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The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Two Roses

by Robert Louis Stevenson · English · Gutenberg #848 · 456,925 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Two Roses

Author: Robert Louis Stevenson


        
Release date: March 1, 1997 [eBook #848]
                Most recently updated: August 24, 2021

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/848

Credits: David Price


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BLACK ARROW: A TALE OF THE TWO ROSES ***




THE BLACK ARROW--A TALE OF THE TWO ROSES


Critic on the Hearth:


No one but myself knows what I have suffered, nor what my books have
gained, by your unsleeping watchfulness and admirable pertinacity.  And
now here is a volume that goes into the world and lacks your
_imprimatur_: a strange thing in our joint lives; and the reason of it
stranger still! I have watched with interest, with pain, and at length
with amusement, your unavailing attempts to peruse _The Black Arrow_; and
I think I should lack humour indeed, if I let the occasion slip and did
not place your name in the fly-leaf of the only book of mine that you
have never read--and never will read.

That others may display more constancy is still my hope.  The tale was
written years ago for a particular audience and (I may say) in rivalry
with a particular author; I think I should do well to name him, Mr.
Alfred R. Phillips.  It was not without its reward at the time.  I could
not, indeed, displace Mr. Phillips from his well-won priority; but in the
eyes of readers who thought less than nothing of _Treasure Island_, _The
Black Arrow_ was supposed to mark a clear advance.  Those who read
volumes and those who read story papers belong to different worlds.  The
verdict on _Treasure Island_ was reversed in the other court; I wonder,
will it be the same with its successor?

                                                                _R. L. S._

SARANAC LAKE, April 8, 1888.




PROLOGUE--JOHN AMEND-ALL


On a certain afternoon, in the late springtime, the bell upon Tunstall
Moat House was heard ringing at an unaccustomed hour.  Far and near, in
the forest and in the fields along the river, people began to desert
their labours and hurry towards the sound; and in Tunstall hamlet a group
of poor country-folk stood wondering at the summons.

Tunstall hamlet at that period, in the reign of old King Henry VI., wore
much the same appearance as it wears to-day.  A score or so of houses,
heavily framed with oak, stood scattered in a long green valley ascending
from the river.  At the foot, the road crossed a bridge, and mounting on
the other side, disappeared into the fringes of the forest on its way to
the Moat House, and further forth to Holywood Abbey.  Half-way up the
village, the church stood among yews.  On every side the slopes were
crowned and the view bounded by the green elms and greening oak-trees of
the forest.

Hard by the bridge, there was a stone cross upon a knoll, and here the
group had collected--half a dozen women and one tall fellow in a russet
smock--discussing what the bell betided.  An express had gone through the
hamlet half an hour before, and drunk a pot of ale in the saddle, not
daring to dismount for the hurry of his errand; but he had been ignorant
himself of what was forward, and only bore sealed letters from Sir Daniel
Brackley to Sir Oliver Oates, the parson, who kept the Moat House in the
master's absence.

But now there was the noise of a horse; and soon, out of the edge of the
wood and over the echoing bridge, there rode up young Master Richard
Shelton, Sir Daniel's ward.  He, at the least, would know, and they
hailed him and begged him to explain.  He drew bridle willingly enough--a
young fellow not yet eighteen, sun-browned and grey-eyed, in a jacket of
deer's leather, with a black velvet collar, a green hood upon his head,
and a steel cross-bow at his back.  The express, it appeared, had brought
great news.  A battle was impending.  Sir Daniel had sent for every man
that could draw a bow or carry a bill to go post-haste to Kettley, under
pain of his severe displeasure; but for whom they were to fight, or of
where the battle was expected, Dick knew nothing.  Sir Oliver would come
shortly himself, and Bennet Hatch was arming at that moment, for he it
was who should lead the party.

"It is the ruin of this kind land," a woman said.  "If the barons live at
war, ploughfolk must eat roots."

"Nay," said Dick, "every man that follows shall have sixpence a day, and
archers twelve."

"If they live," returned the woman, "that may very well be; but how if
they die, my master?"

"They cannot better die than for their natural lord," said Dick.

"No natural lord of mine," said the man in the smock.  "I followed the
Walsinghams; so we all did down Brierly way, till two years ago, come
Candlemas.  And now I must side with Brackley!  It was the law that did
it; call ye that natural?  But now, what with Sir Daniel and what with
Sir Oliver--that knows more of law than honesty--I have no natural lord
but poor King Harry the Sixt, God bless him!--the poor innocent that
cannot tell his right hand from his left."

"Ye speak with an ill tongue, friend," answered Dick, "to miscall your
good master and my lord the king in the same libel.  But King
Harry--praised be the saints!--has come again into his right mind, and
will have all things peaceably ordained.  And as for Sir Daniel, y' are
very brave behind his back.  But I will be no tale-bearer; and let that
suffice."

"I say no harm of you, Master Richard," returned the peasant.  "Y' are a
lad; but when ye come to a man's inches, ye will find ye have an empty
pocket.  I say no more: the saints help Sir Daniel's neighbours, and the
Blessed Maid protect his wards!"

"Clipsby," said Richard, "you speak what I cannot hear with honour.  Sir
Daniel is my good master, and my guardian."

"Come, now, will ye read me a riddle?" returned Clipsby.  "On whose side
is Sir Daniel?"

"I know not," said Dick, colouring a little; for his guardian had changed
sides continually in the troubles of that period, and every change had
brought him some increase of fortune.

"Ay," returned Clipsby, "you, nor no man.  For, indeed, he is one that
goes to bed Lancaster and gets up York."

Just then the bridge rang under horse-shoe iron, and the party turned and
saw Bennet Hatch come galloping--a brown-faced, grizzled fellow, heavy of
hand and grim of mien, armed with sword and spear, a steel salet on his
head, a leather jack upon his body.  He was a great man in these parts;
Sir Daniel's right hand in peace and war, and at that time, by his
master's interest, bailiff of the hundred.

"Clipsby," he shouted, "off to the Moat House, and send all other
laggards the same gate.  Bowyer will give you jack and salet.  We must
ride before curfew.  Look to it: he that is last at the lych-gate Sir
Daniel shall reward.  Look to it right well!  I know you for a man of
naught.  Nance," he added, to one of the women, "is old Appleyard up
town?"

"I'll warrant you," replied the woman.  "In his field, for sure."

So the group dispersed, and while Clipsby walked leisurely over the
bridge, Bennet and young Shelton rode up the road together, through the
village and past the church.

"Ye will see the old shrew," said Bennet.  "He will waste more time
grumbling and prating of Harry the Fift than would serve a man to shoe a
horse.  And all because he has been to the French wars!"

The house to which they were bound was the last in the village, standing
alone among lilacs; and beyond it, on three sides, there was open meadow
rising towards the borders of the wood.

Hatch dismounted, threw his rein over the fence, and walked down the
field, Dick keeping close at his elbow, to where the old soldier was
digging, knee-deep in his cabbages, and now and again, in a cracked
voice, singing a snatch of song.  He was all dressed in leather, only his
hood and tippet were of black frieze, and tied with scarlet; his face was
like a walnut-shell, both for colour and wrinkles; but his old grey eye
was still clear enough, and his sight unabated.  Perhaps he was deaf;
perhaps he thought it unworthy of an old archer of Agincourt to pay any
heed to such disturbances; but neither the surly notes of the alarm bell,
nor the near approach of Bennet and the lad, appeared at all to move him;
and he continued obstinately digging, and piped up, very thin and shaky:

    "Now, dear lady, if thy will be,
    I pray you that you will rue on me."

"Nick Appleyard," said Hatch, "Sir Oliver commends him to you, and bids
that ye shall come within this hour to the Moat House, there to take
command."

The old fellow looked up.

"Save you, my masters!" he said, grinning.  "And where goeth Master
Hatch?"

"Master Hatch is off to Kettley, with every man that we can horse,"
returned Bennet.  "There is a fight toward, it seems, and my lord stays a
reinforcement."

"Ay, verily," returned Appleyard.  "And what will ye leave me to garrison
withal?"

"I leave you six good men, and Sir Oliver to boot," answered Hatch.

"It'll not hold the place," said Appleyard; "the number sufficeth not.
It would take two score to make it good."

"Why, it's for that we came to you, old shrew!" replied the other.  "Who
else is there but you that could do aught in such a house with such a
garrison?"

"Ay! when the pinch comes, ye remember the old shoe," returned Nick.
"There is not a man of you can back a horse or hold a bill; and as for
archery--St. Michael! if old Harry the Fift were back again, he would
stand and let ye shoot at him for a farthen a shoot!"

"Nay, Nick, there's some can draw a good bow yet," said Bennet.

"Draw a good bow!" cried Appleyard.  "Yes!  But who'll shoot me a good
shoot?  It's there the eye comes in, and the head between your shoulders.
Now, what might you call a long shoot, Bennet Hatch?"

"Well," said Bennet, looking about him, "it would be a long shoot from
here into the forest."

"Ay, it would be a longish shoot," said the old fellow, turning to look
over his shoulder; and then he put up his hand over his eyes, and stood
staring.

"Why, what are you looking at?" asked Bennet, with a chuckle.  "Do, you
see Harry the Fift?"

The veteran continued looking up the hill in silence.  The sun shone
broadly over the shelving meadows; a few white sheep wandered browsing;
all was still but the distant jangle of the bell.

"What is it, Appleyard?" asked Dick.

"Why, the birds," said Appleyard.

And, sure enough, over the top of the forest, where it ran down in a
tongue among the meadows, and ended in a pair of goodly green elms, about
a bowshot from the field where they were standing, a flight of birds was
skimming to and fro, in evident disorder.

"What of the birds?" said Bennet.

"Ay!" returned Appleyard, "y' are a wise man to go to war, Master Bennet.
Birds are a good sentry; in forest places they be the first line of
battle.  Look you, now, if we lay here in camp, there might be archers
skulking down to get the wind of us; and here would you be, none the
wiser!"

"Why, old shrew," said Hatch, "there be no men nearer us than Sir
Daniel's, at Kettley; y' are as safe as in London Tower; and ye raise
scares upon a man for a few chaffinches and sparrows!"

"Hear him!" grinned Appleyard.  "How many a rogue would give his two crop
ears to have a shoot at either of us?  Saint Michael, man! they hate us
like two polecats!"

"Well, sooth it is, they hate Sir Daniel," answered Hatch, a little
sobered.

"Ay, they hate Sir Daniel, and they hate every man that serves with him,"
said Appleyard; "and in the first order of hating, they hate Bennet Hatch
and old Nicholas the bowman.  See ye here: if there was a stout fellow
yonder in the wood-edge, and you and I stood fair for him--as, by Saint
George, we stand!--which, think ye, would he choose?"

"You, for a good wager," answered Hatch.

"My surcoat to a leather belt, it would be you!" cried the old archer.
"Ye burned Grimstone, Bennet--they'll ne'er forgive you that, my master.
And as for me, I'll soon be in a good place, God grant, and out of
bow-shoot--ay, and cannon-shoot--of all their malices.  I am an old man,
and draw fast to homeward, where the bed is ready.  But for you, Bennet,
y' are to remain behind here at your own peril, and if ye come to my
years unhanged, the old true-blue English spirit will be dead."

"Y' are the shrewishest old dolt in Tunstall Forest," returned Hatch,
visibly ruffled by these threats.  "Get ye to your arms before Sir Oliver
come, and leave prating for one good while.  An ye had talked so much
with Harry the Fift, his ears would ha' been richer than his pocket."

An arrow sang in the air, like a huge hornet; it struck old Appleyard
between the shoulder-blades, and pierced him clean through, and he fell
forward on his face among the cabbages.  Hatch, with a broken cry, leapt
into the air; then, stooping double, he ran for the cover of the house.
And in the meanwhile Dick Shelton had dropped behind a lilac, and had his
crossbow bent and shouldered, covering the point of the forest.

Not a leaf stirred.  The sheep were patiently browsing; the birds had
settled.  But there lay the old man, with a cloth-yard arrow standing in
his back; and there were Hatch holding to the gable, and Dick crouching
and ready behind the lilac bush.

"D'ye see aught?" cried Hatch.

"Not a twig stirs," said Dick.

"I think shame to leave him lying," said Bennet, coming forward once more
with hesitating steps and a very pale countenance.  "Keep a good eye on
the wood, Master Shelton--keep a clear eye on the wood.  The saints
assoil us! here was a good shoot!"

Bennet raised the old archer on his knee.  He was not yet dead; his face
worked, and his eyes shut and opened like machinery, and he had a most
horrible, ugly look of one in pain.

"Can ye hear, old Nick?" asked Hatch.  "Have ye a last wish before ye
wend, old brother?"

"Pluck out the shaft, and let me pass, a' Mary's name!" gasped Appleyard.
"I be done with Old England.  Pluck it out!"

"Master Dick," said Bennet, "come hither, and pull me a good pull upon
the arrow.  He would fain pass, the poor sinner."

Dick laid down his cross-bow, and pulling hard upon the arrow, drew it
forth.  A gush of blood followed; the old archer scrambled half upon his
feet, called once upon the name of God, and then fell dead.  Hatch, upon
his knees among the cabbages, prayed fervently for the welfare of the
passing spirit.  But even as he prayed, it was plain that his mind was
still divided, and he kept ever an eye upon the corner of the wood from
which the shot had come.  When he had done, he got to his feet again,
drew off one of his mailed gauntlets, and wiped his pale face, which was
all wet with terror.

"Ay," he said, "it'll be my turn next."

"Who hath done this, Bennet?" Richard asked, still holding the arrow in
his hand.

"Nay, the saints know," said Hatch.  "Here are a good two score Christian
souls that we have hunted out of house and holding, he and I.  He has
paid his shot, poor shrew, nor will it be long, mayhap, ere I pay mine.
Sir Daniel driveth over-hard."

"This is a strange shaft," said the lad, looking at the arrow in his
hand.

"Ay, by my faith!" cried Bennet.  "Black, and black-feathered.  Here is
an ill-favoured shaft, by my sooth! for black, they say, bodes burial.
And here be words written.  Wipe the blood away.  What read ye?"

"'_Appulyaird fro Jon Amend-All_,'" read Shelton.  "What should this
betoken?"

"Nay, I like it not," returned the retainer, shaking his head.  "John
Amend-All!  Here is a rogue's name for those that be up in the world!
But why stand we here to make a mark?  Take him by the knees, good Master
Shelton, while I lift him by the shoulders, and let us lay him in his
house.  This will be a rare shog to poor Sir Oliver; he will turn paper
colour; he will pray like a windmill."

They took up the old archer, and carried him between them into his house,
where he had dwelt alone.  And there they laid him on the floor, out of
regard for the mattress, and sought, as best they might, to straighten
and compose his limbs.

Appleyard's house was clean and bare.  There was a bed, with a blue
cover, a cupboard, a great chest, a pair of joint-stools, a hinged table
in the chimney corner, and hung upon the wall the old soldier's armoury
of bows and defensive armour.  Hatch began to look about him curiously.

"Nick had money," he said.  "He may have had three score pounds put by.
I would I could light upon't!  When ye lose an old friend, Master
Richard, the best consolation is to heir him.  See, now, this chest.  I
would go a mighty wager there is a bushel of gold therein.  He had a
strong hand to get, and a hard hand to keep withal, had Appleyard the
archer.  Now may God rest his spirit!  Near eighty year he was afoot and
about, and ever getting; but now he's on the broad of his back, poor
shrew, and no more lacketh; and if his chattels came to a good friend, he
would be merrier, methinks, in heaven."

"Come, Hatch," said Dick, "respect his stone-blind eyes.  Would ye rob
the man before his body?  Nay, he would walk!"

Hatch made several signs of the cross; but by this time his natural
complexion had returned, and he was not easily to be dashed from any
purpose.  It would have gone hard with the chest had not the gate
sounded, and presently after the door of the house opened and admitted a
tall, portly, ruddy, black-eyed man of near fifty, in a surplice and
black robe.

"Appleyard"--the newcomer was saying, as he entered; but he stopped dead.
"Ave Maria!" he cried.  "Saints be our shield!  What cheer is this?"

"Cold cheer with Appleyard, sir parson," answered Hatch, with perfect
cheerfulness.  "Shot at his own door, and alighteth even now at purgatory
gates.  Ay! there, if tales be true, he shall lack neither coal nor
candle."

Sir Oliver groped his way to a joint-stool, and sat down upon it, sick
and white.

"This is a judgment!  O, a great stroke!" he sobbed, and rattled off a
leash of prayers.

Hatch meanwhile reverently doffed his salet and knelt down.

"Ay, Bennet," said the priest, somewhat recovering, "and what may this
be?  What enemy hath done this?"

"Here, Sir Oliver, is the arrow.  See, it is written upon with words,"
said Dick.

"Nay," cried the priest, "this is a foul hearing!  John Amend-All!  A
right Lollardy word.  And black of hue, as for an omen!  Sirs, this knave
arrow likes me not.  But it importeth rather to take counsel.  Who should
this be?  Bethink you, Bennet.  Of so many black ill-willers, which
should he be that doth so hardily outface us?  Simnel?  I do much
question it.  The Walsinghams?  Nay, they are not yet so broken; they
still think to have the law over us, when times change.  There was Simon
Malmesbury, too.  How think ye, Bennet?"

"What think ye, sir," returned Hatch, "of Ellis Duckworth?"

"Nay, Bennet, never.  Nay, not he," said the priest.  "There cometh never
any rising, Bennet, from below--so all judicious chroniclers concord in
their opinion; but rebellion travelleth ever downward from above; and
when Dick, Tom, and Harry take them to their bills, look ever narrowly to
see what lord is profited thereby.  Now, Sir Daniel, having once more
joined him to the Queen's party, is in ill odour with the Yorkist lords.
Thence, Bennet, comes the blow--by what procuring, I yet seek; but
therein lies the nerve of this discomfiture."

"An't please you, Sir Oliver," said Bennet, "the axles are so hot in this
country that I have long been smelling fire.  So did this poor sinner,
Appleyard.  And, by your leave, men's spirits are so foully inclined to
all of us, that it needs neither York nor Lancaster to spur them on.
Hear my plain thoughts: You, that are a clerk, and Sir Daniel, that sails
on any wind, ye have taken many men's goods, and beaten and hanged not a
few.  Y' are called to count for this; in the end, I wot not how, ye have
ever the uppermost at law, and ye think all patched.  But give me leave,
Sir Oliver: the man that ye have dispossessed and beaten is but the
angrier, and some day, when the black devil is by, he will up with his
bow and clout me a yard of arrow through your inwards."

"Nay, Bennet, y' are in the wrong.  Bennet, ye should be glad to be
corrected," said Sir Oliver.  "Y' are a prater, Bennet, a talker, a
babbler; your mouth is wider than your two ears.  Mend it, Bennet, mend
it."

"Nay, I say no more.  Have it as ye list," said the retainer.

The priest now rose from the stool, and from the writing-case that hung
about his neck took forth wax and a taper, and a flint and steel.  With
these he sealed up the chest and the cupboard with Sir Daniel's arms,
Hatch looking on disconsolate; and then the whole party proceeded,
somewhat timorously, to sally from the house and get to horse.

"'Tis time we were on the road, Sir Oliver," said Hatch, as he held the
priest's stirrup while he mounted.

"Ay; but, Bennet, things are changed," returned the parson.  "There is
now no Appleyard--rest his soul!--to keep the garrison.  I shall keep
you, Bennet.  I must have a good man to rest me on in this day of black
arrows.  'The arrow that flieth by day,' saith the evangel; I have no
mind of the context; nay, I am a sluggard priest, I am too deep in men's
affairs.  Well, let us ride forth, Master Hatch.  The jackmen should be
at the church by now."

So they rode forward down the road, with the wind after them, blowing the
tails of the parson's cloak; and behind them, as they went, clouds began
to arise and blot out the sinking sun.  They had passed three of the
scattered houses that make up Tunstall hamlet, when, coming to a turn,
they saw the church before them.  Ten or a dozen houses clustered
immediately round it; but to the back the churchyard was next the
meadows.  At the lych-gate, near a score of men were gathered, some in
the saddle, some standing by their horses' heads.  They were variously
armed and mounted; some with spears, some with bills, some with bows, and
some bestriding plough-horses, still splashed with the mire of the
furrow; for these were the very dregs of the country, and all the better
men and the fair equipments were already with Sir Daniel in the field.

"We have not done amiss, praised be the cross of Holywood!  Sir Daniel
will be right well content," observed the priest, inwardly numbering the
troop.

"Who goes?  Stand! if ye be true!" shouted Bennet.  A man was seen
slipping through the churchyard among the yews; and at the sound of this
summons he discarded all concealment, and fairly took to his heels for
the forest.  The men at the gate, who had been hitherto unaware of the
stranger's presence, woke and scattered.  Those who had dismounted began
scrambling into the saddle; the rest rode in pursuit; but they had to
make the circuit of the consecrated ground, and it was plain their quarry
would escape them.  Hatch, roaring an oath, put his horse at the hedge,
to head him off; but the beast refused, and sent his rider sprawling in
the dust.  And though he was up again in a moment, and had caught the
bridle, the time had gone by, and the fugitive had gained too great a
lead for any hope of capture.

The wisest of all had been Dick Shelton.  Instead of starting in a vain
pursuit, he had whipped his crossbow from his back, bent it, and set a
quarrel to the string; and now, when the others had desisted, he turned
to Bennet and asked if he should shoot.

"Shoot! shoot!" cried the priest, with sanguinary violence.

"Cover him, Master Dick," said Bennet.  "Bring me him down like a ripe
apple."

The fugitive was now within but a few leaps of safety; but this last part
of the meadow ran very steeply uphill; and the man ran slower in
proportion.  What with the greyness of the falling night, and the uneven
movements of the runner, it was no easy aim; and as Dick levelled his
bow, he felt a kind of pity, and a half desire that he might miss.  The
quarrel sped.

The man stumbled and fell, and a great cheer arose from Hatch and the
pursuers.  But they were counting their corn before the harvest.  The man
fell lightly; he was lightly afoot again, turned and waved his cap in a
bravado, and was out of sight next moment in the margin of the wood.

"And the plague go with him!" cried Bennet.  "He has thieves' heels; he
can run, by St Banbury!  But you touched 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 falls 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 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 opressid me now and then.

