p."

Soon after daybreak bowls of milk and trays of bread and meat were
brought down to the workers by some of the women. As there was no
immediate expectation of attack, the farmer himself, with the pastor,
went back to the village to cheer the women before their departure.

"You need not be afraid, wife," the farmer said. "I shall keep to my
plans, because when you have once made a plan it is foolish to change
it; but I deem not that there is any real need for sending you and
the wagons and beasts away. This young Scotch lad seems made for a
commander, and truly, if all his countrymen are like himself, I wonder
no longer that the Poles and Imperialists have been unable to withstand
them. Truly he has constructed a trap from which this band of villains
will have but little chance of escape, and I trust that we may slay them
without much loss to ourselves. What rejoicings will there not be in
the fifty villages when the news comes that their oppressors have
been killed! The good God has assuredly sent this youth hither as His
instrument in defeating the oppressors, even as He chose the shepherd
boy David out of Israel to be the scourge of the Philistines."

By this time all was ready for a start, and having seen the wagons
fairly on their way the farmer returned to the wood, the pastor
accompanying the women. Three hours passed before there were any signs
of the marauders, and Malcolm began to think that the idea might
have occurred to them that he had gone to Glogau, and that they might
therefore have postponed their raid upon that village until they could
make sure of taking it by surprise, and so capturing all the horses
and valuables before the villagers had time to remove them. Glogau was,
however, quite out of Malcolm's direct line for the Swedish camp, and
it was hardly likely that the freebooters would think that their late
captive would go out of his way to warn the village, in which he had no
interest whatever; indeed they would scarcely be likely to recall the
fact that he had been present when they were discussing their proposed
expedition against it.

All doubts were, however, set at rest when a boy who had been stationed
in a high tree near the edge of the wood ran in with the news that a
band of horsemen were riding across the plain, and would be there in a
few minutes. Every one fell into his appointed place. The farmer himself
took the command of the party on one side of the road, Malcolm of that
on