“I was not so simple,” answered Dick; “and, to be plain with your lordship, the woods upon either hand of this cross lie full of mine honest fellows lying on their weapons.”
“Y’ ’ave done wisely,” said the lord. “It pleaseth me the rather, since last night ye fought foolhardily, and more like a savage Saracen lunatic than any Christian warrior. But it becomes not me to complain that had the undermost.”
“Ye had the undermost indeed, my lord, since ye so fell,” returned Dick; “but had the waves not holpen me, it was I that should have had the worst. Ye were pleased to make me yours with several dagger marks, which I still carry. And in fine, my lord, methinks I had all the danger, as well as all the profit, of that little blind-man’s mellay on the beach.”
“Y’are shrewd enough to make light of it, I see,” returned the stranger.
“Nay, my lord, not shrewd,” replied Dick, “in that I shoot at no advantage to myself. But when, by the light of this new day, I see how stout a knight hath yielded, not to my arms alone, but to fortune, and the darkness, and the surf—and how easily the battle had gone otherwise, with a soldier so untried and rustic as myself—think it not strange, my lord, if I feel confounded with my victory.”
“Ye speak well,” said the stranger. “Your name?”
“My name, an’t like you, is Shelton,” answered Dick.
“Men call me the Lord Foxham,” added the other.
“Then, my lord, and under your good favour, ye are guardian to the sweetest maid in England,” replied Dick; “and for your ransom, and the ransom of such as were taken with you on the beach, there will be no uncertainty of terms. I pray you, my lord, of your good-will and charity, yield me the hand of my mistress, Joan Sedley; and take ye, upon the other part, your liberty, the liberty of these your followers, and (if ye will have it) my gratitude and service till I die.”
“But are ye not ward to Sir Daniel? Methought, if y’are Harry Shelton’s son, that I had heard it so reported,” said Lord Foxham.