    One is gone; one is wele sped;
    Old Apulyaird is ded.

    One is for Maister Bennet Hatch,
    That burned Grimstone, walls and thatch.

    One for Sir Oliver Oates,
    That cut Sir Harry Shelton's throat.

    Sir Daniel, ye shull have the fourt;
    We shall think it fair sport.

    Ye shull each have your own part,
    A blak arrow in each blak heart.
    Get ye to your knees for to pray:
    Ye are ded theeves, by yea and nay!

                                                            "JON AMEND-ALL
                                                        of the Green Wood,
                                                And his jolly fellaweship.

    "Item, we have mo arrowes and goode hempen cord for otheres of your
    following."

"Now, well-a-day for charity and the Christian graces!" cried Sir Oliver,
lamentably.  "Sirs, this is an ill world, and groweth daily worse.  I
will swear upon the cross of Holywood I am as innocent of that good
knight's hurt, whether in act or purpose, as the babe unchristened.
Neither was his throat cut; for therein they are again in error, as there
still live credible witnesses to show."

"It boots not, sir parson," said Bennet.  "Here is unseasonable talk."

"Nay, Master Bennet, not so.  Keep ye in your due place, good Bennet,"
answered the priest.  "I shall make mine innocence appear.  I will, upon
no consideration, lose my poor life in error.  I take all men to witness
that I am clear of this matter.  I was not even in the Moat House.  I was
sent of an errand before nine upon the clock"--

"Sir Oliver," said Hatch, interrupting, "since it please you not to stop
this sermon, I will take other means.  Goffe, sound to horse."

And while the tucket was sounding, Bennet moved close to the bewildered
parson, and whispered violently in his ear.

Dick Shelton saw the priest's eye turned upon him for an instant in a
startled glance.  He had some cause for thought; for this Sir Harry
Shelton was his own natural father.  But he said never a word, and kept
his countenance unmoved.

Hatch and Sir Oliver discussed together for a while their altered
situation; ten men, it was decided between them, should be reserved, not
only to garrison the Moat House, but to escort the priest across the
wood.  In the meantime, as Bennet was to remain behind, the command of
the reinforcement was given to Master Shelton.  Indeed, there was no
choice; the men were loutish fellows, dull and unskilled in war, while
Dick was not only popular, but resolute and grave beyond his age.
Although his youth had been spent in these rough, country places, the lad
had been well taught in letters by Sir Oliver, and Hatch himself had
shown him the management of arms and the first principles of command.
Bennet had always been kind and helpful; he was one of those who are
cruel as the grave to those they call their enemies, but ruggedly
faithful and well willing to their friends; and now, while Sir Oliver
entered the next house to write, in his swift, exquisite penmanship, a
memorandum of the last occurrences to his master, Sir Daniel Brackley,
Bennet came up to his pupil to wish him God-speed upon his enterprise.

"Ye must go the long way about, Master Shelton," he said; "round by the
bridge, for your life!  Keep a sure man fifty paces afore you, to draw
shots; and go softly till y' are past the wood.  If the rogues fall upon
you, ride for 't; ye will do naught by standing.  And keep ever forward,
Master Shelton; turn me not back again, an ye love your life; there is no
help in Tunstall, mind ye that.  And now, since ye go to the great wars
about the king, and I continue to dwell here in extreme jeopardy of my
life, and the saints alone can certify if we shall meet again below, I
give you my last counsels now at your riding.  Keep an eye on Sir Daniel;
he is unsure.  Put not your trust in the jack-priest; he intendeth not
amiss, but doth the will of others; it is a hand-gun for Sir Daniel!  Get
your good lordship where ye go; make you strong friends; look to it.  And
think ever a pater-noster-while on Bennet Hatch.  There are worse rogues
afoot than Bennet.  So, God-speed!"

"And Heaven be with you, Bennet!" returned Dick.  "Ye were a good friend
to me-ward, and so I shall say ever."

"And, look ye, master," added Hatch, with a certain embarrassment, "if
this Amend-All should get a shaft into me, ye might, mayhap, lay out a
gold mark or mayhap a pound for my poor soul; for it is like to go stiff
with me in purgatory."

"Ye shall have your will of it, Bennet," answered Dick.  "But, what
cheer, man! we shall meet again, where ye shall have more need of ale
than masses."

"The saints so grant it, Master Dick!" returned the other.  "But here
comes Sir Oliver.  An he were as quick with the long-bow as with the pen,
he would be a brave man-at-arms."

Sir Oliver gave Dick a sealed packet, with this superscription: "To my
ryght worchypful master, Sir Daniel Brackley, knyght, be thys delyvered
in haste."

And Dick, putting it in the bosom of his jacket, gave the word and set
forth westward up the village.




BOOK I--THE TWO LADS


CHAPTER I--AT THE SIGN OF THE SUN IN KETTLEY


Sir Daniel and his men lay in and about Kettley that night, warmly
quartered and well patrolled.  But the Knight of Tunstall was one who
never rested from money-getting; and even now, when he was on the brink
of an adventure which should make or mar him, he was up an hour after
midnight to squeeze poor neighbours.  He was one who trafficked greatly
in disputed inheritances; it was his way to buy out the most unlikely
claimant, and then, by the favour he curried with great lords about the
king, procure unjust decisions in his favour; or, if that was too
roundabout, to seize the disputed manor by force of arms, and rely on his
influence and Sir Oliver's cunning in the law to hold what he had
snatched.  Kettley was one such place; it had come very lately into his
clutches; he still met with opposition from the tenants; and it was to
overawe discontent that he had led his troops that way.

By two in the morning, Sir Daniel sat in the inn room, close by the
fireside, for it was cold at that hour among the fens of Kettley.  By his
elbow stood a pottle of spiced ale.  He had taken off his visored
headpiece, and sat with his bald head and thin, dark visage resting on
one hand, wrapped warmly in a sanguine-coloured cloak.  At the lower end
of the room about a dozen of his men stood sentry over the door or lay
asleep on benches; and somewhat nearer hand, a young lad, apparently of
twelve or thirteen, was stretched in a mantle on the floor.  The host of
the Sun stood before the great man.

"Now, mark me, mine host," Sir Daniel said, "follow but mine orders, and
I shall be your good lord ever.  I must have good men for head boroughs,
and I will have Adam-a-More high constable; see to it narrowly.  If other
men be chosen, it shall avail you nothing; rather it shall be found to
your sore cost.  For those that have paid rent to Walsingham I shall take
good measure--you among the rest, mine host."

"Good knight," said the host, "I will swear upon the cross of Holywood I
did but pay to Walsingham upon compulsion.  Nay, bully knight, I love not
the rogue Walsinghams; they were as poor as thieves, bully knight.  Give
me a great lord like you.  Nay; ask me among the neighbours, I am stout
for Brackley."

"It may be," said Sir Daniel, dryly.  "Ye shall then pay twice."

The innkeeper made a horrid grimace; but this was a piece of bad luck
that might readily befall a tenant in these unruly times, and he was
perhaps glad to make his peace so easily.

"Bring up yon fellow, Selden!" cried the knight.

And one of his retainers led up a poor, cringing old man, as pale as a
candle, and all shaking with the fen fever.

"Sirrah," said Sir Daniel, "your name?"

"An't please your worship," replied the man, "my name is Condall--Condall
of Shoreby, at your good worship's pleasure."

"I have heard you ill reported on," returned the knight.  "Ye deal in
treason, rogue; ye trudge the country leasing; y' are heavily suspicioned
of the death of severals.  How, fellow, are ye so bold?  But I will bring
you down."

"Right honourable and my reverend lord," the man cried, "here is some
hodge-podge, saving your good presence.  I am but a poor private man, and
have hurt none."

"The under-sheriff did report of you most vilely," said the knight.
"'Seize me,' saith he, 'that Tyndal of Shoreby.'"

"Condall, my good lord; Condall is my poor name," said the unfortunate.

"Condall or Tyndal, it is all one," replied Sir Daniel, coolly.  "For, by
my sooth, y' are here and I do mightily suspect your honesty.  If ye
would save your neck, write me swiftly an obligation for twenty pound."

"For twenty pound, my good lord!" cried Condall.  "Here is midsummer
madness!  My whole estate amounteth not to seventy shillings."

"Condall or Tyndal," returned Sir Daniel, grinning, "I will run my peril
of that loss.  Write me down twenty, and when I have recovered all I may,
I will be good lord to you, and pardon you the rest."

"Alas! my good lord, it may not be; I have no skill to write," said
Condall.

"Well-a-day!" returned the knight.  "Here, then, is no remedy.  Yet I
would fain have spared you, Tyndal, had my conscience suffered.  Selden,
take me this old shrew softly to the nearest elm, and hang me him
tenderly by the neck, where I may see him at my riding.  Fare ye well,
good Master Condall, dear Master Tyndal; y' are post-haste for Paradise;
fare ye then well!"

"Nay, my right pleasant lord," replied Condall, forcing an obsequious
smile, "an ye be so masterful, as doth right well become you, I will
even, with all my poor skill, do your good bidding."

"Friend," quoth Sir Daniel, "ye will now write two score.  Go to! y' are
too cunning for a livelihood of seventy shillings.  Selden, see him write
me this in good form, and have it duly witnessed."

And Sir Daniel, who was a very merry knight, none merrier in England,
took a drink of his mulled ale, and lay back, smiling.

Meanwhile, the boy upon the floor began to stir, and presently sat up and
looked about him with a scare.

"Hither," said Sir Daniel; and as the other rose at his command and came
slowly towards him, he leaned back and laughed outright.  "By the rood!"
he cried, "a sturdy boy!"

The lad flushed crimson with anger, and darted a look of hate out of his
dark eyes.  Now that he was on his legs, it was more difficult to make
certain of his age.  His face looked somewhat older in expression, but it
was as smooth as a young child's; and in bone and body he was unusually
slender, and somewhat awkward of gait.

"Ye have called me, Sir Daniel," he said.  "Was it to laugh at my poor
plight?"

"Nay, now, let laugh," said the knight.  "Good shrew, let laugh, I pray
you.  An ye could see yourself, I warrant ye would laugh the first."

"Well," cried the lad, flushing, "ye shall answer this when ye answer for
the other.  Laugh while yet ye may!"

"Nay, now, good cousin," replied Sir Daniel, with some earnestness,
"think not that I mock at you, except in mirth, as between kinsfolk and
singular friends.  I will make you a marriage of a thousand pounds, go
to! and cherish you exceedingly.  I took you, indeed, roughly, as the
time demanded; but from henceforth I shall ungrudgingly maintain and
cheerfully serve you.  Ye shall be Mrs. Shelton--Lady Shelton, by my
troth! for the lad promiseth bravely.  Tut! ye will not shy for honest
laughter; it purgeth melancholy.  They are no rogues who laugh, good
cousin.  Good mine host, lay me a meal now for my cousin, Master John.
Sit ye down, sweetheart, and eat."

"Nay," said Master John, "I will break no bread.  Since ye force me to
this sin, I will fast for my soul's interest.  But, good mine host, I
pray you of courtesy give me a cup of fair water; I shall be much
beholden to your courtesy indeed."

"Ye shall have a dispensation, go to!" cried the knight.  "Shalt be well
shriven, by my faith!  Content you, then, and eat."

But the lad was obstinate, drank a cup of water, and, once more wrapping
himself closely in his mantle, sat in a far corner, brooding.

In an hour or two, there rose a stir in the village of sentries
challenging and the clatter of arms and horses; and then a troop drew up
by the inn door, and Richard Shelton, splashed with mud, presented
himself upon the threshold.

"Save you, Sir Daniel," he said.

"How!  Dickie Shelton!" cried the knight; and at the mention of Dick's
name the other lad looked curiously across.  "What maketh Bennet Hatch?"

"Please you, sir knight, to take cognisance of this packet from Sir
Oliver, wherein are all things fully stated," answered Richard,
presenting the priest's letter.  "And please you farther, ye were best
make all speed to Risingham; for on the way hither we encountered one
riding furiously with letters, and by his report, my Lord of Risingham
was sore bested, and lacked exceedingly your presence."

"How say you?  Sore bested?" returned the knight.  "Nay, then, we will
make speed sitting down, good Richard.  As the world goes in this poor
realm of England, he that rides softliest rides surest.  Delay, they say,
begetteth peril; but it is rather this itch of doing that undoes men;
mark it, Dick.  But let me see, first, what cattle ye have brought.
Selden, a link here at the door!"

And Sir Daniel strode forth into the village street, and, by the red glow
of a torch, inspected his new troops.  He was an unpopular neighbour and
an unpopular master; but as a leader in war he was well-beloved by those
who rode behind his pennant.  His dash, his proved courage, his
forethought for the soldiers' comfort, even his rough gibes, were all to
the taste of the bold blades in jack and salet.

"Nay, by the rood!" he cried, "what poor dogs are these?  Here be some as
crooked as a bow, and some as lean as a spear.  Friends, ye shall ride in
the front of the battle; I can spare you, friends.  Mark me this old
villain on the piebald!  A two-year mutton riding on a hog would look
more soldierly!  Ha!  Clipsby, are ye there, old rat?  Y' are a man I
could lose with a good heart; ye shall go in front of all, with a bull's
eye painted on your jack, to be the better butt for archery; sirrah, ye
shall show me the way."

"I will show you any way, Sir Daniel, but the way to change sides,"
returned Clipsby, sturdily.

Sir Daniel laughed a guffaw.

"Why, well said!" he cried.  "Hast a shrewd tongue in thy mouth, go to!
I will forgive you for that merry word.  Selden, see them fed, both man
and brute."

The knight re-entered the inn.

"Now, friend Dick," he said, "fall to.  Here is good ale and bacon.  Eat,
while that I read."

Sir Daniel opened the packet, and as he read his brow darkened.  When he
had done he sat a little, musing.  Then he looked sharply at his ward.

"Dick," said he, "Y' have seen this penny rhyme?"

The lad replied in the affirmative.

"It bears your father's name," continued the knight; "and our poor shrew
of a parson is, by some mad soul, accused of slaying him."

"He did most eagerly deny it," answered Dick.

"He did?" cried the knight, very sharply.  "Heed him not.  He has a loose
tongue; he babbles like a jack-sparrow.  Some day, when I may find the
leisure, Dick, I will myself more fully inform you of these matters.
There was one Duckworth shrewdly blamed for it; but the times were
troubled, and there was no justice to be got."

"It befell at the Moat House?" Dick ventured, with a beating at his
heart.

"It befell between the Moat House and Holywood," replied Sir Daniel,
calmly; but he shot a covert glance, black with suspicion, at Dick's
face.  "And now," added the knight, "speed you with your meal; ye shall
return to Tunstall with a line from me."

Dick's face fell sorely.

"Prithee, Sir Daniel," he cried, "send one of the villains!  I beseech
you let me to the battle.  I can strike a stroke, I promise you."

"I misdoubt it not," replied Sir Daniel, sitting down to write.  "But
here, Dick, is no honour to be won.  I lie in Kettley till I have sure
tidings of the war, and then ride to join me with the conqueror.  Cry not
on cowardice; it is but wisdom, Dick; for this poor realm so tosseth with
rebellion, and the king's name and custody so changeth hands, that no man
may be certain of the morrow.  Toss-pot and Shuttle-wit run in, but my
Lord Good-Counsel sits o' one side, waiting."

With that, Sir Daniel, turning his back to Dick, and quite at the farther
end of the long table, began to write his letter, with his mouth on one
side, for this business of the Black Arrow stuck sorely in his throat.

Meanwhile, young Shelton was going on heartily enough with his breakfast,
when he felt a touch upon his arm, and a very soft voice whispering in
his ear.

"Make not a sign, I do beseech you," said the voice, "but of your charity
tell me the straight way to Holywood.  Beseech you, now, good boy,
comfort a poor soul in peril and extreme distress, and set me so far
forth upon the way to my repose."

"Take the path by the windmill," answered Dick, in the same tone; "it
will bring you to Till Ferry; there inquire again."

And without turning his head, he fell again to eating.  But with the tail
of his eye he caught a glimpse of the young lad called Master John
stealthily creeping from the room.

"Why," thought Dick, "he is a young as I.  'Good boy' doth he call me?
An I had known, I should have seen the varlet hanged ere I had told him.
Well, if he goes through the fen, I may come up with him and pull his
ears."

Half an hour later, Sir Daniel gave Dick the letter, and bade him speed
to the Moat House.  And, again, some half an hour after Dick's departure,
a messenger came, in hot haste, from my Lord of Risingham.

"Sir Daniel," the messenger said, "ye lose great honour, by my sooth!
The fight began again this morning ere the dawn, and we have beaten their
van and scattered their right wing.  Only the main battle standeth fast.
An we had your fresh men, we should tilt you them all into the river.
What, sir knight!  Will ye be the last?  It stands not with your good
credit."

"Nay," cried the knight, "I was but now upon the march.  Selden, sound me
the tucket.  Sir, I am with you on the instant.  It is not two hours
since the more part of my command came in, sir messenger.  What would ye
have?  Spurring is good meat, but yet it killed the charger.  Bustle,
boys!"

By this time the tucket was sounding cheerily in the morning, and from
all sides Sir Daniel's men poured into the main street and formed before
the inn.  They had slept upon their arms, with chargers saddled, and in
ten minutes five-score men-at-arms and archers, cleanly equipped and
briskly disciplined, stood ranked and ready.  The chief part were in Sir
Daniel's livery, murrey and blue, which gave the greater show to their
array.  The best armed rode first; and away out of sight, at the tail of
the column, came the sorry reinforcement of the night before.  Sir Daniel
looked with pride along the line.

"Here be the lads to serve you in a pinch," he said.

"They are pretty men, indeed," replied the messenger.  "It but augments
my sorrow that ye had not marched the earlier."

"Well," said the knight, "what would ye?  The beginning of a feast and
the end of a fray, sir messenger;" and he mounted into his saddle.  "Why!
how now!" he cried.  "John!  Joanna!  Nay, by the sacred rood! where is
she?  Host, where is that girl?"

"Girl, Sir Daniel?" cried the landlord.  "Nay, sir, I saw no girl."

"Boy, then, dotard!" cried the knight.  "Could ye not see it was a wench?
She in the murrey-coloured mantle--she that broke her fast with water,
rogue--where is she?"

"Nay, the saints bless us!  Master John, ye called him," said the host.
"Well, I thought none evil.  He is gone.  I saw him--her--I saw her in
the stable a good hour agone; 'a was saddling a grey horse."

"Now, by the rood!" cried Sir Daniel, "the wench was worth five hundred
pound to me and more."

"Sir knight," observed the messenger, with bitterness, "while that ye are
here, roaring for five hundred pounds, the realm of England is elsewhere
being lost and won."

"It is well said," replied Sir Daniel.  "Selden, fall me out with six
cross-bowmen; hunt me her down.  I care not what it cost; but, at my
returning, let me find her at the Moat House.  Be it upon your head.  And
now, sir messenger, we march."

And the troop broke into a good trot, and Selden and his six men were
left behind upon the street of Kettley, with the staring villagers.



CHAPTER II--IN THE FEN


It was near six in the May morning when Dick began to ride down into the
fen upon his homeward way.  The sky was all blue; the jolly wind blew
loud and steady; the windmill-sails were spinning; and the willows over
all the fen rippling and whitening like a field of corn.  He had been all
night in the saddle, but his heart was good and his body sound, and he
rode right merrily.

The path went down and down into the marsh, till he lost sight of all the
neighbouring landmarks but Kettley windmill on the knoll behind him, and
the extreme top of Tunstall Forest far before.  On either hand there were
great fields of blowing reeds and willows, pools of water shaking in the
wind, and treacherous bogs, as green as emerald, to tempt and to betray
the traveller.  The path lay almost straight through the morass.  It was
already very ancient; its foundation had been laid by Roman soldiery; in
the lapse of ages much of it had sunk, and every here and there, for a
few hundred yards, it lay submerged below the stagnant waters of the fen.

About a mile from Kettley, Dick came to one such break in the plain line
of causeway, where the reeds and willows grew dispersedly like little
islands and confused the eye.  The gap, besides, was more than usually
long; it was a place where any stranger might come readily to mischief;
and Dick bethought him, with something like a pang, of the lad whom he
had so imperfectly directed.  As for himself, one look backward to where
the windmill sails were turning black against the blue of heaven--one
look forward to the high ground of Tunstall Forest, and he was
sufficiently directed and held straight on, the water washing to his
horse's knees, as safe as on a highway.

Half-way across, and when he had already sighted the path rising high and
dry upon the farther side, he was aware of a great splashing on his
right, and saw a grey horse, sunk to its belly in the mud, and still
spasmodically struggling.  Instantly, as though it had divined the
neighbourhood of help, the poor beast began to neigh most piercingly.  It
rolled, meanwhile, a blood-shot eye, insane with terror; and as it
sprawled wallowing in the quag, clouds of stinging insects rose and
buzzed about it in the air.

"Alack!" thought Dick, "can the poor lad have perished?  There is his
horse, for certain--a brave grey!  Nay, comrade, if thou criest to me so
piteously, I will do all man can to help thee.  Shalt not lie there to
drown by inches!"

And he made ready his crossbow, and put a quarrel through the creature's
head.

Dick rode on after this act of rugged mercy, somewhat sobered in spirit,
and looking closely about him for any sign of his less happy predecessor
in the way.  "I would I had dared to tell him further," he thought; "for
I fear he has miscarried in the slough."

And just as he was so thinking, a voice cried upon his name from the
causeway side, and, looking over his shoulder, he saw the lad's face
peering from a clump of reeds.

"Are ye there?" he said, reining in.  "Ye lay so close among the reeds
that I had passed you by.  I saw your horse bemired, and put him from his
agony; which, by my sooth! an ye had been a more merciful rider, ye had
done yourself.  But come forth out of your hiding.  Here be none to
trouble you."

"Nay, good boy, I have no arms, nor skill to use them if I had," replied
the other, stepping forth upon the pathway.

"Why call me 'boy'?" cried Dick.  "Y' are not, I trow, the elder of us
twain."

"Good Master Shelton," said the other, "prithee forgive me.  I have none
the least intention to offend.  Rather I would in every way beseech your
gentleness and favour, for I am now worse bested than ever, having lost
my way, my cloak, and my poor horse.  To have a riding-rod and spurs, and
never a horse to sit upon!  And before all," he added, looking ruefully
upon his clothes--"before all, to be so sorrily besmirched!"

