‘Then take care of thyself, Tom,’ said Dorothy; and mounting instantly, she made Dick scramble up into the fields that lay between the cottage and her own house, and set off at full speed across the grass in the moonlight—­an ethereal pleasure which not even an anxious secret could blast.

Through a gap in the hedge she had just popped into the second field, when she heard the click of a flint-lock, and a voice she thought she knew ordering her to stand:  within a few yards of her was again a roundhead soldier.  If she rode away, he would fire at her; that mode of escape therefore she would keep for a last chance.  The moon by this time was throwing an unclouded light from more than half a disc upon the field.

Keeping a sharp eye upon the man’s movements, she allowed him to come within a pace or two, but the moment he would have taken Dick by the bridle she was three or four yards away.

‘Fright not my horse, friend,’ she said.—­’But how!’ she added, suddenly remembering him, ’is it possible?  Master Upstill!  Gently, gently, little Dick!  Master Upstill is an old friend.  What! hast thou too turned soldier?  Left thy last and lapstone and turned soldier, master Upstill?’

‘I have left all and followed him, mistress,’ answered Castdown.

‘Art sure he called thee, master Upstill?’

‘I heard him with my own ears.’

‘Called thee to be a shedder of blood, master Upstill?’

‘Called me to be a fisher of men, and thee I catch, mistress—­thus,’ returned the man, stepping quickly forward and making another grasp at Dick’s bridle.

It was all Dorothy could do to keep herself from giving him a smart blow across the face with her whip, and riding off.  But she gave Dick the cut instead, and sent him yards away.

‘Poor Dick! poor Dick!’ she said, patting his neck; ’be quiet; master Upstill will do thee no wrong.  Be quiet, little man.’

As she thus talked to her genet, Upstill again drew near, now more surly than at first.

‘Say what manner of woman art thou?’ he demanded with pompous anger.  ‘Whence comes thou, and whither does thee go?’

‘Home,’ answered Dorothy.

‘What place calls thee home?’

’Why! dost not know me, master Upstill?  When I was a little one, thou didst make my shoes for me.’

’I trust it will be forgiven me, mistress.  Truly I had ne’er made shoe for thee an’ I had foreseen what thee would come to!  For I make no farther doubt thou art a consorter with malignants, harlots, and papists.’

Again he clutched at her bridle, and this time, whether it was Dorothy or Dick’s fault, with success.  Dorothy dropped the bridle, put her hand in her pocket, struck Dick smartly with her whip, and as he reared in consequence, drew it across Upstill’s eyes, and so found the chance of administering her bolus.

It was thoroughly effective.  The fellow left his hold of the bridle, and began a series of efforts to remove it, which rapidly grew wilder and wilder, until at last his gestures were those of a maniac.