wo women would go alone.

Now four of the stoutest-hearted of them, men who had served him and
his father for many years, stepped forward, saying that, evil as these
seemed to be, they would follow his fortunes to the last. He thanked
them shortly, whereon one of the others asked what they were to do, and
if he proposed to desert them after leading them into this plight.

"God knows I would rather die," he replied, with a swelling heart; "but,
my friends, consider the case. If I bide here, what of my wife? Alas! it
has come to this: that you must choose whether you will slip out with us
and scatter in the woods, where I think you will not be followed, since
yonder Abbot has no quarrel against you; or whether you will wait here,
and to-morrow at the dawn, surrender. In either event you can say that
I compelled you to stand by us, and that you have shed no man's blood;
also I will give you a writing."

So they talked together gloomily, and at last announced that when he and
their lady went they would go also and get off as best they could. But
there was a man among them, a small farmer named Jonathan Dicksey, who
thought otherwise. This Jonathan, who held his land under Christopher,
had been forced to this business of the defence of Cranwell Towers
somewhat against his will, namely, by the pressure of Christopher's
largest tenant, to whose daughter he was affianced. He was a sly young
man, and even during the siege, by means that need not be described, he
had contrived to convey a message to the Abbot of Blossholme, telling
him that had it been in his power he would gladly be in any other place.
Therefore, as he knew well, whatever had happened to others, his farm
remained unharried. Now he determined to be out of a bad business as
soon as he might, for Jonathan was one of those who liked to stand upon
the winning side.

Therefore, although he said "Aye, aye," more loudly than his comrades,
as soon as the dusk had fallen, while the others were making ready the
horses and mounting guard, Jonathan thrust a ladder across the moat at
the back of the stable, and clambered along its rungs into the shelter
of a cattle-shed in the meadow, and so away.

Half-an-hour later he stood before the Abbot in the cottage where he had
taken up his quarters, having contrived to blunder among his people and
be captured. To him at first Jonathan would say nothing, but when at
length they threatened to take him out and hang him, to save his