"I will swear to him, also," cried a third man, who had snatched down the fatal crossbow and bolts from above the chimney. "Kenric and Eadwulf are but two names for one man; and here is the proof. This crossbow, with the name Kenric burned into the stock, is that which Eadwulf carried on the day when he fled; and these quarrels tally, point for point, with those which were found in the carcass of the deer he slew, and in the body of the bailiff he murdered!" "Ha! What say you to that, sirrah?" "That it is my crossbow; that my name is Kenric, by-named the Dark; that I am, as I said before, a free Saxon, and have dwelt here on Kentmere since the last days of July; so that I could have slain neither deer nor bailiff, between Thurgoland and Bolterstone, in September. That is all I have to say, Sir Foulke." "And that is nothing," he replied. "So thou must go along with us. Wilt go peaceably, too, if thou art wise, and cravest no broken bones." "Have you a writ of _Neifty_[4] for me, Sir Foulke?" asked Kenric, respectfully, having been instructed by Sir Yvo. [4] _De Nativo Habendo._--Howell's State Trials, 38, note. "Tush! dog, what knowest thou of _Neifty_? No, sirrah, I seize mine villeyn, of mine own right, with mine own hand. What sayst to that?" "That you must seize me, to seize justly, by the sheriff; and I deny the villeynage, and claim trial." "And I send you, and your denial, and your _Neifty_, to the fiend who hatched them. You are my slave, my born slave; and in my dungeons of Waltheofstow will I prove it to you. Hugo, Raoul, Damian, seize him, handcuff his wrists behind him, drag him along if he resist." "I resist not," said Kenric. "I yield to force, as I hold you all to witness; you above all, Gilbert," addressing the boy who stood staring, half-awake, while they were manacling his hands. "But I pray you, Sir Foulke, to take notice that in this you do great wrong to my good lord, Sir Yvo de Taillebois, both that he is the Lord of Hawkshead, Coniston, and Yewdale, and of this manor of Kentmere on which you now trespass, and that he is the sheriff of these counties of Lancaster and Westmoreland, where you wrongfully seize jurisdiction. And this I notify you, that he will seek the right at your hands, and that speedily." "Dog! Saxon! slave! dirt of the earth! do you dare threaten me?" cried the fierce baron, purposely lashing himself into fury; and he strode up to the helpless man, whose arms were secured behind his back, and smote him in the mouth with his gauntleted-hand, that the blood gushed from his lips, and streamed over all the front of his leathern hunting-shirt.