short clays like the heroes they were. In a swirl of
intoxicating glory the troop clinked and clattered by, while we
shouted and waved, jumping up and down, and the big jolly
horsemen acknowledged the salute with easy condescension. The
moment they were past we were through the hedge and after them.
Soldiers were not the common stuff of everyday life. There had
been nothing like this since the winter before last, when on a
certain afternoon--bare of leaf and monochrome in its hue of
sodden fallow and frost-nipt copse--suddenly the hounds had burst
through the fence with their mellow cry, and all the paddock was
for the minute reverberant of thudding hoof and dotted with
glancing red. But this was better, since it could only mean that
blows and bloodshed were in the air.

"Is there going to be a battle?" panted Harold, hardly able to
keep up for excitement.

"Of course there is," I replied. "We're just in time. Come on!"

Perhaps I ought to have known better; and yet-- The pigs and
poultry, with whom we chiefly consorted, could instruct us little
concerning the peace that in these latter days lapped this sea-
girt realm. In the schoolroom we were just now dallying with the
Wars of the Roses; and did not legends of the country-side inform
us how Cavaliers had once galloped up and down these very lanes
from their quarters in the village? Here, now, were soldiers
unmistakable; and if their business was not fighting, what was
it? Sniffing the joy of battle, we followed hard on their
tracks.