The Black Arrow quotes

“It is the ruin of this kind land,” a woman said. “

If the barons live at war, ploughfolk must eat roots.

”

“Ay,” returned Clipsby, “you, nor no man.

For, indeed, he is one that goes to bed Lancaster and gets up York.

”

“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!”

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.”

“Nick had money,” he said. “He may have had threescore pounds put by. I would I could light upon’t!

When ye lose an old friend, Master Richard, the best consolation is to heir him.

See, now, this chest. I would go a mighty wager there is a bushel of gold therein. He had a strong hand to get, and a hard hand to keep withal, had Appleyard the archer. Now may God rest his spirit!

… now, since ye go to the great wars about the king, and I continue to dwell here in extreme jeopardy of my life, and the saints alone can certify if we shall meet again below, I give you my last counsels now at your riding.

Keep an eye on Sir Daniel; he is unsure.

Put not your trust in the jack-priest; he intendeth not amiss, but doth the will of others; it is a handgun for Sir Daniel! Get your good lordship where ye go; make you strong friends; look to it.

“How say you? Sore bested?” returned the knight. “Nay, then, we will make speed sitting down, good Richard.

As the world goes in this poor realm of England, he that rides softliest rides surest.

Delay, they say, begetteth peril; but it is rather this itch of doing that undoes men; mark it, Dick. But let me see, first, what cattle ye have brought. Selden, a link here at the door!”

“How say you? Sore bested?” returned the knight. “Nay, then, we will make speed sitting down, good Richard. As the world goes in this poor realm of England, he that rides softliest rides surest.

Delay, they say, begetteth peril; but it is rather this itch of doing that undoes men; mark it, Dick.

But let me see, first, what cattle ye have brought. Selden, a link here at the door!”

Cry not on cowardice; it is but wisdom, Dick; for this poor realm so tosseth with rebellion, and the king’s name and custody so changeth hands, that no man may be certain of the morrow.

Toss-pot and Shuttle-wit run in, but my Lord Good-Counsel sits o’ one side, waiting.

”

“Tut!” cried Dick. “Would ye mind a ducking?

Blood of wound or dust of travel⁠—that’s a man’s adornment.

”

“Lads!” he cried, “good fellows all, and my right merry friends, y’ have sung this while on a dry whistle and lived at little ease. But what said I ever?

Abide Fortune constantly; she turneth, turneth swift.

And lo! here is her little firstling—even that good creature, ale!”

“Nay, he would have me go! If Sir Daniel slew him, when the hour comes this hand shall slay Sir Daniel; but neither him nor his will I desert in peril. And for mine oath, good Jack, ye shall absolve me of it here.

For the lives’ sake of many men that hurt you not, and for mine honour, ye shall set me free.

”

“I care not, Dick,” replied the lad. “If y’are bound to die, Dick, I’ll die too.

I would liever go with you to prison than to go free without you.

”

“Conscience!” cried Matcham, looking fiercely up. “Mine! And ye have the man’s red blood upon your dagger! And wherefore did ye slay him, the poor soul? He drew his arrow, but he let not fly; he held you in his hand, and spared you!

’Tis as brave to kill a kitten, as a man that not defends himself.

”

“Dick,” he said, “it were unmannerly to part so coldly.

Here is my hand, and my heart with it.

For all that wherein you have so excellently served and helped me—not for the form, but from the heart, I thank you. Fare ye right well.”

The pit was sandy and dry; a shock of brambles hung upon one hedge, and made a partial shelter; and there the two lads lay down, keeping close together for the sake of warmth, their quarrel all forgotten.

And soon sleep fell upon them like a cloud, and under the dew and stars they rested peacefully.

Well, I have writ a letter to my friend, praying his good lordship, and offering large satisfaction for the past and reasonable surety for the future. Doubt not but he will lend a favourable ear.

A prayer without gifts is like a song without music: I surfeit him with promises, boys⁠—I spare not to promise.

What, then, is lacking? Nay, a great thing—wherefore should I deceive you?—a great thing and a difficult: a messenger to bear it. The woods—y’are not ignorant of that—lie thick with our ill-willers. Haste is most needful; but without sleight and caution all is naught.

