le had warned had not been idle. For two hours past and more a dozen
willing women had swept and cleaned; the fires had been lit, and there
was plenteous food of a sort in the kitchen and the store-room.

Moreover, in all the big hall were gathered about a score of her people,
who welcomed her by raising their bonnets and even tried to cheer. To
these at once Jacob read the King's commission, showing them the signet
and the seal, and that other commission which named Thomas Bolle a
captain with wide powers, the sight and hearing of which writings seemed
to put a great heart into them who so long had lacked a leader and the
support of authority. One and all they swore to stand by the King and
their lady, Cicely Harflete, and her lord, Sir Christopher, or if he
were dead, his child. Then about half of them took horse and rode off,
this way and that, to gather men in the King's name, while the rest
stayed to guard the Hall and work at its defences.

By sunset men were riding up from all sides, some of them driving carts
loaded with provisions, arms and fodder, or sheep and beasts that could
be killed for sustenance, while as they came Jacob enrolled their names
upon a paper and by virtue of his commission Thomas Bolle swore them in.
Indeed that night they had forty men quartered there, and the promise of
many more.

By now, however, the secret was out, for the story had gone round and
the smoke from the Shefton chimneys told its own tale. First a single
spy appeared on the opposite rise, watching. Then he galloped away, to
return an hour later with ten armed and mounted men, one of whom carried
a banner on which were embroidered the emblems of the Pilgrimage
of Grace. These men rode to within a hundred paces of Shefton Hall,
apparently with the object of attacking it, then seeing that the
drawbridge was up and that archers with bent bows stood on either side,
halted and sent forward one of their number with a white flag to parley.

"Who holds Shefton," shouted this man, "and for what cause?"

"The Lady Harflete, its owner, and Captain Thomas Bolle, for the cause
of the King," called old Jacob Smith back to him.

"By what warrant?" asked the man. "The Abbot of Blossholme is lord of
Shefton, and Thomas Bolle is but a lay-brother of his monastery."

"By warrant of the King's Grace," said Jacob, and then and there at the
top of his voice he read to him the Royal Commission, which when the
envoy had heard, he went back to