"Hodge! My Hodge! Be'st hurt, my lad?" cried the mother, bursting
through the midst and throwing herself on him, while his father
contented himself with a sort of grunt. "All right, Hodge. How
com'st here?"

"And where's my Jack?" exclaimed Goody Bent.

"And where's our Harry?" was another cry from Widow Lakin.

While Stead longed to ask, but could not be heard in the clamour,
whether his brother had been there.

Hodge could tell little--seen less than the lookers on above. He had
been among those who had charged through the enemy, and ridden
towards Bristol, but his horse had been struck by a stray shot, and
killed under him. He had avoided the pursuers by scrambling through
a hedge, and then had thought it best to make his way through the
fields to his own home, until, seeing the party on the hill, he had
joined them, expecting to find his parents among them.

Sir George he knew to be on before him, and probably almost at
Bristol by this time. Poor Jack had been left weeks ago on the field
of Naseby, though there had been no opportunity of letting his family
know. "Ill news travels fast enough!" And as to Harry, he had been
shot down by a trooper near about the bridge, but mayhap might be
alive for all that.

"And my brother, Jeph Kenton," Steadfast managed to say. "Was he
there?"