, to stand gazing down at the wounded man.

Fred was too weak to do more than move his head slightly, so as to gaze
back at his enemy; but he met Scarlett's stern look defiantly, and
waited for him to speak.

And as he lay there the rough loft and its straw seemed to pass away,
for the background of his mental picture to become the park and grounds
about the old Hall, on one of the old sunny days when he and Scarlett
had had a quarrel about some trivial matter, and were gazing
threateningly at each other after uttering dire words, and were
declaring that everything between them was quite at an end, and that
they were never going to speak to each other again.

Then the present came back, and there stood Scarlett, looking stern and
frowning, as he involuntarily passed his great gloves into his left
hand, and began to let his finger and thumb play about his lips, where
he tried to find--and failed--an imaginary moustache, which, all the
same, he twisted up into airy points to add to his fierce aspect. A
little bit of conceit which he had picked up during his soldier life.

"What a miserable peacock he has grown!" thought Fred. "And I am in the
power now of such a court fop, whose only idea is dress and show. Well,
I'm glad I belong to the haul, quiet Parliamentarians. Better than
being like that."

But somehow, all the while, Fred could not help thinking of his own
plain buff-leather uniform, with its heavy, clumsy, steel breast and
back plates, which, like his hard, head-aching helmet, were more often
rusty than bright, and, though he would not have owned it, he could not
help admiring the figure before him, and looking at it with something
like envy.

"Why don't he speak?" thought Fred, with a faint flush coming into his
cheeks. "Does he think he is going to stare me down?"

The faint flush deepened a little, as he grew indignant at his enemy
coming to triumph over him in his helplessness; and then he thought of
how he had triumphed when it was his day, and how he had humbled his old
companion to the dust.

"And what a mean, contemptible triumph it was, and how it stung me far
more than it did him! But he shan't humble me. I can be as defiant as
he is, and I'll die before I'll show him that he has gained the day."

But as Fred defiantly returned Scarlett's calm, stern look, a thick mist
seemed to gather slowly between them, making the face of the young
Cavalier grow faint and distant, a singing noise cam