"That, to teach thee manners. Now, then, bring him along, men; set him on the black gelding, chain his legs fast under the brute's belly, ride one of you at each side, and dash his brains out with your axes if he look like escaping. Away! away! I would be at Kendal before they ring the prime,[5] and at Lonsdale before matins.[6] So shall we be well among the Yorkshire fells before daybreak." [5] Prime was the first service, and began the instant midnight had sounded. [6] Matins was the second service, at 3 A.M. His words were obeyed without demur or delay, and within five minutes the Saxon was chained on the back of a vicious, ill-conditioned brute, with a savage ruffian on either side, glaring at him through the bars of their visors, as if they desired no better than a chance to brain him, in obedience with orders; and the whole party, their horses being quite fresh, were thundering down the dale at a pace that would bring them to Kendal long enough before midnight. CHAPTER XXII. THE SHERIFF. "The Sheriff, with a monstrous watch, is at the door." KING HENRY IV. Two hours' hard riding, considering that the riders were men armed in heavy mail, brought the party into the narrow, ill-paved streets of Kendal, at least two hours earlier than the time specified by Sir Foulke d'Oilly, and it was not above ten o'clock of the night when they pulled up before a long, low, thatched cabin, above the door of which, a bush and a bottle, suspended from a pole, gave note that it was a house of entertainment. Flinging his rein to one of half-a-dozen grooms and horse-boys, who were lounging about the gate, the knight raised the latch, and entered a long, smoky apartment, which seemed to occupy the whole ground floor of the building, affording room for the accommodation of fifty or sixty guests, on occasion of feasts, fairs, or holidays. It was an area of thirty or forty feet in length, by ten or twelve in width, with bare rough-cast walls, and bare rafters overhead, blackened by the smoke which escaped from the ill-constructed chimneys at either end, and eddied overhead in a perennial canopy of sable. The floor, however, was strewed with fresh green rushes, green wreaths and branches were hung on the rough-cast walls, and a large earthen-vase or two of water-lilies and other showy wild-flowers adorned the board, which was covered with clean white napery of domestic fabric. At the upper end of this long table, half-a-dozen or eight men were supping on a chine of hill-kid, with roasted moor-fowl and wild-ducks, the landlord of the tavern being the bailiff of the town, and having his lord's license to take all small game, save bustard, heron, woodcock, and pheasant, for the benefit of his guest-table. On the entrance of Sir Foulke, these men rose to their feet; and one, the best-armed and best-looking of the party, seeming to be a second esquire or equerry, asked him, in a subdued voice--