They lay in the deep, cool grass. There was pure air round them, and they drew deep breaths of it into throats and lungs parched by the fumes of sulphurous smoke. A delicious silence wrapped them, folded them as if in a tender, kind embrace. A faint breeze stirred the grass, waved the white plumes of the meadow sweet, shook the blue vetch flowers and the purple spears of lusmor. In the hedge the reddening blooms of faded hawthorn still lingered. The honeysuckle fragrance filled the air. Groups of merry-faced dog-daisies nodded in the ditch, and round their stalks were buttercups, and beyond them the rich yellow of marsh marigolds. Neal fancied himself awaking from some hideous nightmare. It became impossible to believe in the reality of the battle, the fierce passion of it, the smoke, the sweat, the wounds, the cries. He was lulled into delicious ease. Rest was for the time the supreme good of life. His eyes closed drowsily. He was back in Dunseveric again, and in his ears the noise of a gentle summer sea. He was roused by a touch of his companion’s hand. “I’m afraid there’s a wheen o’ sogers coming up the road.” Neal rose to his hands and knees and peered cautiously through the hedge. He saw mounted men riding slowly along the road from the direction of Antrim. They were still about half a mile off. Every now and then they halted and peered about them. They rode as if they feared an ambush, or as if they sought something or some one in the fields at each side of the road. “They’re yeomen,” said Neal, “and they’re coming towards us. We must lie as still as we can. Perhaps they may pass without seeing us.” “They willna,” said the boy, “they’ll see us. We’ll be kilt at last.” Neal peered again. The yeomen had reached the spot where Donald and his pikemen had made their stand. They halted and dismounted to examine, perhaps to plunder, the bodies. Neal could see their uniforms plainly. He shivered. They were men of the Kilulta yeomenry, of Captain Twinely’s company. “Neal Ward, there’s something I want to say to you before they catch us.” “Well, what is it? Speak at once. They’ll be coming on soon, and then it won’t do to be talking.” “Ay, but you mustn’t look at me while I tell you.” Neal turned away and waited. He was impatient of this making of mysteries in a moment of extreme peril. “I would I were in Ballinderry, I would I were in Aghalee, I would I were in bonny Ram’s Island Trysting under an ivy tree-- Ochone, Ochone!” The words were sung very softly, but Neal recognised the voice at once. He turned at the second line and gazed in open-eyed astonishment at the singer. “Ay, it’s just me, just Peg MacIlrea.” She smiled up at him as she spoke. “But, Peg, how could you do it? Peg, if I’d only known. Why did you come?”