"Tut!" cried Dick.  "Would ye mind a ducking?  Blood of wound or dust of
travel--that's a man's adornment."

"Nay, then, I like him better plain," observed the lad.  "But, prithee,
how shall I do?  Prithee, good Master Richard, help me with your good
counsel.  If I come not safe to Holywood, I am undone."

"Nay," said Dick, dismounting, "I will give more than counsel.  Take my
horse, and I will run awhile, and when I am weary we shall change again,
that so, riding and running, both may go the speedier."

So the change was made, and they went forward as briskly as they durst on
the uneven causeway, Dick with his hand upon the other's knee.

"How call ye your name?" asked Dick.

"Call me John Matcham," replied the lad.

"And what make ye to Holywood?" Dick continued.

"I seek sanctuary from a man that would oppress me," was the answer.
"The good Abbot of Holywood is a strong pillar to the weak."

"And how came ye with Sir Daniel, Master Matcham?" pursued Dick.

"Nay," cried the other, "by the abuse of force!  He hath taken me by
violence from my own place; dressed me in these weeds; ridden with me
till my heart was sick; gibed me till I could 'a' wept; and when certain
of my friends pursued, thinking to have me back, claps me in the rear to
stand their shot!  I was even grazed in the right foot, and walk but
lamely.  Nay, there shall come a day between us; he shall smart for all!"

"Would ye shoot at the moon with a hand-gun?" said Dick.  "'Tis a valiant
knight, and hath a hand of iron.  An he guessed I had made or meddled
with your flight, it would go sore with me."

"Ay, poor boy," returned the other, "y' are his ward, I know it.  By the
same token, so am I, or so he saith; or else he hath bought my
marriage--I wot not rightly which; but it is some handle to oppress me
by."

"Boy again!" said Dick.

"Nay, then, shall I call you girl, good Richard?" asked Matcham.

"Never a girl for me," returned Dick.  "I do abjure the crew of them!"

"Ye speak boyishly," said the other.  "Ye think more of them than ye
pretend."

"Not I," said Dick, stoutly.  "They come not in my mind.  A plague of
them, say I!  Give me to hunt and to fight and to feast, and to live with
jolly foresters.  I never heard of a maid yet that was for any service,
save one only; and she, poor shrew, was burned for a witch and the
wearing of men's clothes in spite of nature."

Master Matcham crossed himself with fervour, and appeared to pray.

"What make ye?" Dick inquired.

"I pray for her spirit," answered the other, with a somewhat troubled
voice.

"For a witch's spirit?" Dick cried.  "But pray for her, an ye list; she
was the best wench in Europe, was this Joan of Arc.  Old Appleyard the
archer ran from her, he said, as if she had been Mahoun.  Nay, she was a
brave wench."

"Well, but, good Master Richard," resumed Matcham, "an ye like maids so
little, y' are no true natural man; for God made them twain by intention,
and brought true love into the world, to be man's hope and woman's
comfort."

"Faugh!" said Dick.  "Y' are a milk-sopping baby, so to harp on women.
An ye think I be no true man, get down upon the path, and whether at
fists, back-sword, or bow and arrow, I will prove my manhood on your
body."

"Nay, I am no fighter," said Matcham, eagerly.  "I mean no tittle of
offence.  I meant but pleasantry.  And if I talk of women, it is because
I heard ye were to marry."

"I to marry!" Dick exclaimed.  "Well, it is the first I hear of it.  And
with whom was I to marry?"

"One Joan Sedley," replied Matcham, colouring.  "It was Sir Daniel's
doing; he hath money to gain upon both sides; and, indeed, I have heard
the poor wench bemoaning herself pitifully of the match.  It seems she is
of your mind, or else distasted to the bridegroom."

"Well! marriage is like death, it comes to all," said Dick, with
resignation.  "And she bemoaned herself?  I pray ye now, see there how
shuttle-witted are these girls: to bemoan herself before that she had
seen me!  Do I bemoan myself?  Not I.  An I be to marry, I will marry
dry-eyed!  But if ye know her, prithee, of what favour is she? fair or
foul?  And is she shrewish or pleasant?"

"Nay, what matters it?" said Matcham.  "An y' are to marry, ye can but
marry.  What matters foul or fair?  These be but toys.  Y' are no
milksop, Master Richard; ye will wed with dry eyes, anyhow."

"It is well said," replied Shelton.  "Little I reck."

"Your lady wife is like to have a pleasant lord," said Matcham.

"She shall have the lord Heaven made her for," returned Dick.  "It trow
there be worse as well as better."

"Ah, the poor wench!" cried the other.

"And why so poor?" asked Dick.

"To wed a man of wood," replied his companion.  "O me, for a wooden
husband!"

"I think I be a man of wood, indeed," said Dick, "to trudge afoot the
while you ride my horse; but it is good wood, I trow."

"Good Dick, forgive me," cried the other.  "Nay, y' are the best heart in
England; I but laughed.  Forgive me now, sweet Dick."

"Nay, no fool words," returned Dick, a little embarrassed by his
companion's warmth.  "No harm is done.  I am not touchy, praise the
saints."

And at that moment the wind, which was blowing straight behind them as
they went, brought them the rough flourish of Sir Daniel's trumpeter.

"Hark!" said Dick, "the tucket soundeth."

"Ay," said Matcham, "they have found my flight, and now I am unhorsed!"
and he became pale as death.

"Nay, what cheer!" returned Dick.  "Y' have a long start, and we are near
the ferry.  And it is I, methinks, that am unhorsed."

"Alack, I shall be taken!" cried the fugitive.  "Dick, kind Dick, beseech
ye help me but a little!"

"Why, now, what aileth thee?" said Dick.  "Methinks I help you very
patently.  But my heart is sorry for so spiritless a fellow!  And see ye
here, John Matcham--sith John Matcham is your name--I, Richard Shelton,
tide what betideth, come what may, will see you safe in Holywood.  The
saints so do to me again if I default you.  Come, pick me up a good
heart, Sir White-face.  The way betters here; spur me the horse.  Go
faster! faster!  Nay, mind not for me; I can run like a deer."

So, with the horse trotting hard, and Dick running easily alongside, they
crossed the remainder of the fen, and came out upon the banks of the
river by the ferryman's hut.



CHAPTER III--THE FEN FERRY


The river Till was a wide, sluggish, clayey water, oozing out of fens,
and in this part of its course it strained among some score of
willow-covered, marshy islets.

It was a dingy stream; but upon this bright, spirited morning everything
was become beautiful.  The wind and the martens broke it up into
innumerable dimples; and the reflection of the sky was scattered over all
the surface in crumbs of smiling blue.

A creek ran up to meet the path, and close under the bank the ferryman's
hut lay snugly.  It was of wattle and clay, and the grass grew green upon
the roof.

Dick went to the door and opened it.  Within, upon a foul old russet
cloak, the ferryman lay stretched and shivering; a great hulk of a man,
but lean and shaken by the country fever.

"Hey, Master Shelton," he said, "be ye for the ferry?  Ill times, ill
times!  Look to yourself.  There is a fellowship abroad.  Ye were better
turn round on your two heels and try the bridge."

"Nay; time's in the saddle," answered Dick.  "Time will ride, Hugh
Ferryman.  I am hot in haste."

"A wilful man!" returned the ferryman, rising.  "An ye win safe to the
Moat House, y' have done lucky; but I say no more."  And then catching
sight of Matcham, "Who be this?" he asked, as he paused, blinking, on the
threshold of his cabin.

"It is my kinsman, Master Matcham," answered Dick.

"Give ye good day, good ferryman," said Matcham, who had dismounted, and
now came forward, leading the horse.  "Launch me your boat, I prithee; we
are sore in haste."

The gaunt ferryman continued staring.

"By the mass!" he cried at length, and laughed with open throat.

Matcham coloured to his neck and winced; and Dick, with an angry
countenance, put his hand on the lout's shoulder.

"How now, churl!" he cried.  "Fall to thy business, and leave mocking thy
betters."

Hugh Ferryman grumblingly undid his boat, and shoved it a little forth
into the deep water.  Then Dick led in the horse, and Matcham followed.

"Ye be mortal small made, master," said Hugh, with a wide grin;
"something o' the wrong model, belike.  Nay, Master Shelton, I am for
you," he added, getting to his oars.  "A cat may look at a king.  I did
but take a shot of the eye at Master Matcham."

"Sirrah, no more words," said Dick.  "Bend me your back."

They were by that time at the mouth of the creek, and the view opened up
and down the river.  Everywhere it was enclosed with islands.  Clay banks
were falling in, willows nodding, reeds waving, martens dipping and
piping.  There was no sign of man in the labyrinth of waters.

"My master," said the ferryman, keeping the boat steady with one oar, "I
have a shrew guess that John-a-Fenne is on the island.  He bears me a
black grudge to all Sir Daniel's.  How if I turned me up stream and
landed you an arrow-flight above the path?  Ye were best not meddle with
John Fenne."

"How, then? is he of this company?" asked Dick.

"Nay, mum is the word," said Hugh.  "But I would go up water, Dick.  How
if Master Matcham came by an arrow?" and he laughed again.

"Be it so, Hugh," answered Dick.

"Look ye, then," pursued Hugh.  "Sith it shall so be, unsling me your
cross-bow--so: now make it ready--good; place me a quarrel.  Ay, keep it
so, and look upon me grimly."

"What meaneth this?" asked Dick.

"Why, my master, if I steal you across, it must be under force or fear,"
replied the ferryman; "for else, if John Fenne got wind of it, he were
like to prove my most distressful neighbour."

"Do these churls ride so roughly?" Dick inquired.  "Do they command Sir
Daniel's own ferry?"

"Nay," whispered the ferryman, winking.  "Mark me!  Sir Daniel shall
down.  His time is out.  He shall down.  Mum!"  And he bent over his
oars.

They pulled a long way up the river, turned the tail of an island, and
came softly down a narrow channel next the opposite bank.  Then Hugh held
water in midstream.

"I must land you here among the willows," he said.

"Here is no path but willow swamps and quagmires," answered Dick.

"Master Shelton," replied Hugh, "I dare not take ye nearer down, for your
own sake now.  He watcheth me the ferry, lying on his bow.  All that go
by and owe Sir Daniel goodwill, he shooteth down like rabbits.  I heard
him swear it by the rood.  An I had not known you of old days--ay, and
from so high upward--I would 'a' let you go on; but for old days'
remembrance, and because ye had this toy with you that's not fit for
wounds or warfare, I did risk my two poor ears to have you over whole.
Content you; I can no more, on my salvation!"

Hugh was still speaking, lying on his oars, when there came a great shout
from among the willows on the island, and sounds followed as of a strong
man breasting roughly through the wood.

"A murrain!" cried Hugh.  "He was on the upper island all the while!"  He
pulled straight for shore.  "Threat me with your bow, good Dick; threat
me with it plain," he added.  "I have tried to save your skins, save you
mine!"

The boat ran into a tough thicket of willows with a crash.  Matcham,
pale, but steady and alert, at a sign from Dick, ran along the thwarts
and leaped ashore; Dick, taking the horse by the bridle, sought to
follow, but what with the animal's bulk, and what with the closeness of
the thicket, both stuck fast.  The horse neighed and trampled; and the
boat, which was swinging in an eddy, came on and off and pitched with
violence.

"It may not be, Hugh; here is no landing," cried Dick; but he still
struggled valiantly with the obstinate thicket and the startled animal.

A tall man appeared upon the shore of the island, a long-bow in his hand.
Dick saw him for an instant, with the corner of his eye, bending the bow
with a great effort, his face crimson with hurry.

"Who goes?" he shouted.  "Hugh, who goes?"

"'Tis Master Shelton, John," replied the ferryman.

"Stand, Dick Shelton!" bawled the man upon the island.  "Ye shall have no
hurt, upon the rood!  Stand!  Back out, Hugh Ferryman."

Dick cried a taunting answer.

"Nay, then, ye shall go afoot," returned the man; and he let drive an
arrow.

The horse, struck by the shaft, lashed out in agony and terror; the boat
capsized, and the next moment all were struggling in the eddies of the
river.

When Dick came up, he was within a yard of the bank; and before his eyes
were clear, his hand had closed on something firm and strong that
instantly began to drag him forward.  It was the riding-rod, that
Matcham, crawling forth upon an overhanging willow, had opportunely
thrust into his grasp.

"By the mass!" cried Dick, as he was helped ashore, "that makes a life I
owe you.  I swim like a cannon-ball."  And he turned instantly towards
the island.

Midway over, Hugh Ferryman was swimming with his upturned boat, while
John-a-Fenne, furious at the ill-fortune of his shot, bawled to him to
hurry.

"Come, Jack," said Shelton, "run for it!  Ere Hugh can hale his barge
across, or the pair of 'em can get it righted, we may be out of cry."

And adding example to his words, he began to run, dodging among the
willows, and in marshy places leaping from tussock to tussock.  He had no
time to look for his direction; all he could do was to turn his back upon
the river, and put all his heart to running.

Presently, however, the ground began to rise, which showed him he was
still in the right way, and soon after they came forth upon a slope of
solid turf, where elms began to mingle with the willows.

But here Matcham, who had been dragging far into the rear, threw himself
fairly down.

"Leave me, Dick!" he cried, pantingly; "I can no more."

Dick turned, and came back to where his companion lay.

"Nay, Jack, leave thee!" he cried.  "That were a knave's trick, to be
sure, when ye risked a shot and a ducking, ay, and a drowning too, to
save my life.  Drowning, in sooth; for why I did not pull you in along
with me, the saints alone can tell!"

"Nay," said Matcham, "I would 'a' saved us both, good Dick, for I can
swim."

"Can ye so?" cried Dick, with open eyes.  It was the one manly
accomplishment of which he was himself incapable.  In the order of the
things that he admired, next to having killed a man in single fight came
swimming.  "Well," he said, "here is a lesson to despise no man.  I
promised to care for you as far as Holywood, and, by the rood, Jack, y'
are more capable to care for me."

"Well, Dick, we're friends now," said Matcham.

"Nay, I never was unfriends," answered Dick.  "Y' are a brave lad in your
way, albeit something of a milksop, too.  I never met your like before
this day.  But, prithee, fetch back your breath, and let us on.  Here is
no place for chatter."

"My foot hurts shrewdly," said Matcham.

"Nay, I had forgot your foot," returned Dick.  "Well, we must go the
gentlier.  I would I knew rightly where we were.  I have clean lost the
path; yet that may be for the better, too.  An they watch the ferry, they
watch the path, belike, as well.  I would Sir Daniel were back with two
score men; he would sweep me these rascals as the wind sweeps leaves.
Come, Jack, lean ye on my shoulder, ye poor shrew.  Nay, y' are not tall
enough.  What age are ye, for a wager?--twelve?"

"Nay, I am sixteen," said Matcham.

"Y' are poorly grown to height, then," answered Dick.  "But take my hand.
We shall go softly, never fear.  I owe you a life; I am a good repayer,
Jack, of good or evil."

They began to go forward up the slope.

"We must hit the road, early or late," continued Dick; "and then for a
fresh start.  By the mass! but y' 'ave a rickety hand, Jack.  If I had a
hand like that, I would think shame.  I tell you," he went on, with a
sudden chuckle, "I swear by the mass I believe Hugh Ferryman took you for
a maid."

"Nay, never!" cried the other, colouring high.

"A' did, though, for a wager!" Dick exclaimed.  "Small blame to him.  Ye
look liker maid than man; and I tell you more--y' are a strange-looking
rogue for a boy; but for a hussy, Jack, ye would be right fair--ye would.
Ye would be well favoured for a wench."

"Well," said Matcham, "ye know right well that I am none."

"Nay, I know that; I do but jest," said Dick.  "Ye'll be a man before
your mother, Jack.  What cheer, my bully!  Ye shall strike shrewd
strokes.  Now, which, I marvel, of you or me, shall be first knighted,
Jack? for knighted I shall be, or die for 't.  'Sir Richard Shelton,
Knight': it soundeth bravely.  But 'Sir John Matcham' soundeth not
amiss."

"Prithee, Dick, stop till I drink," said the other, pausing where a
little clear spring welled out of the slope into a gravelled basin no
bigger than a pocket.  "And O, Dick, if I might come by anything to
eat!--my very heart aches with hunger."

"Why, fool, did ye not eat at Kettley?" asked Dick.

"I had made a vow--it was a sin I had been led into," stammered Matcham;
"but now, if it were but dry bread, I would eat it greedily."

"Sit ye, then, and eat," said Dick, "while that I scout a little forward
for the road."  And he took a wallet from his girdle, wherein were bread
and pieces of dry bacon, and, while Matcham fell heartily to, struck
farther forth among the trees.

A little beyond there was a dip in the ground, where a streamlet soaked
among dead leaves; and beyond that, again, the trees were better grown
and stood wider, and oak and beech began to take the place of willow and
elm.  The continued tossing and pouring of the wind among the leaves
sufficiently concealed the sounds of his footsteps on the mast; it was
for the ear what a moonless night is to the eye; but for all that Dick
went cautiously, slipping from one big trunk to another, and looking
sharply about him as he went.  Suddenly a doe passed like a shadow
through the underwood in front of him, and he paused, disgusted at the
chance.  This part of the wood had been certainly deserted, but now that
the poor deer had run, she was like a messenger he should have sent
before him to announce his coming; and instead of pushing farther, he
turned him to the nearest well-grown tree, and rapidly began to climb.

Luck had served him well.  The oak on which he had mounted was one of the
tallest in that quarter of the wood, and easily out-topped its neighbours
by a fathom and a half; and when Dick had clambered into the topmost fork
and clung there, swinging dizzily in the great wind, he saw behind him
the whole fenny plain as far as Kettley, and the Till wandering among
woody islets, and in front of him, the white line of high-road winding
through the forest.  The boat had been righted--it was even now midway on
the ferry.  Beyond that there was no sign of man, nor aught moving but
the wind.  He was about to descend, when, taking a last view, his eye lit
upon a string of moving points about the middle of the fen.  Plainly a
small troop was threading the causeway, and that at a good pace; and this
gave him some concern as he shinned vigorously down the trunk and
returned across the wood for his companion.



CHAPTER IV--A GREENWOOD COMPANY


Matcham was well rested and revived; and the two lads, winged by what
Dick had seen, hurried through the remainder of the outwood, crossed the
road in safety, and began to mount into the high ground of Tunstall
Forest.  The trees grew more and more in groves, with heathy places in
between, sandy, gorsy, and dotted with old yews.  The ground became more
and more uneven, full of pits and hillocks.  And with every step of the
ascent the wind still blew the shriller, and the trees bent before the
gusts like fishing-rods.

They had just entered one of the clearings, when Dick suddenly clapped
down upon his face among the brambles, and began to crawl slowly backward
towards the shelter of the grove.  Matcham, in great bewilderment, for he
could see no reason for this flight, still imitated his companion's
course; and it was not until they had gained the harbour of a thicket
that he turned and begged him to explain.

For all reply, Dick pointed with his finger.

At the far end of the clearing, a fir grew high above the neighbouring
wood, and planted its black shock of foliage clear against the sky.  For
about fifty feet above the ground the trunk grew straight and solid like
a column.  At that level, it split into two massive boughs; and in the
fork, like a mast-headed seaman, there stood a man in a green tabard,
spying far and wide.  The sun glistened upon his hair; with one hand he
shaded his eyes to look abroad, and he kept slowly rolling his head from
side to side, with the regularity of a machine.

The lads exchanged glances.

"Let us try to the left," said Dick.  "We had near fallen foully, Jack."

Ten minutes afterwards they struck into a beaten path.

"Here is a piece of forest that I know not," Dick remarked.  "Where goeth
me this track?"

"Let us even try," said Matcham.

A few yards further, the path came to the top of a ridge and began to go
down abruptly into a cup-shaped hollow.  At the foot, out of a thick wood
of flowering hawthorn, two or three roofless gables, blackened as if by
fire, and a single tall chimney marked the ruins of a house.

"What may this be?" whispered Matcham.

"Nay, by the mass, I know not," answered Dick.  "I am all at sea.  Let us
go warily."

With beating hearts, they descended through the hawthorns.  Here and
there, they passed signs of recent cultivation; fruit trees and pot herbs
ran wild among the thicket; a sun-dial had fallen in the grass; it seemed
they were treading what once had been a garden.  Yet a little farther and
they came forth before the ruins of the house.

It had been a pleasant mansion and a strong.  A dry ditch was dug deep
about it; but it was now choked with masonry, and bridged by a fallen
rafter.  The two farther walls still stood, the sun shining through their
empty windows; but the remainder of the building had collapsed, and now
lay in a great cairn of ruin, grimed with fire.  Already in the interior
a few plants were springing green among the chinks.

"Now I bethink me," whispered Dick, "this must be Grimstone.  It was a
hold of one Simon Malmesbury; Sir Daniel was his bane!  'Twas Bennet
Hatch that burned it, now five years agone.  In sooth, 'twas pity, for it
was a fair house."

Down in the hollow, where no wind blew, it was both warm and still; and
Matcham, laying one hand upon Dick's arm, held up a warning finger.

"Hist!" he said.

Then came a strange sound, breaking on the quiet.  It was twice repeated
ere they recognised its nature.  It was the sound of a big man clearing
his throat; and just then a hoarse, untuneful voice broke into singing.

    "Then up and spake the master, the king of the outlaws:
    'What make ye here, my merry men, among the greenwood shaws?'
    And Gamelyn made answer--he looked never adown:
    'O, they must need to walk in wood that may not walk in town!'"

The singer paused, a faint clink of iron followed, and then silence.

The two lads stood looking at each other.  Whoever he might be, their
invisible neighbour was just beyond the ruin.  And suddenly the colour
came into Matcham's face, and next moment he had crossed the fallen
rafter, and was climbing cautiously on the huge pile of lumber that
filled the interior of the roofless house.  Dick would have withheld him,
had he been in time; as it was, he was fain to follow.

Right in the corner of the ruin, two rafters had fallen crosswise, and
protected a clear space no larger than a pew in church.  Into this the
lads silently lowered themselves.  There they were perfectly concealed,
and through an arrow-loophole commanded a view upon the farther side.

