e 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? St. 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 bow-man. See ye here: if there was a
stout fellow yonder in the wood-edge, and you and I stood fair for
him--as, by St. 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 thr