ll, sir! Here is help!" cried Richard; and forgetting that he
was alone, and that the cry was somewhat irregular, "To the Arrow! to the
Arrow!" he shouted, as he fell upon the rear of the assailants.

These were stout fellows also, for they gave not an inch at this
surprise, but faced about, and fell with astonishing fury upon Dick.
Four against one, the steel flashed about him in the starlight; the
sparks flew fiercely; one of the men opposed to him fell--in the stir of
the fight he hardly knew why; then he himself was struck across the head,
and though the steel cap below his hood protected him, the blow beat him
down upon one knee, with a brain whirling like a windmill sail.

Meanwhile the man whom he had come to rescue, instead of joining in the
conflict, had, on the first sign of intervention, leaped aback and blown
again, and yet more urgently and loudly, on that same shrill-voiced
trumpet that began the alarm. Next moment, indeed, his foes were on him,
and he was once more charging and fleeing, leaping, stabbing, dropping to
his knee, and using indifferently sword and dagger, foot and hand, with
the same unshaken courage and feverish energy and speed.

But that ear-piercing summons had been heard at last. There was a
muffled rushing in the snow; and in a good hour for Dick, who saw the
sword-points glitter already at his throat, there poured forth out of the
wood upon both sides a disorderly torrent of mounted men-at-arms, each
cased in iron, and with visor lowered, each bearing his lance in rest, or
his sword bared and raised, and each carrying, so to speak, a passenger,
in the shape of an archer or page, who leaped one after another from
their perches, and had presently doubled the array.

The original assailants; seeing themselves outnumbered and surrounded,
threw down their arms without a word.

"Seize me these fellows!" said the hero of the trumpet; and when his
order had been obeyed, he drew near to Dick and looked him in the face.

Dick, returning this scrutiny, was surprised to find in one who had
displayed such strength, skill and energy, a lad no older than
himself--slightly deformed, with one shoulder higher than the other, and
of a pale, painful, and distorted countenance. {2} The eyes, however,
were very clear and bold.

"Sir," said this lad, "ye came in good time for me, and none too early."

"My lord," returned Dick, with a faint sense that he was in the presence
of a great personage, "y