e to keep their estates in peace and quiet. The
turmoil of the great struggle had not spared even the obscure village of
Haversleigh. The inhabitants went about their tasks with an air of
unrest. It seemed scarcely worth while to plough the fields, and sow
corn which might be trampled underfoot by the soldiery before there was
a chance to reap it. There were loud and deep murmurs among the
villagers at the many exactions and tyrannies of Sir Mervyn Stamford,
the then occupant of the Manor, the estates of which he administered on
behalf of his ward, Catharine Mowbray. Catharine's father, Sir John
Mowbray, had fallen in battle on the side of the Yorkists, but with the
return of Henry VI to power, Sir Mervyn, a stanch Lancastrian, had
bought the rights of her guardianship from the half-imbecile king, and
had not only assumed control of her property, but had announced his
intention of wedding the maiden, either with or without her consent.

This was a state of affairs which, however satisfactory to Sir Mervyn
himself, was by no means pleasing either to Catharine or to her lover,
Roger de Courtenay, a young gentleman of high lineage though broken
fortunes. Sir Mervyn was indeed a man whom any girl might have dreaded.
Dark, stern, and forbidding, his face seamed with scars, he was a harsh
master, a relentless foe, and a cruel tyrant to any who dared not resist
his authority. He was cordially hated in Haversleigh, the inhabitants of
which were Yorkists to a man, but he had garrisoned himself so strongly
in the Manor, with so formidable a band of retainers, that the wretched
villagers could do no more than groan under his oppressions, and bewail
the advent of the day when, by his marriage with the unwilling
Catharine, he would become their legal lord.

Matters were at this crisis one April morning in the year 1471 when
Diccon of the Moat Farm came slowly down a path through the forest from
Torton. He led a horse laden with a sack of flour, which he had taken to
be ground at the mill of the convent of St. Agatha, to avoid the heavy
dues imposed by Sir Mervyn on every sack ground within the jurisdiction
of the Manor. In consequence he looked warily about him, since, should
he chance to meet any of Sir Mervyn's retainers, not only would his
flour be confiscated, but his own back would receive such a cudgelling
as would lay him up for a month or more. For this reason he had avoided
the main road, and chosen a little-used bridle pat