“An’t please you, Sir Daniel, not so,” returned Dick, firmly. “

I am grateful and faithful, where gratitude and faith are due.

And before more is said, I thank you, and I thank Sir Oliver; y’ have great claims upon me both—none can have more; I were a hound if I forgot them.”

“I will answer you fairly, Master Richard,” said the knight. “Were I to pretend ye have not stirred my wrath, I were no honest man. But

I will be just even in anger.

Come to me with these words when y’are grown and come to man’s estate, and I am no longer your guardian, and so helpless to resent them. Come to me then, and I will answer you as ye merit, with a buffet in the mouth.

“Nay, Dick,” replied Sir Daniel, “y’are forgiven.

Ye know not the world and its calumnious nature.

”

“I have chosen,” said the priest. “

Heaven pardon me, I will do evil for good.

I will swear for the lad’s sake.”

“and for my great misfortune, Dick, and hitherto for yours, I am a rich marriage. My Lord Foxham had me to ward; yet it appears Sir Daniel bought the marriage of me from the king, and a right dear price he paid for it.

So here was I, poor babe, with two great and rich men fighting which should marry me, and I still at nurse!

Well, then the world changed, and there was a new chancellor, and Sir Daniel bought the warding of me over the Lord Foxham’s head. And then the world changed again, and Lord Foxham bought my marriage over Sir Daniel’s;

but so furious was Dick’s hurry, and so small his experience of such gymnastics, that he span round and round in midair like a criminal upon a gibbet, and now beat his head, and now bruised his hands, against the rugged stonework of the wall.

The air roared in his ears; he saw the stars overhead, and the reflected stars below him in the moat, whirling like dead leaves before the tempest.

And then he lost hold, and fell, and soused head over ears into the icy water.

So it proved. When Lawless got as far up the village as the little inn, he found Ellis Duckworth surrounded by Sir Daniel’s tenants, and, by the right of his good company of archers, coolly taking rents, and giving written receipts in return for them.

By the faces of the tenants, it was plain how little this proceeding pleased them; for they argued very rightly that they would simply have to pay them twice.

As soon as he knew what had brought Lawless, Ellis dismissed the remainder of the tenants, and, with every mark of interest and apprehension, conducted Dick into an inner chamber of the inn. There the lad’s hurts were looked to;

“I yield me,” said the other, getting to his knees. “

Ye fight, like a young man, ignorantly and foolhardily; but, by the array of the saints, ye fight bravely!

”

“Lawless!” he cried, “you that were a shipman, can ye steal me a ship?”

“Master Dick,” replied Lawless, “if ye would back me, I would agree to steal York Minster.”

Presently after, these two set forth and descended to the harbour. It was a considerable basin, lying among sand-hills, and surrounded with patches of down, ancient ruinous lumber, and tumbledown slums of the town.

“Ye speak with a good courage,” returned Dick. “Ye are not then appalled?”

“Why, master,” answered Lawless, “if ever a man had an ill crew to come to port with, it is I⁠—a renegade friar, a thief, and all the rest on’t. Well, ye may wonder, but I keep a good hope in my wallet; and if that I be to drown, I will drown with a bright eye, Master Shelton, and a steady hand.”

Dick returned no answer; but he was surprised to find the old vagabond of so resolute a temper, and fearing some fresh violence or treachery, set forth upon his quest for three sure men.

For his own part, influenced by what he had seen on board of the Good Hope, he chose Lawless to be his companion on the walk.

The snow was falling, without pause or variation, in one even, blinding cloud; the wind had been strangled, and now blew no longer; and the whole world was blotted out and sheeted down below that silent inundation.

There was great danger of wandering by the way and perishing in drifts;

The beech had, in some violent gale, been half uprooted, and had torn up a considerable stretch of turf; and it was under this that old Lawless had dug out his forest hiding-place.

The roots served him for rafters, the turf was his thatch; for walls and floor he had his mother the earth.

