PROLOGUE--JOHN AMEND-ALL

On a certain afternoon, in the late springtime, the bell upon Tunstall

Moat House was heard ringing at an unaccustomed hour. Far and near, in

the forest and in the fields along the river, people began to desert

their labours and hurry towards the sound; and in Tunstall hamlet a group

of poor country-folk stood wondering at the summons.

Tunstall hamlet at that period, in the reign of old King Henry VI., wore

much the same appearance as it wears to-day. A score or so of houses,

heavily framed with oak, stood scattered in a long green valley ascending

from the river. At the foot, the road crossed a bridge, and mounting on

the other side, disappeared into the fringes of the forest on its way to

the Moat House, and further forth to Holywood Abbey. Half-way up the

village, the church stood among yews. On every side the slopes were

crowned and the view bounded by the green elms and greening oak-trees of

the forest.

Hard by the bridge, there was a stone cross upon a knoll, and here the

group had collected--half a dozen women and one tall fellow in a russet

smock--discussing what the bell betided. An express had gone through the

hamlet half an hour before, and drunk a pot of ale in the saddle, not

daring to dismount for the hurry of his errand; but he had been ignorant

himself of what was forward, and only bore sealed letters from Sir Daniel

Brackley to Sir Oliver Oates, the parson, who kept the Moat House in the

The Black Arrow