acclamation.

"Mark Forester speaks well," said Montagu. "On yon 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 he
stood, the dispersion of his friends. To the rear of the palisades,
which protected the spot where he was placed, already grouped "the
lookers-on and no fighters," as the chronicler [Fabyan] words it, who,