tion he passed on, followed by his
officers.

"Alack," cried Alicia, "I am shent!"

"Ye know him not," replied Lord Foxham. "It is but a trifle; he hath
already clean forgot your words."

"He is, then, the very flower of knighthood," said Alicia.

"Nay, he but mindeth other things," returned Lord Foxham. "Tarry we no
more."

In the chancel they found Dick waiting, attended by a few young men; and
there were he and Joan united. When they came forth again, happy and yet
serious, into the frosty air and sunlight, the long files of the army
were already winding forward up the road; already the Duke of
Gloucester's banner was unfolded and began to move from before the abbey
in a clump of spears; and behind it, girt by steel-clad knights, the
bold, black-hearted, and ambitious hunchback moved on towards his brief
kingdom and his lasting infamy. But the wedding party turned upon the
other side, and sat down, with sober merriment, to breakfast. The father
cellarer attended on their wants, and sat with them at table. Hamley,
all jealousy forgotten, began to ply the nowise loth Alicia with
courtship. And there, amid the sounding of tuckets and the clash of
armoured soldiery and horses continually moving forth, Dick and Joan sat
side by side, tenderly held hands, and looked, with ever growing
affection, in each other's eyes.

Thenceforth the dust and blood of that unruly epoch passed them by. They
dwelt apart from alarms in the green forest where their love began.

Two old men in the meanwhile enjoyed pensions in great prosperity and
peace, and with perhaps a superfluity of ale and wine, in Tunstall
hamlet. One had been all his life a shipman, and continued to the last
to lament his man Tom. The other, who had been a bit of everything,
turned in the end towards piety, and made a most religious death under
the name of Brother Honestus in the neighbouring abbey. So Lawless had
his will, and died a friar.

Footnotes:

{1} At the date of this story, Richard Crookback could not have been
created Duke of Gloucester; but for clearness, with the reader's leave,
he shall so be called.

{2} Richard Crookback would have been really far younger at this date.

{3} Technically, the term "lance" included a not quite certain number of
foot soldiers attached to the man-at-arms.

***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BLACK ARROW***

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