busy unpacking the sumpter-mules' bags, with two or three
more; and dinner was served under the shade of the trees, without any
consideration of ceremony. Our fathers spent so much of their time out
of doors, and dressed for the season so much more warmly than we do,
that they chose days for picnics at which we should shudder. After
dinner Maude wandered about a little by herself, and at length sat down
at the foot of a lofty oak. She had not been there many minutes before
she saw Constance and York coming slowly towards her, evidently in
earnest conversation.

"Lo' you here, Ned!" said Constance eagerly, when she caught sight of
Maude. "Here is one true as steel. If that you say must have no
eavesdroppers, sit we on the further side of this tree; and Maude, hold
where thou art, and if any come this way, give a privy pluck at my gown,
and we will speak other."

They sat down on the other side of the oak.

"Custance," began her brother, "I misconceive not, trow, to account thee
yet true to the cause of King Richard, be he where he may?"

York knew, as certainly as he knew of his own existence, that Richard
had been dead five years. But it suited his purpose to speak
doubtfully.

"Certes, Ned, of very inwitte!" [Most heartily.]

"Well. And if King Richard were dead, who standeth next heir?"

"My Lord of March, no manner of doubt."

"Good again. Then we thus stand: King Henry that reigneth hath no
right; and the true King is shut up in Pomfret, or, granting he be dead,
is then shut up in Windsor."

"Well, Ned?"

"Shall we--thou and I--free young March and his brother and sisters?"

"Thou and I!"

She was evidently doubtful. Edward took a stronger bolt from his
quiver.

"Custance, Dickon loves Anne Mortimer."

That was a different matter. If Dickon wanted Anne Mortimer or anything
else, in his sister's eyes, he must have it. To refuse to help Ned was
one thing, but to refuse to help Dickon was quite another.

"But how should we win in?"

Edward drew a silver key from his pocket.

"I gat this made of a smith, Custance, a year gone. 'Tis a key for my
strong-room at Langley, the which was lost with other my baggage fording
the Thames, and I took the mould of the lock in wax, and gave it unto
the smith."

He looked in her face, pausing a little between the sentences, to make
sure that she understood him; and he saw by her eyes that she did. The
very peril and uncertainty involved in such a