CHAPTER VI
TO THE DAY'S END
It was, indeed, high time for them to run. On every side the company ofthe Black Arrow was making for the hill. Some, being better runners, orhaving open ground to run upon, had far outstripped the others, and werealready close upon the goal; some, following valleys, had spread out toright and left, and outflanked the lads on either side.
Dick plunged into the nearest cover. It was a tall grove of oaks, firmunderfoot and clear of underbrush, and as it lay down-hill, they madegood speed. There followed next a piece of open, which Dick avoided,holding to his left. Two minutes after, and the same obstacle arising,the lads followed the same course. Thus it followed that, while thelads, bending continually to the left, drew nearer and nearer to thehighroad and the river which they had crossed an hour or two before, thegreat bulk of their pursuers were leaning to the other hand, and runningtowards Tunstall.
The lads paused to breathe. There was no sound of pursuit. Dick put hisear to the ground, and still there was nothing; but the wind, to besure, still made a turmoil in the trees, and it was hard to makecertain.
"On again," said Dick; and, tired as they were, and Matcham limpingwith his injured foot, they pulled themselves together, and once morepelted down the hill.
Three minutes later, they were breasting through a low thicket ofevergreen. High overhead, the tall trees made a continuous roof offoliage. It was a pillared grove, as high as a cathedral, and except forthe hollies among which the lads were struggling, open and smoothlyswarded.
On the other side, pushing through the last fringe of evergreen, theyblundered forth again into the open twilight of the grove.
"Stand!" cried a voice.
And there, between the huge stems, not fifty feet before them, theybeheld a stout fellow in green, sore blown with running, who instantlydrew an arrow to the head and covered them. Matcham stopped with a cry;but Dick, without a pause, ran straight upon the forester, drawing hisdagger as he went. The other, whether he was startled by the daring ofthe onslaught, or whether he was hampered by his orders, did not shoot;he stood wavering; and before he had time to come to himself, Dickbounded at his throat, and sent him sprawling backward on the turf. Thearrow went one way and the bow another with a sounding twang. Thedisarmed forester grappled his assailant; but the dagger shone anddescended twice. Then came a couple of groans, and then Dick rose to hisfeet again, and the man lay motionless, stabbed to the heart.
"On!" said Dick; and he once more pelted forward, Matcham trailing inthe rear. To say truth, they made but poor speed of it by now, labouringdismally as they ran, and catching for their breath like fish. Matchamhad a cruel stitch, and his head swam; and as for Dick, his knees werelike lead. But they kept up the form of running with undiminishedcourage.
Presently they came to the end of the grove. It stopped abruptly; andthere, a few yards before them, was the highroad from Risingham toShoreby, lying, at this point, between two even walls of forest.
At the sight Dick paused; and as soon as he stopped running, he becameaware of a confused noise, which rapidly grew louder. It was at firstlike the rush of a very high gust of wind, but soon it became moredefinite, and resolved itself into the galloping of horses; and then, ina flash, a whole company of men-at-arms came driving round the corner,swept before the lads, and were gone again upon the instant. They rodeas for their lives, in complete disorder; some of them were wounded;riderless horses galloped at their side with bloody saddles. They wereplainly fugitives from the great battle.
The noise of their passage had scarce begun to die away towards Shoreby,before fresh hoofs came echoing in their wake, and another deserterclattered down the road; this time a single rider and, by his splendidarmour, a man of high degree. Close after him there followed severalbaggage-waggons, fleeing at an ungainly canter, the drivers flailing atthe horses as if for life. These must have run early in the day; buttheir cowardice was not to save them. For just before they came abreastof where the lads stood wondering, a man in hacked armour, and seeminglybeside himself with fury, overtook the waggons, and with the truncheonof a sword, began to cut the drivers down. Some leaped from their placesand plunged into the wood; the others he sabred as they sat, cursingthem the while for cowards in a voice that was scarce human.
All this time the noise in the distance had continued to increase; therumble of carts, the clatter of horses, the cries of men, a great,confused rumour, came swelling on the wind; and it was plain that therout of a whole army was pouring, like an inundation, down the road.
Dick stood sombre. He had meant to follow the highway till the turn forHolywood, and now he had to change his plan. But above all, he hadrecognised the colours of Earl Risingham, and he knew that the battlehad gone finally against the rose of Lancaster. Had Sir Daniel joined,and was he now a fugitive and ruined? or had he deserted to the side ofYork, and was he forfeit to honour? It was an ugly choice.
"Come," he said, sternly; and, turning on his heel, he began to walkforward through the grove, with Matcham limping in his rear.
For some time they continued to thread the forest in silence. It was nowgrowing late; the sun was setting in the plain beyond Kettley; thetree-tops overhead glowed golden; but the shadows had begun to growdarker and the chill of the night to fall.
"If there were anything to eat!" cried Dick, suddenly, pausing as hespoke.
Matcham sat down and began to weep.
"Ye can weep for your own supper, but when it was to save men's lives,your heart was hard enough," said Dick, contemptuously. "Y' 'ave sevendeaths upon your conscience, Master John; I'll ne'er forgive you that."
"Conscience!" cried Matcham, looking fiercely up. "Mine! And ye have theman's red blood upon your dagger! And wherefore did ye slay him, thepoor soul? He drew his arrow, but he let not fly; he held you in hishand, and spared you! 'Tis as brave to kill a kitten, as a man that notdefends himself."
Dick was struck dumb.
"I slew him fair. I ran me in upon his bow," he cried.
