dirty work? No; I go with ye.”
A moment or two of dumb, silent amazement followed his bold words; then Blunt cried, “Art thou mad?”
“Nay,” answered Myles in the same hoarse voice, “I am not mad. I tell thee a better man than thou shouldst not stay me from going an I list to go.
“I will break thy cockerel head for that speech,” said Blunt, furiously. He stooped as he spoke, and picked up a heavy clog that lay at his feet.
It was no insignificant weapon either. The shoes of those days were sometimes made of cloth, and had long pointed toes stuffed with tow or wool. In muddy weather thick heavy clogs or wooden soles were strapped, like a skate, to the bottom of the foot. That clog which Blunt had seized was perhaps eighteen or twenty inches long, two or two and a half inches thick at the heel, tapering to a point at the toe. As the older lad advanced, Gascoyne stepped between him and his victim.
“Do not harm him, Blunt,” he pleaded. “Bear thou in mind how new-come he is among us. He knoweth not our ways as yet.”
“Stand thou back, Gascoyne,” said Blunt, harshly, as he thrust him aside. “I will teach him our ways so that he will not soon forget them.”
Close to Myles’s feet was another clog like that one which Blunt held. He snatched it up, and set his back against the wall, with a white face and a heart beating heavily and tumultuously, but with courage steeled to meet the coming encounter. There was a hard, grim look in his blue eyes that, for a moment perhaps, quelled the elder lad. He hesitated. “Tom! Wat! Ned!” he called to the other bachelors, “come hither, and lend me a hand with this knave.”
“An ye come nigh me,” panted Myles, “I will brain the first within reach.”
Then Gascoyne dodged behind the others, and, without being seen, slipped out of the room for help.
The battle that followed was quick, sharp, and short. As Blunt strode forward, Myles struck, and struck with might and main, but he was too excited to deliver his blow with calculation. Blunt parried it with the clog he held, and the next instant, dropping his weapon, gripped Myles tight about the body, pinning his arms to his sides.
Myles also dropped the clog he held, and, wrenching out his right arm with a sudden heave, struck Blunt full in the face, and then with another blow sent him staggering back. It all passed in an instant; the next the three other bachelors were upon him, catching him by the body, the arms, the legs. For a moment or two they swayed and stumbled hither and thither, and then down they fell in a struggling heap.
Myles fought like a wild-cat, kicking, struggling, scratching; striking with elbows and fists. He caught one of the three by his collar, and tore his jacket open from the neck to the waist; he drove his foot into the pit of the stomach of another, and knocked him breathless. The other lads not in the fight stood upon the benches and the beds around, but such was the awe inspired by the prestige of the bachelors that not one of them dared to lend hand to help him, and so Myles fought his fierce battle alone.
But four to one were odds too great, and though Myles struggled as fiercely as ever, by-and-by it was with less and less resistance.
Blunt had picked up the clog he had dropped when he first attacked the lad, and now stood over the struggling heap, white with rage, the blood running from his lip, cut and puffed where Myles had struck him, and murder looking out from his face, if ever it looked out of the face of any mortal being.
“Hold him a little,” said he, fiercely, “and I will still him for you.”
Even yet it was no easy matter for the others to do his bidding, but presently he got his chance and struck a heavy, cruel blow at Myles’s head. Myles only partly warded it with his arm. Hitherto he had fought in silence, now he gave a harsh cry.
“Holy Saints!” cried Edmund Wilkes. “They will kill him.”
Blunt struck two more blows, both of them upon the body, and then at last they had the poor boy down, with his face upon the ground and his arms pinned to his sides, and Blunt, bracing himself for the stroke, with a grin of rage raised a heavy clog for one terrible blow that should finish the fight.
CHAPTER 9
“How now, messieurs?” said a harsh voice, that fell upon the turmoil like a thunder-clap, and there stood Sir James Lee. Instantly the struggle ceased, and the combatants scrambled to their feet.
The older lads stood silent before their chief, but Myles was deaf and blind and mad with passion, he knew not where he stood or what he said or did. White as death, he stood for a while glaring about him, catching his breath convulsively. Then he screamed hoarsely.
“Who struck me? Who struck me when I was down? I will have his blood that struck me!” He caught sight of Blunt. “It was he that struck me!” he cried. “Thou foul traitor! thou coward!” and thereupon leaped at his enemy like a wild-cat.
“Stop!” cried Sir James Lee, clutching him by the arm.
Myles was too blinded by his fury to see who it was that held him. “I will not stop!” he cried, struggling and striking at the knight. “Let me go! I will have his life that struck me when I was down!”
The next moment he found himself pinned close against the wall, and then, as though his sight came back, he saw the grim face of the old one-eyed knight looking into his.
“Dost thou know who I am?” said a stern, harsh voice.
Instantly Myles ceased struggling, and his arms fell at his side. “Aye,” he said, in a gasping voice, “I know thee.” He swallowed spasmodically for a moment or two, and then, in the sudden revulsion of feeling, burst out sobbing convulsively.
Sir James marched the two off to his office, he himself walking between them, holding an arm of each, the other lads following behind, awe-struck and silent. Entering the office, Sir James shut the door behind him, leaving the group of squires clustered outside about the stone steps, speculating in whispers as to what would be the outcome of the matter.
After Sir James had seated himself, the two standing facing him, he regarded them for a while in silence. “How now, Walter Blunt,” said he at last, “what is to do?”
“Why, this,” said Blunt, wiping his bleeding lip. “That fellow, Myles Falworth, hath been breeding mutiny and revolt ever sin he came hither among us, and because he was thus mutinous I would punish him therefor.”
“In that thou liest!” burst out Myles. “Never have I been mutinous in my life.”
“Be silent, sir,” said Sir James, sternly. “I will hear thee anon.”
“Nay,” said Myles, with his lips twitching and writhing, “I will not be silent. I am friendless here, and ye are all against me, but I will not be silent, and brook to have lies spoken of me.”
Even Blunt stood aghast at Myles’s boldness. Never had he heard any one so speak to Sir James before. He did not dare for the moment even to look up. Second after second of dead stillness passed, while Sir James sat looking at Myles with a stern, terrifying calmness that chilled him in spite of the heat of his passion.
“Sir,” said the old man at last, in a hard, quiet voice, “thou dost know naught of rules and laws of such a place as this. Nevertheless, it is time for thee to learn them. So I will tell thee now that if thou openest thy lips to say only one single word more except at my bidding, I will send thee to the black vault
