“Boys,” asked Richards, “are you fit for a man hunt to-morrer?”

“Fitter’n a fiddle,” answered the boys; “then we can go fishin’ where we durn please.”

They bade their allies good bye, carrying their spoil with them, and twelve persons set out for a six-mile tramp home.

“Yeez can march at aise, march aisy, boys,” ordered the veteran; and the party broke up into groups.  The woman clung to the Squire, and the boy to Sylvanus, who had made whittled trifles to amuse him.  Mr. Hill cultivated Timotheus, and formed a high opinion of him.  Rufus, of course, addicted himself to his future father-in-law, the Sesayder.  Mr. Terry thought it his duty to hold out high hopes to Ben in regard to the rescue of Serlizer; and Perrowne and the lawyer journeyed along like brothers.  There was a light in the post office, and the post-mistress at the door asked if the doctor had gone home yet, for two wounded men had sought shelter with her, and told her that one named Harding was lying down the hill near by.  The Squire promised to bring the doctor to the wounded, and asked his father-in-law and Coristine, as if they were his nearest friends, to go down and see if they could find the wounded Harding.  They went down and found him, but he was dead, with two of the Bridesdale kitchen-knives planted in his heart.  In part, at least, the murder of Nash was avenged.  They picked the slain assassin up and carried him to the road, where the post office stood, and deposited the body in an outbuilding to await the verdict of the morning.

Meanwhile, the dominie was happy; his rival, the parson, his tormentor, the lawyer, were away, and even that well-meaning Goth, the tired Captain, was asleep in the guard-room, opposite a half-empty glass of the beverage in which he indulged so rarely, but which he must have good.  The doctor’s lively daughter had left Mrs. Du Plessis to guard the front of the house, and was talking to her father on his beat, and he had a suspicion that Mrs. Carmichael was wrapping that cloud again round the minister’s neck.  When the battle commenced below, the colonel was everywhere, directing Maguffin, inspecting the posts, guarding on all sides against the possibility of the enemy’s attack being a mere feint.  All unknown to the rest of the company, Miss Carmichael was up in the glass-enclosed observatory at the top of the house, without a light, watching the movements of the hostile ranks beyond the bush, and inwardly praying for the success of the righteous cause and for the safety of those she loved.  Of course her uncle John was among them, and the simple-hearted old grandfather of her young cousins, and even, in a way, Mr. Perrowne, who had behaved bravely, but there was a tall, unclerical form, which Mr. Terry and the Squire had difficulty in keeping up with, that her eye followed more closely.  Every report of the lawyer’s rifle seemed to press a warm spot on her maiden cheek, and then make the quick blood suffuse her face, as she thought of the morning and Mr. Wilkinson.  That gentleman was happy on guard at the top of the hill meadow, for a tall female figure, muffled up slightly as a preventive to chill from the night dews, came down the path towards his post, eager for news from the seat of war.