not drown her, and so every one had refused to supply her
with food, until the poor creature was brought to the verge of
starvation.

To remedy this, Maud now had either to bring the old woman's food from
the Grange, or make her purchases herself in the village, so that a day
seldom passed without her being seen near the blacksmith's shed.

One day when she was passing, a stranger rode up whose horse had lost a
shoe, and he was obliged to stop to get the damage repaired. The man
looked travel-stained and tired, and the blacksmith, with his usual love
of gossip, wanted him to drink a horn of ale before he shod the horse.

"Nay, that may not be, friend blacksmith, for I bear tidings of weighty
import. There has been a great battle in Yorkshire." Maud, pausing to
speak to a child close by, heard these words.

"A battle, sir traveller: can you tell me aught about it?" she asked.

"Marry, and I should be able, seeing I was in it, and fought with
Lieutenant Cromwell's Ironsides," said the man. "Is not this Hayslope?"
he asked.

[Illustration: THE STRANGER AT THE SMITHY.]

The blacksmith nodded. "But we be all King Charles's men here," he said.

"Marry, that may be, so all who are here," said the traveller. "But one
Harry Drury cometh from Hayslope, and he fought right bravely with the
Parliament men at Marston Moor, and now lieth sorely wounded and
grievously sick."

CHAPTER VIII.

BESSIE'S DISTRESS.

Maud did not wait to hear anything more that the messenger had to tell;
whether the Royalists had gained the victory or had to mourn defeat she
did not know, and hardly cared. This one fact was enough for her; Harry
was wounded--wounded and ill--perhaps dying among strangers. It might be
he was prisoner even, and then an ignominious traitor's death awaited
him. All the darkest possibilities of his fate rushed to her mind as she
walked down the lane to the cottage.

Here her grief was shared by Dame Coppins, who hardly knew what to say
to comfort her under such a trial, and could only point her to Him who,
having "borne our griefs and carried our sorrows," can sympathise and
comfort under the sorest trials.

On reaching the Grange, Maud found that the news had travelled thither
before her--news of humiliation, that had put Captain Stanhope quite out
of temper.

"By my faith, I cannot believe it!" he was saying, as Maud entered the
keeping-room. "Prince Rupert defeated by that son of a brewer and his
han