ur face. Why, granny hath more hair
upon her chin than you. Besides, only boys drink milk. Men drink cider.'

'Then if I am a boy I shall be your sweetheart,' said I.

'Nay, indeed!' she cried, with a toss of her golden locks. 'I have no
mind to wed for a while, but Giles Martin of Gommatch is my sweetheart.
What a pretty shining tin smock you have, and what a great sword! Why
should people have these things to harm each other with when they are in
truth all brothers?'

'Why are they all brothers, little mistress?' asked Reuben.

'Because granny says that they are all the children of the great
Father,' she answered. 'If they have all one father they must be
brothers, mustn't they?'

'Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings, Micah,' quoth Reuben, staring
out of the window.

'You are a rare little marsh flower,' I said, as she clambered up to
grasp at my steel cap. 'Is it not strange to think, Reuben, that there
should be thousands of Christian men upon either side of us, athirst
for each other's lives, and here between them is a blue-eyed cherub who
lisps out the blessed philosophy which would send us all to our homes
with softened hearts and hale bodies?'

'A day of this child would sicken me for over of soldiering,' Reuben
answered. 'The cavalier and the butcher become too near of kin, as I
listen to her.'

'Perhaps both are equally needful,' said I, shrugging my shoulders. 'We
have put our hands to the plough. But methinks I see the man for whom we
wait coming down under the shadow of yonder line of pollard willows.'

'It is he, sure enough,' cried Reuben, peeping through the diamond-paned
window.

'Then, little one, you must sit here,' said I, raising her up from my
knee and placing her on a chair in a corner. 'You must be a brave lass
and sit still, whatever may chance. Will you do so?'

She pursed up her rosy lips and nodded her head.

'He comes on apace, Micah,' quoth my comrade, who was still standing
by the casement. 'Is he not like some treacherous fox or other beast of
prey?'

There was indeed something in his lean, black-clothed figure and swift
furtive movements which was like some cruel and cunning animal. He stole
along under shadow of the stunted trees and withies, with bent body and
gliding gait, so that from Bridgewater it would be no easy matter for
the most keen-sighted to see him. Indeed, he was so far from the town
that he might safely have come out from his concealment and struck