.

Whether I am right or wrong in these small moralities, one thing is sure
enough, to wit, that hope is the fastest traveller, at any rate, in the
time of youth. And so I hoped that Lorna might be proved of blameless
family, and honourable rank and fortune; and yet none the less for that,
love me and belong to me. So I led her into the house, and she fell into
my mother's arms; and I left them to have a good cry of it, with Annie
ready to help them.

If Master Stickles should not mend enough to gain his speech a little,
and declare to us all he knew, I was to set out for Watchett, riding
upon horseback, and there to hire a cart with wheels, such as we had not
begun, as yet, to use on Exmoor. For all our work went on broad wood,
with runners and with earthboards; and many of us still looked upon
wheels (though mentioned in the Bible) as the invention of the evil one,
and Pharoah's especial property.

Now, instead of getting better, Colonel Stickles grew worse and worse,
in spite of all our tendance of him, with simples and with nourishment,
and no poisonous medicine, such as doctors would have given him. And the
fault of this lay not with us, but purely with himself and his unquiet
constitution. For he roused himself up to a perfect fever, when through
Lizzie's giddiness he learned the very thing which mother and Annie were
hiding from him, with the utmost care; namely, that Sergeant Bloxham had
taken upon himself to send direct to London by the Chancery officers,
a full report of what had happened, and of the illness of his chief,
together with an urgent prayer for a full battalion of King's troops,
and a plenary commander.

This Sergeant Bloxham, being senior of the surviving soldiers, and a
very worthy man in his way, but a trifle over-zealous, had succeeded to
the captaincy upon his master's disablement. Then, with desire to serve
his country and show his education, he sat up most part of three nights,
and wrote this very wonderful report by the aid of our stable lanthorn.
It was a very fine piece of work, as three men to whom he read it (but
only one at a time) pronounced, being under seal of secrecy. And all
might have gone well with it, if the author could only have held his
tongue, when near the ears of women. But this was beyond his sense as it
seems, although so good a writer. For having heard that our Lizzie was
a famous judge of literature (as indeed she told almost every one), he
could not contain himse