In the meanwhile, Sir John's son, a second Sir John, succeeded to Eland, who was married and had a son, then a young boy, who might also have succeeded but for the machinations of the allies in Furness. During the winter they had been laying their plots, and came to the determination of utterly extirpating the male line of the Elands, and arranged to attack Sir John on his way to or from church on Palm Sunday. Accordingly, in the spring, they came secretly to Crumblebottom Hall, where they lay _perdu_ to watch events, and, on the eve of Palm Sunday, concealed themselves in Eland Mill. Their proceedings, however, were not so secret but that rumours of impending evil reached the ears of Sir John, and on Sunday morning he told his wife that he should not go out that day, but she rallied him on his fears, and urged that he must go to church on that specially holy day as an example to others, upon which he reluctantly assented, but took the precaution of putting on a coat of mail beneath his waistcoat. The confederates and their followers saw the sun rise on the morning of Palm Sunday as they lay in the mill, and began to prepare for their meditated deed, when the door was suddenly opened, and the miller's wife entered for some corn which her husband had sent her for. They immediately seized her, bound her hand and foot, and told her that if she cried out they would knock her on the head. Not returning in due course, her husband grew wroth at her dalliance. "The miller swore she should repent, She tarried there so long; A good cudgel in hand he went, To chastise her with wrong." But the miller, instead of amusing himself by thrashing his wife, met with the same fate that she had undergone, and was thrown, securely bound, on a heap of flour-sacks beside her. Sir John, his wife, and little son, left Eland Hall for church, taking a short cut over the stones of the mill-dam which was nearly empty in consequence of a drought. As he was stepping over Beaumont shot an arrow at him which glanced off his coat of mail, as did Lockwood with a like effect. The villagers, who were going to church, seeing this, came running up, when Lockwood shot another arrow, which pierced Sir John's brain, whilst another from Quarmby, mortally wounded the boy.