Peering through this, they were struck stiff with terror at their
predicament.  To retreat was impossible; they scarce dared to breathe.
Upon the very margin of the ditch, not thirty feet from where they
crouched, an iron caldron bubbled and steamed above a glowing fire; and
close by, in an attitude of listening, as though he had caught some sound
of their clambering among the ruins, a tall, red-faced, battered-looking
man stood poised, an iron spoon in his right hand, a horn and a
formidable dagger at his belt.  Plainly this was the singer; plainly he
had been stirring the caldron, when some incautious step among the lumber
had fallen upon his ear.  A little further off, another man lay
slumbering, rolled in a brown cloak, with a butterfly hovering above his
face.  All this was in a clearing white with daisies; and at the extreme
verge, a bow, a sheaf of arrows, and part of a deer's carcase, hung upon
a flowering hawthorn.

Presently the fellow relaxed from his attitude of attention, raised the
spoon to his mouth, tasted its contents, nodded, and then fell again to
stirring and singing.

"'O, they must need to walk in wood that may not walk in town,'" he
croaked, taking up his song where he had left it.

    "O, sir, we walk not here at all an evil thing to do.
    But if we meet with the good king's deer to shoot a shaft into."

Still as he sang, he took from time to time, another spoonful of the
broth, blew upon it, and tasted it, with all the airs of an experienced
cook.  At length, apparently, he judged the mess was ready; for taking
the horn from his girdle, he blew three modulated calls.

The other fellow awoke, rolled over, brushed away the butterfly, and
looked about him.

"How now, brother?" he said.  "Dinner?"

"Ay, sot," replied the cook, "dinner it is, and a dry dinner, too, with
neither ale nor bread.  But there is little pleasure in the greenwood
now; time was when a good fellow could live here like a mitred abbot, set
aside the rain and the white frosts; he had his heart's desire both of
ale and wine.  But now are men's spirits dead; and this John Amend-All,
save us and guard us! but a stuffed booby to scare crows withal."

"Nay," returned the other, "y' are too set on meat and drinking, Lawless.
Bide ye a bit; the good time cometh."

"Look ye," returned the cook, "I have even waited for this good time sith
that I was so high.  I have been a grey friar; I have been a king's
archer; I have been a shipman, and sailed the salt seas; and I have been
in greenwood before this, forsooth! and shot the king's deer.  What
cometh of it?  Naught!  I were better to have bided in the cloister.
John Abbot availeth more than John Amend-All.  By 'r Lady! here they
come."

One after another, tall, likely fellows began to stroll into the lawn.
Each as he came produced a knife and a horn cup, helped himself from the
caldron, and sat down upon the grass to eat.  They were very variously
equipped and armed; some in rusty smocks, and with nothing but a knife
and an old bow; others in the height of forest gallantry, all in Lincoln
green, both hood and jerkin, with dainty peacock arrows in their belts, a
horn upon a baldrick, and a sword and dagger at their sides.  They came
in the silence of hunger, and scarce growled a salutation, but fell
instantly to meat.

There were, perhaps, a score of them already gathered, when a sound of
suppressed cheering arose close by among the hawthorns, and immediately
after five or six woodmen carrying a stretcher debauched upon the lawn.
A tall, lusty fellow, somewhat grizzled, and as brown as a smoked ham,
walked before them with an air of some authority, his bow at his back, a
bright boar-spear in his hand.

"Lads!" he cried, "good fellows all, and my right merry friends, y' have
sung this while on a dry whistle and lived at little ease.  But what said
I ever?  Abide Fortune constantly; she turneth, turneth swift.  And lo!
here is her little firstling--even that good creature, ale!"

There was a murmur of applause as the bearers set down the stretcher and
displayed a goodly cask.

"And now haste ye, boys," the man continued.  "There is work toward.  A
handful of archers are but now come to the ferry; murrey and blue is
their wear; they are our butts--they shall all taste arrows--no man of
them shall struggle through this wood.  For, lads, we are here some fifty
strong, each man of us most foully wronged; for some they have lost
lands, and some friends; and some they have been outlawed--all oppressed!
Who, then, hath done this evil?  Sir Daniel, by the rood!  Shall he then
profit? shall he sit snug in our houses? shall he till our fields? shall
he suck the bone he robbed us of?  I trow not.  He getteth him strength
at law; he gaineth cases; nay, there is one case he shall not gain--I
have a writ here at my belt that, please the saints, shall conquer him."

Lawless the cook was by this time already at his second horn of ale.  He
raised it, as if to pledge the speaker.

"Master Ellis," he said, "y' are for vengeance--well it becometh
you!--but your poor brother o' the greenwood, that had never lands to
lose nor friends to think upon, looketh rather, for his poor part, to the
profit of the thing.  He had liever a gold noble and a pottle of canary
wine than all the vengeances in purgatory."

"Lawless," replied the other, "to reach the Moat House, Sir Daniel must
pass the forest.  We shall make that passage dearer, pardy, than any
battle.  Then, when he hath got to earth with such ragged handful as
escapeth us--all his great friends fallen and fled away, and none to give
him aid--we shall beleaguer that old fox about, and great shall be the
fall of him.  'Tis a fat buck; he will make a dinner for us all."

"Ay," returned Lawless, "I have eaten many of these dinners beforehand;
but the cooking of them is hot work, good Master Ellis.  And meanwhile
what do we?  We make black arrows, we write rhymes, and we drink fair
cold water, that discomfortable drink."

"Y' are untrue, Will Lawless.  Ye still smell of the Grey Friars'
buttery; greed is your undoing," answered Ellis.  "We took twenty pounds
from Appleyard.  We took seven marks from the messenger last night.  A
day ago we had fifty from the merchant."

"And to-day," said one of the men, "I stopped a fat pardoner riding apace
for Holywood.  Here is his purse."

Ellis counted the contents.

"Five score shillings!" he grumbled.  "Fool, he had more in his sandal,
or stitched into his tippet.  Y' are but a child, Tom Cuckow; ye have
lost the fish."

But, for all that, Ellis pocketed the purse with nonchalance.  He stood
leaning on his boar-spear, and looked round upon the rest.  They, in
various attitudes, took greedily of the venison pottage, and liberally
washed it down with ale.  This was a good day; they were in luck; but
business pressed, and they were speedy in their eating.  The first-comers
had by this time even despatched their dinner.  Some lay down upon the
grass and fell instantly asleep, like boa-constrictors; others talked
together, or overhauled their weapons: and one, whose humour was
particularly gay, holding forth an ale-horn, began to sing:

    "Here is no law in good green shaw,
       Here is no lack of meat;
    'Tis merry and quiet, with deer for our diet,
       In summer, when all is sweet.

    Come winter again, with wind and rain--
       Come winter, with snow and sleet,
    Get home to your places, with hoods on your faces,
       And sit by the fire and eat."

All this while the two lads had listened and lain close; only Richard had
unslung his cross-bow, and held ready in one hand the windac, or
grappling-iron that he used to bend it.  Otherwise they had not dared to
stir; and this scene of forest life had gone on before their eyes like a
scene upon a theatre.  But now there came a strange interruption.  The
tall chimney which over-topped the remainder of the ruins rose right
above their hiding-place.  There came a whistle in the air, and then a
sounding smack, and the fragments of a broken arrow fell about their
ears.  Some one from the upper quarters of the wood, perhaps the very
sentinel they saw posted in the fir, had shot an arrow at the
chimney-top.

Matcham could not restrain a little cry, which he instantly stifled, and
even Dick started with surprise, and dropped the windac from his fingers.
But to the fellows on the lawn, this shaft was an expected signal.  They
were all afoot together, tightening their belts, testing their
bow-strings, loosening sword and dagger in the sheath.  Ellis held up his
hand; his face had suddenly assumed a look of savage energy; the white of
his eyes shone in his sun-brown face.

"Lads," he said, "ye know your places.  Let not one man's soul escape
you.  Appleyard was a whet before a meal; but now we go to table.  I have
three men whom I will bitterly avenge--Harry Shelton, Simon Malmesbury,
and"--striking his broad bosom--"and Ellis Duckworth, by the mass!"

Another man came, red with hurry, through the thorns.

"'Tis not Sir Daniel!" he panted.  "They are but seven.  Is the arrow
gone?"

"It struck but now," replied Ellis.

"A murrain!" cried the messenger.  "Methought I heard it whistle.  And I
go dinnerless!"

In the space of a minute, some running, some walking sharply, according
as their stations were nearer or farther away, the men of the Black Arrow
had all disappeared from the neighbourhood of the ruined house; and the
caldron, and the fire, which was now burning low, and the dead deer's
carcase on the hawthorn, remained alone to testify they had been there.



CHAPTER V--"BLOODY AS THE HUNTER"


The lads lay quiet till the last footstep had melted on the wind.  Then
they arose, and with many an ache, for they were weary with constraint,
clambered through the ruins, and recrossed the ditch upon the rafter.
Matcham had picked up the windac and went first, Dick following stiffly,
with his cross-bow on his arm.

"And now," said Matcham, "forth to Holywood."

"To Holywood!" cried Dick, "when good fellows stand shot?  Not I!  I
would see you hanged first, Jack!"

"Ye would leave me, would ye?" Matcham asked.

"Ay, by my sooth!" returned Dick.  "An I be not in time to warn these
lads, I will go die with them.  What! would ye have me leave my own men
that I have lived among.  I trow not!  Give me my windac."

But there was nothing further from Matcham's mind.

"Dick," he said, "ye sware before the saints that ye would see me safe to
Holywood.  Would ye be forsworn?  Would you desert me--a perjurer?"

"Nay, I sware for the best," returned Dick.  "I meant it too; but now!
But look ye, Jack, turn again with me.  Let me but warn these men, and,
if needs must, stand shot with them; then shall all be clear, and I will
on again to Holywood and purge mine oath."

"Ye but deride me," answered Matcham.  "These men ye go to succour are
the I same that hunt me to my ruin."

Dick scratched his head.

"I cannot help it, Jack," he said.  "Here is no remedy.  What would ye?
Ye run no great peril, man; and these are in the way of death.  Death!"
he added.  "Think of it!  What a murrain do ye keep me here for?  Give me
the windac.  Saint George! shall they all die?"

"Richard Shelton," said Matcham, looking him squarely in the face, "would
ye, then, join party with Sir Daniel?  Have ye not ears?  Heard ye not
this Ellis, what he said? or have ye no heart for your own kindly blood
and the father that men slew?  'Harry Shelton,' he said; and Sir Harry
Shelton was your father, as the sun shines in heaven."

"What would ye?" Dick cried again.  "Would ye have me credit thieves?"

"Nay, I have heard it before now," returned Matcham.  "The fame goeth
currently, it was Sir Daniel slew him.  He slew him under oath; in his
own house he shed the innocent blood.  Heaven wearies for the avenging
on't; and you--the man's son--ye go about to comfort and defend the
murderer!"

"Jack," cried the lad "I know not.  It may be; what know I?  But, see
here: This man hath bred me up and fostered me, and his men I have hunted
with and played among; and to leave them in the hour of peril--O, man, if
I did that, I were stark dead to honour!  Nay, Jack, ye would not ask it;
ye would not wish me to be base."

"But your father, Dick?" said Matcham, somewhat wavering.  "Your father?
and your oath to me?  Ye took the saints to witness."

"My father?" cried Shelton.  "Nay, he would have me go!  If Sir Daniel
slew him, when the hour comes this hand shall slay Sir Daniel; but
neither him nor his will I desert in peril.  And for mine oath, good
Jack, ye shall absolve me of it here.  For the lives' sake of many men
that hurt you not, and for mine honour, ye shall set me free."

"I, Dick?  Never!" returned Matcham.  "An ye leave me, y' are forsworn,
and so I shall declare it."

"My blood heats," said Dick.  "Give me the windac!  Give it me!"

"I'll not," said Matcham.  "I'll save you in your teeth."

"Not?" cried Dick.  "I'll make you!"

"Try it," said the other.

They stood, looking in each other's eyes, each ready for a spring.  Then
Dick leaped; and though Matcham turned instantly and fled, in two bounds
he was over-taken, the windac was twisted from his grasp, he was thrown
roughly to the ground, and Dick stood across him, flushed and menacing,
with doubled fist.  Matcham lay where he had fallen, with his face in the
grass, not thinking of resistance.

Dick bent his bow.

"I'll teach you!" he cried, fiercely.  "Oath or no oath, ye may go hang
for me!"

And he turned and began to run.  Matcham was on his feet at once, and
began running after him.

"What d'ye want?" cried Dick, stopping.  "What make ye after me?  Stand
off!"

"Will follow an I please," said Matcham.  "This wood is free to me."

"Stand back, by 'r Lady!" returned Dick, raising his bow.

"Ah, y' are a brave boy!" retorted Matcham.  "Shoot!"

Dick lowered his weapon in some confusion.

"See here," he said.  "Y' have done me ill enough.  Go, then.  Go your
way in fair wise; or, whether I will or not, I must even drive you to
it."

"Well," said Matcham, doggedly, "y' are the stronger.  Do your worst.  I
shall not leave to follow thee, Dick, unless thou makest me," he added.

Dick was almost beside himself.  It went against his heart to beat a
creature so defenceless; and, for the life of him, he knew no other way
to rid himself of this unwelcome and, as he began to think, perhaps
untrue companion.

"Y' are mad, I think," he cried.  "Fool-fellow, I am hasting to your
foes; as fast as foot can carry me, go I thither."

"I care not, Dick," replied the lad.  "If y' are bound to die, Dick, I'll
die too.  I would liever go with you to prison than to go free without
you."

"Well," returned the other, "I may stand no longer prating.  Follow me,
if ye must; but if ye play me false, it shall but little advance you,
mark ye that.  Shalt have a quarrel in thine inwards, boy."

So saying, Dick took once more to his heels, keeping in the margin of the
thicket and looking briskly about him as he went.  At a good pace he
rattled out of the dell, and came again into the more open quarters of
the wood.  To the left a little eminence appeared, spotted with golden
gorse, and crowned with a black tuft of firs.

"I shall see from there," he thought, and struck for it across a heathy
clearing.

He had gone but a few yards, when Matcham touched him on the arm, and
pointed.  To the eastward of the summit there was a dip, and, as it were,
a valley passing to the other side; the heath was not yet out; all the
ground was rusty, like an unscoured buckler, and dotted sparingly with
yews; and there, one following another, Dick saw half a score green
jerkins mounting the ascent, and marching at their head, conspicuous by
his boar-spear, Ellis Duckworth in person.  One after another gained the
top, showed for a moment against the sky, and then dipped upon the
further side, until the last was gone.

Dick looked at Matcham with a kindlier eye.

"So y' are to be true to me, Jack?" he asked.  "I thought ye were of the
other party."

Matcham began to sob.

"What cheer!" cried Dick.  "Now the saints behold us! would ye snivel for
a word?"

"Ye hurt me," sobbed Matcham.  "Ye hurt me when ye threw me down.  Y' are
a coward to abuse your strength."

"Nay, that is fool's talk," said Dick, roughly.  "Y' had no title to my
windac, Master John.  I would 'a' done right to have well basted you.  If
ye go with me, ye must obey me; and so, come."

Matcham had half a thought to stay behind; but, seeing that Dick
continued to scour full-tilt towards the eminence and not so much as
looked across his shoulder, he soon thought better of that, and began to
run in turn.  But the ground was very difficult and steep; Dick had
already a long start, and had, at any rate, the lighter heels, and he had
long since come to the summit, crawled forward through the firs, and
ensconced himself in a thick tuft of gorse, before Matcham, panting like
a deer, rejoined him, and lay down in silence by his side.

Below, in the bottom of a considerable valley, the short cut from
Tunstall hamlet wound downwards to the ferry.  It was well beaten, and
the eye followed it easily from point to point.  Here it was bordered by
open glades; there the forest closed upon it; every hundred yards it ran
beside an ambush.  Far down the path, the sun shone on seven steel
salets, and from time to time, as the trees opened, Selden and his men
could be seen riding briskly, still bent upon Sir Daniel's mission.  The
wind had somewhat fallen, but still tussled merrily with the trees, and,
perhaps, had Appleyard been there, he would have drawn a warning from the
troubled conduct of the birds.

"Now, mark," Dick whispered.  "They be already well advanced into the
wood; their safety lieth rather in continuing forward.  But see ye where
this wide glade runneth down before us, and in the midst of it, these two
score trees make like an island?  There were their safety.  An they but
come sound as far as that, I will make shift to warn them.  But my heart
misgiveth me; they are but seven against so many, and they but carry
cross-bows.  The long-bow, Jack, will have the uppermost ever."

Meanwhile, Selden and his men still wound up the path, ignorant of their
danger, and momently drew nearer hand.  Once, indeed, they paused, drew
into a group, and seemed to point and listen.  But it was something from
far away across the plain that had arrested their attention--a hollow
growl of cannon that came, from time to time, upon the wind, and told of
the great battle.  It was worth a thought, to be sure; for if the voice
of the big guns were thus become audible in Tunstall Forest, the fight
must have rolled ever eastward, and the day, by consequence, gone sore
against Sir Daniel and the lords of the dark rose.

But presently the little troop began again to move forward, and came next
to a very open, heathy portion of the way, where but a single tongue of
forest ran down to join the road.  They were but just abreast of this,
when an arrow shone flying.  One of the men threw up his arms, his horse
reared, and both fell and struggled together in a mass.  Even from where
the boys lay they could hear the rumour of the men's voices crying out;
they could see the startled horses prancing, and, presently, as the troop
began to recover from their first surprise, one fellow beginning to
dismount.  A second arrow from somewhat farther off glanced in a wide
arch; a second rider bit the dust.  The man who was dismounting lost hold
upon the rein, and his horse fled galloping, and dragged him by the foot
along the road, bumping from stone to stone, and battered by the fleeing
hoofs.  The four who still kept the saddle instantly broke and scattered;
one wheeled and rode, shrieking, towards the ferry; the other three, with
loose rein and flying raiment, came galloping up the road from Tunstall.
From every clump they passed an arrow sped.  Soon a horse fell, but the
rider found his feet and continued to pursue his comrades till a second
shot despatched him.  Another man fell; then another horse; out of the
whole troop there was but one fellow left, and he on foot; only, in
different directions, the noise of the galloping of three riderless
horses was dying fast into the distance.

All this time not one of the assailants had for a moment shown himself.
Here and there along the path, horse or man rolled, undespatched, in his
agony; but no merciful enemy broke cover to put them from their pain.

The solitary survivor stood bewildered in the road beside his fallen
charger.  He had come the length of that broad glade, with the island of
timber, pointed out by Dick.  He was not, perhaps, five hundred yards
from where the boys lay hidden; and they could see him plainly, looking
to and fro in deadly expectation.  But nothing came; and the man began to
pluck up his courage, and suddenly unslung and bent his bow.  At the same
time, by something in his action, Dick recognised Selden.

At this offer of resistance, from all about him in the covert of the
woods there went up the sound of laughter.  A score of men, at least, for
this was the very thickest of the ambush, joined in this cruel and
untimely mirth.  Then an arrow glanced over Selden's shoulder; and he
leaped and ran a little back.  Another dart struck quivering at his heel.
He made for the cover.  A third shaft leaped out right in his face, and
fell short in front of him.  And then the laughter was repeated loudly,
rising and reechoing from different thickets.

It was plain that his assailants were but baiting him, as men, in those
days, baited the poor bull, or as the cat still trifles with the mouse.
The skirmish was well over; farther down the road, a fellow in green was
already calmly gathering the arrows; and now, in the evil pleasure of
their hearts, they gave themselves the spectacle of their poor
fellow-sinner in his torture.

Selden began to understand; he uttered a roar of anger, shouldered his
cross-bow, and sent a quarrel at a venture into the wood.  Chance
favoured him, for a slight cry responded.  Then, throwing down his
weapon, Selden began to run before him up the glade, and almost in a
straight line for Dick and Matcham.

The companions of the Black Arrow now began to shoot in earnest.  But
they were properly served; their chance had past; most of them had now to
shoot against the sun; and Selden, as he ran, bounded from side to side
to baffle and deceive their aim.  Best of all, by turning up the glade he
had defeated their preparations; there were no marksmen posted higher up
than the one whom he had just killed or wounded; and the confusion of the
foresters' counsels soon became apparent.  A whistle sounded thrice, and
then again twice.  It was repeated from another quarter.  The woods on
either side became full of the sound of people bursting through the
underwood; and a bewildered deer ran out into the open, stood for a
second on three feet, with nose in air, and then plunged again into the
thicket.

Selden still ran, bounding; ever and again an arrow followed him, but
still would miss.  It began to appear as if he might escape.  Dick had
his bow armed, ready to support him; even Matcham, forgetful of his
interest, took sides at heart for the poor fugitive; and both lads glowed
and trembled in the ardour of their hearts.

He was within fifty yards of them, when an arrow struck him and he fell.
He was up again, indeed, upon the instant; but now he ran staggering,
and, like a blind man, turned aside from his direction.

Dick leaped to his feet and waved to him.

"Here!" he cried.  "This way! here is help!  Nay, run, fellow--run!"

But just then a second arrow struck Selden in the shoulder, between the
plates of his brigandine, and, piercing through his jack, brought him,
like a stone, to earth.

"O, the poor heart!" cried Matcham, with clasped hands.

And Dick stood petrified upon the hill, a mark for archery.

Ten to one he had speedily been shot--for the foresters were furious with
themselves, and taken unawares by Dick's appearance in the rear of their
position--but instantly, out of a quarter of the wood surprisingly near
to the two lads, a stentorian voice arose, the voice of Ellis Duckworth.

"Hold!" it roared.  "Shoot not!  Take him alive!  It is young
Shelton--Harry's son."

And immediately after a shrill whistle sounded several times, and was
again taken up and repeated farther off.  The whistle, it appeared, was
John Amend-All's battle trumpet, by which he published his directions.

"Ah, foul fortune!" cried Dick.  "We are undone.  Swiftly, Jack, come
swiftly!"

And the pair turned and ran back through the open pine clump that covered
the summit of the hill.



CHAPTER VI--TO THE DAY'S END


It was, indeed, high time for them to run.  On every side the company of
the Black Arrow was making for the hill.  Some, being better runners, or
having open ground to run upon, had far outstripped the others, and were
already close upon the goal; some, following valleys, had spread out to
right and left, and outflanked the lads on either side.

