dge could tell little--seen less than the lookers on above. He had
been among those who had charged through the enemy, and ridden towards
Bristol, but his horse had been struck by a stray shot, and killed under
him. He had avoided the pursuers by scrambling through a hedge, and then
had thought it best to make his way through the fields to his own home,
until, seeing the party on the hill, he had joined them, expecting to
find his parents among them.

Sir George he knew to be on before him, and probably almost at Bristol
by this time. Poor Jack had been left weeks ago on the field of Naseby,
though there had been no opportunity of letting his family know. "Ill
news travels fast enough!" And as to Harry, he had been shot down by a
trooper near about the bridge, but mayhap might be alive for all that.

"And my brother, Jeph Kenton," Steadfast managed to say. "Was he there?"

"Jeph Kenton! Why, he's a canting Roundhead. The only Elmwood man as is!
More shame for him."

"But was he there?" demanded Stead.

"There! Well, Captain Venn's horse were there, and he was in them! I
have seen him more than once on outpost duty, prating away as if he had
a beard on his chin. I'd a good mind to put a bullet through him to stop
his impudence, for a disgrace to the place."

"Then he was in the fight?" reiterated Steadfast.

"Aye, was he. And got his deserts, I'll be bound, for we went smack
smooth through Venn's horse, like a knife through a mouldy cheese, and
left 'em lying to the right and left. If the other fellows had but stuck
by us as well, we'd have made a clean sweep of the canting dogs."

Hodge's eloquence was checked by the not unwelcome offer of a drink of
cider.

"Seems quiet enough down there," said Nanny Lakin, peering wistfully
over the valley where the shadows of evening were spreading. "Mayhap if
I went down I might find out how it is with my poor lad."

"Nay, I'll go, mother," said a big, loutish youth, hitherto silent;
"mayn't be so well for womenfolk down there."

"What's that to me, Joe, when my poor Harry may be lying a bleeding his
dear life out down there?"

"There's no fear," said Hodge. "To give them their due, the Roundheads
be always civil to country folk and women--leastways unless they take
'em for Irish--and thinking that, they did make bloody work with the
poor ladies at Naseby. But the dame there will be safe enough," he
added, as she was already on the move down hill. "Has no one a keg of