him, Master Shelton; he has stolen your quarrel, may he never have good I grudge him less!”

“Nay, but what made he by the church?” asked Sir Oliver. “I am shrewdly afeared there has been mischief here.—Clipsby, good fellow, get ye down from your horse, and search thoroughly among the yews.”

Clipsby was gone but a little while ere he returned, carrying a paper.

“This writing was pinned to the church door,” he said, handing it to the parson. “I found-naught else, sir parson.”

“Now, by the power of Mother Church,” cried Sir Oliver, “but this runs hard on sacrilege! For the king’s good pleasure, or the lord of the manor—well! But that every run-the-hedge in a green jerkin should fasten papers to the chancel door—nay, it runs hard on sacrilege, hard; and men have burned for matters of less weight! But what have we here? The light fails apace. Good Master Richard, y’ have young eyes. Read me, I pray, this libel.”

Dick Shelton took the paper in his hand and read it aloud. It contained some lines of a very rugged doggerel, hardly even rhyming, written in a gross character, and most uncouthly spelt. With the spelling somewhat bettered, this is how they ran:—

“I had four blak arrows under my belt,

Four for the greefs that I have felt,

Four for the nomber of ill menne

That have oppressid me now and then.

20

20

One is gone; one is wele sped;

Old Apulyaird is ded.

One is for Maister Bennet Hatch,

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