young Shelton, to twenty-two effective men. And more might be

continually expected to arrive. The danger lay not therefore in the lack

of men.

It was the terror of the Black Arrow that oppressed the spirits of the

garrison. For their open foes of the party of York, in these most

changing times, they felt but a far-away concern. "The world," as people

said in those days, "might change again" before harm came. But for their

neighbours in the wood, they trembled. It was not Sir Daniel alone who

was a mark for hatred. His men, conscious of impunity, had carried

themselves cruelly through all the country. Harsh commands had been

harshly executed; and of the little band that now sat talking in the

court, there was not one but had been guilty of some act of oppression or

barbarity. And now, by the fortune of war, Sir Daniel had become

powerless to protect his instruments; now, by the issue of some hours of

battle, at which many of them had not been present, they had all become

punishable traitors to the State, outside the buckler of the law, a

shrunken company in a poor fortress that was hardly tenable, and exposed

upon all sides to the just resentment of their victims. Nor had there

been lacking grisly advertisements of what they might expect.

At different periods of the evening and the night, no fewer than seven

riderless horses had come neighing in terror to the gate. Two were from

Selden's troop; five belonged to men who had ridden with Sir Daniel to

the field. Lastly, a little before dawn, a spearman had come staggering

to the moat side, pierced by three arrows; even as they carried him in,

his spirit had departed; but by the words that he uttered in his agony,

The Black Arrow