on, and saw the extent of their danger, and
their loss,--here the handful, there the multitude,--a simultaneous
exclamation of terror and dismay broke from their ranks.

"Children!" cried Warwick, "droop not! Henry at Agincourt had worse odds
than we!"

But the murmur among the archers, the lealest part of the earl's
retainers, continued, till there stepped forth their captain, a gray old
man, but still sinewy and unbent, the iron relic of a hundred battles.

"Back to your men, Mark Forester!" said the earl, sternly.

The old man obeyed not. He came on to Warwick, and fell on his knees
beside his stirrup.

"Fly, my lord! escape is possible for you and your riders. Fly through
the wood, we will screen your path with our bodies. Your children,
father of your followers, your children of Middleham, ask no better fate
than to die for you! Is it not so?" and the old man, rising, turned to
those in hearing. They answered by a general acclamation.

"Mark Forester speaks well," said Montagu. "On you depends the last hope
of Lancaster. We may yet join Oxford and Somerset! This way through the
wood,--come!" and he laid his hand on the earl's rein.

"Knights and sirs," said the earl, dismounting, and partially raising
his visor as he turned to the horsemen, "let those who will, fly with
Lord Montagu! Let those who, in a just cause, never despair of victory,
nor, even at the worst, fear to face their Maker, fresh from the
glorious death of heroes, dismount with me!" Every knight sprang from
his steed, Montagu the first. "Comrades!" continued the earl, then
addressing the retainers, "when the children fight for a father's
honour, the father flies not from the peril into which he has drawn the
children. What to me were life, stained by the blood of mine own beloved
retainers, basely deserted by their chief? Edward has proclaimed that he
will spare none. Fool! he gives us, then, the superhuman mightiness
of despair! To your bows!--one shaft--if it pierce the joints of
the tyrant's mail--one shaft may scatter yon army to the winds! Sir
Marmaduke has gone to rally noble Somerset and his riders; if we make
good our defence one little hour, the foe may be yet smitten in the
rear, and the day retrieved! Courage and heart then!" Here the earl
lifted his visor to the farthest bar, and showed his cheerful face--"Is
this the face of a man who thinks all hope is gone?"

In this interval, the sudden sunshine revealed to King Henry, where