strokes. Now, which, I marvel, of you or me, shall be first knighted,

Jack? for knighted I shall be, or die for 't. 'Sir Richard Shelton,

Knight': it soundeth bravely. But 'Sir John Matcham' soundeth not

amiss."

"Prithee, Dick, stop till I drink," said the other, pausing where a

little clear spring welled out of the slope into a gravelled basin no

bigger than a pocket. "And O, Dick, if I might come by anything to

eat!--my very heart aches with hunger."

"Why, fool, did ye not eat at Kettley?" asked Dick.

I had made a vow--it was a sin I had been led into," stammered Matcham;

but now, if it were but dry bread, I would eat it greedily."

"Sit ye, then, and eat," said Dick, "while that I scout a little forward

for the road." And he took a wallet from his girdle, wherein were bread

and pieces of dry bacon, and, while Matcham fell heartily to, struck

farther forth among the trees.

A little beyond there was a dip in the ground, where a streamlet soaked

among dead leaves; and beyond that, again, the trees were better grown

and stood wider, and oak and beech began to take the place of willow and

elm. The continued tossing and pouring of the wind among the leaves

sufficiently concealed the sounds of his footsteps on the mast; it was

for the ear what a moonless night is to the eye; but for all that Dick

went cautiously, slipping from one big trunk to another, and looking

The Black Arrow