went
forward once more with greater resolution and assurance.  The path led
him straight to the group of buildings.

All seemed to be sorely dilapidated: the windows of the house were
secured by crazy shutters; the stables were open and empty; there was no
hay in the hay-loft, no corn in the corn-box.  Any one would have
supposed the place to be deserted.  But Dick had good reason to think
otherwise.  He continued his inspection, visiting the offices, trying all
the windows.  At length he came round to the sea-side of the house, and
there, sure enough, there burned a pale light in one of the upper
windows.

He stepped back a little way, till he thought he could see the movement
of a shadow on the wall of the apartment.  Then he remembered that, in
the stable, his groping hand had rested for a moment on a ladder, and he
returned with all despatch to bring it.  The ladder was very short, but
yet, by standing on the topmost round, he could bring his hands as high
as the iron bars of the window; and seizing these, he raised his body by
main force until his eyes commanded the interior of the room.

Two persons were within; the first he readily knew to be Dame Hatch; the
second, a tall and beautiful and grave young lady, in a long, embroidered
dress--could that be Joanna Sedley? his old wood-companion, Jack, whom he
had thought to punish with a belt?