Dick plunged into the nearest cover.  It was a tall grove of oaks, firm
under foot and clear of underbrush, and as it lay down hill, they made
good speed.  There followed next a piece of open, which Dick avoided,
holding to his left.  Two minutes after, and the same obstacle arising,
the lads followed the same course.  Thus it followed that, while the
lads, bending continually to the left, drew nearer and nearer to the high
road and the river which they had crossed an hour or two before, the
great bulk of their pursuers were leaning to the other hand, and running
towards Tunstall.

The lads paused to breathe.  There was no sound of pursuit.  Dick put his
ear to the ground, and still there was nothing; but the wind, to be sure,
still made a turmoil in the trees, and it was hard to make certain.

"On again," said Dick; and, tired as they were, and Matcham limping with
his injured foot, they pulled themselves together, and once more pelted
down the hill.

Three minutes later, they were breasting through a low thicket of
evergreen.  High overhead, the tall trees made a continuous roof of
foliage.  It was a pillared grove, as high as a cathedral, and except for
the hollies among which the lads were struggling, open and smoothly
swarded.

On the other side, pushing through the last fringe of evergreen, they
blundered forth again into the open twilight of the grove.

"Stand!" cried a voice.

And there, between the huge stems, not fifty feet before them, they
beheld a stout fellow in green, sore blown with running, who instantly
drew an arrow to the head and covered them.  Matcham stopped with a cry;
but Dick, without a pause, ran straight upon the forester, drawing his
dagger as he went.  The other, whether he was startled by the daring of
the onslaught, or whether he was hampered by his orders, did not shoot;
he stood wavering; and before he had time to come to himself, Dick
bounded at his throat, and sent him sprawling backward on the turf.  The
arrow went one way and the bow another with a sounding twang.  The
disarmed forester grappled his assailant; but the dagger shone and
descended twice.  Then came a couple of groans, and then Dick rose to his
feet again, and the man lay motionless, stabbed to the heart.

"On!" said Dick; and he once more pelted forward, Matcham trailing in the
rear.  To say truth, they made but poor speed of it by now, labouring
dismally as they ran, and catching for their breath like fish.  Matcham
had a cruel stitch, and his head swam; and as for Dick, his knees were
like lead.  But they kept up the form of running with undiminished
courage.

Presently they came to the end of the grove.  It stopped abruptly; and
there, a few yards before them, was the high road from Risingham to
Shoreby, lying, at this point, between two even walls of forest.

At the sight Dick paused; and as soon as he stopped running, he became
aware of a confused noise, which rapidly grew louder.  It was at first
like the rush of a very high gust of wind, but soon it became more
definite, and resolved itself into the galloping of horses; and then, in
a flash, a whole company of men-at-arms came driving round the corner,
swept before the lads, and were gone again upon the instant.  They rode
as for their lives, in complete disorder; some of them were wounded;
riderless horses galloped at their side with bloody saddles.  They were
plainly fugitives from the great battle.

The noise of their passage had scarce begun to die away towards Shoreby,
before fresh hoofs came echoing in their wake, and another deserter
clattered down the road; this time a single rider and, by his splendid
armour, a man of high degree.  Close after him there followed several
baggage-waggons, fleeing at an ungainly canter, the drivers flailing at
the horses as if for life.  These must have run early in the day; but
their cowardice was not to save them.  For just before they came abreast
of where the lads stood wondering, a man in hacked armour, and seemingly
beside himself with fury, overtook the waggons, and with the truncheon of
a sword, began to cut the drivers down.  Some leaped from their places
and plunged into the wood; the others he sabred as they sat, cursing them
the while for cowards in a voice that was scarce human.

All this time the noise in the distance had continued to increase; the
rumble of carts, the clatter of horses, the cries of men, a great,
confused rumour, came swelling on the wind; and it was plain that the
rout of a whole army was pouring, like an inundation, down the road.

Dick stood sombre.  He had meant to follow the highway till the turn for
Holywood, and now he had to change his plan.  But above all, he had
recognised the colours of Earl Risingham, and he knew that the battle had
gone finally against the rose of Lancaster.  Had Sir Daniel joined, and
was he now a fugitive and ruined? or had he deserted to the side of York,
and was he forfeit to honour?  It was an ugly choice.

"Come," he said, sternly; and, turning on his heel, he began to walk
forward through the grove, with Matcham limping in his rear.

For some time they continued to thread the forest in silence.  It was now
growing late; the sun was setting in the plain beyond Kettley; the
tree-tops overhead glowed golden; but the shadows had begun to grow
darker and the chill of the night to fall.

"If there were anything to eat!" cried Dick, suddenly, pausing as he
spoke.

Matcham sat down and began to weep.

"Ye can weep for your own supper, but when it was to save men's lives,
your heart was hard enough," said Dick, contemptuously.  "Y' 'ave seven
deaths upon your conscience, Master John; I'll ne'er forgive you that."

"Conscience!" cried Matcham, looking fiercely up.  "Mine!  And ye have
the man's red blood upon your dagger!  And wherefore did ye slay him, the
poor soul?  He drew his arrow, but he let not fly; he held you in his
hand, and spared you!  'Tis as brave to kill a kitten, as a man that not
defends himself."

Dick was struck dumb.

"I slew him fair.  I ran me in upon his bow," he cried.

"It was a coward blow," returned Matcham.  "Y' are but a lout and bully,
Master Dick; ye but abuse advantages; let there come a stronger, we will
see you truckle at his boot!  Ye care not for vengeance, neither--for
your father's death that goes unpaid, and his poor ghost that clamoureth
for justice.  But if there come but a poor creature in your hands that
lacketh skill and strength, and would befriend you, down she shall go!"

Dick was too furious to observe that "she."

"Marry!" he cried, "and here is news!  Of any two the one will still be
stronger.  The better man throweth the worse, and the worse is well
served.  Ye deserve a belting, Master Matcham, for your ill-guidance and
unthankfulness to meward; and what ye deserve ye shall have."

And Dick, who, even in his angriest temper, still preserved the
appearance of composure, began to unbuckle his belt.

"Here shall be your supper," he said, grimly.  Matcham had stopped his
tears; he was as white as a sheet, but he looked Dick steadily in the
face, and never moved.  Dick took a step, swinging the belt.  Then he
paused, embarrassed by the large eyes and the thin, weary face of his
companion.  His courage began to subside.

"Say ye were in the wrong, then," he said, lamely.

"Nay," said Matcham, "I was in the right.  Come, cruel!  I be lame; I be
weary; I resist not; I ne'er did thee hurt; come, beat me--coward!"

Dick raised the belt at this last provocation, but Matcham winced and
drew himself together with so cruel an apprehension, that his heart
failed him yet again.  The strap fell by his side, and he stood
irresolute, feeling like a fool.

"A plague upon thee, shrew!" he said.  "An ye be so feeble of hand, ye
should keep the closer guard upon your tongue.  But I'll be hanged before
I beat you!" and he put on his belt again.  "Beat you I will not," he
continued; "but forgive you?--never.  I knew ye not; ye were my master's
enemy; I lent you my horse; my dinner ye have eaten; y' 'ave called me a
man o' wood, a coward, and a bully.  Nay, by the mass! the measure is
filled, and runneth over.  'Tis a great thing to be weak, I trow: ye can
do your worst, yet shall none punish you; ye may steal a man's weapons in
the hour of need, yet may the man not take his own again;--y' are weak,
forsooth!  Nay, then, if one cometh charging at you with a lance, and
crieth he is weak, ye must let him pierce your body through!  Tut! fool
words!"

"And yet ye beat me not," returned Matcham.

"Let be," said Dick--"let be.  I will instruct you.  Y' 'ave been
ill-nurtured, methinks, and yet ye have the makings of some good, and,
beyond all question, saved me from the river.  Nay, I had forgotten it; I
am as thankless as thyself.  But, come, let us on.  An we be for Holywood
this night, ay, or to-morrow early, we had best set forward speedily."

But though Dick had talked himself back into his usual good-humour,
Matcham had forgiven him nothing.  His violence, the recollection of the
forester whom he had slain--above all, the vision of the upraised belt,
were things not easily to be forgotten.

"I will thank you, for the form's sake," said Matcham.  "But, in sooth,
good Master Shelton, I had liever find my way alone.  Here is a wide
wood; prithee, let each choose his path; I owe you a dinner and a lesson.
Fare ye well!"

"Nay," cried Dick, "if that be your tune, so be it, and a plague be with
you!"

Each turned aside, and they began walking off severally, with no thought
of the direction, intent solely on their quarrel.  But Dick had not gone
ten paces ere his name was called, and Matcham came running after.

"Dick," he said, "it were unmannerly to part so coldly.  Here is my hand,
and my heart with it.  For all that wherein you have so excellently
served and helped me--not for the form, but from the heart, I thank you.
Fare ye right well."

"Well, lad," returned Dick, taking the hand which was offered him, "good
speed to you, if speed you may.  But I misdoubt it shrewdly.  Y' are too
disputatious."  So then they separated for the second time; and presently
it was Dick who was running after Matcham.

"Here," he said, "take my cross-bow; shalt not go unarmed."

"A cross-bow!" said Matcham.  "Nay, boy, I have neither the strength to
bend nor yet the skill to aim with it.  It were no help to me, good boy.
But yet I thank you."

The night had now fallen, and under the trees they could no longer read
each other's face.

"I will go some little way with you," said Dick.  "The night is dark.  I
would fain leave you on a path, at least.  My mind misgiveth me, y' are
likely to be lost."

Without any more words, he began to walk forward, and the other once more
followed him.  The blackness grew thicker and thicker.  Only here and
there, in open places, they saw the sky, dotted with small stars.  In the
distance, the noise of the rout of the Lancastrian army still continued
to be faintly audible; but with every step they left it farther in the
rear.

At the end of half an hour of silent progress they came forth upon a
broad patch of heathy open.  It glimmered in the light of the stars,
shaggy with fern and islanded with clumps of yew.  And here they paused
and looked upon each other.

"Y' are weary?" Dick said.

"Nay, I am so weary," answered Matcham, "that methinks I could lie down
and die."

"I hear the chiding of a river," returned Dick.  "Let us go so far forth,
for I am sore athirst."

The ground sloped down gently; and, sure enough, in the bottom, they
found a little murmuring river, running among willows.  Here they threw
themselves down together by the brink; and putting their mouths to the
level of a starry pool, they drank their fill.

"Dick," said Matcham, "it may not be.  I can no more."

"I saw a pit as we came down," said Dick.  "Let us lie down therein and
sleep."

"Nay, but with all my heart!" cried Matcham.

The pit was sandy and dry; a shock of brambles hung upon one hedge, and
made a partial shelter; and there the two lads lay down, keeping close
together for the sake of warmth, their quarrel all forgotten.  And soon
sleep fell upon them like a cloud, and under the dew and stars they
rested peacefully.



CHAPTER VII--THE HOODED FACE


They awoke in the grey of the morning; the birds were not yet in full
song, but twittered here and there among the woods; the sun was not yet
up, but the eastern sky was barred with solemn colours.  Half starved and
over-weary as they were, they lay without moving, sunk in a delightful
lassitude.  And as they thus lay, the clang of a bell fell suddenly upon
their ears.

"A bell!" said Dick, sitting up.  "Can we be, then, so near to Holywood?"

A little after, the bell clanged again, but this time somewhat nearer
hand; and from that time forth, and still drawing nearer and nearer, it
continued to sound brokenly abroad in the silence of the morning.

"Nay, what should this betoken?" said Dick, who was now broad awake.

"It is some one walking," returned Matcham, and "the bell tolleth ever as
he moves."

"I see that well," said Dick.  "But wherefore?  What maketh he in
Tunstall Woods?  Jack," he added, "laugh at me an ye will, but I like not
the hollow sound of it."

"Nay," said Matcham, with a shiver, "it hath a doleful note.  An the day
were not come"--

But just then the bell, quickening its pace, began to ring thick and
hurried, and then it gave a single hammering jangle, and was silent for a
space.

"It is as though the bearer had run for a pater-noster while, and then
leaped the river," Dick observed.

"And now beginneth he again to pace soberly forward," added Matcham.

"Nay," returned Dick--"nay, not so soberly, Jack.  'Tis a man that
walketh you right speedily.  'Tis a man in some fear of his life, or
about some hurried business.  See ye not how swift the beating draweth
near?"

"It is now close by," said Matcham.

They were now on the edge of the pit; and as the pit itself was on a
certain eminence, they commanded a view over the greater proportion of
the clearing, up to the thick woods that closed it in.

The daylight, which was very clear and grey, showed them a riband of
white footpath wandering among the gorse.  It passed some hundred yards
from the pit, and ran the whole length of the clearing, east and west.
By the line of its course, Dick judged it should lead more or less
directly to the Moat House.

Upon this path, stepping forth from the margin of the wood, a white
figure now appeared.  It paused a little, and seemed to look about; and
then, at a slow pace, and bent almost double, it began to draw near
across the heath.  At every step the bell clanked.  Face, it had none; a
white hood, not even pierced with eye-holes, veiled the head; and as the
creature moved, it seemed to feel its way with the tapping of a stick.
Fear fell upon the lads, as cold as death.

"A leper!" said Dick, hoarsely.

"His touch is death," said Matcham.  "Let us run."

"Not so," returned Dick.  "See ye not?--he is stone blind.  He guideth
him with a staff.  Let us lie still; the wind bloweth towards the path,
and he will go by and hurt us not.  Alas, poor soul, and we should rather
pity him!"

"I will pity him when he is by," replied Matcham.

The blind leper was now about halfway towards them, and just then the sun
rose and shone full on his veiled face.  He had been a tall man before he
was bowed by his disgusting sickness, and even now he walked with a
vigorous step.  The dismal beating of his bell, the pattering of the
stick, the eyeless screen before his countenance, and the knowledge that
he was not only doomed to death and suffering, but shut out for ever from
the touch of his fellow-men, filled the lads' bosoms with dismay; and at
every step that brought him nearer, their courage and strength seemed to
desert them.

As he came about level with the pit, he paused, and turned his face full
upon the lads.

"Mary be my shield!  He sees us!" said Matcham, faintly.

"Hush!" whispered Dick.  "He doth but hearken.  He is blind, fool!"

The leper looked or listened, whichever he was really doing, for some
seconds.  Then he began to move on again, but presently paused once more,
and again turned and seemed to gaze upon the lads.  Even Dick became
dead-white and closed his eyes, as if by the mere sight he might become
infected.  But soon the bell sounded, and this time, without any farther
hesitation, the leper crossed the remainder of the little heath and
disappeared into the covert of the woods.

"He saw us," said Matcham.  "I could swear it!"

"Tut!" returned Dick, recovering some sparks of courage.  "He but heard
us.  He was in fear, poor soul!  An ye were blind, and walked in a
perpetual night, ye would start yourself, if ever a twig rustled or a
bird cried 'Peep.'"

"Dick, good Dick, he saw us," repeated Matcham.  "When a man hearkeneth,
he doth not as this man; he doth otherwise, Dick.  This was seeing; it
was not hearing.  He means foully.  Hark, else, if his bell be not
stopped!"

Such was the case.  The bell rang no longer.

"Nay," said Dick, "I like not that.  Nay," he cried again, "I like that
little.  What may this betoken?  Let us go, by the mass!"

"He hath gone east," added Matcham.  "Good Dick, let us go westward
straight; I shall not breathe till I have my back turned upon that
leper."

"Jack, y' are too cowardly," replied Dick.  "We shall go fair for
Holywood, or as fair, at least, as I can guide you, and that will be due
north."

They were afoot at once, passed the stream upon some stepping-stones, and
began to mount on the other side, which was steeper, towards the margin
of the wood.  The ground became very uneven, full of knolls and hollows;
trees grew scattered or in clumps; it became difficult to choose a path,
and the lads somewhat wandered.  They were weary, besides, with
yesterday's exertions and the lack of food, and they moved but heavily
and dragged their feet among the sand.

Presently, coming to the top of a knoll, they were aware of the leper,
some hundred feet in front of them, crossing the line of their march by a
hollow.  His bell was silent, his staff no longer tapped the ground, and
he went before him with the swift and assured footsteps of a man who
sees.  Next moment he had disappeared into a little thicket.

The lads, at the first glimpse, had crouched behind a tuft of gorse;
there they lay, horror-struck.

"Certain, he pursueth us," said Dick--"certain!  He held the clapper of
his bell in one hand, saw ye? that it should not sound.  Now may the
saints aid and guide us, for I have no strength to combat pestilence!"

"What maketh he?" cried Matcham.  "What doth he want?  Who ever heard the
like, that a leper, out of mere malice, should pursue unfortunates?  Hath
he not his bell to that very end, that people may avoid him?  Dick, there
is below this something deeper."

"Nay, I care not," moaned Dick; "the strength is gone out of me; my legs
are like water.  The saints be mine assistance!"

"Would ye lie there idle?" cried Matcham.  "Let us back into the open.
We have the better chance; he cannot steal upon us unawares."

"Not I," said Dick.  "My time is come, and peradventure he may pass us
by."

"Bend me, then, your bow!" cried the other.  "What! will ye be a man?"

Dick crossed himself.  "Would ye have me shoot upon a leper?" he cried.
"The hand would fail me.  Nay, now," he added--"nay, now, let be!  With
sound men I will fight, but not with ghosts and lepers.  Which this is, I
wot not.  One or other, Heaven be our protection!"

"Now," said Matcham, "if this be man's courage, what a poor thing is man!
But sith ye will do naught, let us lie close."

Then came a single, broken jangle on the bell.

"He hath missed his hold upon the clapper," whispered Matcham.  "Saints!
how near he is!"

But Dick answered never a word; his teeth were near chattering.

Soon they saw a piece of the white robe between some bushes; then the
leper's head was thrust forth from behind a trunk, and he seemed narrowly
to scan the neighbourhood before he once again withdrew.  To their
stretched senses, the whole bush appeared alive with rustlings and the
creak of twigs; and they heard the beating of each other's heart.

Suddenly, with a cry, the leper sprang into the open close by, and ran
straight upon the lads.  They, shrieking aloud, separated and began to
run different ways.  But their horrible enemy fastened upon Matcham, ran
him swiftly down, and had him almost instantly a prisoner.  The lad gave
one scream that echoed high and far over the forest, he had one spasm of
struggling, and then all his limbs relaxed, and he fell limp into his
captor's arms.

Dick heard the cry and turned.  He saw Matcham fall; and on the instant
his spirit and his strength revived; With a cry of pity and anger, he
unslung and bent his arblast.  But ere he had time to shoot, the leper
held up his hand.

"Hold your shot, Dickon!" cried a familiar voice.  "Hold your shot, mad
wag!  Know ye not a friend?"

And then laying down Matcham on the turf, he undid the hood from off his
face, and disclosed the features of Sir Daniel Brackley.

"Sir Daniel!" cried Dick.

"Ay, by the mass, Sir Daniel!" returned the knight.  "Would ye shoot upon
your guardian, rogue?  But here is this"--And there he broke off, and
pointing to Matcham, asked: "How call ye him, Dick?"

"Nay," said Dick, "I call him Master Matcham.  Know ye him not?  He said
ye knew him!"

"Ay," replied Sir Daniel, "I know the lad;" and he chuckled.  "But he has
fainted; and, by my sooth, he might have had less to faint for!  Hey,
Dick?  Did I put the fear of death upon you?"

"Indeed, Sir Daniel, ye did that," said Dick, and sighed again at the
mere recollection.  "Nay, sir, saving your respect, I had as lief 'a' met
the devil in person; and to speak truth, I am yet all a-quake.  But what
made ye, sir, in such a guise?"

Sir Daniel's brow grew suddenly black with anger.

"What made I?" he said.  "Ye do well to mind me of it!  What?  I skulked
for my poor life in my own wood of Tunstall, Dick.  We were ill sped at
the battle; we but got there to be swept among the rout.  Where be all my
good men-at-arms?  Dick, by the mass, I know not!  We were swept down;
the shot fell thick among us; I have not seen one man in my own colours
since I saw three fall.  For myself, I came sound to Shoreby, and being
mindful of the Black Arrow, got me this gown and bell, and came softly by
the path for the Moat House.  There is no disguise to be compared with
it; the jingle of this bell would scare me the stoutest outlaw in the
forest; they would all turn pale to hear it.  At length I came by you and
Matcham.  I could see but evilly through this same hood, and was not sure
of you, being chiefly, and for many a good cause, astonished at the
finding you together.  Moreover, in the open, where I had to go slowly
and tap with my staff, I feared to disclose myself.  But see," he added,
"this poor shrew begins a little to revive.  A little good canary will
comfort me the heart of it."

The knight, from under his long dress, produced a stout bottle, and began
to rub the temples and wet the lips of the patient, who returned
gradually to consciousness, and began to roll dim eyes from one to
another.

"What cheer, Jack!" said Dick.  "It was no leper, after all; it was Sir
Daniel!  See!"

"Swallow me a good draught of this," said the knight.  "This will give
you manhood.  Thereafter, I will give you both a meal, and we shall all
three on to Tunstall.  For, Dick," he continued, laying forth bread and
meat upon the grass, "I will avow to you, in all good conscience, it irks
me sorely to be safe between four walls.  Not since I backed a horse have
I been pressed so hard; peril of life, jeopardy of land and livelihood,
and to sum up, all these losels in the wood to hunt me down.  But I be
not yet shent.  Some of my lads will pick me their way home.  Hatch hath
ten fellows; Selden, he had six.  Nay, we shall soon be strong again; and
if I can but buy my peace with my right fortunate and undeserving Lord of
York, why, Dick, we'll be a man again and go a-horseback!"

And so saying, the knight filled himself a horn of canary, and pledged
his ward in dumb show.

"Selden," Dick faltered--"Selden"--And he paused again.

Sir Daniel put down the wine untasted.

"How!" he cried, in a changed voice.  "Selden?  Speak!  What of Selden?"

Dick stammered forth the tale of the ambush and the massacre.

The knight heard in silence; but as he listened, his countenance became
convulsed with rage and grief.

"Now here," he cried, "on my right hand, I swear to avenge it!  If that I
fail, if that I spill not ten men's souls for each, may this hand wither
from my body!  I broke this Duckworth like a rush; I beggared him to his
door; I burned the thatch above his head; I drove him from this country;
and now, cometh he back to beard me?  Nay, but, Duckworth, this time it
shall go bitter hard!"

