“And let it slip to hasten hither?”

“Not exactly; the clue will follow me here.”

“Follow you?  Explain.”

“I found Flat-Nose in Sheffield.”

“And caught him?”

“Alas! no; he escaped in the darkness, but we captured his companion. 
He is the clue that follows.”

“Was there anything about him to show what lord he serves?”

“He serves Your Majesty.”

“What, sir!—­Serves me?”

Aymer bowed.  “It is Lord Darby.”

The King raised his eyebrows and fell to stroking his chin again; then arose and began to pace the room.

“Pardieu, man! but you have brought a budget of surprises,” he said.  “Are you sure it was Flat-Nose?  You have never seen him.”

“He fit Sir John de Bury’s words as the glove the hand—­my squire was as convinced as myself.”

“Give me the full details.”

The King listened with a frown, but at the end he made no comment.

“Let Lord Darby be brought before me as soon as he arrives,” he said simply.  “Meanwhile you are excused from attendance till the morrow.  Good night. . .  By St. Paul! this Darby business is untimely,” he soliloquized.  “He has some strength in Yorkshire, and it will be unwise to estrange it at this crisis.  Yet appearances are dark against him, and if he have no adequate explanation he dies. . .  But if he have a good defence, why not accept it for the nonce?  And then, after Buckingham has shot his foolish bolt, look deeper into the matter. . .  Now as to this rebellion,” resuming his walk back and forth, “it will require six days for the seal to come from London.  Therefore to-morrow shall the Commissioners go North and East with an order under my own seal, and the formal authority can follow after them—­they can levy in the interval and muster later.”  Pausing at the window he swung back the casement.  “Parbleu! how it rains . . . it will flood every river in England . . . and it will fight for us.  I will destroy the bridges of the Severn; Buckingham will be unable to pass; his juncture with Richmond and the Southern rebels will be prevented—­and I can mass my strength and cut them up in detail.”

Then with his own hand he wrote the orders to Sir Thomas Vaughan, Rice ap Thomas, and others of the royal captains and trusty Yorkist adherents in Wales and Shropshire; and lastly he indited a proclamation, wherein Henry Stafford was declared a traitor, and a reward of a thousand pounds put upon his head.  These finished, and confided to Ratcliffe for forwarding, Richard sought the Queen’s apartments and remained in converse with her for an hour, but said never a word of the occurrences of the evening lest they disturb her night’s repose.  It would be time enough in the morning for her to begin again the old fear for her lord’s life—­for his crown she cared not a whit.

XX