n-handed to reward. And if he spare not the
blood and sweat of others, he is ever liberal of his own, still in the
first front of battle, still the last to sleep. He will go far, will
Crookback Dick o' Gloucester!"

The young knight, if he had before been brave and vigilant, was now all
the more inclined to watchfulness and courage. His sudden favour, he
began to perceive, had brought perils in its train. And he turned from
the archer, and once more scanned anxiously the market-place. It lay
empty as before.

"I like not this quietude," he said. "Doubtless they prepare us some
surprise."

And, as if in answer to his remark, the archers began once more to
advance against the barricade, and the arrows to fall thick. But there
was something hesitating in the attack. They came not on roundly, but
seemed rather to await a further signal.

Dick looked uneasily about him, spying for a hidden danger. And sure
enough, about half-way up the little street, a door was suddenly opened
from within, and the house continued, for some seconds, and both by
door and window, to disgorge a torrent of Lancastrian archers. These, as
they leaped down, hurriedly stood to their ranks, bent their bows, and
proceeded to pour upon Dick's rear a flight of arrows.

At the same time, the assailants in the market-place redoubled their
shot, and began to close in stoutly upon the barricade.

Dick called down his whole command out of the houses, and facing them
both ways, and encouraging their valour both by word and gesture,
returned as best he could the double shower of shafts that fell about
his post.

Meanwhile house after house was opened in the street, and the
Lancastrians continued to pour out of the doors and leap down from the
windows, shouting victory, until the number of enemies upon Dick's rear
was almost equal to the number in his face. It was plain that he could
hold the post no longer; what was worse, even if he could have held it,
it had now become useless; and the whole Yorkist army lay in a posture
of helplessness upon the brink of a complete disaster.

The men behind him formed the vital flaw in the general defence; and it
was upon these that Dick turned, charging at the head of his men. So
vigorous was the attack that the Lancastrian archers gave ground and
staggered, and, at last, breaking their ranks, began to crowd back into
the houses from which they had so recently and so vaingloriously
sallied.

Meanwhile the men fro