"sith that ye slew my kinsman,
and left me without stay, ye owe me, in honour, every reparation; do ye
not?"

"I do, madam," said Dick. "Although, upon my heart, I do hold me but
partially guilty of that brave knight's blood."

"Would ye evade me?" she cried.

"Madam, not so. I have told you; at your bidding, I will even turn me a
monk," said Richard.

"Then, in honour, ye belong to me?" she concluded.

"In honour, madam, I suppose----" began the young man.

"Go to!" she interrupted; "ye are too full of catches. In honour do ye
belong to me, till ye have paid the evil?"

"In honour, I do," said Dick.

"Hear, then," she continued. "Ye would make but a sad friar, methinks;
and since I am to dispose of you at pleasure, I will even take you for
my husband. Nay, now, no words!" cried she. "They will avail you
nothing. For see how just it is, that you who deprived me of one home,
should supply me with another. And as for Joanna, she will be the first,
believe me, to commend the change; for, after all, as we be dear
friends, what matters it with which of us ye wed? Not one whit!"

"Madam," said Dick, "I will go into a cloister, an ye please to bid me;
but to wed with any one in this big world besides Joanna Sedley is what
I will consent to neither for man's force nor yet for lady's pleasure.
Pardon me if I speak my plain thoughts plainly! but where a maid is very
bold, a poor man must even be the bolder."

"Dick," she said, "ye sweet boy, ye must come and kiss me for that word.
Nay, fear not, ye shall kiss me for Joanna, and when we meet, I shall
give it back to her, and say I stole it. And as for what ye owe me, why,
dear simpleton, methinks ye were not alone in that great battle; and
even if York be on the throne, it was not you that set him there. But
for a good, sweet, honest heart, Dick, y' are all that; and if I could
find it in my soul to envy your Joanna anything, I would even envy her
your love."

CHAPTER VI

NIGHT IN THE WOODS (_concluded_) DICK AND JOAN

The horses had by this time finished the small store of provender, and
fully breathed from their fatigues. At Dick's command, the fire was
smothered in snow; and while his men got once more wearily to saddle, he
himself, remembering, somewhat late, true woodland caution, chose a tall
oak, and nimbly clambered to the topmost fork. Hence he could look far
abroad on the moonlit and snow-paven forest. On the south-west, dark
against the horizon