ner 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 further. 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 stories, 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 further 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 copestone.

"Now