Chapter 6

CHAPTER V - "BLOODY AS THE HUNTER"

The lads lay quiet till the last footstep had melted on the wind.
Then they arose, and with many an ache, for they were weary with
constraint, clambered through the ruins, and recrossed the ditch
upon the rafter. Matcham had picked up the windac and went first,
Dick following stiffly, with his cross-bow on his arm.

"And now," said Matcham, "forth to Holywood."

"To Holywood!" cried Dick, "when good fellows stand shot? Not I!
I would see you hanged first, Jack!"

"Ye would leave me, would ye?" Matcham asked.

"Ay, by my sooth!" returned Dick. "An I be not in time to warn
these lads, I will go die with them. What! would ye have me leave
my own men that I have lived among. I trow not! Give me my
windac."

But there was nothing further from Matcham's mind.

"Dick," he said, "ye sware before the saints that ye would see me
safe to Holywood. Would ye be forsworn? Would you desert me - a
perjurer?"

"Nay, I sware for the best," returned Dick. "I meant it too; but
now! But look ye, Jack, turn again with me. Let me but warn these
men, and, if needs must, stand shot with them; then shall all be
clear, and I will on again to Holywood and purge mine oath."

"Ye but deride me," answered Matcham. "These men ye go to succour
are the I same that hunt me to my ruin."

Dick scratched his head.

"I cannot help it, Jack," he said. "Here is no remedy. What would
ye? Ye run no great peril, man; and these are in the way of death.
Death!" he added. "Think of it! What a murrain do ye keep me here
for? Give me the windac. Saint George! shall they all die?"

"Richard Shelton," said Matcham, looking him squarely in the face,
"would ye, then, join party with Sir Daniel? Have ye not ears?
Heard ye not this Ellis, what he said? or have ye no heart for your
own kindly blood and the father that men slew? 'Harry Shelton,' he
said; and Sir Harry Shelton was your father, as the sun shines in
heaven."

"What would ye?" Dick cried again. "Would ye have me credit
thieves?"

"Nay, I have heard it before now," returned Matcham. "The fame
goeth currently, it was Sir Daniel slew him. He slew him under
oath; in his own house he shed the innocent blood. Heaven wearies
for the avenging on't; and you - the man's son - ye go about to
comfort and defend the murderer!"

"Jack," cried the lad "I know not. It may be; what know I? But,
see here: This man hath bred me up and fostered me, and his men I
have hunted with and played among; and to leave them in the hour of
peril - O, man, if I did that, I were stark dead to honour! Nay,
Jack, ye would not ask it; ye would not wish me to be base."

"But your father, Dick?" said