t_, _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.

BOOK III--MY LORD FOXHAM

CHAPTER I--THE HOUSE BY THE SHORE

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.

The small town of Shoreby-on-the-Till was full of the Lancastrian nobles
of the neighbourhood. Earl Risingham was there, with three hundred
men-at-arms; Lord Shoreby, with two hundred; Sir Daniel himself, high in
favour and once more growing rich on confiscations, lay in a house of his
own, on the main street, with three-score men. The world had changed
indeed.

It was a black, bitter cold evening in the first week of January, with a
hard frost, a high wind, and every likelihood of snow before the morning.

In an obscure alehouse in a by-street near the harbour, three or four men
sat drinking ale and eating a hasty mess of eggs. They were all likely,
lusty, weather-beaten fellows, hard of hand, bold of eye; and though they
wore plain tabards, like country ploughmen, even a drunken soldier might
have looked twice before he sought a quarrel in such company.

A little apart before the huge fire sat a younger man, almost a boy,
dressed in much the same fashion, though it was easy to see by his looks
that he was better born, and might have worn a sword, had the time
suited.

"Nay," said one of the men at the table, "I like it not. Ill will come
of it. This is no place for jolly fellows. A jolly fellow loveth open
country, good cover, and scarce foes; but here we are shut in a town,
girt about with enemies; and, for th