However this did not meet my views of what an honest man should do; and I went to consult my mother about it, as all the accounts would be made in her name.

Dear mother thought that if the King paid only half again as much as other people would have to pay, it would be perhaps the proper thing; the half being due for loyalty:  and here she quoted an ancient saying,—­

    “The King and his staff. 
     Be a man and a half;”

which, according to her judgment, ruled beyond dispute the law of the present question.  To argue with her after that (which she brought up with such triumph) would have been worse than useless.  Therefore I just told Annie to make the bills at a third below the current market prices; so that the upshot would be fair.  She promised me honestly that she would; but with a twinkle in her bright blue eyes, which she must have caught from Tom Faggus.  It always has appeared to me that stern and downright honesty upon money matters is a thing not understood of women; be they as good as good can be.

The yellows and the reds together numbered a hundred and twenty men, most of whom slept in our barns and stacks; and besides these we had fifteen troopers of the regular army.  You may suppose that all the country was turned upside down about it; and the folk who came to see them drill—­by no means a needless exercise—­were a greater plague than the soldiers.  The officers too of the Devonshire hand were such a torment to us, that we almost wished their men had dismissed them, as the Somerset troop had done with theirs.  For we could not keep them out of our house, being all young men of good family, and therefore not to be met with bars.  And having now three lovely maidens (for even Lizzie might be called so, when she cared to please), mother and I were at wit’s ends, on account of those blessed officers.  I never got a wink of sleep; they came whistling under the window so; and directly I went out to chase them, there was nothing but a cat to see.

Therefore all of us were right glad (except perhaps Farmer Snowe, from whom we had bought some victuals at rare price), when Jeremy Stickles gave orders to march, and we began to try to do it.  A good deal of boasting went overhead, as our men defiled along the lane; and the thick broad patins of pennywort jutted out between the stones, ready to heal their bruises.  The parish choir came part of the way, and the singing-loft from Countisbury; and they kept our soldiers’ spirits up with some of the most pugnacious Psalms.  Parson Bowden marched ahead, leading all our van and file, as against the Papists; and promising to go with us, till we came to bullet distance.  Therefore we marched bravely on, and children came to look at us.  And I wondered where Uncle Reuben was, who ought to have led the culverins (whereof we had no less than three), if Stickles could only have found him; and then I thought of little Ruth; and without any fault on my part, my heart went down within me.