At last they came to a farmhouse near the roadside, and Armstrong beat up the inmates, bringing a woman’s head to an opened window. At first she would admit no one at that hour of the night, but the moon shining on the steel cap and the long cloak apparently gave her confidence. Her husband was in the south with Cromwell, she said. She could make a place in the house for the lady, but the soldier would find better accommodation than he was accustomed to in an outhouse. With this Armstrong expressed himself as amply satisfied. They dismounted, and he led away the horses. He found a place for them in a shed, examined them, and rubbed them down with care. Having satisfied himself that they were none the worse for their long journey, he attended to their wants and flung down some bundles of straw for his own night’s lodging. He began to think he must go supperless, or run the risk of foraging in an unknown pantry, if he could find entrance, when he saw Frances approach from the house with a loaf of bread and a lump of cheese on a trencher, and a measure of ale. He met her half way and relieved her of the load. Under her arm she carried some cumbrous weapon, which she brought out when he assumed the burden of the provender. “It is a pair of sheep-shears, which the woman tells me is all she has, but I assured her they were most suitable for my purpose. Now sit on this stone here in the moonlight and be shorn; for we must set out in the daylight without those long locks of yours. You look too much like the King, even with your cloak and steel cap.” The girl laughed softly as she said this, and snapped the big shears menacingly. He sat on the stone like the obedient young man he was, shook out his lion’s mane, and in a few moments was bereft of it. The girl stood back and surveyed her work, laughing, but nevertheless with a tinge of regret in her laughter. “Oh, it’s a pity!” she cried. “All the King’s horses and all the King’s men are not worth the sacrifice. I hope it will grow again, for, if not, the Philistines be upon thee, Samson. Your dearest friend would n ‘t know you now.” Armstrong smiled ruefully and passed his hand in anxious doubt over his cropped head. “I suppose it will grow again, unless my dearest friend refuses to acknowledge me with this curtailment, when I shall become bald through grief at her defection.” “I make no promises, if you mean me. I shall very likely reconsider. You are never the man who cast a glamour over me at Oxford and elsewhere. I fear I am no true Parliamentarian after all, but I shall not come to a decision until I see you in the daylight. Perhaps the cap will be an improvement, but I doubt it.” He squeezed on the cap, which was still too small. “By the bones of my ancestors, it will need Peter, the blacksmith of Gilnockie, to get this off again!”