cred building, filed off on
either side, and, marking time to their own vigorous music, stood
stamping in the snow. As they thus opened their ranks, the leaders of
this noble bridal train appeared behind and between them; and such was
the variety and gaiety of their attire, such the display of silks and
velvet, fur and satin, embroidery and lace, that the procession showed
forth upon the snow like a flower-bed in a path or a painted window in a
wall.

First came the bride, a sorry sight, as pale as winter, clinging to Sir
Daniel's arm, and attended, as brides-maid, by the short young lady who
had befriended Dick the night before. Close behind, in the most radiant
toilet, followed the bridegroom, halting on a gouty foot; and as he
passed the threshold of the sacred building and doffed his hat, his bald
head was seen to be rosy with emotion.

And now came the hour of Ellis Duckworth.

Dick, who sat stunned among contrary emotions, grasping the desk in front
of him, beheld a movement in the crowd, people jostling backward, and
eyes and arms uplifted. Following these signs, he beheld three or four
men with bent bows leaning from the clerestory gallery. At the same
instant they delivered their discharge, and before the clamour and cries
of the astounded populace had time to swell fully upon the ear, they had
flitted from their perch and disappeared.

The nave was full of swaying heads and voices screaming; the
ecclesiastics thronged in terror from their places; the music ceased, and
though the bells overhead continued for some seconds to clang upon the
air, some wind of the disaster seemed to find its way at last even to the
chamber where the ringers were leaping on their ropes, and they also
desisted from their merry labours.

Right in the midst of the nave the bridegroom lay stone-dead, pierced by
two black arrows. The bride had fainted. Sir Daniel stood, towering
above the crowd in his surprise and anger, a clothyard shaft quivering in
his left forearm, and his face streaming blood from another which had
grazed his brow.

Long before any search could be made for them, the authors of this tragic
interruption had clattered down a turnpike stair and decamped by a
postern door.

But Dick and Lawless still remained in pawn; they had, indeed, arisen on
the first alarm, and pushed manfully to gain the door; but what with the
narrowness of the stalls and the crowding of terrified priests and
choristers, the attempt