“Well,” said Ellis, when he had done,
“see what the kind saints have done for you,
Dick Shelton, not alone to save your body in so numerous
and deadly perils, but to bring you into my hands that
have no dearer wish than to assist your father’s
son. Be but true to me—and I see
y’ are true—and betwixt you and me,
we shall bring that false-heart traitor to the death.”
“Will ye assault the house?” asked Dick.
“I were mad, indeed, to think of it,”
returned Ellis. “He hath too much power;
his men gather to him; those that gave me the slip
last night, and by the mass came in so handily for
you—those have made him safe. Nay,
Dick, to the contrary, thou and I and my brave bowmen,
we must all slip from this forest speedily, and leave
Sir Daniel free.”
“My mind misgiveth me for Jack,” said
the lad.
“For Jack!” repeated Duckworth.
“O, I see, for the wench! Nay, Dick, I
promise you, if there come talk of any marriage we
shall act at once; till then, or till the time is
ripe, we shall all disappear, even like shadows at
morning; Sir Daniel shall look east and west, and
see none enemies; he shall think, by the mass, that
he hath dreamed awhile, and 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 corners;
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 untrue 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.
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.
