The Black Arrow

Prologue John Amend-All

On a certain afternoon, in the late springtime, the bell upon Tunstall Moat House was heard ringing at an unaccustomed hour. Far and near, in the forest and in the fields along the river, people began to desert their labours and hurry towards the sound; and in Tunstall hamlet a group of poor countryfolk stood wondering at the summons.

Tunstall hamlet at that period, in the reign of old King Henry VI, wore much the same appearance as it wears today. A score or so of houses, heavily framed with oak, stood scattered in a long green valley ascending from the river. At the foot, the road crossed a bridge, and mounting on the other side, disappeared into the fringes of the forest on its way to the Moat House, and further forth to Holywood Abbey. Halfway up the village, the church stood among yews. On every side the slopes were crowned and the view bounded by the green elms and greening oak-trees of the forest.

Hard by the bridge, there was a stone cross upon a knoll, and here the group had collected⁠—half-a-dozen women and one tall fellow in a russet smock⁠—discussing what the bell betided. An express had gone through the hamlet half an hour before, and drunk a pot of ale in the saddle, not daring to dismount for the hurry of his errand; but he had been ignorant himself of what was forward, and only bore sealed letters from Sir Daniel Brackley to Sir Oliver Oates, the parson, who kept the Moat House in the master’s absence.

The veteran continued looking up the hill in silence. The sun shone broadly over the shelving meadows; a few white 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 bowman.

They were by that time at the mouth of the creek, and the view opened up and down the river. Everywhere it was enclosed with islands. Clay banks were falling in, willows nodding, reeds waving, martens dipping and piping. There was no sign of man in the labyrinth of waters.

“My master,” said the ferryman, keeping the boat steady with one oar, “I have a shrew guess that John-a-Fenne is on the island. He bears me a black grudge to all Sir Daniel’s. How if I turned me up stream and landed you an arrow-flight above the path? Ye were best not meddle with John Fenne.”

“How, then, is he of this company?” asked Dick.

“Nay, mum is the word,” said Hugh. “But I would go up water, Dick. How if Master Matcham came by an arrow?” and he laughed again.

“Be it so, Hugh,” answered Dick.

“Look ye, then,” pursued Hugh. “Sith it shall so be, unsling me your crossbow⁠—so: now make it ready⁠—good; place me a quarrel. Ay, keep it so, and look upon me grimly.”

“What meaneth this?” asked Dick.

“Why, my master, if I steal you across, it must be under force or fear,” replied the ferryman; “for else, if John Fenne got wind of it, he were like to prove my most distressful neighbour.”

“Do these churls ride so roughly?” Dick inquired. “Do they command Sir Daniel’s own ferry?”

“Nay,” whispered the ferryman, winking. “Mark me! Sir Daniel shall down. His time is out. He shall down. Mum!” And he bent over his oars.

They were now on the edge of the pit; and as the pit itself was on a certain eminence, they commanded a view over the greater proportion of the clearing, up to the thick woods that closed it in.

The daylight, which was very clear and grey, showed them a ribbon of white footpath wandering among the gorse. It passed some hundred yards from the pit, and ran the whole length of the clearing, east and west. By the line of its course, Dick judged it should lead more or less directly to the Moat House.

Upon this path, stepping forth from the margin of the wood, a white figure now appeared. It paused a little, and seemed to look about; and then, at a slow pace, and bent almost double, it began to draw near across the heath. At every step the bell clanked. Face, it had none; a white hood, not even pierced with eye-holes, veiled the head; and as the creature moved, it seemed to feel its way with the tapping of a stick. Fear fell upon the lads, as cold as death.

“A leper!” said Dick, hoarsely.

“His touch is death,” said Matcham. “Let us run.”

“Not so,” returned Dick. “See ye not?⁠—he is stone blind. He guideth him with a staff. Let us lie still; the wind bloweth towards the path, and he will go by and hurt us not. Alas, poor soul, and we should rather pity him!”

“I will pity him when he is by,” replied Matcham.

With a sigh of great contentment, Lawless spread his broad hands before the fire, and seemed to breathe the smoke.

“Here, then,” he said, “is this old Lawless’s rabbit-hole; pray Heaven there come no terrier! Far I have rolled hither and thither, and here and about, since that I was fourteen years of mine age and first ran away from mine abbey, with the sacrist’s gold chain and a mass-book that I sold for four marks. I have been in England and France and Burgundy, and in Spain, too, on a pilgrimage for my poor soul; and upon the sea, which is no man’s country. But here is my place, Master Shelton. This is my native land, this burrow in the earth! Come rain or wind⁠—and whether it’s April, and the birds all sing, and the blossoms fall about my bed⁠—or whether it’s winter, and I sit alone with my good gossip the fire, and robin redbreast twitters in the woods⁠—here, is my church and market, and my wife and child. It’s here I come back to, and it’s here, so please the saints, that I would like to die.”

“ ’Tis a warm corner, to be sure,” replied Dick, “and a pleasant, and a well hid.”

“It had need to be,” returned Lawless, “for an they found it, Master Shelton, it would break my heart. But here,” he added, burrowing with his stout fingers in the sandy floor, “here is my wine cellar; and ye shall have a flask of excellent strong stingo.”

Sure enough, after but a little digging, he produced a big leathern bottle of about a gallon, nearly three-parts full of a very heady and sweet wine; and when