He was silent for some time, his face working.

"Eat!" he cried, suddenly.  "And you here," he added to Matcham, "swear
me an oath to follow straight to the Moat House."

"I will pledge mine honour," replied Matcham.

"What make I with your honour?" cried the knight.  "Swear me upon your
mother's welfare!"

Matcham gave the required oath; and Sir Daniel re-adjusted the hood over
his face, and prepared his bell and staff.  To see him once more in that
appalling travesty somewhat revived the horror of his two companions.
But the knight was soon upon his feet.

"Eat with despatch," he said, "and follow me yarely to mine house."

And with that he set forth again into the woods; and presently after the
bell began to sound, numbering his steps, and the two lads sat by their
untasted meal, and heard it die slowly away up hill into the distance.

"And so ye go to Tunstall?" Dick inquired.

"Yea, verily," said Matcham, "when needs must!  I am braver behind Sir
Daniel's back than to his face."

They ate hastily, and set forth along the path through the airy upper
levels of the forest, where great beeches stood apart among green lawns,
and the birds and squirrels made merry on the boughs.  Two hours later,
they began to descend upon the other side, and already, among the
tree-tops, saw before them the red walls and roofs of Tunstall House.

"Here," said Matcham, pausing, "ye shall take your leave of your friend
Jack, whom y' are to see no more.  Come, Dick, forgive him what he did
amiss, as he, for his part, cheerfully and lovingly forgiveth you."

"And wherefore so?" asked Dick.  "An we both go to Tunstall, I shall see
you yet again, I trow, and that right often."

"Ye'll never again see poor Jack Matcham," replied the other, "that was
so fearful and burthensome, and yet plucked you from the river; ye'll not
see him more, Dick, by mine honour!"  He held his arms open, and the lads
embraced and kissed.  "And, Dick," continued Matcham, "my spirit bodeth
ill.  Y' are now to see a new Sir Daniel; for heretofore hath all
prospered in his hands exceedingly, and fortune followed him; but now,
methinks, when his fate hath come upon him, and he runs the adventure of
his life, he will prove but a foul lord to both of us.  He may be brave
in battle, but he hath the liar's eye; there is fear in his eye, Dick,
and fear is as cruel as the wolf!  We go down into that house, Saint Mary
guide us forth again!"

And so they continued their descent in silence, and came out at last
before Sir Daniel's forest stronghold, where it stood, low and shady,
flanked with round towers and stained with moss and lichen, in the lilied
waters of the moat.  Even as they appeared, the doors were opened, the
bridge lowered, and Sir Daniel himself, with Hatch and the parson at his
side, stood ready to receive them.




BOOK II--THE MOAT HOUSE


CHAPTER I--DICK ASKS QUESTIONS


The Moat House stood not far from the rough forest road.  Externally, it
was a compact rectangle of red stone, flanked at each corner by a round
tower, pierced for archery and battlemented at the top.  Within, it
enclosed a narrow court.  The moat was perhaps twelve feet wide, crossed
by a single drawbridge.  It was supplied with water by a trench, leading
to a forest pool and commanded, through its whole length, from the
battlements of the two southern towers.  Except that one or two tall and
thick trees had been suffered to remain within half a bowshot of the
walls, the house was in a good posture for defence.

In the court, Dick found a part of the garrison, busy with preparations
for defence, and gloomily discussing the chances of a siege.  Some were
making arrows, some sharpening swords that had long been disused; but
even as they worked, they shook their heads.

Twelve of Sir Daniel's party had escaped the battle, run the gauntlet
through the wood, and come alive to the Moat House.  But out of this
dozen, three had been gravely wounded: two at Risingham in the disorder
of the rout, one by John Amend-All's marksmen as he crossed the forest.
This raised the force of the garrison, counting Hatch, Sir Daniel, and
young Shelton, to twenty-two effective men.  And more might be
continually expected to arrive.  The danger lay not therefore in the lack
of men.

It was the terror of the Black Arrow that oppressed the spirits of the
garrison.  For their open foes of the party of York, in these most
changing times, they felt but a far-away concern.  "The world," as people
said in those days, "might change again" before harm came.  But for their
neighbours in the wood, they trembled.  It was not Sir Daniel alone who
was a mark for hatred.  His men, conscious of impunity, had carried
themselves cruelly through all the country.  Harsh commands had been
harshly executed; and of the little band that now sat talking in the
court, there was not one but had been guilty of some act of oppression or
barbarity.  And now, by the fortune of war, Sir Daniel had become
powerless to protect his instruments; now, by the issue of some hours of
battle, at which many of them had not been present, they had all become
punishable traitors to the State, outside the buckler of the law, a
shrunken company in a poor fortress that was hardly tenable, and exposed
upon all sides to the just resentment of their victims.  Nor had there
been lacking grisly advertisements of what they might expect.

At different periods of the evening and the night, no fewer than seven
riderless horses had come neighing in terror to the gate.  Two were from
Selden's troop; five belonged to men who had ridden with Sir Daniel to
the field.  Lastly, a little before dawn, a spearman had come staggering
to the moat side, pierced by three arrows; even as they carried him in,
his spirit had departed; but by the words that he uttered in his agony,
he must have been the last survivor of a considerable company of men.

Hatch himself showed, under his sun-brown, the pallour of anxiety; and
when he had taken Dick aside and learned the fate of Selden, he fell on a
stone bench and fairly wept.  The others, from where they sat on stools
or doorsteps in the sunny angle of the court, looked at him with wonder
and alarm, but none ventured to inquire the cause of his emotion.

"Nay, Master Shelton," said Hatch, at last--"nay, but what said I?  We
shall all go.  Selden was a man of his hands; he was like a brother to
me.  Well, he has gone second; well, we shall all follow!  For what said
their knave rhyme?--'A black arrow in each black heart.'  Was it not so
it went?  Appleyard, Selden, Smith, old Humphrey gone; and there lieth
poor John Carter, crying, poor sinner, for the priest."

Dick gave ear.  Out of a low window, hard by where they were talking,
groans and murmurs came to his ear.

"Lieth he there?" he asked.

"Ay, in the second porter's chamber," answered Hatch.  "We could not bear
him further, soul and body were so bitterly at odds.  At every step we
lifted him, he thought to wend.  But now, methinks, it is the soul that
suffereth.  Ever for the priest he crieth, and Sir Oliver, I wot not why,
still cometh not.  'Twill be a long shrift; but poor Appleyard and poor
Selden, they had none."

Dick stooped to the window and looked in.  The little cell was low and
dark, but he could make out the wounded soldier lying moaning on his
pallet.

"Carter, poor friend, how goeth it?" he asked.

"Master Shelton," returned the man, in an excited whisper, "for the dear
light of heaven, bring the priest.  Alack, I am sped; I am brought very
low down; my hurt is to the death.  Ye may do me no more service; this
shall be the last.  Now, for my poor soul's interest, and as a loyal
gentleman, bestir you; for I have that matter on my conscience that shall
drag me deep."

He groaned, and Dick heard the grating of his teeth, whether in pain or
terror.

Just then Sir Daniel appeared upon the threshold of the hall.  He had a
letter in one hand.

"Lads," he said, "we have had a shog, we have had a tumble; wherefore,
then, deny it?  Rather it imputeth to get speedily again to saddle.  This
old Harry the Sixt has had the undermost.  Wash we, then, our hands of
him.  I have a good friend that rideth next the duke, the Lord of
Wensleydale.  Well, I have writ a letter to my friend, praying his good
lordship, and offering large satisfaction for the past and reasonable
surety for the future.  Doubt not but he will lend a favourable ear.  A
prayer without gifts is like a song without music: I surfeit him with
promises, boys--I spare not to promise.  What, then, is lacking?  Nay, a
great thing--wherefore should I deceive you?--a great thing and a
difficult: a messenger to bear it.  The woods--y' are not ignorant of
that--lie thick with our ill-willers.  Haste is most needful; but without
sleight and caution all is naught.  Which, then, of this company will
take me this letter, bear me it to my Lord of Wensleydale, and bring me
the answer back?"

One man instantly arose.

"I will, an't like you," said he.  "I will even risk my carcase."

"Nay, Dicky Bowyer, not so," returned the knight.  "It likes me not.  Y'
are sly indeed, but not speedy.  Ye were a laggard ever."

"An't be so, Sir Daniel, here am I," cried another.

"The saints forfend!" said the knight.  "Y' are speedy, but not sly.  Ye
would blunder me headforemost into John Amend-All's camp.  I thank you
both for your good courage; but, in sooth, it may not be."

Then Hatch offered himself, and he also was refused.

"I want you here, good Bennet; y' are my right hand, indeed," returned
the knight; and then several coming forward in a group, Sir Daniel at
length selected one and gave him the letter.

"Now," he said, "upon your good speed and better discretion we do all
depend.  Bring me a good answer back, and before three weeks, I will have
purged my forest of these vagabonds that brave us to our faces.  But mark
it well, Throgmorton: the matter is not easy.  Ye must steal forth under
night, and go like a fox; and how ye are to cross Till I know not,
neither by the bridge nor ferry."

"I can swim," returned Throgmorton.  "I will come soundly, fear not."

"Well, friend, get ye to the buttery," replied Sir Daniel.  "Ye shall
swim first of all in nut-brown ale."  And with that he turned back into
the hall.

"Sir Daniel hath a wise tongue," said Hatch, aside, to Dick.  "See, now,
where many a lesser man had glossed the matter over, he speaketh it out
plainly to his company.  Here is a danger, 'a saith, and here difficulty;
and jesteth in the very saying.  Nay, by Saint Barbary, he is a born
captain!  Not a man but he is some deal heartened up!  See how they fall
again to work."

This praise of Sir Daniel put a thought in the lad's head.

"Bennet," he said, "how came my father by his end?"

"Ask me not that," replied Hatch.  "I had no hand nor knowledge in it;
furthermore, I will even be silent, Master Dick.  For look you, in a
man's own business there he may speak; but of hearsay matters and of
common talk, not so.  Ask me Sir Oliver--ay, or Carter, if ye will; not
me."

And Hatch set off to make the rounds, leaving Dick in a muse.

"Wherefore would he not tell me?" thought the lad.  "And wherefore named
he Carter?  Carter--nay, then Carter had a hand in it, perchance."

He entered the house, and passing some little way along a flagged and
vaulted passage, came to the door of the cell where the hurt man lay
groaning.  At his entrance Carter started eagerly.

"Have ye brought the priest?" he cried.

"Not yet awhile," returned Dick.  "Y' 'ave a word to tell me first.  How
came my father, Harry Shelton, by his death?"

The man's face altered instantly.

"I know not," he replied, doggedly.

"Nay, ye know well," returned Dick.  "Seek not to put me by."

"I tell you I know not," repeated Carter.

"Then," said Dick, "ye shall die unshriven.  Here am I, and here shall
stay.  There shall no priest come near you, rest assured.  For of what
avail is penitence, an ye have no mind to right those wrongs ye had a
hand in? and without penitence, confession is but mockery."

"Ye say what ye mean not, Master Dick," said Carter, composedly.  "It is
ill threatening the dying, and becometh you (to speak truth) little.  And
for as little as it commends you, it shall serve you less.  Stay, an ye
please.  Ye will condemn my soul--ye shall learn nothing!  There is my
last word to you."  And the wounded man turned upon the other side.

Now, Dick, to say truth, had spoken hastily, and was ashamed of his
threat.  But he made one more effort.

"Carter," he said, "mistake me not.  I know ye were but an instrument in
the hands of others; a churl must obey his lord; I would not bear heavily
on such an one.  But I begin to learn upon many sides that this great
duty lieth on my youth and ignorance, to avenge my father.  Prithee,
then, good Carter, set aside the memory of my threatenings, and in pure
goodwill and honest penitence give me a word of help."

The wounded man lay silent; nor, say what Dick pleased, could he extract
another word from him.

"Well," said Dick, "I will go call the priest to you as ye desired; for
howsoever ye be in fault to me or mine, I would not be willingly in fault
to any, least of all to one upon the last change."

Again the old soldier heard him without speech or motion; even his groans
he had suppressed; and as Dick turned and left the room, he was filled
with admiration for that rugged fortitude.

"And yet," he thought, "of what use is courage without wit?  Had his
hands been clean, he would have spoken; his silence did confess the
secret louder than words.  Nay, upon all sides, proof floweth on me.  Sir
Daniel, he or his men, hath done this thing."

Dick paused in the stone passage with a heavy heart.  At that hour, in
the ebb of Sir Daniel's fortune, when he was beleaguered by the archers
of the Black Arrow and proscribed by the victorious Yorkists, was Dick,
also, to turn upon the man who had nourished and taught him, who had
severely punished, indeed, but yet unwearyingly protected his youth?  The
necessity, if it should prove to be one, was cruel.

"Pray Heaven he be innocent!" he said.

And then steps sounded on the flagging, and Sir Oliver came gravely
towards the lad.

"One seeketh you earnestly," said Dick.

"I am upon the way, good Richard," said the priest.  "It is this poor
Carter.  Alack, he is beyond cure."

"And yet his soul is sicker than his body," answered Dick.

"Have ye seen him?" asked Sir Oliver, with a manifest start.

"I do but come from him," replied Dick.

"What said he? what said he?" snapped the priest, with extraordinary
eagerness.

"He but cried for you the more piteously, Sir Oliver.  It were well done
to go the faster, for his hurt is grievous," returned the lad.

"I am straight for him," was the reply.  "Well, we have all our sins.  We
must all come to our latter day, good Richard."

"Ay, sir; and it were well if we all came fairly," answered Dick.

The priest dropped his eyes, and with an inaudible benediction hurried
on.

"He, too!" thought Dick--"he, that taught me in piety!  Nay, then, what a
world is this, if all that care for me be blood-guilty of my father's
death?  Vengeance!  Alas! what a sore fate is mine, if I must be avenged
upon my friends!"

The thought put Matcham in his head.  He smiled at the remembrance of his
strange companion, and then wondered where he was.  Ever since they had
come together to the doors of the Moat House the younger lad had
disappeared, and Dick began to weary for a word with him.

About an hour after, mass being somewhat hastily run through by Sir
Oliver, the company gathered in the hall for dinner.  It was a long, low
apartment, strewn with green rushes, and the walls hung with arras in a
design of savage men and questing bloodhounds; here and there hung spears
and bows and bucklers; a fire blazed in the big chimney; there were
arras-covered benches round the wall, and in the midst the table, fairly
spread, awaited the arrival of the diners.  Neither Sir Daniel nor his
lady made their appearance.  Sir Oliver himself was absent, and here
again there was no word of Matcham.  Dick began to grow alarmed, to
recall his companion's melancholy forebodings, and to wonder to himself
if any foul play had befallen him in that house.

After dinner he found Goody Hatch, who was hurrying to my Lady Brackley.

"Goody," he said, "where is Master Matcham, I prithee?  I saw ye go in
with him when we arrived."

The old woman laughed aloud.

"Ah, Master Dick," she said, "y' have a famous bright eye in your head,
to be sure!" and laughed again.

"Nay, but where is he, indeed?" persisted Dick.

"Ye will never see him more," she returned--"never.  It is sure."

"An I do not," returned the lad, "I will know the reason why.  He came
not hither of his full free will; such as I am, I am his best protector,
and I will see him justly used.  There be too many mysteries; I do begin
to weary of the game!"

But as Dick was speaking, a heavy hand fell on his shoulder.  It was
Bennet Hatch that had come unperceived behind him.  With a jerk of his
thumb, the retainer dismissed his wife.

"Friend Dick," he said, as soon as they were alone, "are ye a moon-struck
natural?  An ye leave not certain things in peace, ye were better in the
salt sea than here in Tunstall Moat House.  Y' have questioned me; y'
have baited Carter; y' have frighted the Jack-priest with hints.  Bear ye
more wisely, fool; and even now, when Sir Daniel calleth you, show me a
smooth face for the love of wisdom.  Y' are to be sharply questioned.
Look to your answers."

"Hatch," returned Dick, "in all this I smell a guilty conscience."

"An ye go not the wiser, ye will soon smell blood," replied Bennet.  "I
do but warn you.  And here cometh one to call you."

And indeed, at that very moment, a messenger came across the court to
summon Dick into the presence of Sir Daniel.



CHAPTER II--THE TWO OATHS


Sir Daniel was in the hall; there he paced angrily before the fire,
awaiting Dick's arrival.  None was by except Sir Oliver, and he sat
discreetly backward, thumbing and muttering over his breviary.

"Y' have sent for me, Sir Daniel?" said young Shelton.

"I have sent for you, indeed," replied the knight.  "For what cometh to
mine ears?  Have I been to you so heavy a guardian that ye make haste to
credit ill of me?  Or sith that ye see me, for the nonce, some worsted,
do ye think to quit my party?  By the mass, your father was not so!
Those he was near, those he stood by, come wind or weather.  But you,
Dick, y' are a fair-day friend, it seemeth, and now seek to clear
yourself of your allegiance."

"An't please you, Sir Daniel, not so," returned Dick, firmly.  "I am
grateful and faithful, where gratitude and faith are due.  And before
more is said, I thank you, and I thank Sir Oliver; y' have great claims
upon me both--none can have more; I were a hound if I forgot them."

"It is well," said Sir Daniel; and then, rising into anger: "Gratitude
and faith are words, Dick Shelton," he continued; "but I look to deeds.
In this hour of my peril, when my name is attainted, when my lands are
forfeit, when this wood is full of men that hunger and thirst for my
destruction, what doth gratitude? what doth faith?  I have but a little
company remaining; is it grateful or faithful to poison me their hearts
with your insidious whisperings?  Save me from such gratitude!  But,
come, now, what is it ye wish?  Speak; we are here to answer.  If ye have
aught against me, stand forth and say it."

"Sir," replied Dick, "my father fell when I was yet a child.  It hath
come to mine ears that he was foully done by.  It hath come to mine
ears--for I will not dissemble--that ye had a hand in his undoing.  And
in all verity, I shall not be at peace in mine own mind, nor very clear
to help you, till I have certain resolution of these doubts."

Sir Daniel sat down in a deep settle.  He took his chin in his hand and
looked at Dick fixedly.

"And ye think I would be guardian to the man's son that I had murdered?"
he asked.

"Nay," said Dick, "pardon me if I answer churlishly; but indeed ye know
right well a wardship is most profitable.  All these years have ye not
enjoyed my revenues, and led my men? Have ye not still my marriage?  I
wot not what it may be worth--it is worth something.  Pardon me again;
but if ye were base enough to slay a man under trust, here were, perhaps,
reasons enough to move you to the lesser baseness."

"When I was lad of your years," returned Sir Daniel, sternly, "my mind
had not so turned upon suspicions.  And Sir Oliver here," he added, "why
should he, a priest, be guilty of this act?"

"Nay, Sir Daniel," said Dick, "but where the master biddeth there will
the dog go.  It is well known this priest is but your instrument.  I
speak very freely; the time is not for courtesies.  Even as I speak, so
would I be answered.  And answer get I none!  Ye but put more questions.
I rede ye be ware, Sir Daniel; for in this way ye will but nourish and
not satisfy my doubts."

"I will answer you fairly, Master Richard," said the knight.  "Were I to
pretend ye have not stirred my wrath, I were no honest man.  But I will
be just even in anger.  Come to me with these words when y' are grown and
come to man's estate, and I am no longer your guardian, and so helpless
to resent them.  Come to me then, and I will answer you as ye merit, with
a buffet in the mouth.  Till then ye have two courses: either swallow me
down these insults, keep a silent tongue, and fight in the meanwhile for
the man that fed and fought for your infancy; or else--the door standeth
open, the woods are full of mine enemies--go."

The spirit with which these words were uttered, the looks with which they
were accompanied, staggered Dick; and yet he could not but observe that
he had got no answer.

"I desire nothing more earnestly, Sir Daniel, than to believe you," he
replied.  "Assure me ye are free from this."

"Will ye take my word of honour, Dick?" inquired the knight.

"That would I," answered the lad.

"I give it you," returned Sir Daniel.  "Upon my word of honour, upon the
eternal welfare of my spirit, and as I shall answer for my deeds
hereafter, I had no hand nor portion in your father's death."

He extended his hand, and Dick took it eagerly.  Neither of them observed
the priest, who, at the pronunciation of that solemn and false oath, had
half arisen from his seat in an agony of horror and remorse.

"Ah," cried Dick, "ye must find it in your great-heartedness to pardon
me!  I was a churl, indeed, to doubt of you.  But ye have my hand upon
it; I will doubt no more."

"Nay, Dick," replied Sir Daniel, "y' are forgiven.  Ye know not the world
and its calumnious nature."

"I was the more to blame," added Dick, "in that the rogues pointed, not
directly at yourself, but at Sir Oliver."

As he spoke, he turned towards the priest, and paused in the middle of
the last word.  This tall, ruddy, corpulent, high-stepping man had
fallen, you might say, to pieces; his colour was gone, his limbs were
relaxed, his lips stammered prayers; and now, when Dick's eyes were fixed
upon him suddenly, he cried out aloud, like some wild animal, and buried
his face in his hands.

Sir Daniel was by him in two strides, and shook him fiercely by the
shoulder.  At the same moment Dick's suspicions reawakened.

"Nay," he said, "Sir Oliver may swear also.  'Twas him they accused."

"He shall swear," said the knight.

Sir Oliver speechlessly waved his arms.

"Ay, by the mass! but ye shall swear," cried Sir Daniel, beside himself
with fury.  "Here, upon this book, ye shall swear," he continued, picking
up the breviary, which had fallen to the ground.  "What!  Ye make me
doubt you!  Swear, I say; swear!"

But the priest was still incapable of speech.  His terror of Sir Daniel,
his terror of perjury, risen to about an equal height, strangled him.

And just then, through the high, stained-glass window of the hall, a
black arrow crashed, and struck, and stuck quivering, in the midst of the
long table.

Sir Oliver, with a loud scream, fell fainting on the rushes; while the
knight, followed by Dick, dashed into the court and up the nearest
corkscrew stair to the battlements.  The sentries were all on the alert.
The sun shone quietly on green lawns dotted with trees, and on the wooded
hills of the forest which enclosed the view.  There was no sign of a
besieger.

"Whence came that shot?" asked the knight.

"From yonder clump, Sir Daniel," returned a sentinel.

