He still wore his steel breastplate, which I believe he had not laid aside that night; and this well matched the shirt of woven mail that had stayed two or three arrows which had otherwise laid me low. I felt taller and stronger at that moment than e’er before in my life; and my sword seemed a very plaything in my hands, like that of the Frenchman, De Latiere, who had so nearly done to death my father at the court at Shrewsbury. The outlaw was no novice with the sword, as I who had once before crossed weapons with him, could well testify. But almost at the outset I brought to bear the play that, with my father’s help, I had all that summer been perfecting. A swinging feint at the forearm turned itself in mid-air to a flashing thrust straight at his unguarded throat. I pierced him through and through, and he fell and died at my feet. Looking about me, I saw most of the outlaws dead or dying and the remainder being fast bound as prisoners. Young Sir Geoffrey of Carleton had dropped his cross-bow on the ground and stood with his mother’s arms firmly clasped about his neck the while he whispered somewhat in her ear. At her side her two handmaids stood unharmed and loudly weeping for joy. As I stood looking, well content, at this spectacle, the Lady of Carleton suddenly loosed her son and ran toward me. In an instant I too was clasped in a warm embrace. “Richard of Mountjoy,” she cried, “thou and thine were my son’s friends and rescuers, and now mine also. This day’s deeds bespeak thee far better than any words. Heaven is my witness, I believe thou art a true man and hast spoken the truth as to thy dealings. All that we can do to serve thee shall be done. From this day forth and forever there shall be peace and love betwixt our house and thine.” CHAPTER IX—CHURL AND OVERLORD ’Twas a year and more after the overthrow of the Monkslayer in Blackpool Forest and the killing or scattering of most of his band that my father, the Lord of Mountjoy, with my lady mother and myself and Cedric the Forester, now my accredited squire, sat one day in the hall of Mountjoy talking of the news that had that day come in. There had been, it seemed, a most desperate and bloody revolt of the churls on the lands of Sir Hugh DeLancey, some ten leagues to the south of us. A hundred or more of the peasantry with some apprentices and hangers-on at the village, armed with axes, clubs and scythes, had taken the manor by surprise in the night, killed Sir Hugh and half a dozen of his men in the hall, driven out the lady, then sacked the place and burnt it to the ground.