*YOREDALE.* From that day forward, the first strangeness of their gipsy life grew to be familiar, usual. Little by little the Parliament soldiery went south or westward, to share in the attack on Royalist garrisons still unaffected by the disastrous news from Yorkshire; but the country was infested by roving bands of cut-purses and murderers—men who had hung on the skirts of civil war, ready to be King’s men or Levellers, when they knew which side claimed the victory. It was the exploits of these prowling rascals that set many a story going of the outrages committed by true Roundheads, who had no share in them; but the Squire of Nappa was not concerned with public rumour or the judgment of generations to come after. His whole heart—all the untiring watchfulness that had made him a leader of picked cavalry—were centred in this new, appalling peril. Day by day the raff and jetsom of the country moved abroad in numbers that steadily increased. They were not dangerous in the open against the disciplined men of Knaresborough and Nappa; but they asked for constant vigilance, as if the wolf-packs of old days had returned to haunt these moorland solitudes. They were heading by short stages to Nappa; for, as the Squire explained, there was room enough in house and outbuildings to house them all, and they might well hold it for the King, if the chance of war brought the tumult North again. "A hard-bitten bull-dog, you," said the Governor of Knaresborough. "Ay, maybe. I guard my own, and there’s a sort of bite about a Mecca when he’s roused." "There is, sir—a Yorkshire bite, they say." Their route was hindered, not only by prowling vagabonds, but by the men who fell sick by the wayside, now that the stress of the big fight was ended, and they had leisure to take count of wounds. Miss Bingham went among the fallen, bandaging a wound here, giving a cup of water there, bringing constantly the gift she had of soothing sick men’s fancies. Once—it was when they camped on Outlaw Moss, and the gloaming found her nursing little Blake—the Governor and Squire Metcalf halted as they made their round of the camp. "So Blake has given in at last," said the Squire. "Pity he didn’t learn that lesson years ago." "That is true, sir," said Miss Bingham gravely. "With a broken heart, there’s no shame in lying down by the wayside. He should have done it long since." The Governor laughed, as if a child’s fancy had intruded into the workaday routine. "The jest will serve, Miss Bingham. We know Blake, and, believe me, he never had a heart to be broken. Whipcord and sinew—he rides till he drops, with no woman’s mawkishness to hinder him." "No mawkishness," she agreed. "I give you good-night, gentlemen. He needs me, if he is not to die before the dawn." "Oh, again your pardon," said the Governor roughly. "You played in Knaresborough—you were always playing—and we thought you light."