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Updated: June 17, 2025
The apex of the spire looked fearfully high and dark, and the brown, cobwebbed maze of woodwork bewildered him. The latch below clicked; some one was in the lower tower. The great bell began to swing; the sexton was ringing an alarm. Seized by a sudden fright, Windybank clambered by a bell-wheel to the first huge beam. He got his fingers on it and swung his body across.
"But thou art a coward!" said Dorothy, whose face had grown very white. "Think not that I shall feel anything save scorn for the man who threatens a girl and slanders the absent. Thou art our neighbour, else I would call a servant to put thee forth on to the highway. Begone!" Master Windybank turned to go.
At Dean Tower, Andrew Windybank passed an uncomfortable afternoon. His meeting with the dangerous Basil had affected him more than his rejection by Dorothy. As the day advanced his agitation increased. He knew of the meeting at Captain Dawe's. No invitation had been extended to him, and he was aware from this that his loyalty was suspected.
Such was the power of a pair of blue eyes, when the black ones were not at hand to counteract their witchery, that Windybank determined straightway to play the honest man that he had determined to become. He whistled for his dogs, called to his groom, got him upon a sturdy pony, and hurried away to the hunt.
Now they were inclined to treat the daring project with quiet contempt, but Windybank knew that scant mercy would be shown a forest man who should be so unspeakably treacherous as to favour the scheme, even by so little as holding converse with one of the hated plotters.
A cry of alarm went up, and Windybank, who was easily the nearest man, had the opportunity of his life. He hesitated, and his rival, who had quitted the boar hunt when he found Dorothy riding after other game, sprang to the rescue in an instant. With his bare hands he threw the dogs aside and snatched up the unconscious girl just as the stag's antlers made the first savage rip at her riding-dress.
Windybank felt the iron hand lifted from his shoulder. Basil was gone. For a minute he stared blankly at the bush behind which he had disappeared. A warning signal, "At midnight, remember!" came to his ears, and awoke him from his half-stupor. He shook himself, tried to answer, uttered no word, then passed on. He entered his house with a face that matched his ruff in its sickly yellow colouring.
"Your leader, friends, if it comes to fighting," said Jerome quietly. Windybank bowed; he had not anticipated such an honour, and he certainly did not want it; there was too much danger about it. "Where is John?" Basil answered. "Gone to meet the company that rides from Gloucester." Nearly half an hour went by, a time of dead silence and anxious watching.
The maiden would have none of it. "I must have plain answer to plain question!" she cried. So Master Windybank gave answers that appeared stamped with the mark of truth. He assumed the indignation of a wronged innocent, and spouted with some heat a torrent of lies and cunning half-truths.
Visions of the wealth, wherein he was superior to his rival and the maiden who had flouted his advances, were easing the wounds in his pride. A spare figure, garbed in black, stepped from behind a clump of bushes, and stood bareheaded in the pathway. "God be with thee, Master Windybank, and St. James be thine aid!" exclaimed a harsh voice. Basil confronted him.
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