Mark leaned forward a little, so as to try and make out whether his ally was speaking in jest or earnest; and there was enough feeble light in the east to enable him to read pretty plainly that the lad was in deadly earnest. "No," he said sharply; "I don't think we'll have it out now. My head's too queer, and my eyes keep going misty, so that I can't see straight. You'd get the best of it. I don't want to meet my father, but I'd rather do that than be half killed. The poke from that pike was quite enough to last me for a bit." He turned and trotted off after his men, while Ralph joined his, to hear them grumbling and muttering together, he being the burden of their complaint. Nick Garth and Ram Jennings seemed to be the most bitter against him, the latter commencing boldly at once. "Oh, Master Ralph," he cried, "if your father had been here, we should ha' paid them Edens for hanging back as they did." "They did not hang back," cried Ralph angrily; "they fought very bravely." "What!" cried Nick. "Well, I do like that. But I don't care. Dessay I shall be a dead 'un 'fore I gets to the Castle, and then we shall see what Sir Morton will say." "Well, you will not hear, Nick," said Ralph quietly. "No: I shan't hear, Master Ralph, 'cause I shall be a dead 'un, I suppose. But I'm thinking about my poor old mother. She'll break her heart when they carry me to her, stiff as a trout, for I'm the only son she has got." This was too much for the wounded men even. They forgot their sufferings in the comic aspect of the case, familiar as they all were with the open enmity existing between Mother Garth and her son, it being common talk that the last act of affection displayed toward him had been the throwing of a pot of boiling water at his head. The laugh lightened the rest of the way, but they were a doleful-looking, ragged, and blood-stained set, who bore one of their number upon a litter formed of pike-staves up the zigzag to the men's quarters at day-break; and Ralph felt as if he had hardly strength enough to climb back to his window and go to bed, after seeing his roughly-bandaged men safely in. But he made the essay, and when half-way up dropped back again into the garden, just as a thrush began to pipe loudly its welcome to the coming day; and the blackbirds were uttering their chinking calls low down in the moist gloom amongst the bushes on the cliff slope. "Can't leave the poor fellows like that," he muttered. "Oh dear, how stiff I am! Father said he always felt it his duty, when he was a soldier, to look well after his wounded men."