y boy?"

"Lady Markham and her daughter, sir. This is no place for them."

"Humph! No. But we have no time for paying attentions to ladies."

"No, sir; but what I want to do is a little thing. We may stay here
some time, and other troops join us."

"Yes, I am expecting reinforcements. What do you want to do?"

"As this may be quite a rendezvous for some time, to get them away."

"I cannot undertake such duties, my boy; but Lady Markham and her
daughter are free to go anywhere."

"Thank you, sir. That is what I want; but the only asylum for them is
our old home, and they would not go there unasked."

"Well, ask them."

"It would be of no use."

"My good lad, I am tired out. I want to snatch a few hours' sleep.
What is it you want?"

"I want to take half a dozen men to ride over and fetch my mother here.
They were once dear friends, and if my mother came, she could persuade
Lady Markham, for her child's sake, to go back with her."

The general sat frowning for a few minutes, during which he poured out a
little wine in a long Venice glass, filled up with water, and drank.

"Yes," he said in a quiet, decided voice, as he set down his glass,
"take a sergeant and half a dozen--no, a dozen men, ride over and do the
business as quickly as you can, so that the men and their horses may get
back and rest. It means a double journey, you see. No; no thanks.
Despatch!"

Fred looked his thanks, and retired with the promptness loved by his
leader; and a very short time later, just as the turret clock was
striking ten, he rode out with his little detachment, being challenged
again and again by the mounted sentries placed along the road which
skirted the west end of the lake.

"Only think of it, Master Fred," whispered Sergeant Samson Dee, as they
rode slowly along beneath the light of the stars--"going home in this
way. What will the mistress say?"

They were not long in hearing.

As they rode over the familiar ground, Samson was very silent, for he
was thinking of the old garden, while Fred felt a swelling sensation at
his breast as every object so well-known peered cut of the surrounding
darkness. There was the pond in which Dodder took refuge one day after
he had broken out of the field to escape capture, and there stuck so
tightly in the mud that cart ropes had to be thrown over him, and he was
dragged out looking the most drenched and deplorable object possible.

There, looming up under the stars, w