"Fire away!"
"Do go on!"
Thus encouraged, Monica found her place and, the girls having clustered round her in a close circle so as to hear the better, she began her tale:
SIR MERVYN'S WARD
The middle of the fifteenth century was one of the most stormy periods that the pages of English history have ever recorded. The rival claims of the houses of York and Lancaster had led to those disastrous Wars of the Roses that wiped away the flower of chivalry and made the fair land one bloody battlefield. In the autumn of 1470 Edward IV had been driven from his throne by the powerful Earl of Warwick, known as the Kingmaker, and Henry VI had been once more restored to power, though for how long a period none could venture to guess. They were hard times to live through, especially for those lesser gentry and yeomen who had not placed themselves definitely under the protection of any of the greater barons, and still strove to keep their estates in peace and quiet. The turmoil of the great struggle had not spared even the obscure village of Haversleigh. The inhabitants went about their tasks with an air of unrest. It seemed scarcely worth while to plough the fields, and sow corn which might be trampled underfoot by the soldiery before there was a chance to reap it. There were loud and deep murmurs among the villagers at the many exactions and tyrannies of Sir Mervyn Stamford, the then occupant of the Manor, the estates of which he administered on behalf of his ward, Catharine Mowbray. Catharine's father, Sir John Mowbray, had fallen in battle on the side of the Yorkists, but with the return of Henry VI to power, Sir Mervyn, a stanch Lancastrian, had bought the rights of her guardianship from the half-imbecile king, and had not only assumed control of her property, but had announced his intention of wedding the maiden, either with or without her consent.
This was a state of affairs which, however satisfactory to Sir Mervyn himself, was by no means pleasing either to Catharine or to her lover, Roger de Courtenay, a young gentleman of high lineage though broken fortunes. Sir Mervyn was indeed a man whom any girl might have dreaded. Dark, stern, and forbidding, his face seamed with scars, he was a harsh master, a relentless foe, and a cruel tyrant to any who dared not resist his authority. He was cordially hated in Haversleigh, the inhabitants of which were Yorkists to a man, but he had garrisoned himself so strongly in the Manor, with so formidable a band of retainers, that the wretched villagers could do no more than groan under his oppressions, and bewail the advent of the day when, by his marriage with the unwilling Catharine, he would become their legal lord.
Matters were at this crisis one April morning in the year 1471 when Diccon of the Moat Farm came slowly down a path through the forest from Torton. He led a horse laden with a sack of flour, which he had taken to be ground at the mill of the convent of St. Agatha, to avoid the heavy dues imposed by Sir Mervyn on every sack ground within the jurisdiction of the Manor. In consequence he looked warily about him, since, should he chance to meet any of Sir Mervyn's retainers, not only would his flour be confiscated, but his own back would receive such a cudgelling as would lay him up for a month or more. For this reason he had avoided the main road, and chosen a little-used bridle path; and he glanced cautiously up and down each green alley, and listened for every sound that might give a hint of approaching footsteps. It was with a sense of swift alarm, therefore, that he saw a figure suddenly step out from behind the shelter of an oak in front, and heard himself challenged by name. The newcomer was a young man, tall and of fine build, and his commanding presence belied the shabbiness of his poor and travel-stained attire.
"I am an honest man minding mine own business, and sith ye are the same, seek not to hinder me," replied the owner of the Moat Farm.
"Nay, Diccon! Hast thou forgot thine old friend? Come hither, I pray thee, for in good sooth I have tidings of great import."
So saying, the stranger dropped the cloak with which he had so far partly concealed his face, and showed his features more fully.