," said Matcham, "forth to Holywood."

"To Holywood!" cried Dick, "when good fellows stand shot? Not I! I would
see you hanged first, Jack!"

"Ye would leave me, would ye?" Matcham asked.

"Ay, by my sooth!" returned Dick. "An I be not in time to warn these
lads, I will go die with them. What! would ye have me leave my own men
that I have lived among? I trow not! Give me my windac."

But there was nothing further from Matcham's mind.

"Dick," he said, "ye sware before the saints that ye would see me safe
to Holywood. Would ye be forsworn? Would you desert me--a perjurer?"

"Nay, I sware for the best," returned Dick. "I meant it too; but now!
But look ye, Jack, turn again with me. Let me but warn these men, and,
if needs must, stand shot with them; then shall all be clear, and I will
on again to Holywood and purge mine oath."

"Ye but deride me," answered Matcham. "These men ye go to succour are
the same that hunt me to my ruin."

Dick scratched his head.

"I cannot help it, Jack," he said. "Here is no remedy. What would ye? Ye
run no great peril, man; and these are in the way of death. Death!" he
added. "Think of it! What a murrain do ye keep me here for? Give me the
windac. St. George! shall they all die?"

"Richard Shelton," said Matcham, looking him squarely in the face,
"would ye, then, join party with Sir Daniel? Have ye not ears? Heard ye
not this Ellis, what he said? or have ye no heart for your own kindly
blood and the father that men slew? 'Harry Shelton,' he said; and Sir
Harry Shelton was your father, as the sun shines in heaven."

"What would ye?" Dick cried again. "Would ye have me credit thieves?"

"Nay, I have heard it before now," returned Matcham. "The fame goeth
currently, it was Sir Daniel slew him. He slew him under oath; in his
own house he shed the innocent blood. Heaven wearies for the avenging
on't; and you--the man's son--ye go about to comfort and defend the
murderer!"

"Jack," cried the lad, "I know not. It may be; what know I? But, see
here: This man hath bred me up and fostered me, and his men I have
hunted with and played among; and to leave them in the hour of peril--O,
man, if I did that, I were stark dead to honour! Nay, Jack, ye would not
ask it; ye would not wish me to be base."

"But your father, Dick?" said Matcham, somewhat wavering. "Your father?
and your oath to me? Ye took the saints to witness."

"My father?" cried Shelton. "Nay, he would have me go! If Sir Dani