"My
life is in your hands."
Sir Oliver violently started; his stout cheeks grew pale, and for a
space he was silent.
"Richard," he said, "what brings you here, I know not; but I much
misdoubt it to be evil. Nevertheless, for the kindness that was, I
would not willingly deliver you to harm. Ye shall sit all night
beside me in the stalls: ye shall sit there till my Lord of
Shoreby be married, and the party gone safe home; and if all goeth
well, and ye have planned no evil, in the end ye shall go whither
ye will. But if your purpose be bloody, it shall return upon your
head. Amen!"
And the priest devoutly crossed himself, and turned and louted to
the altar.
With that, he spoke a few words more to the soldiers, and taking
Dick by the hand, led him up to the choir, and placed him in the
stall beside his own, where, for mere decency, the lad had
instantly to kneel and appear to be busy with his devotions.
His mind and his eyes, however, were continually wandering. Three
of the soldiers, he observed, instead of returning to the house,
had got them quietly into a point of vantage in the aisle; and he
could not doubt that they had done so by Sir Oliver's command.
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