blow--by what procuring, I yet seek; but
therein lies the nerve of this discomfiture."

"An't please you, Sir Oliver," said Bennet, "the axles are so hot in this
country that I have long been smelling fire. So did this poor sinner,
Appleyard. And, by your leave, men's spirits are so foully inclined to
all of us, that it needs neither York nor Lancaster to spur them on.
Hear my plain thoughts: You, that are a clerk, and Sir Daniel, that sails
on any wind, ye have taken many men's goods, and beaten and hanged not a
few. Y' are called to count for this; in the end, I wot not how, ye have
ever the uppermost at law, and ye think all patched. But give me leave,
Sir Oliver: the man that ye have dispossessed and beaten is but the
angrier, and some day, when the black devil is by, he will up with his
bow and clout me a yard of arrow through your inwards."

"Nay, Bennet, y' are in the wrong. Bennet, ye should be glad to be
corrected," said Sir Oliver. "Y' are a prater, Bennet, a talker, a
babbler; your mouth is wider than your two ears. Mend it, Bennet, mend
it."

"Nay, I say no more. Have it as ye list," said the retainer.

The priest now rose from the stool, and from the writing-case that hung
about his neck took forth wax and a taper, and a flint and steel. With
these he sealed up the chest and the cupboard with Sir Daniel's arms,
Hatch looking on disconsolate; and then the whole party proceeded,
somewhat timorously, to sally from the house and get to horse.

"'Tis time we were on the road, Sir Oliver," said Hatch, as he held the
priest's stirrup while he mounted.

"Ay; but, Bennet, things are changed," returned the parson. "There is
now no Appleyard--rest his soul!--to keep the garrison. I shall keep
you, Bennet. I must have a good man to rest me on in this day of black
arrows. 'The arrow that flieth by day,' saith the evangel; I have no
mind of the context; nay, I am a sluggard priest, I am too deep in men's
affairs. Well, let us ride forth, Master Hatch. The jackmen should be
at the church by now."

So they rode forward down the road, with the wind after them, blowing the
tails of the parson's cloak; and behind them, as they went, clouds began
to arise and blot out the sinking sun. They had passed three of the
scattered houses that make up Tunstall hamlet, when, coming to a turn,
they saw the church before them. Ten or a dozen houses clustered
immediately round it; but to the back the churchyard was