"Canst thou go with us, good father, into yonder hut?" he said. "We would have thy service at a simple service of wedding. See, ... my witnesses are riding hither, ... and I have papers bearing upon my knightly reputation." "Right willingly would I do thee a service, sir knight, but not in that hut there," replied the monk, looking up at his questioner with eyes distended with fear. "I am but now come from there, ... the good Lord forgive him!" "Forgive who? What is 't, goodman?" cried Sir Richard. "There abides a great giant there.... Indeed, a tremendous man, ... ill with some diresome fever, or fiendish obsession. He made threat to slay me, an I but dared set foot within, bellowing fierce oaths the while from his pallet of rushes. He will die; ... yea, he will die, for he had the white drawn look of death upon his bearded face. I shrove him from the doorway--then came away. The Lord have mercy----" He got no further with the sentence within Sir Richard's hearing. Ignoring the road, the young knight went galloping in mighty bounds away over the gorse-grown meadow. CHAPTER XX OF HOW SIR RICHARD CAME TO THE SHEPHERD'S HUT, AND THE RETURN OF TYRRELL It was not above a few swift winks of the eye till Sir Richard had flung himself from off the back of his frothing stallion and was within the hut's door. "Dick!" exclaimed its solitary occupant, rising upon a lean elbow. "I'm damned, an it be not yourself, ... eh?" Then, sternly, as the young knight made toward the pallet of rushes whereupon he was outstretched: "Betake you out of this accursed place," he shouted. "Do you want to get you the sweating sickness?" "An it had been the sweating sickness," said Sir Richard, advancing to the sick warrior's side and grasping his woefully thin hand, "I'd have found nothing here beyond a moldering corpse. This four years, de Claverlok, has the sweating sickness slept. 'Tis but some devastating fever brought with you from out of the dungeon in Castle Yewe. You'll get you well, man, I know it." "Meseems I know it, too, Sir Dick," agreed the grizzled warrior weakly. "By the mass, 'tis the very first day I've had the courage to swear, ... eh! And a good monk for auditor, too. The Christian fellow shrove me through yon open door. A murrain upon you, Dick! and how is 't you're here? And after cutting me some ten stone of stout rope in my eye, ... Ingrate!" After this good-natured outburst de Claverlok threw himself back upon the rush-mat, breathing heavily. Noting that his pallor had somewhat increased, Sir Richard begged him to remain quiet, the while he would recount his adventures since parting from him upon the runway of the tower. "God's sake! but there's a woman for you, ... a king-maker, Dick," he made a muttered comment, when the young knight gave him the story of Lady Anna. He went on with his tale, and had just come to that part of it where he had stumbled so unexpectedly upon the Red Tavern, when----