Robert Stevenson: The Black Arrow

Appleyard’s house was clean and bare. There was a bed, with a blue cover, a cupboard, a great chest, a pair of joint-stools, a hinged table in the chimney corner, and hung upon the wall the old soldier’s armoury of bows and defensive armour. Hatch began to look about him curiously.

“Nick had money,” he said. “He may have had three score 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! Near eighty year he was afoot and about, and ever getting; but now he’s on the broad of his back, poor shrew, and no more lacketh; and if his chattels came to a good friend, he would be merrier, methinks, in heaven.”

“Come, Hatch,” said Dick, “respect his stone-blind eyes. Would ye rob the man before his body? Nay, he would walk!”

Hatch made several signs of the cross; but by this time his natural complexion had returned, and he was not easily to be dashed from any purpose. It would have gone hard with the chest had not the gate sounded, and presently after the door of the house opened and admitted a tall, portly, ruddy, black-eyed man of near fifty, in a surplice and black robe.

“Appleyard” — the newcomer was saying, as he entered; but he stopped dead. “Ave Maria!” he cried. “Saints be our shield! What cheer is this?”

“Cold cheer with Appleyard, sir parson,” answered Hatch, with perfect cheerfulness. “Shot at his own door, and alighteth even now at purgatory gates. Ay! there, if tales be true, he shall lack neither coal nor candle.”

Sir Oliver groped his way to a joint-stool, and sat down upon it, sick and white.

“This is a judgment! O, a great stroke!” he sobbed, and rattled off a leash of prayers.

Hatch meanwhile reverently doffed his salet and knelt down.

“Ay, Bennet,” said the priest, somewhat recovering, “and what may this be? What enemy hath done this?”

“Here, Sir Oliver, is the arrow. See, it is written upon with words,” said Dick.

“Nay,” cried the priest, “this is a foul hearing! John Amend-All! A right Lollardy word. And black of hue, as for an omen! Sirs, this knave arrow likes me not. But it importeth rather to take counsel. Who should this be? Bethink you, Bennet. Of so many black ill-willers, which should he be that doth so hardily outface us? Simnel? I do much question it. The Walsinghams? Nay, they are not yet so broken; they still think to have the law over us, when times change. There was Simon Malmesbury, too. How think ye, Bennet?”

“What think ye, sir,” returned Hatch, “of Ellis Duckworth?”

“Nay, Bennet, never. Nay, not he,” said the priest. “There cometh never any rising, Bennet, from below — so all judicious chroniclers concord in their opinion; but rebellion travelleth ever downward from above; and when Dick, Tom, and Harry take them to their bills, look ever narrowly to see what lord is profited thereby. Now, Sir Daniel, having once more joined him to the Queen’s party, is in ill odour with the Yorkist lords. Thence, Bennet, comes the blow — by what procuring, I yet seek; but therein lies the nerve of this discomfiture.”

“An’t please you, Sir Oliver,” said Bennet, “the axles are so hot in this country that I have long been smelling fire. So did this poor sinner, Appleyard. And, by your leave, men’s spirits are so foully inclined to all of us, that it needs neither York nor Lancaster to spur them on. Hear my plain thoughts: You, that are a clerk, and Sir Daniel, that sails on any wind, ye have taken many men’s goods, and beaten and hanged not a few. Y’ are called to count for this; in the end, I wot not how, ye have ever the uppermost at law, and ye think all patched. But give me leave, Sir Oliver: the man that ye have dispossessed and beaten is but the angrier, and some day, when the black devil is by, he will up with his bow and clout me a yard of arrow through your inwards.”

“Nay, Bennet, y’ are in the wrong. Bennet, ye should be glad to be corrected,” said Sir Oliver. “Y’ are a prater, Bennet, a talker, a babbler; your mouth is wider than your two ears. Mend it, Bennet, mend it.”

“Nay, I say no more. Have it as ye list,” said the retainer.

The priest now rose from the stool, and from the writing-case that hung about his neck took forth wax and a taper, and a flint and steel. With these he sealed up the chest and the cupboard with Sir Daniel’s arms, Hatch looking on disconsolate; and then the whole party proceeded, somewhat timorously, to sally from the house and get to horse.

“’Tis time we were on the road, Sir Oliver,” said Hatch, as he held the priest’s stirrup while he mounted.

“Ay; but, Bennet, things are changed,” returned the parson. “There is now no Appleyard — rest his soul! — to keep the garrison. I shall keep you, Bennet. I must have a good man to rest me on in this day of black arrows. ‘The arrow that flieth by day,’ saith the evangel; I have no mind of the context; nay, I am a sluggard priest, I am too deep in men’s affairs. Well, let us ride forth, Master Hatch. The jackmen should be at the church by now.”

So they rode forward down the road, with the wind after them, blowing the tails of the parson’s cloak; and behind them, as they went, clouds began to arise and blot out the sinking sun. They had passed three of the scattered houses that make up Tunstall hamlet, when, coming to a turn, they saw the church before them. Ten or a dozen houses clustered immediately round it; but to the back the churchyard was next the meadows. At the lych-gate, near a score of men were gathered, some in the saddle, some standing by their horses’ heads. They were variously armed and mounted; some with spears, some with bills, some with bows, and some bestriding plough-horses, still splashed with the mire of the furrow; for these were the very dregs of the country, and all the better men and the fair equipments were already with Sir Daniel in the field.

“We have not done amiss, praised be the cross of Holywood! Sir Daniel will be right well content,” observed the priest, inwardly numbering the troop.

“Who goes? Stand! if ye be true!” shouted Bennet. A man was seen slipping through the churchyard among the yews; and at the sound of this summons he discarded all concealment, and fairly took to his heels for the forest. The men at the gate, who had been hitherto unaware of the stranger’s presence, woke and scattered. Those who had dismounted began scrambling into the saddle; the rest rode in pursuit; but they had to make the circuit of the consecrated ground, and it was plain their quarry would escape them. Hatch, roaring an oath, put his horse at the hedge, to head him off; but the beast refused, and sent his rider sprawling in the dust. And though he was up again in a moment, and had caught the bridle, the time had gone by, and the fugitive had gained too great a lead for any hope of capture.

The wisest of all had been Dick Shelton. Instead of starting in a vain pursuit, he had whipped his crossbow from his back, bent it, and set a quarrel to the string; and now, when the others had desisted, he turned to Bennet and asked if he should shoot.

“Shoot! shoot!” cried the priest, with sanguinary violence.

“Cover him, Master Dick,” said Bennet. “Bring me him down like a ripe apple.”

The fugitive was now within but a few leaps of safety; but this last part of the meadow ran very steeply uphill; and the man ran slower in proportion. What with the greyness of the falling night, and the uneven movements of the runner, it was no easy aim; and as Dick levelled his bow, he felt a kind of pity, and a half desire that he might miss. The quarrel sped.