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.

"It was well fought," he said, "and, by my sooth, they will not charge
us twice."

"Sir," said the little archer, "ye have fought right well for York, and
better for yourself. Never hath man in so brief space prevailed so
greatly on the duke's affections. That he should have entrusted such a
post to one he knew not is a marvel. But look to your head, Sir Richard!
If ye be vanquished--ay, if ye give way one foot's breadth--axe or cord
shall punish it; and I am set if ye do aught doubtful, I will tell you
honestly, here to stab you from behind."

Dick looked at the little man in amaze.

"You!" he cried. "And from behind!"

"It is right so," returned the archer; "and because I like not the
affair I tell it you. Ye must make the post good, Sir Richard, at your
peril. O, our Crookback is a bold blade and a good warrior; but, whether
in cold blood or in hot, he will have all things done exact to his
commandment. If any fail or hinder, they shall die the death."

"Now, by the saints!" cried Richard, "is this so? And will men follow
such a leader?"

"Nay, they follow him gleefully," replied the other; "for if he be exact
to punish, he is most open-handed to reward. And if he spare not the
blood and sweat of others, he is ever liberal of his own, still in the
first front of battle, still the last to sleep. He will go far, will
Crookback Dick o' Gloucester!"

The young knight, if he had before been brave and vigilant, was now all
the more inclined to watchfulness and courage. His sudden favour, he
began to perceive, had brought per