his dear life out down there?"

"There's no fear," said Hodge. "To give them their due, the
Roundheads be always civil to country folk and women--leastways
unless they take 'em for Irish--and thinking that, they did make
bloody work with the poor ladies at Naseby. But the dame there will
be safe enough," he added, as she was already on the move down hill.
"Has no one a keg of cider to give her? I know what 'tis to lie
parching under a wound."

Someone produced one, and as her son shouted "Have with you, mother,"
Steadfast hastily asked Tom Oates to let Patience know that he was
gone to see after Jephthah, and joined Ned Lakin and his mother.

Jeph had indeed left his brothers and sisters in a strange, wild way,
almost cruel in its thoughtlessness; but to Stead it had never seemed
more than that elder brotherly masterfulness that he took as a matter
of course, and there was no resting in the thought of his lying
wounded and helpless on the field--nay, the assurance that Hodge
shouted out that the rebel dogs took care of their own fell on
unhearing or unheeding ears, as Steadfast and Ned Lakin dragged the
widow through a gap in the hedge over another field, and then made
their way down a deep stony lane between high hedges.

It was getting dark, in spite of the harvest moon, by the time they
came out on the open space below, and began to see that saddest of
all sights, a battlefield at night.

A soldier used to war would perhaps have scorned to call this a
battle, but it was dreadful enough to these three when they heard the