Rude as it was, the hearth in one corner, blackened by fire, and the presence in another of a large oaken chest well fortified with iron, showed it at one glance to be the den of a man, and not the burrow of a digging …

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 …

“I am a kind old Christian, and no traitor to men’s blood, and no sparer of mine own in a friend’s jeopardy. But, fool, child, I am a thief by trade and birth and habit.

If my bottle were empty and my mouth dry, I would rob you, dear child, as sure as I love, honour, and admire your parts and person!

Can it be clearer spoken? No.”

“Not so,” he cried. “

We be strong men, and take; these be weak, and crave; but in the latter end these shall be uppermost and we below.

Mind him not, my father; but come, drink of my cup, and give me a benediction.”

“The device is somewhat simple,” replied the girl, “yet it may hold.”

“Nay,” said young Shelton, “it is no device, but mere boldness, which serveth often better in great straits.”

“Ye say true,” she said. “Well, go, a-Mary’s name, and may Heaven speed you! Ye leave here a poor maid that loves you entirely, and another that is most heartily your friend. Be wary, for their sakes, and make not shipwreck of your safety.”

“My father,” returned Dick, in the same tone of voice, “trust me, I design nothing; but as for your innocence, I may not forget that ye cleared yourself but lamely.”

“A man may be innocently guilty,” replied the priest.

“He may be set blindfolded upon a mission, ignorant of its true scope. So it was with me. I did decoy your father to his death; but as Heaven sees us in this sacred place, I knew not what I did.”

“Master Shelton, ye are troublesome,” replied the earl, severely. “

It is an evil way to prosper in this world.

Howbeit, and to be quit of your importunity, I will once more humour you. Go, then, together; but go warily, and get swiftly out of Shoreby town. For this Sir Daniel (whom may the saints confound!) thirsteth most greedily to have your blood.”

Two Richards are we. Well, then, Richard Shelton, they shall be heard about, these two!

Their swords shall not ring more loudly on men’s helmets than their names shall ring in people’s ears.

”

“Catesby,” returned the duke, “here is the battle, not elsewhere. The rest are but feigned onslaughts. Here must we vanquish.

And for the exposure⁠—if ye were an ugly hunchback, and the children gecked at you upon the street, ye would count your body cheaper, and an hour of glory worth a life.

Howbeit, if ye will, let us ride on and visit the other posts. Sir Richard here, my namesake, he shall still hold this entry, where he wadeth to the ankles in hot blood. Him can we trust.

“Sir Richard,” he said, “

I make not war with peacock’s feathers, but steel shafts.

Those that are mine enemies I slay, and that without excuse or favour. For, bethink ye, in this realm of England, that is so torn in pieces, there is not a man of mine but hath a brother or a friend upon the other party.

The words died in Richard’s throat.

He saw, through tears, the poor old man, bemused with liquor and sorrow, go shambling away, with bowed head, across the snow, and the unnoticed dog whimpering at his heels, and for the first time began to understand the desperate game that we play in life; and how a thing once done is not to be changed or remedied, by any penitence.

But there was no time left to him for vain regret. Catesby had now collected the horsemen, and riding up to Dick he dismounted, and offered him his own horse.

Dick drew bridle in despair.

The short winter’s day was near an end; the sun, a dull red orange, shorn of rays, swam low among the leafless thickets; the shadows were a mile long upon the snow; the frost bit cruelly at the fingernails; and the breath and steam of the horses mounted in a cloud.

“Well, we are outwitted,” Dick confessed. “Strike we for Holywood, after all. It is still nearer us than Tunstall—or should be by the station of the sun.”

“They that have no judgment should not draw the sword,” replied the young lady. “

Ye that fight but for a hazard, what are ye but a butcher? War is but noble by the cause, and y’ have disgraced it.

”

“Madam,” said Dick, “I will go into a cloister, an ye please to bid me; but to wed with anyone in this big world besides Joanna Sedley is what I will consent to neither for man’s force nor yet for lady’s pleasure.

Pardon me if I speak my plain thoughts plainly; but where a maid is very bold, a poor man must even be the bolder.

”