"If!" cried Rumsey in tones that might have been crook-backed Richard's own. "But I never dreamed," continued Goodenough, "that 'twould come to blood-spilling, I protest, even of so much as a poor horse's." "Bluer blood than a wretched Flanders mare's, or a handful of red coats', will be staining yonder road before this moon's out, I take it," muttered Rumsey. "You're a fool, Master Goodenough," he added in a louder key, and turning contemptuously on Goodenough; "a cowardly fool." "No," said Goodenough, and he rose to his feet, a sudden light of indignation in his eyes; "but you are a traitor, Richard Rumsey! and 'tis not now for the first time I read your murderous thoughts." A low laugh was all Rumsey's comment. "Master Rumbold," hurried on Goodenough, "and Colonel Walcot--" "Bah! Walcot!" interrupted Rumsey, snapping his fingers. [Sidenote: A dangerous threat.] "And my Lord of Escrick and the rest know well enough how I have bidden them beware of you." "Absolutely!" said Rumsey, elevating his brows, and the corners of his mouth quivering about his teeth like some hungry hyena's. "We're as mighty fine as the pot was, when it talked a homily to the kettle. Do you imagine that Charles, once safe in their clutches, our good captain, or my Lord of Escrick, or any man-jack of our forty boys, would let him off alive?" Goodenough was silent for a moment. "I doubt they would not one of them stain their hands with cold blood," he said then. "And for a certainty I can speak to Walcot--" "Psha! speak no more of him, the white-livered loon." "I can speak to Walcot," stoutly persisted Goodenough, "for many times I have heard him say that a fair front-to-front tussle with the guards was what his soul itched for. But for attacking the king he would not do it; for that it was a base thing to kill a naked man." "Naked!" sneeringly echoed Rumsey as he rose from his chair and sauntered towards the table, on whose edge he seated himself, and began carelessly toying with the handle of the poignard he had thrown there. "Let his purple and fine linen shield him." [Sidenote: The coward speaks up.] "They would stand him in less stead against a bullet or a blade-thrust, than even my good Norwich drugget here would shield me, if any man bore me a grudge," answered Goodenough with a faint smile. "But 'tis no matter; why should it be spoken of? 'Tis quite certain that none of us are for killing the king, nor anybody else." Rumsey's lips twitched with the old baleful smile. "There I think you are out, Master Sheriff," he said, as he took the poignard into his hand, and began examining its hilt with a half absent attention. "The puling scruples of a mere handful out of all our forty boys would not go for much;" and he fixed his eyes in a covert glare on Goodenough, who stood thoughtfully gazing into the lamp; "and these must be got rid of, for a 'house divided against itself cannot stand.'"