“How I envy you!” she cried. “I would give the world to see one so brave.” “The Prince hath not a monopoly of courage.” “No, no; all the King’s soldiers are brave, of course.” “Yet you will hardly trust this soldier with aught. You hold him eternally at an icy distance.” His tone was that of a dejected lover. Yet even now she was unsuspicious. Her thoughts were of the war, and not in the least of love. “I think you are very much to be envied,” she cried. “Oh! it must be a grand thing to fight for the King, to defend the weak, to make the rebels fly before you.” “Shall I tell you the truth?” said Norton, with a sudden modulation in his musical voice which made her heart stir strangely. “’Tis only when I am in your presence that I know what enjoyment means.” They had passed through the gate and were walking up the grassy slope to the gabled house. At last Hilary could not help understanding in part what he meant. She blushed crimson, and was silent. “Don’t you see that this long campaign means for me privation, tedium, loneliness?” said Norton, with meaning emphasis on the last word. “I can never know happiness without you.” He watched her furtively, but very keenly. Surely she would help him out with some word, some gesture, some glance! He was a well-practised wooer, but never had his advances been met with such baffling silence. It seemed to him that all at once she was far, far away from him, and, in truth, her spirit had flown to the little wood where, nearly five years before, Gabriel had told her of his love. The eager, boyish face, the clear, honest eyes, like wells of light, drew her irresistibly away from the man who walked now beside her. And yet all the time she was aware that over her lower nature Norton’s influence was great. His handsome face, his soldierly bearing, his alternations of high spirits and of deep sadness fascinated her; there was something, too, in his audacity and force of character which filled her with admiration. “If only this thrice-accursed field were a grove I could prevail with her,” reflected Norton. “But here!” And at that moment Don came to the rescue of his mistress by racing with all the ardour of youth among a stately flock of geese, which fled helter-skelter, with much hissing and indignant cackling. Hilary broke out into a peal of laughter, and, thankful for the interruption, ran after the terrier. “Don! Don!” she cried. “You wicked dog! Come to heel this moment.” And with a merry glance at the discomfited Norton, she hastened into the garden of the Hill Farm, leaving him to pace up and down savagely among the agitated geese. Mrs. Kendrick came to the door with a troubled face. “Good morning, mistress,” she said, curtseying. “You find a sad house here. I have two of my poor lads sorely wounded upstairs, and the master be only now getting back his wits. He was that cruelly beaten about the head!” “Why, when was that?” said Hilary. “Had they joined the Clubmen?”