"Under the rail of the miller's croft," added Stead.

"Just so. That was where I saw them make a stand and go down like
skittles."

"Poor little maid. What shall I tell her?"

"Well, you can never be sure," said Hodge. "There was a man now I
thought as dead as a door nail at Newbury that charged by my side
only yesterday. You'd best tell the maid that if I find her father
I'll send him after her; and if not, when the place is quiet, you
might look at the mill and see if he is lying wounded there."

Steadfast thought the advice good, and it saved him from what he had
no heart to do, though he could scarcely doubt that one of those
ghastly faces had been the serjeant's.

When he approached his home he was surprised to hear, through the
copsewood, the sound of chattering, and when he came in sight of the
front of the hut, he beheld Patience making butter with the long
handled churn, little Ben toddling about on the grass, and two little
girls laughing and playing with all the poultry round them.

One, of course, was stout, ruddy, grey-eyed Rusha, in her tight round
cap, and stout brown petticoat with the homespun apron over it; the
other was like a fairy by her side; slight and tiny, dressed in
something of mixed threads of white and crimson that shone in the
sun, with a velvet bodice, a green ribbon over it, and a gem over the
shoulder that flashed in the sun, a tiny scarlet hood from which such