"It was a coward blow," returned Matcham. "Y'are but a lout and bully,Master Dick; ye but abuse advantages; let there come a stronger, we willsee you truckle at his boot! Ye care not for vengeance, neither--foryour father's death that goes unpaid, and his poor ghost that clamourethfor justice. But if there come but a poor creature in your hands thatlacketh skill and strength, and would befriend you, down she shall go!"
Dick was too furious to observe that "she."
"Marry!" he cried, "and here is news! Of any two the one will still bestronger. The better man throweth the worse, and the worse is wellserved. Ye deserve a belting, Master Matcham, for your ill-guidance andunthankfulness to meward; and what ye deserve ye shall have."
And Dick, who, even in his angriest temper, still preserved theappearance of composure, began to unbuckle his belt.
"Here shall be your supper," he said, grimly.
Matcham had stopped his tears; he was as white as a sheet, but he lookedDick steadily in the face, and never moved. Dick took a step, swingingthe belt. Then he paused, embarrassed by the large eyes and the thin,weary face of his companion. His courage began to subside.
"Say ye were in the wrong, then," he said, lamely.
"Nay," said Matcham, "I was in the right. Come, cruel! I be lame; I beweary; I resist not; I ne'er did thee hurt; come, beat me--coward!"
Dick raised the belt at this last provocation; but Matcham winced anddrew himself together with so cruel an apprehension, that his heartfailed him yet again. The strap fell by his side, and he stoodirresolute, feeling like a fool.
"A plague upon thee, shrew!" he said. "An ye be so feeble of hand, yeshould keep the closer guard upon your tongue. But I'll be hanged beforeI beat you!" and he put on his belt again. "Beat you I will not," hecontinued; "but forgive you?--never. I knew ye not; ye were my master'senemy; I lent you my horse; my dinner ye have eaten; y' 'ave called me aman o' wood, a coward, and a bully. Nay, by the mass! the measure isfilled, and runneth over. 'Tis a great thing t
o be weak, I trow: ye cando your worst, yet shall none punish you; ye may steal a man's weaponsin the hour of need, yet may the man not take his own again;--y'areweak, forsooth! Nay, then, if one cometh charging at you with a lance,and crieth he is weak, ye must let him pierce your body through! Tut!fool words!"
"And yet ye beat me not," returned Matcham.
"Let be," said Dick--"let be. I will instruct you. Y' 'ave beenill-nurtured, methinks, and yet ye have the makings of some good, and,beyond all question, saved me from the river. Nay, I had forgotten it; Iam as thankless as thyself. But, come, let us on. An we be for Holywoodthis night, ay, or to-morrow early, we had best set forward speedily."
But though Dick had talked himself back into his usual good-humour,Matcham had forgiven him nothing. His violence, the recollection of theforester whom he had slain--above all, the vision of the upraised belt,were things not easily to be forgotten.
"I will thank you, for the form's sake," said Matcham. "But, in sooth,good Master Shelton, I had liever find my way alone. Here is a widewood; prithee, let each choose his path; I owe you a dinner and alesson. Fare ye well!"
"Nay," cried Dick, "if that be your tune, so be it, and a plague be withyou!"
Each turned aside, and they began walking off severally, with no thoughtof the direction, intent solely on their quarrel. But Dick had not goneten paces ere his name was called, and Matcham came running after.
"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 excellentlyserved and helped me--not for the form, but from the heart, I thank you.Fare ye right well."
"Well, lad," returned Dick, taking the hand which was offered him, "goodspeed to you, if speed you may. But I misdoubt it shrewdly. Y'are toodisputatious."
So then they separated for the second time; and presently it was Dickwho was running after Matcham.
"Here," he said, "take my cross-bow; shalt not go unarmed."
"A cross-bow!" said Matcham. "Nay, boy, I have neither the strength tobend nor yet the skill to aim with it. It were no help to me, good boy.But yet I thank you."
The night had now fallen, and under the trees they could no longer readeach other's face.
"I will go some little way with you," said Dick. "The night is dark. Iwould fain leave you on a path, at least. My mind misgiveth me, y'arelikely to be lost."
Without any more words, he began to walk forward, and the other oncemore followed him. The blackness grew thicker and thicker. Only here andthere, in open places, they saw the sky, dotted with small stars. In thedistance, the noise of the rout of the Lancastrian army still continuedto be faintly audible; but with every step they left it farther in therear.
At the end of half an hour of silent progress they came forth upon abroad patch of heathy open. It glimmered in the light of the stars,shaggy with fern and islanded with clumps of yew. And here they pausedand looked upon each other.
"Y'are weary?" Dick said.
"Nay, I am so weary," answered Matcham, "that methinks I could lie downand die."
"I hear the chiding of a river," returned Dick. "Let us go so far forth,for I am sore athirst."
The ground sloped down gently; and, sure enough, in the bottom, theyfound a little murmuring river, running among willows. Here they threwthemselves down together by the brink; and putting their mouths to thelevel of a starry pool, they drank their fill.
"Dick," said Matcham, "it may not be. I can no more."
"I saw a pit as we came down," said Dick. "Let us lie down therein andsleep."
"Nay, but with all my heart!" cried Matcham.
The pit was sandy and dry; a shock of brambles hung upon one hedge, andmade a partial shelter; and there the two lads lay down, keeping closetogether for the sake of warmth, their quarrel all forgotten. And soonsleep fell upon them like a cloud, and under the dew and stars theyrested peacefully.