The Black Arrow

He was somewhat abashed to fi nd, in the person whom he had so roughly seized, the short young lady in the furs. She, on her part, was shocked and terrifi ed beyond expression, and hung trembling in his grasp.

“Fair maid,” he said, affecting easiness, “suffer me to kiss your hand, in token ye forgive my roughness, and I will even go.”

Somewhat bewildered, Dick suffered himself to be pulled up-stairs, bustled along a corridor, and thrust suddenly into a chamber, lit, like so many of the others, by a blazing log upon the hearth.

She was attired in costly stuffs of deep and warm colours, such as befi t the winter and the snow. Upon her head, her hair had been gathered together and became her as a crown. And she, who had seemed so little and so awkward in the attire of Matcham, was now tall like a young willow, and swam across the fl oor as though she scorned the drudgery of walking.

“Nay,” said Dick, “not I; I will never say that word. ’Tis like despair; but while there’s life, Joanna, there is hope. Yet will I hope. Ay, by the mass, and triumph! Look ye, now, when ye were but a name to me, did I not follow – did I not rouse good men – did I not stake my life upon the quarrel? And now that

“Nay, Joan,” protested Dick, “’tis not alone the robe. But, lass, ye were disguised. Here am I disguised; and, to the proof, do I not cut a fi gure of fun – a right fool’s fi gure?”

“Ay, Dick, an’ that ye do!” she answered, smiling.

“Madam,” said Dick, “I would fain offer to pay you in the same money.”

“Come, then,” said the lady, “it is permitted you.”

But Dick, blushing like a peony, only kissed her hand.

the hissing of a green log in the chimney; but presently, to Dick’s strained hearing, there came the sound of some one walking with extreme precaution; and soon after the door opened, and a little black-faced, dwarfi sh fellow, in Lord Shoreby’s colours, pushed fi rst his head, and then his crooked body, into the cham­ber. His mouth was open, as though to hear the better; and his eyes, which were very bright, fl itted restlessly and swiftly to and fro. He went round and round the room, striking here and there upon the hangings; but Dick, by a miracle, escaped his notice. Then he looked below the furniture, and examined the lamp; and, at last, with an air of cruel disappointment, was preparing to go away as silently as he had come, when down he dropped upon his knees, picked up something from among the rushes on the fl oor, examined it, and, with every signal of delight, concealed it in the wallet at his belt.

“If ye should drink the clary wine,

Fat Friar John, ye friend o’ mine –

If I should eat, and ye should drink,

Who shall sing the mass, d’ye think?”

Lawless, alas! rolling drunk, was wandering the house, seeking for a corner wherein to slumber off the effect of his potations. Dick inwardly raged. The spy, at fi rst terrifi ed, had grown reassured as he found he had to deal with an intoxicat­ed man, and now, with a movement of cat-like rapidity, slipped from the chamber, and was gone from Richard’s eyes.

And just then Dick’s quick ear caught a rapid brushing in the arras. He leaped towards the sound, and the next moment a piece of the wall-hanging had been torn down, and Dick and the spy were sprawling together in its folds. Over and over they rolled, grappling for each other’s throat, and still baffl ed by the arras, and still silent in their deadly fury. But Dick was by much the stronger, and soon the spy lay prostrate under his knee, and, with a single stroke of the long poniard, ceased to breathe.

Throughout this furious and rapid passage, Lawless had looked on helplessly, and even when all was over, and Dick, already re-arisen to his feet, was listening with the most pas­sionate attention to the distant bustle in the lower storeys of the house, the old outlaw was still wavering on his legs like a shrub in a breeze of wind, and still stupidly staring on the face of the dead man.

“It is well,” said Dick, at length; “they have not heard us, praise the saints! But, now, what shall I do with this poor spy? At least, I will take my tassel from his wallet.”