DICK’S REVENGE
The next morning Dick was afoot before the sun, and having dressed
himself to the best advantage with the aid of the Lord Foxham’s baggage,
and got good reports of Joan, he set forth on foot to walk away his
impatience.
For some while he made rounds among the soldiery, who were getting to
arms in the wintry twilight of the dawn and by the red glow of torches;
but gradually he strolled farther afield, and at length passed clean
beyond the outposts, and walked alone in the frozen forest, waiting for
the sun.
His thoughts were both quiet and happy. His brief favour with the duke
he could not find it in his heart to mourn; with Joan to wife, and my
Lord Foxham for a faithful patron, he looked most happily upon the
future; and in the past he found but little to regret.
As he thus strolled and pondered, the solemn light of the morning grew
more clear, the east was already coloured by the sun, and a little
scathing wind blew up the frozen snow. He turned to go home; but even as
he turned, his eye lit upon a figure behind a tree.
“Stand!” he cried. “Who goes?”
The figure stepped forth and waved its hand like a dumb person. It was
arrayed like a pilgrim, the hood lowered over the face, but Dick, in an
instant, recognised Sir Daniel.
He strode up to him, drawing his sword; and the knight, putting his hand
in his bosom, as if to seize a hidden weapon, steadfastly awaited his
approach.
“Well, Dickon,” said Sir Daniel, “how is it to be? Do ye make war upon
the fallen?”
“I made no war upon your life,” replied the lad; “I was your true friend
until ye sought for mine; but ye have sought for it greedily.”
“Nay--self-defence,” replied the knight. “And now, boy, the news of this
battle, and the presence of yon crooked devil here in mine own wood,
have broken me beyond all help. I go to Holywood for sanctuary; thence
overseas, with what I can carry, and to begin life again in Burgundy or
France.”
“Ye may not go to Holywood,” said Dick.
“How! May not?” asked the knight.
“Look ye, Sir Daniel, this is my marriage morn,” said Dick; “and yon sun
that is to rise will make the brightest day that ever shone for me. Your
life is forfeit--doubly forfeit, for my father’s death and your own
practices to meward. But I myself have done amiss; I have brought about
men’s deaths; and upon this glad day I will be neither judge nor
hangman. An ye were the devil, I would not lay a hand on you. An ye were
the devil, ye might go where ye will for me. Seek God’s forgiveness;
mine ye have freely. But to go on to Holywood is different. I carry arms
for York, and I will suffer no spy within their lines. Hold it, then,
for certain, if ye set one foot before another, I will uplift my voice
and call the nearest post to seize you.”
“Ye mock me,” said Sir Daniel. “I have no safety out of Holywood.”
“I care no more,” returned Richard. “I let you go east, west, or south;
north I will not. Holywood is shut against you. Go, and seek not to
return. For, once ye are gone, I will warn every post about this army,
and there will be so shrewd a watch upon all pilgrims that, once again,
were ye the very devil, ye would find it ruin to make the essay.”
“Ye doom me,” said Sir Daniel, gloomily.
“I doom you not,” returned Richard. “If it so please you to set your
valour against mine, come on; and though I fear it be disloyal to my
party, I will take the challenge openly and fully, fight you with mine
own single strength, and call for none to help me. So shall I avenge my
father, with a perfect conscience.”
“Ay,” said Sir Daniel, “y’ have a long sword against my dagger.”
“I rely upon Heaven only,” answered Dick, casting his sword some way
behind him on the snow. “Now, if your ill-fate bids you, come; and,
under the pleasure of the Almighty, I make myself bold to feed your
bones to foxes.”
“I did but try you, Dickon,” returned the knight, with an uneasy
semblance of a laugh. “I would not spill your blood.”
“Go, then, ere it be too late,” replied Shelton. “In five minutes I will
call the post. I do perceive that I am too long-suffering. Had but our
places been reversed, I should have been bound hand and foot some
minutes past.”
“Well, Dickon, I will go,” replied Sir Daniel. “When we next meet, it
shall repent you that ye were so harsh.”
And with these words, the knight turned and began to move off under the
trees. Dick watched him with strangely-mingled feelings, as he went,
swiftly and warily, and ever and again turning a wicked eye upon the lad
who had spared him, and whom he still suspected.
There was upon one side of where he went a thicket, strongly matted with
green ivy, and, even in its winter state, impervious to the eye. Herein,
all of a sudden, a bow sounded like a note of music. An arrow flew, and
with a great, choked cry of agony and anger, the Knight of Tunstall
threw up his hands and fell forward in the snow.
Dick bounded to his side and raised him. His face desperately worked;
his whole body was shaken by contorting spasms.
“Is the arrow black?” he gasped.
“It is black,” replied Dick, gravely.
And then, before he could add one word, a desperate seizure of pain
shook the wounded man from head to foot, so that his body leaped in
Dick’s supporting arms, and with the extremity of that pang his spirit
fled in silence.
The young man laid him back gently on the snow and prayed for that
unprepared and guilty spirit, and as he prayed the sun came up at a
bound, and the robins began chirping in the ivy.
When he rose to his feet, he found another man upon his knees but a few
steps behind him, and, still with uncovered head, he waited until that
prayer also should be over. It took long; the man, with his head bowed
and his face covered with his hands, prayed like one in a great disorder
or distress of mind; and by the bow that lay beside him, Dick judged
that he was no other than the archer who had laid Sir Daniel low.
At length he, also, rose, and showed the countenance of Ellis Duckworth.
“Richard,” he said, very gravely, “I heard you. Ye took the better part
and pardoned; I took the worse, and there lies the clay of mine enemy.
Pray for me.”
And he wrung him by the hand.
“Sir,” said Richard, “I will pray for you, indeed; though how I may
prevail I wot not. But if ye have so long pursued revenge, and find it
now of such a sorry flavour, bethink ye, were it not well to pardon
others? Hatch--he is dead, poor shrew! I would have spared a better; and
for Sir Daniel, here lies his body. But for the priest, if I might
anywise prevail, I would have you let him go.”
A flash came into the eyes of Ellis Duckworth.
“Nay,” he said, “the devil is still strong within me. But be at rest;
the Black Arrow flieth nevermore--the fellowship is broken. They that
still live shall come to their quiet and ripe end, in Heaven’s good
time, for me; and for yourself, go where your better fortune calls you,
and think no more of Ellis.”
[Illustration: _“But be at rest; the Black Arrow flieth nevermore”_]