e with his chin upon his shoulder, casting
continual uneasy glances behind him, and halting at every piece of
rising ground to make sure that there were no pursuers at our heels. It
was not until, after many weary miles of marching, the lights of Taunton
could be seen twinkling far off in the valley beneath us that he at last
heaved a deep sigh of relief, and expressed his belief that all danger
was over.

'I am not prone to be fearful upon small occasion,' he remarked, 'but
hampered as we are with wounded men and prisoners, it might have puzzled
Petrinus himself to know what we should have done had the cavalry
overtaken us. I can now, Master Pettigrue, smoke my pipe in peace,
without pricking up my ears at every chance rumble of a wheel or shout
of a village roisterer.'

'Even had they pursued us,' said the minister stoutly, 'as long as the
hand of the Lord shall shield us, why should we fear them?'

'Aye, aye!' Saxon answered impatiently, 'but the devil prevaileth at
times. Were not the chosen people themselves overthrown and led into
captivity? How say you, Clarke?'

'One such skirmish is enough for a day,' I remarked. 'Faith! if instead
of charging us they had continued that carbine fire, we must either have
come forth or been shot where we lay.'

'For that reason I forbade our friends with the muskets to answer it,'
said Saxon. 'Our silence led them to think that we had but a pistol or
two among us, and so brought them to charge us. Thus our volley became
the more terrifying since it was unexpected. I'll wager there was not a
man amongst them who did not feel that he had been led into a trap. Mark
you how the rogues wheeled and fled with one accord, as though it had
been part of their daily drill!'

'The peasants stood to it like men,' I remarked.

'There is nothing like a tincture of Calvinism for stiffening a line of
battle,' said Saxon. 'Look at the Swede when he is at home. What more
honest, simple-hearted fellow could you find, with no single soldierly
virtue, save that he could put away more spruce beer than you would care
to pay for. Yet if you do but cram him with a few strong, homely texts,
place a pike in his hand, and give him a Gustavus to lead him, there is
no infantry in the world that can stand against him. On the other hand,
I have seen young Turks, untrained to arms, strike in on behalf of the
Koran as lustily as these brave fellows behind us did for the Bible
which Master Pettigrue held up