CHAPTER III--THE BATTLE OF SHOREBY (Concluded)

Dick, once more left to his own counsels, began to look about him. The

arrow-shot had somewhat slackened. On all sides the enemy were falling

back; and the greater part of the market-place was now left empty, the

snow here trampled into orange mud, there splashed with gore, scattered

all over with dead men and horses, and bristling thick with feathered

arrows.

On his own side the loss had been cruel. The jaws of the little street

and the ruins of the barricade were heaped with the dead and dying; and

out of the hundred men with whom he had begun the battle, there were not

seventy left who could still stand to arms.

At the same time, the day was passing. The first reinforcements might be

looked for to arrive at any moment; and the Lancastrians, already shaken

by the result of their desperate but unsuccessful onslaught, were in an

ill temper to support a fresh invader.

There was a dial in the wall of one of the two flanking houses; and this,

in the frosty winter sunshine, indicated ten of the forenoon.

Dick turned to the man who was at his elbow, a little insignificant

archer, binding a cut in his arm.

The Black Arrow