The knight stood a little, musing.  Then he turned to Dick.  "Dick," he
said, "keep me an eye upon these men; I leave you in charge here.  As for
the priest, he shall clear himself, or I will know the reason why.  I do
almost begin to share in your suspicions.  He shall swear, trust me, or
we shall prove him guilty."

Dick answered somewhat coldly, and the knight, giving him a piercing
glance, hurriedly returned to the hall.  His first glance was for the
arrow.  It was the first of these missiles he had seen, and as he turned
it to and fro, the dark hue of it touched him with some fear.  Again
there was some writing: one word--"Earthed."

"Ay," he broke out, "they know I am home, then.  Earthed!  Ay, but there
is not a dog among them fit to dig me out."

Sir Oliver had come to himself, and now scrambled to his feet.

"Alack, Sir Daniel!" he moaned, "y' 'ave sworn a dread oath; y' are
doomed to the end of time."

"Ay," returned the knight, "I have sworn an oath, indeed, thou
chucklehead; but thyself shalt swear a greater.  It shall be on the
blessed cross of Holywood.  Look to it; get the words ready.  It shall be
sworn to-night."

"Now, may Heaven lighten you!" replied the priest; "may Heaven incline
your heart from this iniquity!"

"Look you, my good father," said Sir Daniel, "if y' are for piety, I say
no more; ye begin late, that is all.  But if y' are in any sense bent
upon wisdom, hear me.  This lad beginneth to irk me like a wasp.  I have
a need for him, for I would sell his marriage.  But I tell you, in all
plainness, if that he continue to weary me, he shall go join his father.
I give orders now to change him to the chamber above the chapel.  If that
ye can swear your innocency with a good, solid oath and an assured
countenance, it is well; the lad will be at peace a little, and I will
spare him.  If that ye stammer or blench, or anyways boggle at the
swearing, he will not believe you; and by the mass, he shall die.  There
is for your thinking on."

"The chamber above the chapel!" gasped the priest.

"That same," replied the knight.  "So if ye desire to save him, save him;
and if ye desire not, prithee, go to, and let me be at peace!  For an I
had been a hasty man, I would already have put my sword through you, for
your intolerable cowardice and folly.  Have ye chosen?  Say!"

"I have chosen," said the priest.  "Heaven pardon me, I will do evil for
good.  I will swear for the lad's sake."

"So is it best!" said Sir Daniel.  "Send for him, then, speedily.  Ye
shall see him alone.  Yet I shall have an eye on you.  I shall be here in
the panel room."

The knight raised the arras and let it fall again behind him.  There was
the sound of a spring opening; then followed the creaking of trod stairs.

Sir Oliver, left alone, cast a timorous glance upward at the
arras-covered wall, and crossed himself with every appearance of terror
and contrition.

"Nay, if he is in the chapel room," the priest murmured, "were it at my
soul's cost, I must save him."

Three minutes later, Dick, who had been summoned by another messenger,
found Sir Oliver standing by the hall table, resolute and pale.

"Richard Shelton," he said, "ye have required an oath from me.  I might
complain, I might deny you; but my heart is moved toward you for the
past, and I will even content you as ye choose.  By the true cross of
Holywood, I did not slay your father."

"Sir Oliver," returned Dick, "when first we read John Amend-All's paper,
I was convinced of so much.  But suffer me to put two questions.  Ye did
not slay him; granted.  But had ye no hand in it?"

"None," said Sir Oliver.  And at the same time he began to contort his
face, and signal with his mouth and eyebrows, like one who desired to
convey a warning, yet dared not utter a sound.

Dick regarded him in wonder; then he turned and looked all about him at
the empty hall.

"What make ye?" he inquired.

"Why, naught," returned the priest, hastily smoothing his countenance.
"I make naught; I do but suffer; I am sick.  I--I--prithee, Dick, I must
begone.  On the true cross of Holywood, I am clean innocent alike of
violence or treachery.  Content ye, good lad.  Farewell!"

And he made his escape from the apartment with unusual alacrity.

Dick remained rooted to the spot, his eyes wandering about the room, his
face a changing picture of various emotions, wonder, doubt, suspicion,
and amusement.  Gradually, as his mind grew clearer, suspicion took the
upper hand, and was succeeded by certainty of the worst.  He raised his
head, and, as he did so, violently started.  High upon the wall there was
the figure of a savage hunter woven in the tapestry.  With one hand he
held a horn to his mouth; in the other he brandished a stout spear.  His
face was dark, for he was meant to represent an African.

Now, here was what had startled Richard Shelton.  The sun had moved away
from the hall windows, and at the same time the fire had blazed up high
on the wide hearth, and shed a changeful glow upon the roof and hangings.
In this light the figure of the black hunter had winked at him with a
white eyelid.

He continued staring at the eye.  The light shone upon it like a gem; it
was liquid, it was alive.  Again the white eyelid closed upon it for a
fraction of a second, and the next moment it was gone.

There could be no mistake.  The live eye that had been watching him
through a hole in the tapestry was gone.  The firelight no longer shone
on a reflecting surface.

And instantly Dick awoke to the terrors of his position.  Hatch's
warning, the mute signals of the priest, this eye that had observed him
from the wall, ran together in his mind.  He saw he had been put upon his
trial, that he had once more betrayed his suspicions, and that, short of
some miracle, he was lost.

"If I cannot get me forth out of this house," he thought, "I am a dead
man!  And this poor Matcham, too--to what a cockatrice's nest have I not
led him!"

He was still so thinking, when there came one in haste, to bid him help
in changing his arms, his clothing, and his two or three books, to a new
chamber.

"A new chamber?" he repeated.  "Wherefore so?  What chamber?"

"'Tis one above the chapel," answered the messenger.

"It hath stood long empty," said Dick, musing.  "What manner of room is
it?"

"Nay, a brave room," returned the man.  "But yet"--lowering his
voice--"they call it haunted."

"Haunted?" repeated Dick, with a chill.  "I have not heard of it.  Nay,
then, and by whom?"

The messenger looked about him; and then, in a low whisper, "By the
sacrist of St. John's," he said.  "They had him there to sleep one night,
and in the morning--whew!--he was gone.  The devil had taken him, they
said; the more betoken, he had drunk late the night before."

Dick followed the man with black forebodings.



CHAPTER III--THE ROOM OVER THE CHAPEL


From the battlements nothing further was observed.  The sun journeyed
westward, and at last went down; but, to the eyes of all these eager
sentinels, no living thing appeared in the neighbourhood of Tunstall
House.

When the night was at length fairly come, Throgmorton was led to a room
overlooking an angle of the moat.  Thence he was lowered with every
precaution; the ripple of his swimming was audible for a brief period;
then a black figure was observed to land by the branches of a willow and
crawl away among the grass.  For some half hour Sir Daniel and Hatch
stood eagerly giving ear; but all remained quiet.  The messenger had got
away in safety.

Sir Daniel's brow grew clearer.  He turned to Hatch.

"Bennet," he said, "this John Amend-All is no more than a man, ye see.
He sleepeth.  We will make a good end of him, go to!"

All the afternoon and evening, Dick had been ordered hither and thither,
one command following another, till he was bewildered with the number and
the hurry of commissions.  All that time he had seen no more of Sir
Oliver, and nothing of Matcham; and yet both the priest and the young lad
ran continually in his mind.  It was now his chief purpose to escape from
Tunstall Moat House as speedily as might be; and yet, before he went, he
desired a word with both of these.

At length, with a lamp in one hand, he mounted to his new apartment.  It
was large, low, and somewhat dark.  The window looked upon the moat, and
although it was so high up, it was heavily barred.  The bed was
luxurious, with one pillow of down and one of lavender, and a red
coverlet worked in a pattern of roses.  All about the walls were
cupboards, locked and padlocked, and concealed from view by hangings of
dark-coloured arras.  Dick made the round, lifting the arras, sounding
the panels, seeking vainly to open the cupboards.  He assured himself
that the door was strong and the bolt solid; then he set down his lamp
upon a bracket, and once more looked all around.

For what reason had he been given this chamber?  It was larger and finer
than his own.  Could it conceal a snare?  Was there a secret entrance?
Was it, indeed, haunted?  His blood ran a little chilly in his veins.

Immediately over him the heavy foot of a sentry trod the leads.  Below
him, he knew, was the arched roof of the chapel; and next to the chapel
was the hall.  Certainly there was a secret passage in the hall; the eye
that had watched him from the arras gave him proof of that.  Was it not
more than probable that the passage extended to the chapel, and, if so,
that it had an opening in his room?

To sleep in such a place, he felt, would be foolhardy.  He made his
weapons ready, and took his position in a corner of the room behind the
door.  If ill was intended, he would sell his life dear.

The sound of many feet, the challenge, and the password, sounded overhead
along the battlements; the watch was being changed.

And just then there came a scratching at the door of the chamber; it grew
a little louder; then a whisper:

"Dick, Dick, it is I!"

Dick ran to the door, drew the bolt, and admitted Matcham.  He was very
pale, and carried a lamp in one hand and a drawn dagger in the other.

"Shut me the door," he whispered.  "Swift, Dick!  This house is full of
spies; I hear their feet follow me in the corridors; I hear them breathe
behind the arras."

"Well, content you," returned Dick, "it is closed.  We are safe for this
while, if there be safety anywhere within these walls.  But my heart is
glad to see you.  By the mass, lad, I thought ye were sped!  Where hid
ye?"

"It matters not," returned Matcham.  "Since we be met, it matters not.
But, Dick, are your eyes open?  Have they told you of to-morrow's
doings?"

"Not they," replied Dick.  "What make they to-morrow?"

"To-morrow, or to-night, I know not," said the other, "but one time or
other, Dick, they do intend upon your life.  I had the proof of it; I
have heard them whisper; nay, they as good as told me."

"Ay," returned Dick, "is it so?  I had thought as much."

And he told him the day's occurrences at length.

When it was done, Matcham arose and began, in turn, to examine the
apartment.

"No," he said, "there is no entrance visible.  Yet 'tis a pure certainty
there is one.  Dick, I will stay by you.  An y' are to die, I will die
with you.  And I can help--look!  I have stolen a dagger--I will do my
best!  And meanwhile, an ye know of any issue, any sally-port we could
get opened, or any window that we might descend by, I will most joyfully
face any jeopardy to flee with you."

"Jack," said Dick, "by the mass, Jack, y' are the best soul, and the
truest, and the bravest in all England!  Give me your hand, Jack."

And he grasped the other's hand in silence.

"I will tell you," he resumed.  "There is a window, out of which the
messenger descended; the rope should still be in the chamber.  'Tis a
hope."

"Hist!" said Matcham.

Both gave ear.  There was a sound below the floor; then it paused, and
then began again.

"Some one walketh in the room below," whispered Matcham.

"Nay," returned Dick, "there is no room below; we are above the chapel.
It is my murderer in the secret passage.  Well, let him come; it shall go
hard with him;" and he ground his teeth.

"Blow me the lights out," said the other.  "Perchance he will betray
himself."

They blew out both the lamps and lay still as death.  The footfalls
underneath were very soft, but they were clearly audible.  Several times
they came and went; and then there was a loud jar of a key turning in a
lock, followed by a considerable silence.

Presently the steps began again, and then, all of a sudden, a chink of
light appeared in the planking of the room in a far corner.  It widened;
a trap-door was being opened, letting in a gush of light.  They could see
the strong hand pushing it up; and Dick raised his cross-bow, waiting for
the head to follow.

But now there came an interruption.  From a distant corner of the Moat
House shouts began to be heard, and first one voice, and then several,
crying aloud upon a name.  This noise had plainly disconcerted the
murderer, for the trap-door was silently lowered to its place, and the
steps hurriedly returned, passed once more close below the lads, and died
away in the distance.

Here was a moment's respite.  Dick breathed deep, and then, and not till
then, he gave ear to the disturbance which had interrupted the attack,
and which was now rather increasing than diminishing.  All about the Moat
House feet were running, doors were opening and slamming, and still the
voice of Sir Daniel towered above all this bustle, shouting for "Joanna."

"Joanna!" repeated Dick.  "Why, who the murrain should this be?  Here is
no Joanna, nor ever hath been.  What meaneth it?"

Matcham was silent.  He seemed to have drawn further away.  But only a
little faint starlight entered by the window, and at the far end of the
apartment, where the pair were, the darkness was complete.

"Jack," said Dick, "I wot not where ye were all day.  Saw ye this
Joanna?"

"Nay," returned Matcham, "I saw her not."

"Nor heard tell of her?" he pursued.

The steps drew nearer.  Sir Daniel was still roaring the name of Joanna
from the courtyard.

"Did ye hear of her?" repeated Dick.

"I heard of her," said Matcham.

"How your voice twitters!  What aileth you?" said Dick.  "'Tis a most
excellent good fortune, this Joanna; it will take their minds from us."

"Dick," cried Matcham, "I am lost; we are both lost.  Let us flee if
there be yet time.  They will not rest till they have found me.  Or, see!
let me go forth; when they have found me, ye may flee.  Let me forth,
Dick--good Dick, let me away!"

She was groping for the bolt, when Dick at last comprehended.

"By the mass!" he cried, "y' are no Jack; y' are Joanna Sedley; y' are
the maid that would not marry me!"

The girl paused, and stood silent and motionless.  Dick, too, was silent
for a little; then he spoke again.

"Joanna," he said, "y' 'ave saved my life, and I have saved yours; and we
have seen blood flow, and been friends and enemies--ay, and I took my
belt to thrash you; and all that time I thought ye were a boy.  But now
death has me, and my time's out, and before I die I must say this: Y' are
the best maid and the bravest under heaven, and, if only I could live, I
would marry you blithely; and, live or die, I love you."

She answered nothing.

"Come," he said, "speak up, Jack.  Come, be a good maid, and say ye love
me!"

"Why, Dick," she cried, "would I be here?"

"Well, see ye here," continued Dick, "an we but escape whole we'll marry;
and an we're to die, we die, and there's an end on't.  But now that I
think, how found ye my chamber?"

"I asked it of Dame Hatch," she answered.

"Well, the dame's staunch," he answered; "she'll not tell upon you.  We
have time before us."

And just then, as if to contradict his words, feet came down the
corridor, and a fist beat roughly on the door.

"Here!" cried a voice.  "Open, Master Dick; open!"  Dick neither moved
nor answered.

"It is all over," said the girl; and she put her arms about Dick's neck.

One after another, men came trooping to the door.  Then Sir Daniel
arrived himself, and there was a sudden cessation of the noise.

"Dick," cried the knight, "be not an ass.  The Seven Sleepers had been
awake ere now.  We know she is within there.  Open, then, the door, man."

Dick was again silent.

"Down with it," said Sir Daniel.  And immediately his followers fell
savagely upon the door with foot and fist.  Solid as it was, and strongly
bolted, it would soon have given way; but once more fortune interfered.
Over the thunderstorm of blows the cry of a sentinel was heard; it was
followed by another; shouts ran along the battlements, shouts answered
out of the wood.  In the first moment of alarm it sounded as if the
foresters were carrying the Moat House by assault.  And Sir Daniel and
his men, desisting instantly from their attack upon Dick's chamber,
hurried to defend the walls.

"Now," cried Dick, "we are saved."

He seized the great old bedstead with both hands, and bent himself in
vain to move it.

"Help me, Jack.  For your life's sake, help me stoutly!" he cried.

Between them, with a huge effort, they dragged the big frame of oak
across the room, and thrust it endwise to the chamber door.

"Ye do but make things worse," said Joanna, sadly.  "He will then enter
by the trap."

"Not so," replied Dick.  "He durst not tell his secret to so many.  It is
by the trap that we shall flee.  Hark!  The attack is over.  Nay, it was
none!"

It had, indeed, been no attack; it was the arrival of another party of
stragglers from the defeat of Risingham that had disturbed Sir Daniel.
They had run the gauntlet under cover of the darkness; they had been
admitted by the great gate; and now, with a great stamping of hoofs and
jingle of accoutrements and arms, they were dismounting in the court.

"He will return anon," said Dick.  "To the trap!"

He lighted a lamp, and they went together into the corner of the room.
The open chink through which some light still glittered was easily
discovered, and, taking a stout sword from his small armoury, Dick thrust
it deep into the seam, and weighed strenuously on the hilt.  The trap
moved, gaped a little, and at length came widely open.  Seizing it with
their hands, the two young folk threw it back.  It disclosed a few steps
descending, and at the foot of them, where the would-be murderer had left
it, a burning lamp.

"Now," said Dick, "go first and take the lamp.  I will follow to close
the trap."

So they descended one after the other, and as Dick lowered the trap, the
blows began once again to thunder on the panels of the door.



CHAPTER IV--THE PASSAGE


The passage in which Dick and Joanna now found themselves was narrow,
dirty, and short.  At the other end of it, a door stood partly open; the
same door, without doubt, that they had heard the man unlocking.  Heavy
cobwebs hung from the roof; and the paved flooring echoed hollow under
the lightest tread.

Beyond the door there were two branches, at right angles.  Dick chose one
of them at random, and the pair hurried, with echoing footsteps, along
the hollow of the chapel roof.  The top of the arched ceiling rose like a
whale's back in the dim glimmer of the lamp.  Here and there were
spyholes, concealed, on the other side, by the carving of the cornice;
and looking down through one of these, Dick saw the paved floor of the
chapel--the altar, with its burning tapers--and stretched before it on
the steps, the figure of Sir Oliver praying with uplifted hands.

At the other end, they descended a few steps.  The passage grew narrower;
the wall upon one hand was now of wood; the noise of people talking, and
a faint flickering of lights, came through the interstices; and presently
they came to a round hole about the size of a man's eye, and Dick,
looking down through it, beheld the interior of the hall, and some half a
dozen men sitting, in their jacks, about the table, drinking deep and
demolishing a venison pie.  These were certainly some of the late
arrivals.

"Here is no help," said Dick.  "Let us try back."

"Nay," said Joanna; "maybe the passage goeth farther."

And she pushed on.  But a few yards farther the passage ended at the top
of a short flight of steps; and it became plain that, as long as the
soldiers occupied the hall, escape was impossible upon that side.

They retraced their steps with all imaginable speed, and set forward to
explore the other branch.  It was exceedingly narrow, scarce wide enough
for a large man; and it led them continually up and down by little
break-neck stairs, until even Dick had lost all notion of his
whereabouts.

At length it grew both narrower and lower; the stairs continued to
descend; the walls on either hand became damp and slimy to the touch; and
far in front of them they heard the squeaking and scuttling of the rats.

"We must be in the dungeons," Dick remarked.

"And still there is no outlet," added Joanna.

"Nay, but an outlet there must be!" Dick answered.  Presently, sure
enough, they came to a sharp angle, and then the passage ended in a
flight of steps.  On the top of that there was a solid flag of stone by
way of trap, and to this they both set their backs.  It was immovable.
"Some one holdeth it," suggested Joanna.

"Not so," said Dick; "for were a man strong as ten, he must still yield a
little.  But this resisteth like dead rock.  There is a weight upon the
trap.  Here is no issue; and, by my sooth, good Jack, we are here as
fairly prisoners as though the gyves were on our ankle bones.  Sit ye
then down, and let us talk.  After a while we shall return, when
perchance they shall be less carefully upon their guard; and, who
knoweth? we may break out and stand a chance.  But, in my poor opinion,
we are as good as shent."

"Dick!" she cried, "alas the day that ever ye should have seen me!  For
like a most unhappy and unthankful maid, it is I have led you hither."

"What cheer!" returned Dick.  "It was all written, and that which is
written, willy nilly, cometh still to pass.  But tell me a little what
manner of a maid ye are, and how ye came into Sir Daniel's hands; that
will do better than to bemoan yourself, whether for your sake or mine."

"I am an orphan, like yourself, of father and mother," said Joanna; "and
for my great misfortune, Dick, and hitherto for yours, I am a rich
marriage.  My Lord Foxham had me to ward; yet it appears Sir Daniel
bought the marriage of me from the king, and a right dear price he paid
for it.  So here was I, poor babe, with two great and rich men fighting
which should marry me, and I still at nurse!  Well, then the world
changed, and there was a new chancellor, and Sir Daniel bought the
warding of me over the Lord Foxham's head.  And then the world changed
again, and Lord Foxham bought my marriage over Sir Daniel's; and from
then to now it went on ill betwixt the two of them.  But still Lord
Foxham kept me in his hands, and was a good lord to me.  And at last I
was to be married--or sold, if ye like it better.  Five hundred pounds
Lord Foxham was to get for me.  Hamley was the groom's name, and
to-morrow, Dick, of all days in the year, was I to be betrothed.  Had it
not come to Sir Daniel, I had been wedded, sure--and never seen thee,
Dick--dear Dick!"

And here she took his hand, and kissed it, with the prettiest grace; and
Dick drew her hand to him and did the like.

"Well," she went on, "Sir Daniel took me unawares in the garden, and made
me dress in these men's clothes, which is a deadly sin for a woman; and,
besides, they fit me not.  He rode with me to Kettley, as ye saw, telling
me I was to marry you; but I, in my heart, made sure I would marry Hamley
in his teeth."

"Ay!" cried Dick, "and so ye loved this Hamley!"

"Nay," replied Joanna, "not I.  I did but hate Sir Daniel.  And then,
Dick, ye helped me, and ye were right kind, and very bold, and my heart
turned towards you in mine own despite; and now, if we can in any way
compass it, I would marry you with right goodwill.  And if, by cruel
destiny, it may not be, still ye'll be dear to me.  While my heart beats,
it'll be true to you."

"And I," said Dick, "that never cared a straw for any manner of woman
until now, I took to you when I thought ye were a boy.  I had a pity to
you, and knew not why.  When I would have belted you, the hand failed me.
But when ye owned ye were a maid, Jack--for still I will call you Jack--I
made sure ye were the maid for me.  Hark!" he said, breaking off--"one
cometh."

And indeed a heavy tread was now audible in the echoing passage, and the
rats again fled in armies.

Dick reconnoitred his position.  The sudden turn gave him a post of
vantage.  He could thus shoot in safety from the cover of the wall.  But
it was plain the light was too near him, and, running some way forward,
he set down the lamp in the middle of the passage, and then returned to
watch.

Presently, at the far end of the passage, Bennet hove in sight.  He
seemed to be alone, and he carried in his hand a burning torch, which
made him the better mark.

