Part 27 (1/2)
”So,” he said, ”we have proved our false faces, Master Shelton I will now adventure my poor carcase where ye please”
”Good!” returned Richard ”It irksSet we on for Shoreby!”
CHAPTER II--”IN MINE ENEMIES' HOUSE”
Sir Daniel's residence in Shoreby was a tall, commodious, plastered mansion, framed in carven oak, and covered by a low-pitched roof of thatch To the back there stretched a garden, full of fruit-trees, alleys, and thick arbours, and overlooked from the far end by the tower of the abbey church
The house reater person than Sir Daniel; but even noas filled with hubbub The court rang with arms and horseshoe-iron; the kitchens roared with cookery like a bees'-hive; minstrels, and the players of instruments, and the cries of tumblers, sounded froallantry of his establishhauests were made welcome Minstrels, tumblers, players of chess, the sellers of relics,with these every sort of priest, friar, or pilgriether in the a-hall
On the afternoon following the wreck of the Good Hope, the buttery, the kitchens, the stables, the covered cartshed that surrounded two sides of the court, were all crowded by idle people, partly belonging to Sir Daniel's establishment, and attired in his livery of ers attracted to the town by greed, and received by the knight through policy, and because it was the fashi+on of the time
The snohich still fell without interruption, the extreht, combined to keep them under shelter
Wine, ale, andin the straw of the barn, many were still drunken from the noontide meal To the eye of a modern it would have looked like the sack of a city; to the eye of a contemporary it was like any other rich and noble household at a festive season
Twoand an old--had arrived late, and were noar themselves at a bonfire in a corner of the shed A lers, mountebanks, and soldiers; and with these the elder of the two had soon engaged so brisk a conversation, and exchanged so roup er conised dick Shelton, sat froradually drew himself away He listened, indeed, closely, but he opened not his rave expression of his countenance, he made but little account of his companion's pleasantries
At last his eye, which travelled continually to and fro, and kept a guard upon all the entrances of the house, lit upon a little procession entering by thethe court in an oblique direction
Two ladies, muffled in thick furs, led the way, and were followed by a pair of waiting-women and four stout men-at-arms The next moment they had disappeared within the house; and dick, slipping through the crowd of loiterers in the shed, was already giving hot pursuit
”The taller of these tas Lady Brackley,” he thought; ”and where Lady Brackley is, Joan will not be far”
At the door of the house the four men-at-ar the stairway of polished oak, under no better escort than that of the taiting-women dick followed close behind It was already the dusk of the day; and in the house the darkness of the night had als, torches flared in iron holders; down the long, tapestried corridors, a lamp burned by every door And where the door stood open, dick could look in upon arras-covered walls and rush-bescattered floors, glowing in the light of the wood fires
Two floors were passed, and at every landing the younger and shorter of the two ladies had looked back keenly at thethe deuise, had but seen her once, and was unaware that he had attracted her attention
And now, on the third floor, the party separated, the younger lady continuing to ascend alone, the other, followed by the waiting-ht
dickto the corner, thrust forth his head and followed the three wo behind theht well,” thought dick ”Let o hard an I find not Dame Hatch upon an errand”
And just then a hand was laid upon his shoulder, and, with a bound and a choked cry, he turned to grapple his assailant
He was sohly seized, the short young lady in the furs She, on her part, was shocked and terrified beyond expression, and hung tre her, ”I cry you a thousand pardons; but I have no eyes behind, and, by the irl continued to look at hian to be succeeded by surprise, and surprise by suspicion dick, who could read these changes on her face, became alarmed for his own safety in that hostile house
”Faireasiness, ”suffer hness, and I will even go”
”Y' are a strangehim both boldly and shrewdly in the face; ”and now that my first astonishment hath somewhat passed away, I can spy the layman in each word you utter
What do ye here? Why are ye thus sacrilegiously tricked out? Come ye in peace or war? And why spy ye after Lady Brackley like a thief?”
”Mada I pray you to be very sure: I aree I do, I make no war upon fair maids, and I hereby entreat them to copy me so far, and to leave me be For, indeed, fair mistress, cry out--if such be your pleasure--cry but once, and say what ye have seen, and the poor gentleman before you is merely a dead man I cannot think ye would be cruel,”