"No, indeed; he would fling the amphora back in your face. But you ask--oh, that I should say it--for a commission. Yet, please God, the war will be done; and yet, again, if it is, whence are you going to win glory?" "Glory!" He sighed and said no more. "To be frank," continued Grace, "dear father would not keep the amphora now. He loves beautiful things, but he loves his farm better. He needs money. He looks so far ahead, that the present often finds him very straitened. Just now 'tis money he most wants, and you have to begin the campaign by finding twenty thousand pounds for him." "I'll do my best--the Lord helping." "And think not, dear John, that I am light of heart because my tongue wags so fast. I laugh, but my spirit is low enough when I remember all that these things must mean. Your life will be full of fret and fever and action; I shall have nothing but thought and hope to fill mine." "I wish I could believe you. Your dangers will be real ones. If I departed, who is to stand between you and Peter Norcot? Since I am to fight, 'tis your battle, not the King's, that I long to enter into." Grace shook her head. "Have no fear for me, John; I can take good care of myself--of that I do assure you. Now tell me that no maid more practical and sensible and brave than I, ever set sail to face a sea of troubles." Then fell silence between them for a long season, and there was no sound but the rasp of the dry, burnt heather twigs against their horses' feet. CHAPTER X HANGMAN'S HOLLOW John Lee entertained a very vivid recollection of the spot where his grandmother had turned on a moonlit night under Fox Tor, and beat him for daring to follow her. That her hiding-place was still the same he doubted not; and now he determined to track the old woman down again, but with more stealth and skill than had marked his boyish operations. Seven times he waited on the Moor beneath the hills, only to find each vigil unbroken save by the familiar shapes and voices of the night. Then two moons passed and the hunting season opened in earnest. It now became Lee's duty to ride his master's second horse, for Mr. Malherb was both a heavy weight and a hard rider. As for Grace, she approached the sport with all her father's ardour and quickly proved herself a brave and a brilliant horsewoman. Oftentimes she made John's heart sink, for she knew no fear; then Maurice Malherb cautioned her for incurring of unnecessary risk, and in private John implored her to be more cautious. "You are magnificent," he said. "'Tis a grand thing to see Mr. Malherb's face when he watches you; but you are made of flesh and blood, not moonbeams; and your horse, fine though he is, can only do what a horse may."