that poor place," he said, "where people are cooking breakfast,
either you shall gain your spurs and I begin a life of mighty honour and
glory in the world's eye, or both of us, as I conceive it, shall fall
dead and be unheard of. Two Richards are we. Well, then, Richard
Shelton, they shall be heard about, these two! Their swords shall not
ring more loudly on men's helmets than their names shall ring in people's
ears."

Dick was astonished at so great a hunger after fame, expressed with so
great vehemence of voice and language, and he answered very sensibly and
quietly, that, for his part, he promised he would do his duty, and
doubted not of victory if everyone did the like.

By this time the horses were well breathed, and the leader holding up his
sword and giving rein, the whole troop of chargers broke into the gallop
and thundered, with their double load of fighting men, down the remainder
of the hill and across the snow-covered plain that still divided them
from Shoreby.

CHAPTER II--THE BATTLE OF SHOREBY

The whole distance to be crossed was not above a quarter of a mile. But
they had no sooner debauched beyond the cover of the trees than they were
aware of people fleeing and screaming in the snowy meadows upon either
hand. Almost at the same moment a great rumour began to arise, and
spread and grow continually louder in the town; and they were not yet
halfway to the nearest house before the bells began to ring backward from
the steeple.

The young duke ground his teeth together. By these so early signals of
alarm he feared to find his enemies prepared; and if he failed to gain a
footing in the town, he knew that his small party would soon be broken
and exterminated in the open.

In the town, however, the Lancastrians were far from being in so good a
posture. It was as Dick had said. The night-guard had already doffed
their harness; the rest were still hanging--unlatched, unbraced, all
unprepared for battle--about their quarters; and in the whole of Shoreby
there were not, perhaps, fifty men full armed, or fifty chargers ready to
be mounted.

The beating of the bells, the terrifying summons of men who ran about the
streets crying and beating upon the doors, aroused in an incredibly short
space at least two score out of that half hundred. These got speedily to
horse, and, the alarm still flying wild and contrary, galloped in
different directions.

Thus it befell that, when Richard of Glouces