In the meantime, back in the road by the school-house, Aleck Sands had picked himself up, still a little dazed, but not seriously hurt, and soldiers who had recently faced each other in battle came with unanimity to the rescue of the flag. Hilltops and Riverbeds alike, all differences and enmities forgotten in this new crisis, they joined in gathering up the wet and muddy folds, and in bearing them to the warmth and shelter of the school-house. Here they washed out the stains, and stretched the banner out to dry, and at dusk, exhausted and sobered by the events of the day, with serious faces and apprehensive hearts, they went to their several homes. CHAPTER V When Pen reached home on that afternoon after the battle of Chestnut Hill, he found that his Aunt Millicent was out, and that his grandfather had not yet returned from Lowbridge, the county seat, fourteen miles away. He had therefore an opportunity, unseen and unquestioned, to change his wet clothing for dry, and to bathe and anoint and otherwise care for his cuts and bruises. When it was all done he went down to the library and lighted the gas, and found a book and tried to read. But the words he read were meaningless. Try as he would he could not keep his mind on the printed page. Nor was it so much the snowball fight that occupied his thoughts. He was not now exulting at any victory he had obtained over his foes. He was not even dwelling on the strategy and trickery displayed by Aleck Sands and his followers in seeking protection under the folds of the flag; strategy and trickery which had led so swiftly and sharply to his own undoing. It was his conduct in that last, fierce moment of the fight that was blazoned constantly before his eyes with ever increasing strength of accusation. To think that he, Penfield Butler, grandson of the owner of Bannerhall, had permitted himself, in a moment of passion, no matter what the provocation, to grind his country's flag into the slush under his heels; the very flag given by his grandfather to the school of which he was himself a member. How should he ever square himself with Colonel Richard Butler? How should he ever make it right with Miss Grey? How should he ever satisfy his own accusing conscience? Excuses for his conduct were plenty enough indeed; his excitement, his provocation, his freedom from malice; he marshalled them in orderly array; but, under the cold logic of events, one by one they crumbled and fell away. More and more heavily, more and more depressingly the enormity of his offense weighed upon him as he considered it, and what the outcome of it all would be he did not even dare to conjecture. At half past five his Aunt Millicent returned. She looked in at him from the hall, greeted him pleasantly, said something about the miserable weather, and then went on about her household duties.