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.

[Illustration: _Lastly, a little before dawn, a spearman had come
staggering to the moat side, pierced by arrows_]

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 pallor 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, cryin