"But you will surely speak for us. Give me a kind word, madame, ere I go." And she could not resist the youth’s beauty and sweet nature, nor yet the thought in her heart that it might perhaps be his last request. If he should be slain in battle, and she had refused the kind word, what excuse would quiet her self-reproach? Then she looked kindly at him, and the thought of the young prince David going out to meet the uncircumcised Philistine who had defied the armies of the living God, came into her heart; and she drew down his face to hers and kissed and blessed him, saying, as Saul said to David, "Go, and the Lord be with thee." Then he leaped into the saddle, and the horse caught his impatience and shared his martial passion, and with a loud neigh went flying over the land. Silently the two women watched the dark figure grow more and more indistinct in the soft, mysterious moonshine, until at length it was a mere shadow that blended with the indistinctness of the horizon. "Thank you, dear mother," said Jane softly, and the mother answered, "In these times who dare say good-bye in anger? But let me tell you, Jane, you cannot now think of yourself first. England is at the sword’s point; your father and brothers are living on a battle-field; your lover is only one of thousands fighting for the truth and the right, and his life is England’s before it is yours. God and country must be served first, eh, my dear?" "Yes, mother. First and best of all." "When Neville has done his duty, he will come for you. He can no more bear to live without you than without his eyes. I see that." Before Jane could reply, they heard the men and women coming from the harvesting. They were singing as they trailed homeward, their harsh, drawling voices in the night’s silence sounding tired and pathetic and bare of melody. Jane slipped away to the music in her own heart, closing within herself that Love whose growth had been sweet and silent as the birth of roses. *CHAPTER V* *SHEATHED SWORDS* "The peaceful cities Lulled in their ease and undisturbed before are all on fire. The thick battalions move in dreadful form As lowering clouds advance before a storm; Thick smoke obscures the field, and scarce are seen, The neighing coursers and the shouting men; In distance of their darts they stop their course, Then man to man they rush, and horse to horse. The face of heaven their flying javelins hide And deaths unseen are dealt on every side. . . . . . . . . . the fields are strewed With fallen bodies, and are drunk with blood."