nd
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 comers; 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 unture 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