The Black Arrow | Page 5

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