`` In all civility , who are ye ? and at whose instance do ye join your supplications to ours ? '' Dick , keeping his cowl about his face , signed to Sir Oliver to move a pace or two aside from the archers ; and , so soon as the priest had done so , `` I can not hope to deceive you , sir , '' he said . `` My life is in your hands . '' Sir Oliver violently started ; his stout cheeks grew pale , and for a space he was silent . `` Richard , '' he said , `` what brings you here , I know not ; but I much misdoubt it to be evil . Nevertheless , for the kindness that was , I would not willingly deliver you to harm . Ye shall sit all night beside me in the stalls : ye shall sit there till my Lord of Shoreby be married , and the party gone safe home ; and if all goeth well , and ye have planned no evil , in the end ye shall go whither ye will . But if your purpose be bloody , it shall return upon your head . Amen ! '' And the priest devoutly crossed himself , and turned and louted to the altar . With that , he spoke a few words more to the soldiers , and taking Dick by the hand , led him up to the choir , and placed him in the stall beside his own , where , for mere decency , the lad had instantly to kneel and appear to be busy with his devotions . His mind and his eyes , however , were continually wandering . Three of the soldiers , he observed , instead of returning to the house , had got them quietly into a point of vantage in the aisle ; and he could not doubt that they had done so by Sir Oliver 's command . Here , then , he was trapped . Here he must spend the night in the ghostly glimmer and shadow of the church , and looking on the pale face of him he slew ; and here , in the morning , he must see his sweetheart married to another man before his eyes . But , for all that , he obtained a command upon his mind , and built himself up in patience to await the issue . CHAPTER IV -- IN THE ABBEY CHURCH In Shoreby Abbey Church the prayers were kept up all night without cessation , now with the singing of psalms , now with a note or two upon the bell . Rutter , the spy , was nobly waked . There he lay , meanwhile , as they had arranged him , his dead hands crossed upon his bosom , his dead eyes staring on the roof ; and hard by , in the stall , the lad who had slain him waited , in sore disquietude , the coming of the morning .
Once only , in the course of the hours , Sir XXXXX leaned across to his captive .
Church Oliver Rutter Shoreby archers cowl psalms slew supplications whither