"Stand, Bennet!" cried Dick.  "Another step, and y' are dead."

"So here ye are," returned Hatch, peering forward into the darkness.  "I
see you not.  Aha! y' 'ave done wisely, Dick; y' 'ave put your lamp
before you.  By my sooth, but, though it was done to shoot my own knave
body, I do rejoice to see ye profit of my lessons!  And now, what make
ye? what seek ye here?  Why would ye shoot upon an old, kind friend?  And
have ye the young gentlewoman there?"

"Nay, Bennet, it is I should question and you answer," replied Dick.
"Why am I in this jeopardy of my life?  Why do men come privily to slay
me in my bed?  Why am I now fleeing in mine own guardian's strong house,
and from the friends that I have lived among and never injured?"

"Master Dick, Master Dick," said Bennet, "what told I you?  Y' are brave,
but the most uncrafty lad that I can think upon!"

"Well," returned Dick, "I see ye know all, and that I am doomed indeed.
It is well.  Here, where I am, I stay.  Let Sir Daniel get me out if he
be able!"

Hatch was silent for a space.

"Hark ye," he began, "return to Sir Daniel, to tell him where ye are, and
how posted; for, in truth, it was to that end he sent me.  But you, if ye
are no fool, had best be gone ere I return."

"Begone!" repeated Dick.  "I would be gone already, an' I wist how.  I
cannot move the trap."

"Put me your hand into the corner, and see what ye find there," replied
Bennet.  "Throgmorton's rope is still in the brown chamber.  Fare ye
well."

And Hatch, turning upon his heel, disappeared again into the windings of
the passage.

Dick instantly returned for his lamp, and proceeded to act upon the hint.
At one corner of the trap there was a deep cavity in the wall.  Pushing
his arm into the aperture, Dick found an iron bar, which he thrust
vigorously upwards.  There followed a snapping noise, and the slab of
stone instantly started in its bed.

They were free of the passage.  A little exercise of strength easily
raised the trap; and they came forth into a vaulted chamber, opening on
one hand upon the court, where one or two fellows, with bare arms, were
rubbing down the horses of the last arrivals.  A torch or two, each stuck
in an iron ring against the wall, changefully lit up the scene.



CHAPTER V--HOW DICK CHANGED SIDES


Dick, blowing out his lamp lest it should attract attention, led the way
up-stairs and along the corridor.  In the brown chamber the rope had been
made fast to the frame of an exceeding heavy and ancient bed.  It had not
been detached, and Dick, taking the coil to the window, began to lower it
slowly and cautiously into the darkness of the night.  Joan stood by; but
as the rope lengthened, and still Dick continued to pay it out, extreme
fear began to conquer her resolution.

"Dick," she said, "is it so deep?  I may not essay it. I should
infallibly fall, good Dick."

It was just at the delicate moment of the operations that she spoke.
Dick started; the remainder of the coil slipped from his grasp, and the
end fell with a splash into the moat.  Instantly, from the battlement
above, the voice of a sentinel cried, "Who goes?"

"A murrain!" cried Dick.  "We are paid now!  Down with you--take the
rope."

"I cannot," she cried, recoiling.

"An ye cannot, no more can I," said Shelton.  "How can I swim the moat
without you?  Do you desert me, then?"

"Dick," she gasped, "I cannot.  The strength is gone from me."

"By the mass, then, we are all shent!" he shouted, stamping with his
foot; and then, hearing steps, he ran to the room door and sought to
close it.

Before he could shoot the bolt, strong arms were thrusting it back upon
him from the other side.  He struggled for a second; then, feeling
himself overpowered, ran back to the window.  The girl had fallen against
the wall in the embrasure of the window; she was more than half
insensible; and when he tried to raise her in his arms, her body was limp
and unresponsive.

At the same moment the men who had forced the door against him laid hold
upon him.  The first he poinarded at a blow, and the others falling back
for a second in some disorder, he profited by the chance, bestrode the
window-sill, seized the cord in both hands, and let his body slip.

The cord was knotted, which made it the easier to descend; but so furious
was Dick's hurry, and so small his experience of such gymnastics, that he
span round and round in mid-air like a criminal upon a gibbet, and now
beat his head, and now bruised his hands, against the rugged stonework of
the wall.  The air roared in his ears; he saw the stars overhead, and the
reflected stars below him in the moat, whirling like dead leaves before
the tempest.  And then he lost hold, and fell, and soused head over ears
into the icy water.

When he came to the surface his hand encountered the rope, which, newly
lightened of his weight, was swinging wildly to and fro.  There was a red
glow overhead, and looking up, he saw, by the light of several torches
and a cresset full of burning coals, the battlements lined with faces.
He saw the men's eyes turning hither and thither in quest of him; but he
was too far below, the light reached him not, and they looked in vain.

And now he perceived that the rope was considerably too long, and he
began to struggle as well as he could towards the other side of the moat,
still keeping his head above water.  In this way he got much more than
halfway over; indeed the bank was almost within reach, before the rope
began to draw him back by its own weight.  Taking his courage in both
hands, he left go and made a leap for the trailing sprays of willow that
had already, that same evening, helped Sir Daniel's messenger to land.
He went down, rose again, sank a second time, and then his hand caught a
branch, and with the speed of thought he had dragged himself into the
thick of the tree and clung there, dripping and panting, and still half
uncertain of his escape.

But all this had not been done without a considerable splashing, which
had so far indicated his position to the men along the battlements.
Arrows and quarrels fell thick around him in the darkness, thick like
driving hail; and suddenly a torch was thrown down--flared through the
air in its swift passage--stuck for a moment on the edge of the bank,
where it burned high and lit up its whole surroundings like a
bonfire--and then, in a good hour for Dick, slipped off, plumped into the
moat, and was instantly extinguished.

It had served its purpose.  The marksmen had had time to see the willow,
and Dick ensconced among its boughs; and though the lad instantly sprang
higher up the bank, and ran for his life, he was yet not quick enough to
escape a shot.  An arrow struck him in the shoulder, another grazed his
head.

The pain of his wounds lent him wings; and he had no sooner got upon the
level than he took to his heels and ran straight before him in the dark,
without a thought for the direction of his flight.

For a few steps missiles followed him, but these soon ceased; and when at
length he came to a halt and looked behind, he was already a good way
from the Moat House, though he could still see the torches moving to and
fro along its battlements.

He leaned against a tree, streaming with blood and water, bruised,
wounded, alone, and unarmed.  For all that, he had saved his life for
that bout; and though Joanna remained behind in the power of Sir Daniel,
he neither blamed himself for an accident that it had been beyond his
power to prevent, nor did he augur any fatal consequences to the girl
herself.  Sir Daniel was cruel, but he was not likely to be cruel to a
young gentlewoman who had other protectors, willing and able to bring him
to account.  It was more probable he would make haste to marry her to
some friend of his own.

"Well," thought Dick, "between then and now I will find me the means to
bring that traitor under; for I think, by the mass, that I be now
absolved from any gratitude or obligation; and when war is open, there is
a fair chance for all."

In the meanwhile, here he was in a sore plight.

For some little way farther he struggled forward through the forest; but
what with the pain of his wounds, the darkness of the night, and the
extreme uneasiness and confusion of his mind, he soon became equally
unable to guide himself or to continue to push through the close
undergrowth, and he was fain at length to sit down and lean his back
against a tree.

When he awoke from something betwixt sleep and swooning, the grey of the
morning had begun to take the place of night.  A little chilly breeze was
bustling among the trees, and as he still sat staring before him, only
half awake, he became aware of something dark that swung to and fro among
the branches, some hundred yards in front of him.  The progressive
brightening of the day and the return of his own senses at last enabled
him to recognise the object.  It was a man hanging from the bough of a
tall oak.  His head had fallen forward on his breast; but at every
stronger puff of wind his body span round and round, and his legs and
arms tossed, like some ridiculous plaything.

Dick clambered to his feet, and, staggering and leaning on the
tree-trunks as he went, drew near to this grim object.

The bough was perhaps twenty feet above the ground, and the poor fellow
had been drawn up so high by his executioners that his boots swung clear
above Dick's reach; and as his hood had been drawn over his face, it was
impossible to recognise the man.

Dick looked about him right and left; and at last he perceived that the
other end of the cord had been made fast to the trunk of a little
hawthorn which grew, thick with blossom, under the lofty arcade of the
oak.  With his dagger, which alone remained to him of all his arms, young
Shelton severed the rope, and instantly, with a dead thump, the corpse
fell in a heap upon the ground.

Dick raised the hood; it was Throgmorton, Sir Daniel's messenger.  He had
not gone far upon his errand.  A paper, which had apparently escaped the
notice of the men of the Black Arrow, stuck from the bosom of his
doublet, and Dick, pulling it forth, found it was Sir Daniel's letter to
Lord Wensleydale.

"Come," thought he, "if the world changes yet again, I may have here the
wherewithal to shame Sir Daniel--nay, and perchance to bring him to the
block."

And he put the paper in his own bosom, said a prayer over the dead man,
and set forth again through the woods.

His fatigue and weakness increased; his ears sang, his steps faltered,
his mind at intervals failed him, so low had he been brought by loss of
blood.  Doubtless he made many deviations from his true path, but at last
he came out upon the high-road, not very far from Tunstall hamlet.

A rough voice bid him stand.

"Stand?" repeated Dick.  "By the mass, but I am nearer falling."

And he suited the action to the word, and fell all his length upon the
road.

Two men came forth out of the thicket, each in green forest jerkin, each
with long-bow and quiver and short sword.

"Why, Lawless," said the younger of the two, "it is young Shelton."

"Ay, this will be as good as bread to John Amend-All," returned the
other.  "Though, faith, he hath been to the wars.  Here is a tear in his
scalp that must 'a' cost him many a good ounce of blood."

"And here," added Greensheve, "is a hole in his shoulder that must have
pricked him well.  Who hath done this, think ye?  If it be one of ours,
he may all to prayer; Ellis will give him a short shrift and a long
rope."

"Up with the cub," said Lawless.  "Clap him on my back."

And then, when Dick had been hoisted to his shoulders, and he had taken
the lad's arms about his neck, and got a firm hold of him, the ex-Grey
Friar added:

"Keep ye the post, brother Greensheve.  I will on with him by myself."

So Greensheve returned to his ambush on the wayside, and Lawless trudged
down the hill, whistling as he went, with Dick, still in a dead faint,
comfortably settled on his shoulders.

The sun rose as he came out of the skirts of the wood and saw Tunstall
hamlet straggling up the opposite hill.  All seemed quiet, but a strong
post of some half a score of archers lay close by the bridge on either
side of the road, and, as soon as they perceived Lawless with his
burthen, began to bestir themselves and set arrow to string like vigilant
sentries.

"Who goes?" cried the man in command.

"Will Lawless, by the rood--ye know me as well as your own hand,"
returned the outlaw, contemptuously.

"Give the word, Lawless," returned the other.

"Now, Heaven lighten thee, thou great fool," replied Lawless.  "Did I not
tell it thee myself?  But ye are all mad for this playing at soldiers.
When I am in the greenwood, give me greenwood ways; and my word for this
tide is: 'A fig for all mock soldiery!'"

"Lawless, ye but show an ill example; give us the word, fool jester,"
said the commander of the post.

"And if I had forgotten it?" asked the other.

"An ye had forgotten it--as I know y' 'ave not--by the mass, I would clap
an arrow into your big body," returned the first.

"Nay, an y' are so ill a jester," said Lawless, "ye shall have your word
for me.  'Duckworth and Shelton' is the word; and here, to the
illustration, is Shelton on my shoulders, and to Duckworth do I carry
him."

"Pass, Lawless," said the sentry.

"And where is John?" asked the Grey Friar.

"He holdeth a court, by the mass, and taketh rents as to the manner
born!" cried another of the company.

So it proved.  When Lawless got as far up the village as the little inn,
he found Ellis Duckworth surrounded by Sir Daniel's tenants, and, by the
right of his good company of archers, coolly taking rents, and giving
written receipts in return for them.  By the faces of the tenants, it was
plain how little this proceeding pleased them; for they argued very
rightly that they would simply have to pay them twice.

As soon as he knew what had brought Lawless, Ellis dismissed the
remainder of the tenants, and, with every mark of interest and
apprehension, conducted Dick into an inner chamber of the inn.  There the
lad's hurts were looked to; and he was recalled, by simple remedies, to
consciousness.

"Dear lad," said Ellis, pressing his hand, "y' are in a friend's hands
that loved your father, and loves you for his sake.  Rest ye a little
quietly, for ye are somewhat out of case.  Then shall ye tell me your
story, and betwixt the two of us we shall find a remedy for all."

A little later in the day, and after Dick had awakened from a comfortable
slumber to find himself still very weak, but clearer in mind and easier
in body, Ellis returned, and sitting down by the bedside, begged him, in
the name of his father, to relate the circumstance of his escape from
Tunstall Moat House.  There was something in the strength of Duckworth's
frame, in the honesty of his brown face, in the clearness and shrewdness
of his eyes, that moved Dick to obey him; and from first to last the lad
told him the story of his two days' adventures.

"Well," said Ellis, when he had done, "see what the kind saints have done
for you, Dick Shelton, not alone to save your body in so numerous and
deadly perils, but to bring you into my hands that have no dearer wish
than to assist your father's son.  Be but true to me--and I see y' are
true--and betwixt you and me, we shall bring that false-heart traitor to
the death."

"Will ye assault the house?" asked Dick.

"I were mad, indeed, to think of it," returned Ellis.  "He hath too much
power; his men gather to him; those that gave me the slip last night, and
by the mass came in so handily for you--those have made him safe.  Nay,
Dick, to the contrary, thou and I and my brave bowmen, we must all slip
from this forest speedily, and leave Sir Daniel free."

"My mind misgiveth me for Jack," said the lad.

"For Jack!" repeated Duckworth.  "O, I see, for the wench!  Nay, Dick, I
promise you, if there come talk of any marriage we shall act at once;
till then, or till the time is ripe, we shall all disappear, even like
shadows at morning; Sir Daniel shall look east and west, and see none
enemies; he shall think, by the mass, that he hath dreamed awhile, and
hath now awakened in his bed.  But our four eyes, Dick, shall follow him
right close, and our four hands--so help us all the army of the
saints!--shall bring that traitor low!"

Two days later Sir Daniel's garrison had grown to such a strength that he
ventured on a sally, and at the head of some two score horsemen, pushed
without opposition as far as Tunstall hamlet.  Not an arrow flew, not a
man stirred in the thicket; the bridge was no longer guarded, but stood
open to all corners; and as Sir Daniel crossed it, he saw the villagers
looking timidly from their doors.

Presently one of them, taking heart of grace, came forward, and with the
lowliest salutations, presented a letter to the knight.

His face darkened as he read the contents.  It ran thus:

    _To the most untrue and cruel gentylman_, _Sir Daniel Brackley_,
    _Knyght_, _These_:

    I fynde ye were untrue and unkynd fro the first.  Ye have my father's
    blood upon your hands; let be, it will not wasshe.  Some day ye shall
    perish by my procurement, so much I let you to wytte; and I let you
    to wytte farther, that if ye seek to wed to any other the
    gentylwoman, Mistresse Joan Sedley, whom that I am bound upon a great
    oath to wed myself, the blow will be very swift.  The first step
    therinne will be thy first step to the grave.

                                                             RIC. SHELTON.




BOOK III--MY LORD FOXHAM


CHAPTER I--THE HOUSE BY THE SHORE


Months had passed away since Richard Shelton made his escape from the
hands of his guardian.  These months had been eventful for England.  The
party of Lancaster, which was then in the very article of death, had once
more raised its head.  The Yorkists defeated and dispersed, their leader
butchered on the field, it seemed,--for a very brief season in the winter
following upon the events already recorded, as if the House of Lancaster
had finally triumphed over its foes.

The small town of Shoreby-on-the-Till was full of the Lancastrian nobles
of the neighbourhood.  Earl Risingham was there, with three hundred
men-at-arms; Lord Shoreby, with two hundred; Sir Daniel himself, high in
favour and once more growing rich on confiscations, lay in a house of his
own, on the main street, with three-score men.  The world had changed
indeed.

It was a black, bitter cold evening in the first week of January, with a
hard frost, a high wind, and every likelihood of snow before the morning.

In an obscure alehouse in a by-street near the harbour, three or four men
sat drinking ale and eating a hasty mess of eggs.  They were all likely,
lusty, weather-beaten fellows, hard of hand, bold of eye; and though they
wore plain tabards, like country ploughmen, even a drunken soldier might
have looked twice before he sought a quarrel in such company.

A little apart before the huge fire sat a younger man, almost a boy,
dressed in much the same fashion, though it was easy to see by his looks
that he was better born, and might have worn a sword, had the time
suited.

"Nay," said one of the men at the table, "I like it not.  Ill will come
of it.  This is no place for jolly fellows.  A jolly fellow loveth open
country, good cover, and scarce foes; but here we are shut in a town,
girt about with enemies; and, for the bull's-eye of misfortune, see if it
snow not ere the morning."

"'Tis for Master Shelton there," said another, nodding his head towards
the lad before the fire.

"I will do much for Master Shelton," returned the first; "but to come to
the gallows for any man--nay, brothers, not that!"

The door of the inn opened, and another man entered hastily and
approached the youth before the fire.

"Master Shelton," he said, "Sir Daniel goeth forth with a pair of links
and four archers."

Dick (for this was our young friend) rose instantly to his feet.

"Lawless," he said, "ye will take John Capper's watch.  Greensheve,
follow with me.  Capper, lead forward.  We will follow him this time, an
he go to York."

The next moment they were outside in the dark street, and Capper, the man
who had just come, pointed to where two torches flared in the wind at a
little distance.

The town was already sound asleep; no one moved upon the streets, and
there was nothing easier than to follow the party without observation.
The two link-bearers went first; next followed a single man, whose long
cloak blew about him in the wind; and the rear was brought up by the four
archers, each with his bow upon his arm.  They moved at a brisk walk,
threading the intricate lanes and drawing nearer to the shore.

"He hath gone each night in this direction?" asked Dick, in a whisper.

"This is the third night running, Master Shelton," returned Capper, "and
still at the same hour and with the same small following, as though his
end were secret."

Sir Daniel and his six men were now come to the outskirts of the country.
Shoreby was an open town, and though the Lancastrian lords who lay there
kept a strong guard on the main roads, it was still possible to enter or
depart unseen by any of the lesser streets or across the open country.

The lane which Sir Daniel had been following came to an abrupt end.
Before him there was a stretch of rough down, and the noise of the
sea-surf was audible upon one hand.  There were no guards in the
neighbourhood, nor any light in that quarter of the town.

Dick and his two outlaws drew a little closer to the object of their
chase, and presently, as they came forth from between the houses and
could see a little farther upon either hand, they were aware of another
torch drawing near from another direction.

"Hey," said Dick, "I smell treason."

Meanwhile, Sir Daniel had come to a full halt.  The torches were stuck
into the sand, and the men lay down, as if to await the arrival of the
other party.

This drew near at a good rate.  It consisted of four men only--a pair of
archers, a varlet with a link, and a cloaked gentleman walking in their
midst.

"Is it you, my lord?" cried Sir Daniel.

"It is I, indeed; and if ever true knight gave proof I am that man,"
replied the leader of the second troop; "for who would not rather face
giants, sorcerers, or pagans, than this pinching cold?"

"My lord," returned Sir Daniel, "beauty will be the more beholden,
misdoubt it not.  But shall we forth? for the sooner ye have seen my
merchandise, the sooner shall we both get home."

"But why keep ye her here, good knight?" inquired the other.  "An she be
so young, and so fair, and so wealthy, why do ye not bring her forth
among her mates?  Ye would soon make her a good marriage, and no need to
freeze your fingers and risk arrow-shots by going abroad at such untimely
seasons in the dark."

"I have told you, my lord," replied Sir Daniel, "the reason thereof
concerneth me only.  Neither do I purpose to explain it farther.  Suffice
it, that if ye be weary of your old gossip, Daniel Brackley, publish it
abroad that y' are to wed Joanna Sedley, and I give you my word ye will
be quit of him right soon.  Ye will find him with an arrow in his back."

Meantime the two gentlemen were walking briskly forward over the down;
the three torches going before them, stooping against the wind and
scattering clouds of smoke and tufts of flame, and the rear brought up by
the six archers.

Close upon the heels of these, Dick followed.  He had, of course, heard
no word of this conversation; but he had recognised in the second of the
speakers old Lord Shoreby himself, a man of an infamous reputation, whom
even Sir Daniel affected, in public, to condemn.

Presently they came close down upon the beach.  The air smelt salt; the
noise of the surf increased; and here, in a large walled garden, there
stood a small house of two storeys, with stables and other offices.

The foremost torch-bearer unlocked a door in the wall, and after the
whole party had passed into the garden, again closed and locked it on the
other side.

Dick and his men were thus excluded from any farther following, unless
they should scale the wall and thus put their necks in a trap.

They sat down in a tuft of furze and waited.  The red glow of the torches
moved up and down and to and fro within the enclosure, as if the link
bearers steadily patrolled the garden.

Twenty minutes passed, and then the whole party issued forth again upon
the down; and Sir Daniel and the baron, after an elaborate salutation,
separated and turned severally homeward, each with his own following of
men and lights.

As soon as the sound of their steps had been swallowed by the wind, Dick
got to his feet as briskly as he was able, for he was stiff and aching
with the cold.

"Capper, ye will give me a back up," he said.

They advanced, all three, to the wall; Capper stooped, and Dick, getting
upon his shoulders, clambered on to the cope-stone.

"Now, Greensheve," whispered Dick, "follow me up here; lie flat upon your
face, that ye may be the less seen; and be ever ready to give me a hand
if I fall foully on the other side."

And so saying he dropped into the garden.

It was all pitch dark; there was no light in the house.  The wind
whistled shrill among the poor shrubs, and the surf beat upon the beach;
there was no other sound.  Cautiously Dick footed it forth, stumbling
among bushes, and groping with his hands; and presently the crisp noise
of gravel underfoot told him that he had struck upon an alley.

Here he paused, and taking his crossbow from where he kept it concealed
under his long tabard, he prepared it for instant action, and went
forward once more with greater resolution and assurance.  The path led
him straight to the group of buildings.

All seemed to be sorely dilapidated: the windows of the house were
secure

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