oor soldier drowned?' asked Annie; 'and you never went to
look for him! Oh, how very dreadful!'

'Shot, or drowned; I know not which. Thank God it was only a trooper.
But they shall pay for it, as dearly as if it had been a captain.'

'And how was it you were struck by a bullet, and only shaken in your
saddle? Had you a coat of mail on, or of Milanese chain-armour? Now,
Master Stickles, had you?'

'No, Mistress Lizzie; we do not wear things of that kind nowadays. You
are apt, I perceive, at romances. But I happened to have a little flat
bottle of the best stoneware slung beneath my saddle-cloak, and filled
with the very best eau de vie, from the George Hotel, at Southmolton.
The brand of it now is upon my back. Oh, the murderous scoundrels, what
a brave spirit they have spilled!'

'You had better set to and thank God,' said I, 'that they have not
spilled a braver one.'

CHAPTER XLVIII

EVERY MAN MUST DEFEND HIMSELF

It was only right in Jeremy Stickles, and of the simplest common sense,
that he would not tell, before our girls, what the result of his journey
was. But he led me aside in the course of the evening, and told me all
about it; saying that I knew, as well as he did, that it was not woman's
business. This I took, as it was meant, for a gentle caution that Lorna
(whom he had not seen as yet) must not be informed of any of his doings.
Herein I quite agreed with him; not only for his furtherance, but
because I always think that women, of whatever mind, are best when least
they meddle with the things that appertain to men.

Master Stickles complained that the weather had been against him
bitterly, closing all the roads around him; even as it had done with us.
It had taken him eight days, he said, to get from Exeter to Plymouth;
whither he found that most of the troops had been drafted off from
Exeter. When all were told, there was but a battalion of one of the
King's horse regiments, and two companies of foot soldiers; and their
commanders had orders, later than the date of Jeremy's commission, on
no account to quit the southern coast, and march inland. Therefore,
although they would gladly have come for a brush with the celebrated
Doones, it was more than they durst attempt, in the face of their
instructions. However, they spared him a single trooper, as a companion
of the road, and to prove to the justices of the county, and the lord
lieutenant, that he had their approval.

To these authorities Mas