rfulness. "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