Down the rough lane past Wilstrop Wood—a lane pitted deep with ruts—the Royalists fled headlong. And at the far side of the wood, where the lane bent round to a trim farmstead, there was a piteous happening. A child, standing at the gate in wonderment at all the uproar and the shouting, saw a press of gentry come riding hard, and began to open the gate for them, bobbing a curtsey as the first horseman passed. He did not see her. Those behind did not see her, but, pressing forward roughly—pressed in turn by those behind—the weight of them was thrust forward and broke down the gate. After their passing a woman came from the farmsteading, eager to go out and see how it had fared with her husband, a volunteer for Rupert. Under the broken gate she found a little, trampled body; and all her heart grew stony. "Lord God," she said, "Thou knows’t men make the battles, but the women pay for them." On Marston Moor the Squire of Nappa had found his coolness return when it was needed most. The Prince, and he, and Christopher, their horses killed under them long since, had just won free of a hot skirmish at the rear of their retreating friends, and were left in a quiet backwater of the pursuit. "Best get away," he said. "You’re needed to see to the aftermath of this red harvest." His sturdy common sense had struck the true note. Rupert had had in mind to die fighting, since all else was lost. And now the little, fluting note of trust came to him through the havoc. He was needed. They came, these three, to the clayey lands—wet and sticky to the feet—that bordered Wilstrop Wood. The storm, tired of its fury, had rent the clouds apart with a last soaking deluge, and the moon shone high, tender as a Madonna yearning to bring peace on earth. A fresh pursuit came near them, and they turned into a field of flowering beans on their left. They heard the pursuit go by. Then they heard a litany of pain come out from Wilstrop Wood, where wounded Cavaliers had taken refuge. And from Marston Moor there was the ceaseless crying—not good to hear—of horses that would never again, in this world, at least, find the stride of a gallop over open fields. To these three, hidden in the bean-field, came an odd detachment from the pity and the uproar of it all. Nothing seemed to matter, except sleep. The heat, and rain, and burden of that bitter hour just ended were no more than nightmares, ended by this ease of mind and body that was stealing over them. It was good to be alive, if only to enjoy this pleasant languor. The Squire of Nappa laughed sharply as he got to his feet. "At my age, to go sleeping in a field of flowering beans! As well lie bed-fellow with poppies. D’ye guess what I dreamed just now? Why, that I was crowned King in London, with Noll Cromwell, dressed as Venus, doing homage to me." "Ah, don’t rouse me, father," grumbled Kit. "I’m smelling a Yoredale byre again, and hear the snod kine rattling at their chains."